On Monday, remember how I said FR1: Waterdeep and the North is really just about Waterdeep? Well, FR5: The Savage Frontier (1988), released the following year, is basically the “and the North.” In form, though, it pairs with FR2: Moonshae as a pretty typical Gazeteer-style sourcebook, full of lore, notable locales and interesting inhabitants. Unlike that volume, this one contains explicit adventure hooks, which are a nice feature.

While a lot of the material here is derived from Greenwood’s notes, I think it is interesting that TSR trusted this book to a freelancer, even if that freelancer was RPG heavyweight Jennell Jaquays (who penned Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia, and co-authored Griffin Mountain, among a pile of other important RPG books). FR5 covers all the major spots on the Sword Coast, probably the most visited region of the Realms — Icewind Dale (home of Drizzt), Mithril Hall, the Spine of the World, Luskan, Neverwinter, Hellgate Keep and more are profiled here pretty much for the first time (Icewind Dale, of course, had already debuted in R.A. Salvatore’s novel The Crystal Shard, though). I can’t help but wonder if the enduring appeal of these places is partly down to Jaquays’ influence.

There is some weird stuff, too. I noticed, probably because it was so fresh, that Doc from I12: The Egg of the Phoenix is hanging out here, despite that other module taking place in Greyhawk (you read that post way back in March, but I wrote it yesterday). I looked up Shannon Appelcline’s notes for the book on Drivethru and he has no explanation for this, but he does note that Jaquays also recycled Amelior Amanitas and Jingleshod the Iron Axeman from her excellent DragonQuest module The Enchanted Wood (1981), which I really should post about one of these days.

Great Larry Elmore cover with his trademark snow. What a bunch of weirdos, right? Skull guy and mage guy and blue guy and orc guy make quite the group. Interiors are by Esteban Maroto. They aren’t bad, but they seem undercooked — this is probably the first instance of underwhelming art in a Forgotten Realms book, but it sure won’t be the last.