The "essential" Greyhawk

[Finarvyn]

There is a thread on DF about the "essential" Greyhawk. I thought I'd open it up to discussion here.

drcheckmate wrote:

what would you say are the essential references for someone wanting to first read about the setting and second possibly run a game in it?

My reply was this (somewhat shortened)

I'm thinking that the "essentials" should be more like this:
* Either the folo or boxed set (for the map and setting)
* The Gord novels (for the flavor)
* Joseph Bloch's "Castle of the Mad Archmage" download (to simulate Gary's unpublished Greyhawk Dungeons)
* Pick a Plat thread (either the G1-3 D1-3 or T1-4 sequence)

So ... what do you think?

[Falconer]

In my list, I’ll stick with the mainstream World of Greyhawk setting as published 1979-1986.

Giants/Drow Series
G1-2-3 Against the Giants
D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth
D3 Vault of the Drow

Source Material
Dungeon Masters Guide
World of Greyhawk
The Dragon #37
The Rogues Gallery

World of Greyhawk Series
WG1 The Village of Hommlet
WG2 The Temple of Elemental Evil
WG3 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure
WG6 Isle of the Ape

Novels
Greyhawk Adventures #1: Saga of Old City
Greyhawk Adventures #2: Artifact of Evil

It’s so hard to find a cut-off point of what is core or essential, but I believe the above are musts. By all means, continue reading the Gord novels if you like the first two, etc. There are other classic modules like S1 and B2, but they are very modular and add nothing to WoG lore. I would add a general suggestion to be familiar with OD&D Sup. I, Sup. III, and FFC, as well as the AD&D rulebooks PHB, MM1, MM2, and UA.

If you want to go the Castle Zagyg/WG13 route, there is a separate thread where I listed the sources for that.

[Finarvyn]

Interesting that you didn't list either the folio or boxed set...



EDIT: My mistake. I see that the "World of Greyhawk" link goes to the boxed set. Somehow I was thinking about the AD&D hardback.

[Falconer]

Heh, no, the Greyhawk Adventures Hardcover came after Gary’s departure from TSR, so at best it is considered a non-essential source, and at worst it is a backstab against Gary and all true Greyhawk fans!

The World of Greyhawk Boxed Set is utterly fantastic. If one gets the chance one should also acquire the previous The World of Greyhawk Folio for its far superior “Portentous Runes & Glyphs” section (and better-quality maps), but otherwise, the latter boxed set contains much more information. I would say the WoG boxed set + ToEE are the absolute must-haves!

[Mr. Darke]

I would say that Falconer has it I tend to go more with the folio since I want to define the gods more than have the setting define them for me. I also am a bit of a 'heretic' in the sense that I do like the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. It may be because that it was my introduction to the setting.

[Falconer]

Hey, I think this board is all about being a “heretic”, so no worries! LGG was a great work by some very dedicated fans, and its sheer volume of info makes it a solid go-to resource if you want details about this-or-that nation of the Flanaess. I started with the WoG Folio, so I definitely feel that was the best intro. Very intriguing bare-bones info. Most of what the WoG Boxed Set adds is stuff from The Dragon, so I could take it or leave it, but the exception is the "Adventures in the World of Greyhawk" section in the Glossography booklet. Who can forget "The Lost Passage of the Suloise" and the other hooks?

I agree about the gods; Sup. IV is definitely by far my favorite source for gods now. St. Cuthbert is definitely added in (though he was already in the game by Sup. III!). Otherwise, I’m happy with adding homebrew demi-gods and Cthulhu-esque entities as I see fit. Even when I was running a closer-to-canon Greyhawk campaign, I looked at the deities detailed in WoG:

Greater Gods
Boccob the Uncaring
Incabulos
Istus, Lady of our Fate
Nerull the Reaper
Ulaa

Lesser Gods
* Celestian the Far Wanderer
St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel
Ehlonna of the Forests
* Erythnul the Many
Fharlanghn, Dweller on the Horizon
* Heironeous the Invincible
* Hextor
* Obad-hai the Shalm
* Olidammara
Pholtus of the Blinding Light
* Ralishaz the Unlooked For
Raxivort
* Trithereon the Summoner
Xan Yae

Demi-gods
* Iuz the Old
Wastri the Hopping Prophet
Zagyg

I wanted to start with all deities marked with a * being imprisoned in Castle Greyhawk. The idea of letting the PCs experience the release of nine demi-gods is too exciting to pass up (rather than keep it a historical event that Robilar has already done). And Raxivort as god of Xvarts has no human worshipers and as such doesn’t really belong on this list in the first place (otherwise, why not include Blibdoolpoolp and Lolth, etc.). And Zagig is better to keep as just a Mad Archmage who may have demi-god-like powers but doesn’t have a cult.

