So, I’m getting rid of a lot of stuff. A collection needs that, to be pruned down, so that it can grow more effectively. Ask any librarian: one of the most important parts of their jobs is figuring out what books to get rid of. When I started collecting for serious, I had a rule about D&D: no ultra rares, nothing after 1999. I own later stuff that I like, of course, but I wasn’t collecting it. Recently, though, I’ve decided to add a new rule. I find Forgotten Realms terribly dull, so I will no longer be collecting it.

FR14: The Great Glacier (1992) is a great example. Look at that Robh Ruppel cover! What a great cover! What a great name for a place. Let’s check the table of contents. We have: History, Geography, People, Flora and Fauna, Places, Personalities, Snow Baby: An Adventure and New Monsters. Exactly one of those chapters piques my interest, and when you flip to the back, you get Snow Dwarf, Snow Dog and Behir Variant. “Snow Baby: An Adventure” sounds like a schlocky kid-and-pet movie you’d see on the Hallmark Channel. The rest of the chapters could be ripped from a school text book. All the pages are printed over parchment texture, so it isn’t even easy to read. I’m psyched that Scott Rosema got paid for the 20 minutes work he put in on the illustrations, though.

This is boring. Forgotten Realms almost never delivers on the promises it makes. But that cover is so good, and I want the rest of the book to measure up to it so bad, that I have kept this boring thing around for years. But not any longer. Honestly: whatever ideas popped into your brain looking at that cover? They are at least as good as the pedestrian stuff inside.