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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 4151828" data-attributes="member: 48692">Sounds like you might like Greyhawk, believe it or not.  Gary Gygax and others have openly noted the Lovecraftian influences, especially with Tharizdun and the Elder Elemental God, and tentacles abound when the latter is considered.  Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Jack Vance influences abound as well, so the pulp/swords and sorcery elements that you like are present as well.  There's also some science-type magic with the crashed starship in the Barrier Peaks, the presence of Wild West-influenced Murlynd and his "science tech", and also some of the stuff from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, if you care to integrate it.  Greyhawk is often grim and gritty, or at least is sufficiently sketchy that you can insert it.  There's mistrust and negative history in even supposedly Good-aligned countries, hideous evil through guys like Iuz and the Scarlet Brotherhood, and there's always plenty of room for new villains.  With a history that is alternately sketchy and detailled, Greyhawk has the capacity to be a very deep setting, depending on what canon you choose to integrate.  Greyhawk's greatest strength is arguably its ability to let the DM pick and choose what he or she wants to put into the setting, and there's ample room for you to insert your own original villains and history to make the setting darker, if that's the way you want to go.  Greyhawk also avoids much of what you dislike about Eberron, most notably the fact that few of the countries had a really peaceful and happy development.  Displaced peoples, expansionist empires, hidden secrets, and betrayed alliances are all rife in Greyhawk, and proposals to darken Greyhawk or show skeletons in the closet fit in quite comfortably with the setting.  And in any case, if you want to go that way, Greyhawk offers ample room to do so.  Greyhawk is also a meat-and-potatoes setting.  The drow originated here, and there are no Drizzt Do'Urdens running around, either.  The drow of Greyhawk are all 100% pure, unsullied evil, and they know it.  They not only know they're evil, they get off on the fact that they're rotten to the core.  It should also be noted that, despite the presence of so many countries, there's no guarantee that they're necessarily civilized.  Especially since the Greyhawk Wars, a lot of civilization was wrecked, which leaves ample room for wilderness and new states, if that's the way you're inclined to go.  Also, don't feel the need to incorporate large amounts of canon into your setting.  One thing that frustrates me about my fellow GH fans is their apparent need to conform as closely to established canon as possible in their writing, when Gygax clearly stated that his original intent was to give DMs room to flesh out the setting as they saw fit.</blockquote>

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