D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Sword of Spirit]

For the big Adventure books, changing them to work with the 3E Campaign Setting is pretty trivial.

I'm afraid it hasn't really looked that way to me. Waterdeep has a whole new district in the north, the political structure has been shaken up--and that's just what I know without actually reading Dragon Heist. Dungeon of the Mad Mage is probably easier to work with though. Out of the Abyss is the one I have, which I think is probably one of the least affected, and I'm still at a loss as to how to account for all 200 years worth of changes to Blingdenstone in something like 2 years. Yes, it's trivial to change the names of the dwarven rulers and such that are minor players, and hopefully the same is true of the drow (haven't gotten past Blingdenstone in my read-through yet), but I'm not terribly optimistic. I'd bet Storm King's Thunder is a bit of a challenge, along with Tomb of Annihilation. Princes of the Apocalypse is likely somewhere in the middle. I could be wrong on some of those, but that's the impression I'm getting.

I'd be happy to know that I'm wrong and Blingdenstone is an outlier and they de-emphasized the stuff in SCAG if I am mistaken.

 

[Parmandur]

which makes you wonder how the finale of this proposed module would go. Taking on an out and out god seems a bit much. Maybe the PCs ultimately have to prevent his return by his cultists, who have summoned up Something Big And Bad to bring it about...

Yeah, I don't think one defeats a being like Tharizdun or Cthulu, you curbstomp their cults and bury the knowledge.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm afraid it hasn't really looked that way to me. Waterdeep has a whole new district in the north, the political structure has been shaken up--and that's just what I know without actually reading Dragon Heist. Dungeon of the Mad Mage is probably easier to work with though. Out of the Abyss is the one I have, which I think is probably one of the least affected, and I'm still at a loss as to how to account for all 200 years worth of changes to Blingdenstone in something like 2 years. Yes, it's trivial to change the names of the dwarven rulers and such that are minor players, and hopefully the same is true of the drow (haven't gotten past Blingdenstone in my read-through yet), but I'm not terribly optimistic. I'd bet Storm King's Thunder is a bit of a challenge, along with Tomb of Annihilation. Princes of the Apocalypse is likely somewhere in the middle. I could be wrong on some of those, but that's the impression I'm getting.

I'd be happy to know that I'm wrong and Blingdenstone is an outlier and they de-emphasized the stuff in SCAG if I am mistaken.

Well, it's easier if a loose approach is taken to both the Adventure and the original setting. Change the names, either get rid of the district or just put it in. The big things shook out to be pretty similar in the Sword Coast, and the details are fungible.

 

[Coroc]

This is absolutely what I had running around in my unconscious without knowing it. There is a creative power in having a baseline that doesn't have dragonborn (just using that as a poster-child for new school fantasy species explosion), and then having whatever weird stuff show up occasionally. Dragonborn (or draconian) crash landing from a space ship (or Spelljamming vessel)? Cool! Every new race having a population on Oerth just because it exists as a player option in 5e? Boo, hiss, boo!

If I had my druthers (what are druthers, and why would I want them?) every setting would be rebooted to its original recipe for 5e, and then they'd give advice for advancing the timeline in a variety of ways (including for each edition's version), including references to other books from older editions that are most useful for those eras. The official adventures would also follow this paradigm. So all Forgotten Realm adventures are based on the Grey Box, and then have a page or two in an appendix for setting them post Time of Troubles, post Spellplague, post Second Sundering. Sure, they could make a bigger appendix for setting them in the latest published era. But really, this would be nothing but win for sales. They seem to imply that they are going for timeline agnosticism in the FR adventures, but then they bake-in the 5e elements in such a way that it's a major hassle to take them out. I'm never going to buy most of the Forgotten Realms adventures in 5e because of this, whereas I would likely buy several of them if I didn't have to try to revert the timeline a couple hundred years to make them useful in game.

Well let us pick up your thoughts and reverse things a bit instead

Let us say all stuff baselined in 5e did exist in greyhawk. But then there were the twin cataclysm and besides what it did in established lore it unfortunately it caused all dragonborn and good aligned drow to go extinct.
The Gnome Paladins dual wielding rapiers survived but they decided to leave oerth with a spelljamming vessel. Unfortunately the vessel was originally constructed based on blueprints made by Tinker Gnomes from Krynn ...

 

[Hussar]

Like I said before, considering that Greyhawk is such a tiny slice of Oerth, the notion that a given race can't exist in the setting because of "canon" seems just flat out bizarre to me.

It would be like looking at only one continent in the real world and then deciding that Kangaroos can't exist. Or Gorillas. It's a big, big world out there. We've already got Yuan-ti and other scaley stuff in Greyhawk. Never minding the really weird stuff like Yak Folk. Seems that adding in Dragonborn or virtually any other core race isn't really much of a stretch.

I guess, if we're going to go with the "canon" appeal of Greyhawk, then sorcerers, and warlocks should be off the table too. After all, they're later additions. If we're sticking to the original boxed set, then barbarian is off the table too. They weren't in Greyhawk as a class.

There's an awful lot of D&D stuff out there that gets stripped out of the setting if we're going to go down this route. You like Aboleth? Too bad, that's from the Monster Manual II. That's not canon. Animal Lords? Sorry, can't have them. Tasloi? Nope.

On and on. There's a host of stuff that gets left on the table if we really want to go down this route.

 

[Coroc]

Like I said before, considering that Greyhawk is such a tiny slice of Oerth, the notion that a given race can't exist in the setting because of "canon" seems just flat out bizarre to me.

