D&D General Did Greyhawk/Oerth exist in 4e canon?

[jmberry1s]

This, and tacking Kara-Tur onto the FR, is about where things went wrong.

Kara-Tur is mentioned in the Grey Box. It has ALWAYS been part of the Realms.

 

[Parmandur]

Kara-Tur is mentioned in the Grey Box. It has ALWAYS been part of the Realms.

Yeah, and that was the first mistake, bit it was pretty easy to ignore in the FR products before the Horde storyline, the third major mistake after Kara-Tur and the Time of Troubles.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sorry if the word "rectify" was offensive! But my understanding is that they had planned a dedicated Nentir Vale sourcebook, late in the edition (before they basically switched to a standby mode while 5e was being developed). Shame that will never see light now, though.

(Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale also seemed to be an effort to turn Nentir Vale into a more fixed setting.)

I think there was always an interest--even after other hands took the wheel and steered 4e in a rather different direction than its creators intended, something I'm still slightly salty about--in keeping the "Points of Light" setting pretty free and open. Any collation or synthesis of the existing details would have been either (a) "if you want to make these details fit together, consider this..." e.g. the map from the Risk-style strategy board game, or (b) "here's your one-stop shop for all the pieces you can lift or ignore as you like."

I do find it kind of funny how little love PoLand gets from many of the old hands....because it was straight-up designed to be a kitbashed, make-it-your-own setting. It has its own nature and character, to be sure, but it is specifically made to be flexible and embrace a lot of different settings and conceits.

 

[Zeromaru X]

But what about 4th Edition?

Without reading the whole topic (that I'm going to do in the meantime), so I don't know if the answer has already being given, but yes, Greyhawk exist(ed) in 4e. It is considered to be an "alternative world" to the Nentir Vale's world, from where some places and some NPCs came from.

For instance, Inverness Castle its said to have originated in another world, and it exist simultaneously in two worlds at the same time, one of these worlds being the world of the Nentir Vale. The other is heavily implied to be Greyhawk. There where other places from Greyhawk also connected to the Nentir Vale, like the Underdark city of Erelhei-Cinlu. While not explicitly stated lorewise, this can be explained as an after effect of the Dawn War. The violent battles between gods and primordials destroyed the planar boundaries in some places, and in these places the other dimensions "bleed" into the world of the Nentir Vale.

Likewise, some NPCs like Mordenkainen, Evard, and Emirikol, had travelled to the Nentir Vale world at least once. For instance, Evard has a manor in the small village of Duponde, in the Nentir Vale, while Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium is an in-universe book where Mordenkainen catalogued a lot of magic items and artifacts created by the ancient empires of the world of the Nentir Vale (Nerath, Arkhosia, and Bael Turath).

Also, the Vecna of the Dawn War pantheon is specifically said to be the same Vecna from the Flanaess.

There are also a few Greyhawk adventures published in 4e, like "The Last Breath of Ashenport" or "The Battle of Emmiry(sp?) Meadows". And a few others that mix Nentir Vale with Greyhawk elements, such as the Against the Giants series.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Kara-Tur is mentioned in the Grey Box. It has ALWAYS been part of the Realms.

Nope, not always, as Ed Greenwood has stated many times that Kara-Tur was never part of his original version of the Realms. Kara-Tur was grafted to the Realms by some TSR staffer.

 

[pukunui]

There are also a few Greyhawk adventures published in 4e, like "The Last Breath of Ashenport" or "The Battle of Emmiry(sp?) Meadows". And a few others that mix Nentir Vale with Greyhawk elements, such as the Against the Giants series.

As I clarified above, the Battle of Emridy Meadows adventure is actually for D&D Next. I had wrongly assumed it was for 4e because it appeared in a late 4e era issue of Dungeon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I do find it kind of funny how little love PoLand gets from many of the old hands

I suspect that old hands like me don’t really know much about it because they bounced off 4e.

But the appeal of settings like Greyhawk is that they are a warm comfort-blanket that remind us of when we were young, not that they were particularly great for playing D&D.

 

[Zeromaru X]

As I clarified above, the Battle of Emridy Meadows adventure is actually for D&D Next. I had wrongly assumed it was for 4e because it appeared in a late 4e era issue of Dungeon.

I see. I assumed the same.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Double post

 

[LordOfTheWaffleHouse]

There were a handful of dungeons that got into adventure compilations like Tales from the Yawning Portal in 5e, but otherwise no. Greyhawk was the "main campaign setting" up until 3.5, when it became the Forgotten Realms. Ed Greenwood being still among the living and able to work with WotC directly and continue to write content for the setting probably factored into a lot of the decision to transfer the primary setting over from Greyhawk, and to my knowledge it's probably not going back. The 5.5 focus on Greyhawk from WotC is in all honesty surprising and slightly concerning.