That leaves us with only 11 detailed cults. So I opted from the very beginning to include the Norse pantheon plus whatever other gods I fancied, detailed or undetailed, from WoG or DDG or whatever other source.

[Mr. Darke]

First, have an exalt for all your work on this thread.

Second, I like Grodog's take on Greyhawk 'Canon' the most:

The literary corollary to Greyhawk is important, because Greyhawk grognards define canon in many different ways, citing Gygax, Sargent, and other authors with iconoclastic, rigid abandon (much like Bloom does in literary circles). The inherent problem with such an approach grows clear when new generations of readers don't know Gary Gygax or Rob Kuntz or Carl Sargent or Roger E. Moore, because their works are long out-of-print and hideously expensive on eBay. By default, the canon works shift forward to Monte Cook and Erik Mona.

I am not trying to make a value-based comparison in the above statements, merely trying to say that not all Greyhawk fans have the long memory of people who have played D&D for 20+ years. Many people argue that X or Y Greyhawk product that has been out-of-print for 15 years is essential to a true Greyhawk game, without realizing that there are people who have been playing D&D for ten years who have never read From the Ashes, or have never played Vault of the Drow.

The best part of Greyhawk is the ability to take the world and mold it as your own and still keep the intent of it alive. Much like OD&D, Greyhawk seems to work best this way.

[Falconer]

Thanks for the exalt!

Well, I’m not going to say that the “canon is fluid” approach is entirely without validity. But I will say it is less than helpful in this situation. The question that began this thread was not so much about defining a closed canon as much as inviting people to share their journey into the heart of Greyhawk. It’s a subject I have thought about a lot, because I only began to investigate Greyhawk in the late 2e and early 3e years. It was confusing for me because, you know, in Dragonlance you can read the first six novels that they published and you will grasp 99% of the content of what Dragonlance means to people. If someone came to you wanting to know what Conan was about, well, there are hundreds of novels and comics as well as two movies you could point them to, but you would rather point them to the Howard stories if you could, wouldn’t you? Getting to the core of Greyhawk is even harder than Conan, because at least with any Conan story you read it will be about Conan, whereas a “Greyhawk” product can be about anything.

Personally, it became evident early on that Greyhawk was the creation of Gary Gygax, so I started by getting WoG (both versions) and the novels. I came to feel that Artifact of Evil was the culmination of Greyhawk, and from there it was simply a matter of uncovering where all its references were from. Obmi, Eclavdra, the Elder Elemental God, and Lolth are from the Giants/Drow series, specifically G3. Lolth is also from T1-2, as is Iuz and Zuggtmoy and of course the Temple and Hommlet themselves. Iggwilv and Graz'zt were from WG3. Tharizdun from WG4. Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Robilar, and Erac’s Cousin are detailed in TD #37, Rogues Gallery, WG5, and WG6. The Catlord is from MM2. Hence my list!

[Mr. Darke]

I see what you are saying. As for me I would say my essentials are the Folio, Boxed Set and LGG, I prefer the core world material over the modules.

[GRWelsh]

I think the 1983 WoG boxed set, the first three 1e AD&D core rulebooks and the classic modules like S1, T1, G and D series are "essential" Greyhawk. They are EGG's masterpieces.

You could easily interchange the 1e rulebooks with OD&D + supplements of Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry but IMO that ends up being pretty close to 1e AD&D.

Other modules I would add to the mix as not essential but helpful: S2, S3, S4, WG4, WG5, WG6, Ex1, Ex2, C1, C2, and the A series. I even think B2 is a fine fit for Greyhawk, and a case might be made for considering it part of the essential list -- even though it isn't and wasn't intended to be a "Greyhawk" product, it is a classic and excellent template for low-level adventure design as EGG envisioned it in the "D&D world."

