D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Urriak Uruk]

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.

I don't think anyone is saying that Dragonborn can't be in Oerth; they obviously can, especially for someone's home-game. I think what some people (at least, I am) are arguing is that Dragonborn shouldn't be shoved into Oerth as a core race with a flimsy explanation.

For example, Dragonborn were added into Forgotten Realms with this big Spellplague event that shoved two world Abeir and Toril together, where they flipped some continents, but then they flipped back but some Dragonborn stayed... I honestly can't explain it very well because it doesn't make much sense.

What I'm trying to say is adding Dragonborn into Oerth can be done, but it should be done in a hand-wavey kind of way, like "Dragonborn were always here in this kingdom in the middle of the forest that we never mentioned before now."

I think the way tieflings were added in GoS is a pretty good metric for how Dragonborn could be done. There's only one tiefling, she's named to be from an area of the world famous for being run by a cambion, and it's pointed out how the locals find tieflings completely foreign and terrifying (compared to humans/elves/dwarves that people are used to).

If an official D&D product threw in a Dragonborn NPC and said he was a traveler from the Draconic Imperium of Lynn, this would feel like a natural expansion of the lore of Greyhawk that even complements the material already published. Nothing already published is contradicted, and the overall setting is made richer for it.

If you're curious, the Draconic Imperium was mentioned in "Dragon Annual 1" (I don't have a copy but I can squint at the words in this link on page 72: Dragon Magazine Annual #1 - 1996.pdf). I believe that area of the world may also be the setting for the French graphic novels "Black Moon Chronicles," but don't quote me on that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What I'm trying to say is adding Dragonborn into Oerth can be done, but it should be done in a hand-wavey kind of way, like "Dragonborn were always here in this kingdom in the middle of the forest that we never mentioned before now."

Eh, yes. But I don't think anyone was suggesting otherwise.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Eh, yes. But I don't think anyone was suggesting otherwise.

I don't think anyone in this thread has (I'd need to read it over again and don't want to) but I distinctly remember someone in an Eberron thread saying "All of the PHB races need to be added to Greyhawk if it ever gets a setting book, and they should add a Dragonborn kingdom in the center of Flaeness to do it."

My gut reaction to reading that was "NOOOOOOOO!" <Darth Vader voice>

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Also, has anyone here actually read The Black Moon Chronicles? Looking through some free samples of it on Amazon now, if this is actually inspired by Greyhawk it certainly has the art style nailed down. I may even buy it, though sadly in English it seems to be kindle only and I loathe reading comics digitally.

 

[Greg K]

• The Original Greyhawk box set (1983) (or the Greyhawk Folio (1980) with both the World of Greyhawk & the Greyhawk deity articles from Gygax in Dragon Magazine).
• Either the Barbarian class from 1e Unearthed Arcana or Gygax's Barbarian Class preview from Dragon Magazine 63. These provide a little more detail regarding the "barbarian" cultures of Greyhawk such as their weapons and the types of skills they have. Also, note that the class did not have a barbarian rage ability!
• The following modules might be of interest for adventures and T1 for the Village of Hommlet: D1-D3, G1-G3, S1, S3, S4, T1 (or T1-4), Q1, WG4-WG6
• (Optional) official modules not by Gygax but he allowed to be set in Greyhawk):
  • A1-A4, C1, C2, N1, I1​
  • L1&L2 (by Lenard Lakofka). These cover the Spindrift Isles (a.k.a Lendore Isles) Gygax allowed the author to set his campaign as officially part of the Greyhawk setting​

Ignore From the Ashes and everything else afterward Ignore everything Greyhawk not by Gygax, Kuntz or approved by Gary for inclusion.

 

[David Howery]

If you're going to run a 5E campaign set in GH.... it's going to be a labor of love, because ATM, there's nothing much official set there. It can't be ignored that most everything official about GH comes from 1E and 2E days, particularly the first boxed set and the From the Ashes one too. The DM is going to have to adjust the world as is written to the 5E standards (losing all the restrictions that used to be in place). The classes have changed, the races have changed... hell, even the magic has changed. that said, there's really no reason you can't just take the world as written and make it 5E. Tieflings and dragonborn? You can just say they've always been there. That's one thing about GH, it's bare bones description is actually useful for something like this... imagine if they hadn't continually updated the FR through all the editions, and you had to drag it from 2E to 5E....

