NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8081158" data-attributes="member: 21169">An attempt to summarise the main themes (together with their sources) of Greyhawk as presented in the 1983 boxed set. They are listed in order of importance. May be of interest to [USER=6801228]@Chaosmancer[/USER].1. War. The most important by far. Most of the entries for each region describe its order of battle – numbers of troops, troop types, equipment, and how many more can be raised. There are also several battle reports, such as the Battle of Emridy Meadows. A major war is brewing between The Great Kingdom and its neighbours. The main influence is medieval military history, by way of wargaming.2. Good, Evil, and Neutrality. The Regional Alignments map (Guide pg 44) divides the world up into good, evil, and neutral realms. I think Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions is the most important influence, but lots of fantasy worlds have good lands and evil lands. Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion novels have Law, Chaos, and the Balance with the last being most desirable, which could explain Greyhawk's tripolarity.3. Tolkien-esque races, as described upthread. This has an influence on the 'racial geography' (elves in forests, dwarves in mountains, etc), as well as orders of battle and battle reports. It's connected to (2) because demi-humans are good and humanoids are evil.4. Leiber-ian cities. The City of Greyhawk, which resembles Lankhmar, is one of the most important places in the World of Greyhawk, perhaps the most important.5. Short, episodic adventures (Glossography pgs 26-30). Source: sword and sorcery.6. Lots of opportunities for adventure, some much harder to reach than others. It's a lot easier to travel to the tombs in the Cairn Hills than the Forgotten City in the Sea of Dust. This is more a D&D-ism than anything else.7. A plethora of monsters. Related to (6), and also a D&D-ism.8. A deeply mistaken emphasis on the different races of humanity, using terms such as "racial stock" and "admixture". It was the 1980s, Gygax ought to have known better. Robert E Howard’s Hyborian Age is the source.9. Analogues of medieval Europe. Flanaess = Europe, mostly. As [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] rightly said upthread Perrenland = Switzerland. The Great Kingdom = The Holy Roman Empire. Ice/Frost/Snow Barbarians = Vikings. As with (1), the source is medieval European history.10. A lost Age of Wonders, destroyed by Apocalypse. Many sources for this, such as the myth of Atlantis.11. Killable gods. 11 pages (out of 128) are devoted to the gods' combat stats. The main influence here is Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer, I think.12. Arthurian knights. Three knightly orders (Guide pgs 79-80).</blockquote>

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