I wouldn't consider the Gord novels and short stories to be as essential as the products listed above, but they are worth seeking out for the stories and details one can glean from them.

I have a real fondness for some of the more esoteric things out there that EGG wrote, such as "Expedition to the Black Reservoir" and the Official AD&D Coloring Album, which are excellent examples of the spirit of play in dungeon exploration.

[Finarvyn]

Apr 8, 2013 14:03:25 GMT -6 GRWelsh said:

I wouldn't consider the Gord novels and short stories to be as essential as the products listed above, but they are worth seeking out for the stories and details one can glean from them.

The big reason why I count the Gord novels as so important is because I think those are the best look we'll ever get to the "actual" Greyhawk. Remember that when Gary created the Greyhawk Folio he had to re-make his world because he didn't want his players to be able to buy a gazeteer of his world and know all of the secrets. My understanding is that the Gord novels were written with more of the actual details. Gronan and others can confirm/deny this. I may be mistaken.

[Deleted]

The only product I see as essential is the Folio. Nothing else is needed to make Greyhawk your own.

[Falconer]

And, personally, I basically ditch the Folio, and keep the rest, in order to make Greyhawk my own.

[Finarvyn]

I guess I was pre-supposing that the idea was to run a Greyhawk much like Gary's rather than running my own Greyhawk on Gary's map.

[geoffrey]

For me, the urtext of the World of Greyhawk setting consists of two things:

1. The artifacts and relics section of the DMG
click: www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4135

2. Darlene's map (modified as needed to be consistent with 1. above)

The rest always kind of disappointed me.

[GRWelsh]

Apr 9, 2013 18:04:34 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I guess I was pre-supposing that the idea was to run a Greyhawk much like Gary's rather than running my own Greyhawk on Gary's map.

It's interesting that you say that because I was just thinking of how enticing and elusive the former is, sort of like chasing the will-o-the-wisp or questing after the Holy Grail! Follow it, after it, follow the gleam! I suppose that is the sort of thing that motivates people to do their own recreation of the original Greyhawk Dungeon -- like Joe Bloch's Dungeons of the Mad Archmage -- or for grodog to compile his voluminous notes on the "original" Greyhawk Dungeon -- what a treasure trove! The reality is, it can't be done, but people keep trying to do it anyway. Perhaps I shouldn't say that. I don't know, to what extent, Jim Ward's Greyhawk Ruins* was his own creation and how much based on his reminiscences as 'Bombadil' or other character's in EGG's original dungeon. Castle Zagyg: Upper Works, which Jeff Talanian co-wrote, is a tantalizing glimpse into what once was, yet it is hard to say how much of it is based on the original and how much is reworked or reimagined. And we would have to say Rob Kuntz actually held the proverbial Grail in his hands, at one point -- being co-DM of the original dungeon! Also, who can say what Gygax Games still retains in the way of original EGG manuscripts and maps... So, I suppose I shouldn't say it is an impossible quest -- yet.

Going beyond the confines of the original dungeon, I wonder if 'the Flanaess' per se even existed prior to the publishing of the 1980 Folio? The geography and names described are used and match perfectly in the introduction to T1 Village of Hommlet published in 1979. But in "Gnome Cache" they don't match, although there are some similarities... the same applies to "Quag Keep." This leads me to wonder if the pre-1979 Greyhawk even had a stable area map. I had heard it was loosely based on North America, with Greyhawk located at roughly near Chicago. Blackmoor was Dave Arneson's campaign somewhere "up North" (analogous to the Twin Cities being to the North). I know there is a Greyhawk area map in the recently published "Playing at the World" book by Jon Peterson -- how well does this match up to the details given in "Gnome Cache" and "Quag Keep" -- and when was it drawn?

[Map image can be seen here: greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2012/08/playing-at-world-first-impressions.html with additional info here: playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-great-kingdom-domesday-book-9.html]

Presumably, Andre Norton must have been given some sort of geographical detail prior to writing the novel in 1978 -- but it must not have been Darlene's map from the Folio that was prepared and ready to go about the same time. I'm still looking for the Holy Land of Faraaz...

