Re-visioning the Greyhawk CampaignPremise and HistoryMy good and dear friend, and co-conspirator, and co-DM, Aaron Harris and I are working through the background to a new campaign we're preparing to run. The game will focus for a large part on the drow; we talked a lot about them (their origins and gods, the shoddy manner that they were handled by post-Gygax TSR/WotC [in particular the manner in which they were commoditized, trivialized, and turned into ho-hum adversaries], etc.). We laid plans to redefine the drow to make them scary and evil and horrifying again (they want to destroy the sun), and then set to work on building out the rest of the game. The Grodog's View of Greyhawk Literary CanonCanon, from a literary point-of-view, is a set of standard reference works which anyone educated in a particular subject or field can be expected to know, understand, and refer to. That's my definition, not Harold Bloom's, but I don't think that many of my old professors would be displeased with it. As Bloom and many others have noted about the literary canon, it changes over time: today, most college-educated people in the United States can't read The Odyssey in the original Greek, because our education system has shifted away from Greek (for good or ill; that many students probably couldn't point to Greece on a map doesn't help, either...). 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. Campaign BaselineThat long preable now done, the following works form the core of my personal vision for Greyhawk canon. In my Greyhawk games, I tend to use bits and pieces from many Greyhawk products. In general, though, I favor the campaign content from the 1980 Folio and 1983 box set, and the updates to that setting from "Greyhawk's World" and "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" columns from Dragon Magazine, over later publications. One of yy dilemmas is whether or not I use The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth version of history instead of the more traditional version found in S4 . . . . I use Russ Taylor's Chronological
Greyhawk Product Checklist as my standard reference; note, however, that I list
only my core canon works below. I certainly draw upon additional resources, but
those below shape and define my vision for Greyhawk.
Modified CanonI heavily modify the following canon sources, but they are important enough to warrant
mention because of that fact:
Probationary CanonI haven't sufficiently absorbed the following works, and have not made a determination
of their status in my canon yet. For the nonce, they're in limbo.
The Grodog's Deviations from Greyhawk CanonWhile I use many of the settings, characters, and plots from many Greyhawk products, I mix and match elements of background lore to weave my own version of Greyhawk. In doing so, I emphasize the aspects of works that I and my players like best. Sargent's Ivid the Undying helps illustrate how I warp and mold canon to my campaigns. I do not use animuses (animi?), and similarly tone down much of Sargent's elven mythic background for the Flanaess. The idea of an insane ruler is cool, I just don't like Sargent's execution of that idea. In addition, I do not use Iuz as
The Grodog's VaultOnce my D&D materials arrive in California, I intend to begin converting them to 3rd edition. You'll read the results here and on my Greyhawk site.
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