 

[Parmandur]

If you're going to run a 5E campaign set in GH.... it's going to be a labor of love, because ATM, there's nothing much official set there. It can't be ignored that most everything official about GH comes from 1E and 2E days, particularly the first boxed set and the From the Ashes one too. The DM is going to have to adjust the world as is written to the 5E standards (losing all the restrictions that used to be in place). The classes have changed, the races have changed... hell, even the magic has changed. that said, there's really no reason you can't just take the world as written and make it 5E. Tieflings and dragonborn? You can just say they've always been there. That's one thing about GH, it's bare bones description is actually useful for something like this... imagine if they hadn't continually updated the FR through all the editions, and you had to drag it from 2E to 5E....

That seems to me to be one of the main features: homebrew soil and starter seeds.

 

[Hussar]

I don't think anyone is saying that Dragonborn can't be in Oerth; they obviously can, especially for someone's home-game. I think what some people (at least, I am) are arguing is that Dragonborn shouldn't be shoved into Oerth as a core race with a flimsy explanation.

For example, Dragonborn were added into Forgotten Realms with this big Spellplague event that shoved two world Abeir and Toril together, where they flipped some continents, but then they flipped back but some Dragonborn stayed... I honestly can't explain it very well because it doesn't make much sense.

What I'm trying to say is adding Dragonborn into Oerth can be done, but it should be done in a hand-wavey kind of way, like "Dragonborn were always here in this kingdom in the middle of the forest that we never mentioned before now."

I think the way tieflings were added in GoS is a pretty good metric for how Dragonborn could be done. There's only one tiefling, she's named to be from an area of the world famous for being run by a cambion, and it's pointed out how the locals find tieflings completely foreign and terrifying (compared to humans/elves/dwarves that people are used to).

If an official D&D product threw in a Dragonborn NPC and said he was a traveler from the Draconic Imperium of Lynn, this would feel like a natural expansion of the lore of Greyhawk that even complements the material already published. Nothing already published is contradicted, and the overall setting is made richer for it.

If you're curious, the Draconic Imperium was mentioned in "Dragon Annual 1" (I don't have a copy but I can squint at the words in this link on page 72: Dragon Magazine Annual #1 - 1996.pdf). I believe that area of the world may also be the setting for the French graphic novels "Black Moon Chronicles," but don't quote me on that.

See, that's a bit of a creative reading of what's in the GoS module. It's not one Tiefling - it's a trade delegation, which, to me at least, means that there are several tieflings led by a tiefling cleric. And, they don't seem to be feared or terrifying at all. They are regularly traded with, the PC's are expected to interact with her regularly (she's the only source of buying magic items), and she's a source of adventure hooks. There's very little sense of being foreign and terrifying.

Sure, adding Dragonborn needs some sort of back story, but, again, frankly, "They were always there" does work. It's worked plenty of times in the past and, again, since so little of Greyhawk proper is actually detailed, adding them in is pretty easy. Your version of Greyhawk is pretty far from baseline, to be honest. The "demi-human" races are hardly as isolated as you depict them. Nor is the setting anywhere near as xenophobic as you are saying. Again, going with GoS, the humans of Saltmarsh are working directly with dwarves to mine the area. They also have no real problems entering into agreements with the lizard folk of the area against a larger threat. A sea elf is not met with any real strong reaction at all, nor is the presence of sea elven kingdoms nearby seen as shocking. Halflings are common and commonly encountered and humans work with hobgoblins, side by side, without any sense of friction (granted, they're the baddies, but, still).

Even going back into the old modules, we saw that all the time. Humans and demi-humans working with humanoids in all sorts of modules. The A series, for example, had this. So, it's not like it's a shock.

And, yeah, again, if they are going to bring back Greyhawk for general gaming, it's going to have to make room for all the PHB races. It just is. There's no getting around that.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

See, that's a bit of a creative reading of what's in the GoS module. It's not one Tiefling - it's a trade delegation, which, to me at least, means that there are several tieflings led by a tiefling cleric. And, they don't seem to be feared or terrifying at all. They are regularly traded with, the PC's are expected to interact with her regularly (she's the only source of buying magic items), and she's a source of adventure hooks. There's very little sense of being foreign and terrifying.