So, does all of this mean the best way to look at pre-Folio Greyhawk is as a series of drafts, constantly being tinkered with, revised and redesigned? And does it mean we should look at "original Greyhawk" as a huge experimental testing ground, with game mechanics and reality itself "in flux" from 1973 until the publication of the Folio when at least one form of Greyhawk became fused into a fixed form?

*Error: I didn't mean to conflate Jim Ward's Greyhawk Adventures with the separate product of Greyhawk Ruins, but just to point out that there were players in the original campaign who have memories from that time period, and that makes the possibility of "running a Greyhawk much like Gary's" enticing, and I suppose, possible in theory.

[scottenkainen]

Good morning, all!

A few points here.

>I don't know, to what extent, Jim Ward's Greyhawk Ruins was his own creation and how much based on his reminiscences as 'Bombadil' or other character's in EGG's original dungeon.<

Jim Ward wrote/compiled the Greyhawk Adventures hardcover. Greyhawk Ruins was written by Blake Mobley and Timothy Brown.

>And we would have to say Rob Kuntz actually held the proverbial Grail in his hands, at one point -- being co-DM of the original dungeon! Also, who can say what Gygax Games still retains in the way of original EGG manuscripts and maps... So, I suppose I shouldn't say it is an impossible quest -- yet.<

Both Rob Kuntz and Gail Gygax are sitting on a treasure trove of unpublished Greyhawk material. Rob has repeatedly tried to make his share available for sale, but, as I understand it, needs someone to compile the material and prepare it for publication. No one has yet jumped on board to do so. I assume -- and welcome correction here -- that all interested parties have indefinitely put off doing so because the amount of labor involved would not be offset by the anticipated low sales to a small group of Old School enthusiasts.

>Going beyond the confines of the original dungeon, I wonder if 'the Flanaess' per se even existed prior to the publishing of the 1980 Folio?<

It did. The original players have shared a lot more on messageboards about the old days of the Original Greyhawk Campaign than they had ever revealed back in our old Greytalk days. We know now, for example, that the wilderness of the Flanaess was radically different then, like how the Wild Coast was out west and populated by dinosaurs. We have been told that the published material was intentionally made different from the Original Greyhawk Campaign.

I've never seen a compelling explanation as to why that I recall, but I suspect -- and welcome correction -- that with the exception of Rob Kuntz in recent years, none of the original people involved feel comfortable with sharing something so intimate as their early gaming experiences, as-is, with the world at large. This seems strange to many of us here, I'm sure, who are willing to post on message boards or blog about every iota of our gaming experiences. But I was struck, for instance, while talking to Ernie Gygax about Tenser, by how he distanced himself from the published version, almost as if protecting his personal version of Tenser from exposure and corruption.

>Does all of this mean that the best way to look at pre-Folio Greyhawk is as a series of rough drafts, revisions and redesigns, with the game mechanics and 'reality itself' in flux from 1973 to around 1979?<

I like that interpretation. In fact, I've had plans for awhile now to do something with this concept of "reality itself in flux" later on in the webcomic.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[scottenkainen]

And:

>The big reason why I count the Gord novels as so important is because I think those are the best look we'll ever get to the "actual" Greyhawk. Remember that when Gary created the Greyhawk Folio he had to re-make his world because he didn't want his players to be able to buy a gazeteer of his world and know all of the secrets. My understanding is that the Gord novels were written with more of the actual details. Gronan and others can confirm/deny this. I may be mistaken.<

But we also know that Gary's own understanding of what Greyhawk -- and a fantasy campaign world in general -- should be like evolved over time. For those looking to understand what Gary thought Greyhawk should be like in the mid-1980s, the Gord novels are an excellent guide. But for those looking to try and put the "genie" of the Original Greyhawk Campaign back into the proverbial bottle, they are not going to be an accurate guide of what Greyhawk was like circa the early- to mid-1970s.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[kent]

Apr 9, 2013 23:02:16 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

For me, the urtext of the World of Greyhawk setting consists of two things:

1. The artifacts and relics section of the DMG
click: www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4135

2. Darlene's map (modified as needed to be consistent with 1. above)

The rest always kind of disappointed me.

Good stuff in your DF OP.

I never appreciated greyhawk until about a year ago when I came to admire the relative proportions of and the connections between the sections, particularly in the folio. The material is a touch generic, though the artifacts are brilliant, but it is a good template for illustrating how much to write about and what to write about.

