Minerva,
There are basically two types of products that you can use: P&P books and novels
On the P&P books:
You can find excellent coverage of the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms in:
-Faith and Avatars
-Powers and Pantheons
These are truly excellent books. I think that you can download them for a minor fee from the WotC online store I'll post a link at the bottom.
For general info on the realms you might be interested in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Keep in mind that WotC is working on a new one that will be released this summer.
There is plenty to read on the novel side. I have read quite a few and the following are good recommendations:
the complete series that has to do with Drizzt Do'Urden by R.A. Salvatore. This series currently consists of twelve books.
-Dark elf trilogy
-Icewind Dale trilogy
-Legacy of the Drow collector's edition (four books)
-Spine of the world
-Servant of the Shard
You should read them in this order.
There is also an excellent series that deals with the Time of Trouble:
The Avatar Trilogy (Richard Awlinson)
-Shadowdale
-Tantras
-Waterdeep
For getting to know some of the locations I can recommend reading the Cormyr series which currently consists of:
-Cormyr (Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb)
-Beyond the High Road (Troy Denning)
-Death of a Dragon (Ed Greenwood, Troy Denning)
Info on the isle of Evermeet:
-Evermeet (Elaine Cunningham)
The other books by Elaine Cunningham are also excellent. She has a series that is called:
Song & Sword series. This consists of four or five books.
The link of the online store:
http://store.wizards.com/productlist...dID=52&AgeID=0
I hope that this info is useful
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