[3] Toril was originally the name of Jeff Grubb's personal campaign world before part of it was merged with Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms setting.
Toril was the name of Jeff Grubb's campaign world,[4] 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.
[7] 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.
[11] 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).
In the Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast expansion, it is revealed that Balduran returns to Anchorome and retrieves a second hoard of treasure from the Native kingdoms.
The resulting battle shipwrecks Balduran on an island, which is later discovered by a Merchant Guild from Baldur's Gate and subsequently by the player who is sent to confirm the finding, where both the original crews' and the natives from Anchorome's descendants are locked in a bloody lycanthrope feud.
[9][15][16] Kara-Tur's cultures and peoples are fantasy analogues of medieval regions of East Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, Tibet, and others.
[21] Originally intended as a western part of the continent of Oerik in the Greyhawk setting, the description of Kara-Tur in the Oriental Adventures rulebook made no attempt to link it with another D&D game-world.
[24] The ten distinct nations and regions described in the boxed set and their real-world analogues include:[17][22][25][26][27] In 1989 a printing of Trail Maps for Kara-Tur appeared as part of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition.
[26] Game studies scholar Aaron Trammell commented that "Although Gary Gygax envisioned a campaign setting that brought a multicultural dimension to Dungeons & Dragons, the reality is that by lumping together Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Philippine, and 'Southeast Asian' lore he and co-authors David 'Zeb' Cook and Francois Marcela-Froideval actually developed a campaign setting that reinforced western culture's already racist understanding of the 'Orient'.
The native peoples were devastated by foreign diseases and the ruthlessness of the invaders, and this, coupled with the difficulties encountered on Maztica backfiring against them, caused the church of Helm to come under heavy criticism.
[35] 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.
The land is full of secretive cities, unwelcoming to travellers, huge deserts, lush oases and powerful genies[6]: 244 who meddle in the affairs of humans frequently.
The continent is ruled by a theocracy headed by the Grand Caliph, and tales tell of demon-infested cities and godless sorcerers (like the genie-binding Sha'irs) wielding strange magic.
"[6]: 244 [37] In the view of Myles Balfe, the Fantasy "Orient" of Zakhara has been designed as a new and exotic counter-realm for players to experience, contrasting with more common settings depicted as "a moralized neo-medieval Europe".
In some depictions Balfe sees the Arabic-style cities of the continent connected to erotic ideas of the harem and the "Arabian courtesan", tropes from Orientalist fiction.
Philip J. Clements referred to "the world of the highly popular Forgotten Realms series" as "an unusually well-developed D&D setting", which has great variety among its fantasy races.
[41] 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 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".
[43] Areas of the planet inspired by non-Western real-world cultures, namely Chult, Kara-Tur, Maztica and Al-Qadim's Zakhara, have been criticized for perpetuating simplistic and harmful stereotypes.
[44][14] In July 2020, Wizards of the Coast added a sensitivity disclaimer to digitally sold products describing such regions, to acknowledge and distance themselves from problematic content.
[44] Medievalist Amy S. Kaufman listed Kara-Tur and the Anauroch desert of Faerûn in 2010 as two of the few fantastic realms based on non-European medieval cultures to date.
[17] Screen Rant author Derek Garcia questioned the use of Abeir-Toril "as the default setting of modern-day Dungeons & Dragons", as he saw many problematic stereotypes published in the game's history as associated with this world.