$20 value in a $40 price tag

Back in the hey day of 2nd edition as published by TSR, when the company was producing some of the best general GM’s guides to ever be printed, this would have been a soft-cover book of about $12 in cost. In today’s market, $20 is not out of the question for this. However, Wizard’s of the Coast has decided to put it in a hardcover book which inflates the cost significantly.

As to the content, it is about 150 odd pages of information regarding the current status of the realms. While much of the damage done to the setting during the period of the 4th edition is attempted to be fixed, there’s a lot of stuff that just cannot be undone without making Faerun into, as one person of my acquaintance has put it, the "Marvel comics of D&D" by which they mean introducing the revolving door of resurrection and reincarnation.

As to mechanics, the book does contain a number of extra options regarding character creation. This includes sidebars on variant Tieflings and