It would be like looking at only one continent in the real world and then deciding that Kangaroos can't exist. Or Gorillas. It's a big, big world out there. We've already got Yuan-ti and other scaley stuff in Greyhawk. Never minding the really weird stuff like Yak Folk. Seems that adding in Dragonborn or virtually any other core race isn't really much of a stretch.

I guess, if we're going to go with the "canon" appeal of Greyhawk, then sorcerers, and warlocks should be off the table too. After all, they're later additions. If we're sticking to the original boxed set, then barbarian is off the table too. They weren't in Greyhawk as a class.

There's an awful lot of D&D stuff out there that gets stripped out of the setting if we're going to go down this route. You like Aboleth? Too bad, that's from the Monster Manual II. That's not canon. Animal Lords? Sorry, can't have them. Tasloi? Nope.

On and on. There's a host of stuff that gets left on the table if we really want to go down this route.

See, I did put tiefling in my greyhawk campaign. And Halforc. Besides Humans Halfelves and Gnomes these are the playable races in my campaign.

So no dwarves, no elves. But I got thematic reasons for that. Dwarves and elves are to secluded. Gnomes have been driven out from the forests and halforcs, tieflings and halfelves are mostly results of the ongoing war in my campaign.

The party consists of 1 halfelf, 1 gnome and 5 humans. I also did restrict some playable classes. Barbarians are of the shelf, since the my setting is pretty much 17th century techwise except for firearms being not avasilable. Sorcerers also do not exist, but warlocks do. The warlocks have to have a devlish patron in my campaign, no demons allowed. (That also would have applied to tieflings, they must be descendants of nine hells inhabitants if there were any players opting for them)

But every playable race has its role and origins and lore, but where would I put dragonborn and drow?
I would need a hell of a sub story, or a loads of shoehorning to fit these in. And since it is my version of Greyhawk I decided they do not exist at all and in case of drow, eventually they do exist but if they do then not as a playable race and atm. they do not play any role in my campaign.

Still my setting is more true to the official material in my point of view, because I only added elements which I considered important for the story and not because they are available in the 5e PHB.

What would be, if wizards had decided not to publish any of the optional races (drow dragonborn etc.) in the PHB but in some later acessoire like e.g. SCAG? Would the people here in the forums who always argue everything in the PHB has to be available in every official campaign world suddenly argue everything in the SCAG has to be part of Greyhawk also if wizards would put out an update? So something featured in one campaign world (sword coast aka FR) becomes canon for all of D&D?

 

[Hussar]

You're asking where you would put Drow in a Greyhawk campaign? Umm, Drow are pretty common in Greyhawk aren't they?

But, fair enough. You're talking about your homebrew version of Greyhawk, which, fair enough, do what you like. That's cool. But, "more true to the official material"? Yeah, I'm going to disagree with that.

I mean, heck, the "official material" says that tielflings have a demonic origin. It's right there in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. And Dwarves are too secluded? That's one interpretation, but, not really canon. There is common trade and cross movement between dwarven and human lands reaching back quite a ways.

But, in any case, if they were to actually publish material for Greyhawk, you can pretty much bet that they will include everything in the PHB at the very least. It will happen. They don't make setting books for your or my campaign. They simply give the baseline.

"I don't want it in my campaign" is not a good enough reason not to include it in official material.

 

[Coroc]

You're asking where you would put Drow in a Greyhawk campaign? Umm, Drow are pretty common in Greyhawk aren't they?

But, fair enough. You're talking about your homebrew version of Greyhawk, which, fair enough, do what you like. That's cool. But, "more true to the official material"? Yeah, I'm going to disagree with that.

I mean, heck, the "official material" says that tielflings have a demonic origin. It's right there in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. And Dwarves are too secluded? That's one interpretation, but, not really canon. There is common trade and cross movement between dwarven and human lands reaching back quite a ways.

But, in any case, if they were to actually publish material for Greyhawk, you can pretty much bet that they will include everything in the PHB at the very least. It will happen. They don't make setting books for your or my campaign. They simply give the baseline.

"I don't want it in my campaign" is not a good enough reason not to include it in official material.

Yes, you are right of course, and I would not have problems to integrate drow into my "homebrew" greyhawk. But if I would decide that they play some part of the story arc, and if I would integrate them as somehow being playable then they would come along as half-drow. My players like it human centric and all those "half-races" I use currently have reason to have grown up in human society being victims and refugees of the war between Iuz orc hordes and the free people, which is the main overarcing plot for my campaign.
Still I would not integrate dragonborn. There is no reason they should exist in my campaign, they play no role at all, and if they would exist I would have to shoehorn something like they come from Oeths moon or the other side of the world or such, and I do not want that. I use mainly 2e material which I already have to convert, but even if wizard would bring out new stuff which I would decide to use I would leave them out, because it is less work for me.

A demonic tiefling might be original saltmarsh and does exist but demonic descendants are on the wrong side for my campaign. They would support the enemy (Iuz) by nature. So PC tieflings have to be halfdevils in my campaign.

A halforc can pass as an ugly human also a tiefling eventually. A drow or a dragonborn needs work to explain, why it is not attacked on sight, because normal folks just would see a monster.
Greyhawk (my homevbrew but also the original) is gritty, it is no fair place with modern principles of equality. Prejustice is the rule not the exception. FR used to be a bit like Greyhawk also. If you read the Drizzt books, he had trouble with people reacting hostile until he was famous for doing good.
This is what Eberron does differently, monstrous races are accepted almost everywhere in civilization. This is what some people intermingle all the time. The basic feeling of a setting precludes some of the more extravagant races for many settings, because it would require to create preconditions which do per default not exist in many of these settings.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[dave2008]

And I don't think his nation did not have this access back in 1e.

Man, that sentence took me a hot second to decipher!