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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 3070689" data-attributes="member: 25619">I agree Middle Earth is a hostile world, with islands of weal protected by forces of good, whether unseen (the Ranger protecting the last remains of fallen Arnor in the Shire and Bree), hidden from the world (Rivendell, Lothlorien, the sylan elves in the Mirkwood), or protected by hard-pressed armies (Rohan and Gondor).Thus the other name for Rivendell: the Last Homely House.To put it another way, Middle Earth is an apocalyptic vision.  With the benefit of hindsight (we won!) it may not look that way, but at the beginning, the world is in deep doo-doo, with the great kingdoms of old mostly fallen, the line of kings of men broken, Moria and Lonely Mountain long fallen, and the elves preparing to abandon Middle Earth.It's also a very old place, with forgotten ages of history behind it.As for Greyhawk, it's true it grew organically from Gary Gygax's Lake Geneva campaigns, but he apparently drew the continental map early on.  The feel of Greyhawk is close to standard D&D (since it's where D&D began), but a few "differences" might not be obvious:- A small amount of sci fi (crashed spacecraft, the Dr. Who-like first adventure Temple of the Frog)- More "hard" medieval feel than high magic.  It's kingdoms and wars (before the Greyhawk Wars and From the Ashes at least) involved fighters and lances and crossbows, not ubermagic.- PC's rule.  There are big characters in Greyhawk, but they don't interact much with PC's or change the universe.  And they're just other people's retired characters, not meant to be able to push everyone else around.- Neutrality.  (At least before From the Ashes) Greyhawk was not about good v. evil.  It's conflicts often tend to be cultural (Vikings v. the Great Kingdom, Baklunish v. Oeridian/Suel).  The big city is neutral, and the big organizations of ubercharacters are about maintaining balance, not fighting evil.</blockquote>

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