No, but the Dead Three are still around
Several gods died during the Time of Troubles, notably including the Dead Three: Bane, god of tyranny, Bhaal, god of murder, and Myrkul, god of death. However, gods are difficult to destroy in the Forgotten Realms, and all three of the dead gods have devised schemes to return to power. Bane’s plot was successful, and he has supplanted the Godson who inherited his portfolio. Bhaal’s scheme was the main plot of the Baldur’s Gate video games. Myrkul appeared in the Neverwinter Nights video games, but so far he still appears to be a dead god, rather than a god of death.
Therefore, the entries for Bhaal and Myrkul currently appear to be there primarily for historical interest, for DMs who want to use them in the past of the Realms, or who want to feature their schemes to return to power. They do not indicate that Kelemvor has lost or changed his portfolio – yet.
My group uses a private Google+ community to organise the games, and G+ alongside Roll20 to play the games. We play entirely online on a weekly basis, mainly because we're all about the same age and have small children and families, so it's difficult to get together for a face to face game.
For D&D 5th Ed you're pretty spoiled for choice, but when it all boils down the best two options are this:
Roll20, either in conjunction with G+ or on it's own. You can create an account and run your campaign through it for free, and the biggest pro (in my opinion) was the ease of use when it integrates with G+. Most everyone has a google account these days, so they also have a G+ account whether they know it or not. Once you've created your game in Roll20, you can choose to launch it in a g+ hangout.
Once you've done that for the first time, whenever you launch a G+ hangout the Roll20 app will be present, and you can launch it and select your campaign from within the hangout. Running the game each week becomes as simple as scheduling a G+ hangout event and showing up - the players don't even need Roll20 accounts, they just click the hangout invite link and game on. The D&D 5e character sheet for Roll20 seems pretty excellent too, with some dice rolling automation built into it. We're taking it for a test run soon hopefully.
The other main option right now, though it can get pricy, is Fantasy Grounds. It's not as simple for the players as Roll20 (which is, as i've said, just a link click), but if they're willing to install the program (available on Steam now as well), Fantasy Grounds is now the official online tool for D&D 5th, in partnership with Wizards of the Coast. It has excellent integration with the rules system and character sheets, as well as supporting hero lab. Some friends of mine swear by it, though it is a bit more complicated to get set up and running.
Both solutions support full voice, and I know Roll20 supports full video both in the app itself and through hangouts, as well as an online tabletop for maps, images, handouts and whatever else you like. This made it a lot easier for us to retain that "social tabletop" feeling, despite playing entirely remote. Using a large enough screen and a good set of speakers and microphone, you could play partial remote (with only a few players remote) or even with everyone in the room and disabling the voice and video altogether if you wanted.
Either way, if you do plan on getting in to running your games online through virtual tabletops, Google+ is your friend! There is a massive community of people there who will be more than happy to lend any assistance required.
Personally, I run a community geared at assisting people to set up, run or find games in the asia-pacific time zones. You can find it here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/100566740249118526694
For other timezones, such as the American zones, a great place to start is here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107422815813208456454 It's an excellent community filled with friendly people.
Best Answer
If you're looking for the basics, pretty much any generic high fantasy novel will do. I'd recommend Tolkien as a first resource there as Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit are pretty much the iconic texts, but there are numerous more modern works that could be recommended (Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time both come to mind).
If you're interested in D&D novels, and Forgotten Realms specifically, the iconic works there are the Legend of Drizzt books by RA Salvatore there.
Finally, if you just want a quick realms primer, but would rather not read a few (or dozens) of novels, then there is the Forgotten Realms Wiki (linked above).