Some serious geek sites
Here is the Official Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fr/welcome
A timeline:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare...ealmstime0.htm
Note, as I posted earlier. we are not hung up on the technical details in terms of exactly following a setting, character/race stats etc.
The primary interest is in the story itself, the personal histories of the characters, and the interactions between them
I only really posted these for general interest sake