D&D (2024) Greyhawk 2024: comparing Oerth and Earth

[Parmandur]

Unless I missed something, "Baklunish polytheism" doesnt exist in 2024 Greyhawk. None of the descriptions of Baklun (that I read) discuss polytheism. Notably, the "gods of Greyhawk" dont mention Baklun.


2024 Greyhawk is brief, salient, and reasonably well thought out. It gives all of us a fresh start to rethink the earlier Greyhawk traditions.

We cannot accept earlier Greyhawk as-is uncritically because there are too many problematics of various kinds. But Greyhawk is beloved and is a valuable resource. We should pick and choose the traditions that are useful for D&D today as a global phenomenon.

Right, also anybsuggestion of religous difference betw.een Baklunish and Oerdian areas is removed: no talk of the Beygraf of Ket being Defender of the [undefined] True Faith, no Calliph, no Bishops, etc. Everyone is abpolytheist for the one pantheon.

 

[Yaarel]

They weren't Egyptian, the module is about the fictional Kingdom of Beskar. They are no more Egyptian than the Frutzi are Norwegian, they are both make-believe.

Honestly, saying stuff like that feels like telling the Romani to shut up because the Rhennee are "just fiction".

It doesnt come across well.

 

[Parmandur]

That works well for fantasy South America.

Like Egypt in Bright Desert, it seems necessary to explain how West African cultures arrived here.

I mean, Hemponoland has always been Africa-coded (in addition to the Folio or Box set, see I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City).

Those suggestions surprise me. Geographically, Venezuela corresponds Hepmona land. Of the two suggestions, I prefer associating the European aspects of Venezuela with Aerdi.

There is no correspondence to Venezual geographically, because there is no 1-to-1 geographic correspondence at work.

The Great Kingdom suggestion actually makes a great deal of sense to me on reflection, because much of the module Rests on a historical conflict between an imperial power with Latinate names (Oerdian?) and an Indigenous people with Native American style names (Flan?), and the current mixed population is present: setting this in the South of the Great Kingdom and tying it into the resistance of the Iron League against the late stage Roman/Byzantine/Frankish Evil Empire fits.

It fits narraticely, geography is tertiary.

 

[Yaarel]

Right, also anybsuggestion of religous difference betw.een Baklunish and Oerdian areas is removed: no talk of the Beygraf of Ket being Defender of the [undefined] True Faith, no Calliph, no Bishops, etc. Everyone is abpolytheist for the one pantheon.

It seems to me, 2024 Greyhawk is leaning toward an Eberron religious relativity approach.

There are objectively existing Celestial creatures in the Astral Plane, however whether they actually matter or not is a cultural tradition, a faction.

I expect to see animism, cosmic forces, monotheism, atheism, iconoclasm, etcetera when referencing religious factions.

 

[Parmandur]

Can you give a source for the earlier migration of Thillonrians?

I admit, I had half-remembered a fan Wiki entry: they were actually bands of bounty hunters sent to bring back a son of a Suel Emperor who was busy founding the Scarlet Brotherhood, per the Scarlet Brotherhood book from 1999. They never found him, but settled as far from the Suel Imperium as they could get...

Still, they fit the narrative space of the rugged remnant who turned their back on a corrupt ancient Atlantian empire.

 

[Parmandur]

Honestly, saying stuff like that feels like telling the Romani to shut up because the Rhennee are "just fiction".

It doesnt come across well.

Hey, man, that is notnat all cool. Saying "actually we can put an Egypt like civilization somewhere else because there is not a geographic 1-to-1 correspondence because it is fiction" is not the same as perpetuating Romani stereotypes. At all.

 

[Parmandur]

It seems to me, 2024 Greyhawk is leaning toward an Eberron religious relativity approach.

There are objectively existing Celestial creatures in the Astral Plane, however whether they actually matter or not is a cultural tradition, a faction.

I expect to see animism, cosmic forces, monotheism, atheism, iconoclasm, etcetera when referencing religious factions.

I mean, I don't see it quite that way in the DMG, but you could go that way...? There are demi-gods actually running around the Flannaes...

 

[Yaarel]

Hey, man, that is notnat all cool. Saying "actually we can put an Egypt like civilization somewhere else because there is not a geographic 1-to-1 correspondence because it is fiction" is not the same as perpetuating Romani stereotypes. At all.

It is the Romani who decide which misrepresentations are offensive, not D&D players.

It is the Norwegians who decide which misrepresentations are offensive, not D&D players.

It is the Egyptians who decide which misrepresentations are offensive, not D&D players.

Etcetera.

 

[Parmandur]

It is the Romani who decide which misrepresentations are offensive, not D&D players.

It is the Norwegians who decide which misrepresentations are offensive, not D&D players.

It is the Egyptians who decide which misrepresentations are offensive, not D&D players.

Etcetera.

Right, the Egyptian module in question, reviewed by someone who is bot a professional sensitivity reader and a trained Egyptoligust, does not share this view of absolute geographical determinism that you seem to be advocating.

 

[Voadam]

It seems to me, 2024 Greyhawk is leaning toward an Eberron religious relativity approach.

There are objectively existing Celestial creatures in the Astral Plane, however whether they actually matter or not is a cultural tradition, a faction.

I expect to see animism, cosmic forces, monotheism, atheism, iconoclasm, etcetera when referencing religious factions.

From what I have read reported about the DMG section it just lists a polytheistic pantheon as gods of Greyhawk and mentions nothing about an Eberron type setup of diverse religions with clerics of philosophies and ancestor worship and incompatible cosmology cults. Default D&D and Greyhawk seems to be straight defined pantheism and not Eberron style diverse religious styles with divinity definitions unclear.

Is there any 2024 text to actually indicate otherwise?