Toril (formerly Abeir-Toril) is the fictional planet that makes up the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, as well as the Al-Qadim and Maztica campaign settings, and the 1st edition version of the Oriental Adventures campaign setting. It is the default world for the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

The name means "cradle of life" in an archaic fictional language of the setting. It consists of various continents and islands, including Faerûn, Kara-Tur, Zakhara, Maztica, Osse, Anchorome and Katashaka, a sub-Saharan-like continent south of Maztica, where humanity appeared. Toril was originally the name of game designer Jeff Grubb's personal campaign world before part of it was merged with creator Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms setting.

Publishing history

Toril was the name of Jeff Grubb's campaign world, and was adopted as the name of the planet upon which the continent of Faerûn existed when he and Ed Greenwood were designing the original Forgotten Realms Boxed Set in 1987. Greenwood had written tales for his world "as far back as 1967" and "it had been the setting for his homespun D&D campaigns since 1978".

The setting's entire planet underwent a major change during the 1989 Avatar trilogy, which detailed a series of events called the Time of Troubles, during which gods walked the earth and magic became unpredictable. These events caused permanent changes in gameplay that were outlined in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition campaign setting books. In this edition, Abeir-Toril was considered one of D&Ds three main worlds, along with Krynn and Oerth.

In a significant retcon of the setting's history, Forgotten Realms material for the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons "reveals" that the world was split in two in prehistory, divided between the primordials (Abeir) and the gods (Toril). Toril is the world that has been showcased so far. A cataclysm called the Spellplague has caused several parts of the two worlds to switch places, with regions of Abeir: Tymanther, Akanûl, and Returned Abeir. A subsequent event called "The Sundering" reverted many of these changes and restored much of the pre-Spellplague Toril.

Kara-Tur

Kara-Tur<nowiki/>'s cultures and peoples are fantasy analogues of medieval regions of East Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, Tibet, and others. According to Jim Bambra, "while primarily drawing on Japan for inspiration, [Kara-Tur] also contains elements of medieval China and Korea". Kara-Tur was first described in the original 1985 Oriental Adventures book. A reviewer for White Dwarf called the long background section of Kara-Tur in the book, a "bonus". The 1987 Forgotten Realms Campaign Set left the eastern half of its continent reserved for the future publication of Kara-Tur. In 1988, TSR released a boxed set, Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms, describing the region in greater detail, with two 96-page books and maps.

The ten distinct nations and regions described in the boxed set and their real-world analogues include:

  • Shou Lung: Imperial China during periods of centralized government (Feudal/Sengoku period) Later that year TSR converted the monsters of Kara-Tur to second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules as part of the Monstrous Compendium series. After 1990, TSR ceased publishing new material related to Kara-Tur. The setting was, however, occasionally referred to by other TSR products such as Spelljammer and Ravenloft.

The setting of Kara-Tur still exists on Abeir-Toril in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition and is often mentioned in Forgotten Realms supplements. Characters and artifacts from Kara-Tur sometimes show up in Faerûn, but beyond that there is little interaction between the continents. The 2015 release of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, a supplement for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, introduced Kara-Tur to the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Reviewer Michael Mullen, looking at the setting of Kara-Tur before the publication of the boxed set, stated that players would probably like the world, but that it would depend largely on how familiar the DM was with Oriental culture or Japanese movies and television. He remarked that the "usual opposition, if not human, will be from the spirit world", rather than more conventional battles versus monsters.

Modules

The Kara-Tur campaign setting inspired the following eight adventure modules (in chronological order):

  • OA1, Swords of the Daimyo (1986)
  • OA2, Night of the Seven Swords (1986)
  • OA3, Ochimo: The Spirit Warrior (1987)
  • OA4, Blood of the Yakuza (1987)
  • OA5, Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw (1988, zip)
  • FROA1, Ninja Wars (1990)
  • OA6, Ronin Challenge (1990, zip)
  • OA7, Test of the Samurai (1990)
Books

Three choose your own adventure style books (one was actually released before the original Oriental Adventures book) were published:

  • Blade of the Young Samurai – Endless Quest 23 (1984)
  • Test of the Ninja – AD&D Adventure Gamebook 5 (1985)
  • Warlords – 1 on 1 Book 7 (1986)

One of novels in The Empires Trilogy is set in Shou Lung of Kara-Tur.

Other
  • Dragon #315, for information on ancestor feats and martial arts styles specific to the Kara-Tur setting, as well as updated information on the 10 empires and regions of Kara-Tur.

Maztica

Maztica, called by its inhabitants The True World, is a fictional continent that is a land of jungles and (to the Faerûnians) mystery. The area was heavily inspired by Aztec and Mayan culture.

North of Maztica is the continent of Anchorome. South of it (and separated by a strait) lies an unknown continent.

Maztica was detailed for 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons in the Maztica Campaign Set by Douglas Niles, and in the Forgotten Realms novels of the Maztica Trilogy—Ironhelm, Viperhand and Feathered Dragon—also by Douglas Niles. It was based on historical Central America.

In a retrospective review in Black Gate, Scott Taylor found Maztica unimpressive because the continent too closely mirrored the Mesoamerican world, down to the history of the Conquistadores, rather than creating a uniquely fantasy version inspired by the "colorful and diverse" reality that is Mesoamerica. CBR author Matthew England considered it "a rarity in the fantasy genre" to base a continent on these cultures.

The setting itself proclaimed to have "much more in common with early Hollywood depictions rather than hard historical fact."

CBR writer Jared King considered the history of the world of Toril "full of deep lore crafted over decades of editions" and found the Dawn War, a conflict involving the gods in the ancient past of the setting, especially fascinating.

In comparison to other D&D worlds, Aidan-Paul Canavan found Toril "more illustrative" and that it "became further codified and developed over time" than the world of Greyhawk, and "militarily more stable and thus may lead to more 'adventure' based missions" compared to the focus on wars within Krynn/Ansalon. In Canavan's view, Toril more closely resembled Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age, as both are "constructed as a patchwork or mosaic of kingdoms, realms and lands, many borrowing directly from historical settings". Even though "pseudo-medieval European analogues" were predominant, a great variety in environments and cultures could be encountered in the setting. The regions of Toril were given many details and relationships among each other in various game products. As a world designed for role-playing games it has a static character: where main characters in fantasy settings designed for novels could drastically change the world, the descriptions of Toril have to be "re-usable" for various groups of players.

Areas of the planet inspired by non-Western real-world cultures, namely Chult, Kara-Tur, Maztica and Al-Qadim<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Zakhara, have been criticized for perpetuating simplistic and harmful stereotypes.