I find the darlene maps pretty but too coarse in geographical and political detail.

[geoffrey]

Apr 12, 2013 22:22:29 GMT -6 kent said:

I find the darlene maps pretty but too coarse in geographical and political detail.

I agree. I would have preferred a map that covered a smaller area but with 10-mile (as opposed to 30-mile) hexes. The First Fantasy Campaign map got that right.

[Falconer]

I used the FFC map as the basis for the map of my WoG campaign.

Blackmoor subsumed the characteristics of Verbobonc and Furyondy.
Vestfold subsumed the characteristics of Veluna.
Egg of Coot was changed to Iuz.
The Great Kingdom, of course, is the Great Kingdom (off-map). The old group is in Rauxes now, playing the Maze of Zayene.

[Zenopus]

Apr 10, 2013 7:56:42 GMT -6 GRWelsh said:

Going beyond the confines of the original dungeon, I wonder if 'the Flanaess' per se even existed prior to the publishing of the 1980 Folio? The geography and names described are used and match perfectly in the introduction to T1 Village of Hommlet published in 1979. But in "Gnome Cache" they don't match, although there are some similarities... the same applies to "Quag Keep." This leads me to wonder if the pre-1979 Greyhawk even had a stable area map. I had heard it was loosely based on North America, with Greyhawk located at roughly near Chicago. Blackmoor was Dave Arneson's campaign somewhere "up North" (analogous to the Twin Cities being to the North). I know there is a Greyhawk area map in the recently published "Playing at the World" book by Jon Peterson -- how well does this match up to the details given in "Gnome Cache" and "Quag Keep" -- and when was it drawn?

[Map image can be seen here: greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2012/08/playing-at-world-first-impressions.html with additional info here: playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-great-kingdom-domesday-book-9.html]

This was my best stab at placing Blackmoor and Greyhawk on that map from the Domesday Book:



The full blog post is here:
The Weird Enclave of Blackmoor

It'd be awesome to clean this map up and put a scale to it, or even a hex grid. Any BM/GH experts care to guess what the scale would be in terms of miles per inch?

[geoffrey]

Ah, now that map is much more my cup of tea! I would love to see a cleaned-up version of that put on Judges Guild-style numbered hex paper.

[snorri]

Nice idea once again Geoffrey !

[paulg]

What are the hills at the northern edge of the map labelled (to the east of the Far Ocean)?

[Zenopus]

"Northern Barbarians" - possibly the precursor to the Ice, Frost and Snow Barbarians.

To the right of this it says "Summer Passage to Far Ocean".

I'm curious about the unlabeled dot, presumably a city, to the right of the "Lake of Unknown Depths (Nir Dyv)" and on the shore of what appears to be a much smaller lake. There's no lake to the east of Nyr Dyv on the Darlene map. Perhaps its an early location for Perrenland on Lake Quag?
Edit: Looking at the picture of the map published in Playing at the World, it almost looks like a word is faintly written near this lake, though it could be something else. I'll have to ask Jon.

[paulg]

Not that far east. In the hills, there's a label that looks like "Snowy Hills". Can anyone confirm?

[Zenopus]

I went back to "Playing at the World", and the map is a bit clearer and it sure looks like "Snowy Hills" to me.

[paulg]

Apr 13, 2013 13:11:21 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Ah, now that map is much more my cup of tea! I would love to see a cleaned-up version of that put on Judges Guild-style numbered hex paper.

I knocked this out. Hopefully someone can put in on JG hex paper. Here's a print resolution version.

[paulg]

Apr 14, 2013 18:23:32 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

I'm curious about the unlabeled dot, presumably a city, to the right of the "Lake of Unknown Depths (Nir Dyv)" and on the shore of what appears to be a much smaller lake. There's no lake to the east of Nyr Dyv on the Darlene map. Perhaps its an early location for Perrenland on Lake Quag?
Edit: Looking at the picture of the map published in Playing at the World, it almost looks like a word is faintly written near this lake, though it could be something else. I'll have to ask Jon.

I took the dot to be an artifact of the copying (mimeograph?), although it could be a small patch of trees. Let us know what Jon says.