Sure, adding Dragonborn needs some sort of back story, but, again, frankly, "They were always there" does work. It's worked plenty of times in the past and, again, since so little of Greyhawk proper is actually detailed, adding them in is pretty easy. Your version of Greyhawk is pretty far from baseline, to be honest. The "demi-human" races are hardly as isolated as you depict them. Nor is the setting anywhere near as xenophobic as you are saying. Again, going with GoS, the humans of Saltmarsh are working directly with dwarves to mine the area. They also have no real problems entering into agreements with the lizard folk of the area against a larger threat. A sea elf is not met with any real strong reaction at all, nor is the presence of sea elven kingdoms nearby seen as shocking. Halflings are common and commonly encountered and humans work with hobgoblins, side by side, without any sense of friction (granted, they're the baddies, but, still).

Even going back into the old modules, we saw that all the time. Humans and demi-humans working with humanoids in all sorts of modules. The A series, for example, had this. So, it's not like it's a shock.

And, yeah, again, if they are going to bring back Greyhawk for general gaming, it's going to have to make room for all the PHB races. It just is. There's no getting around that.

Sorry mate, but Ghosts of Saltmarsh actually disputes a lot of what you've postulated here.

"Saltmarsh's roughly five thousand residents are predominantly human, with the dwarven mining contingent of about two hundred workers the largest non-human faction in town. Elves and halflings draw no special notice, since the Silverstand hosts a wood elf enclave and a few halfling villages are tucked in the hills around town. The residents react to other visitors, especially tieflings and dragonborn, with a mixture of curiosity and fear."

That one paragraph is a pretty good encapsulation of Greyhawk and its races. Humans are the majority, and elves, dwarves, and halflings aren't special either because they show up often. But the last sentence kind of shows the issue of treating every PHB as if they're common.

If Saltmarsh is afraid/curious of tieflings, it's highly doubtful more than the single tiefling NPC show up there. Same goes for Dragonborn, especially when there isn't a single Dragonborn character in the book. Other races like Drow and goblinoids are also known, but they're known for "showing up and killing/enslaving you," not for showing up for a beer.

No one is arguing that humans are the only race that matters in Greyhawk (at least I'm not), but there is gradations of how different races are treated. And I'm happy to have Dragonborn added, but them suddenly appearing and everyone being totally cool with them is not something that treats Greyhawk's history very respectively, especially when there are plenty of empty continents and lands they can originate from.

 

[Parmandur]

See, that's a bit of a creative reading of what's in the GoS module. It's not one Tiefling - it's a trade delegation, which, to me at least, means that there are several tieflings led by a tiefling cleric. And, they don't seem to be feared or terrifying at all. They are regularly traded with, the PC's are expected to interact with her regularly (she's the only source of buying magic items), and she's a source of adventure hooks. There's very little sense of being foreign and terrifying.

Sure, adding Dragonborn needs some sort of back story, but, again, frankly, "They were always there" does work. It's worked plenty of times in the past and, again, since so little of Greyhawk proper is actually detailed, adding them in is pretty easy. Your version of Greyhawk is pretty far from baseline, to be honest. The "demi-human" races are hardly as isolated as you depict them. Nor is the setting anywhere near as xenophobic as you are saying. Again, going with GoS, the humans of Saltmarsh are working directly with dwarves to mine the area. They also have no real problems entering into agreements with the lizard folk of the area against a larger threat. A sea elf is not met with any real strong reaction at all, nor is the presence of sea elven kingdoms nearby seen as shocking. Halflings are common and commonly encountered and humans work with hobgoblins, side by side, without any sense of friction (granted, they're the baddies, but, still).

Even going back into the old modules, we saw that all the time. Humans and demi-humans working with humanoids in all sorts of modules. The A series, for example, had this. So, it's not like it's a shock.

And, yeah, again, if they are going to bring back Greyhawk for general gaming, it's going to have to make room for all the PHB races. It just is. There's no getting around that.

Well, the races outaide of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are not neccesarily assumed in every setting per the PHB, and Ravnica has already set a precedent for even not includingludong Dwarves and Halflings. Greyhawk is not a place where I expect to see that emphasized more than in GoS, though, particularly given the "default Greyhawk" of 3.x getting pretty wild.

The PHB depiction of Dragonborn already has them as rare, nomadic warriors without a set place in the world. Seems pretty perfect for adventeruring in Greyhawk as a rare and special sight.