I’m very interested to hear your thoughts about Kara-tur. I have been working on an east asian based setting but I realized you had one. Any new development on it? Kara-Tur isn't "mine." It was developed by TSR staff designers and grafted onto the Realms. On my own, I would never have included ANY so-close-to-real-world analogues into the Realms. Thay was as close as I went to any "flavour" of eastern warm environments.#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 22, 2021
So what you’re saying is in your version of Thay, there’s samurai and ninja? (or equivalents to them at least) No, that's NOT what I'm saying. Samurai and ninjas are real-world historical, though Hollywood has messed with them a lot.
I was speaking of NOT doing real-world analogues.
Thay has assassins working for the government, nobles, and anyone wealthy enough to hire them.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 23, 2021
Well, your personal Faerun has Celtic influence, for example. Is there no region in the original Realms that has influence of other cultures myths? Also, if Toril has a tie to Earth, why wouldn’t there be some analogous parts? Many places in the Realms have been influenced by real-Earth historical cultures, thanks to all the gates/portals between Earth and the Realms, now disused (hence the "Forgotten" part of the name).
But that's a very far cry from direct real-world analogues.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 1, 2021