Greyhawk and FR Mashup! (No naysaying please)

Quite a few of the gods already have direct parallels;

Beory = Chauntea
Obad-Hai = Silvanus
Hextor = Bane
Heironeous = Torm?
Pelor = Lathandar
St Cuthbert = Tyr
Ehlonna = Mielikki
Fharlangn = Gwaeron whateverhisnameis?
Erythul = Malar?

others are a bit squiffier;
Wee Jas = Kelemvore
Nerull = Myrkul or Bhaal
Boccob = Azuth
Kord = Tempus
Vecna = Velsharoon / Savras?

Olidammara = Finder Wyvernspur?

Perhaps each of these dieties might be known by variant names, depending on the country of worship, so that Lathandar, the elven god of the renewing dawn, is Pelor, the human god of sun and strength, just under a different name. In the style of Greyhawk, the dieties would spend less time hobnobbing with their worshippers, and eschew such tacky habits as dying off and being replaced faster than the average elven lifespan.

As for the nations, the Realms has one evil country, Thay, and they've abandoned conquest and gone into the sinister art of selling cheap magic items. Zhentil Keep and Mulmaster and possibly Hillsfar are evil city-states, the Zhents are the only ones with any influence outside of their own walls. Greyhawk has the Scarlet Brotherhood, the three or four countries dominated by Iuz, and the Great Kingdom, making it a much more dangerous world to be living in. I'd make the hybrid world as dangerous as Oerth.

I wouldn't tie Iuz to Thay, both being fairly disparate in theme. I would instead tie the Scarlet Brotherhood to Thay, as they have some similarities (both enclaves secured away atop hard-to-access elevated plateaus, both with a rigid heirarchy dominated by magic-users, both lawful and evil in nature, both extensive users of slaves, and both fond of magical experimentation on living subjects). Iuz, by contrast, is more chaotic, not at all mage-dominated (being more priest of Iuz and half-demon dominated), etc. Iuz would mix better with the idea of Hellgate Keep, which I would have expanded significantly, utterly devastating the area around Silverymoon, to make it a sizable nation-state in it's own right, and not just a castle with some bad men living in it, in the middle of nowhere.

Greyhawk could be positioned on the Sea of Fallen Stars, replacing Selgaunt or Raven's Bluff or something. (Greyhawk / Raven's Bluff has some symmetry, and not just because of the bird reference.) The Seven Sisters and the Circle of Eight could be merged. Half and half. Mordenkainen and Elminster, the Simbul and Tenser, all mostly working together to maintain the status quo and prevent the expansion of the Thayvian Scarlet Brothers and the Cambions of Hellgate Keep. Pick your favorite four members of the Chosen of Mystra and your favorite four members of the Circle of Eight. Unused members of the Circle or Chosen could be past members who have died over the years (as Sylune or Otiluke did in the appropriate settings), but still have spells and / or items named after them.

The Phaerimm / Shades in Anauroch could be mixed with Rary's takeover of the Bright Plains and the Elder Elemental Evil / Tharizdun stuff and the whole Invoked Devastation concept. The Elves (picking a race out of a hat) fought off an invasion by pre-human worshippers of Tharizdun (the nihilistic faith currently masked under the deceptively passive face of the worship of the lady of loss, Shar), and the magical energies unleashed in this battle destroyed all life within the blightest lands known known as Anauroch, the Sea of Endless Dust. The enemy spellcasters survived only as Shades, selling their souls to their dark Lord moments before their annhilation. The greatest secrets of Elven High Magic were lost, as their practitioners gave their lives, and even changed the fabric of magic itself, in this great working, so that it is believed that it could never even be repeated (to the relief of all). A rogue member of the Chosen Eight named Rary (or perhaps Sammaster, rumors vary), travelled into the forbidden wastes and tapped the residues of ancient magic there, becoming tainted by the darkness of Tharizdun, and forming an alliance with few remaining Shades still living eternal half-lives, concealed in their ruined kingdom below the shifting sands, but confined by the ancient elven magics to the desert sands, unable to plague the lands of the living. They still serve their shadowy patron, and wish to bring the entire world into darkness and death, as their god was pained by the act of Creation itself, shattering his beloved darkness with painful light. They raise the dead and send them out beyond the borders of the lifeless black sands, trying to further their gods dark designs, but now with Rary / Sammaster's aid, their goals have taken new life and the bones of the great dragons that once flew over the desert know are moving through the night sky in service to dark powers...

[For convenience, I'd use one map, and for this thought experiment, I'm using the Forgotten Realms one, adding Greyhawk in place of Raven's Bluff, the Scarlet Brotherhood to Thay, Iuz to the Silver Marches (replacing them, essentially) and mashing up the Sea of Endless Dust and Tharizdun worshipping Shades and Rary's betrayal to the formation of Anauroch, Shar's nihilistic ambitions, etc.]
 
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Hey, if you want to throw some Spelljammer mashup ideas in, go nuts. I can't recall greyspace / realmspace that well at the moment.

Oh, but if it's spelljammer, the world orbits its sun. I'm just laying that one down now.
 

Just remembered something from realmspace, and I definitely like it: The Tears of Selune (asteroids that trail the moon). Those could make for some sweet otherworldy adventure locations.
 

Set; good point on the Iuz/Thay thing, and Greyhawk on the Sea of Fallen Stars is a good idea (although I"d want to keep the cairn hills near greyhawk, the Age of Worms uses them and they're cool anyway). The Scarlet Brotherhood makes tons of sense. Any thoughts on the Netherese / Suloise?
 

Iggwilv as a Red Wizard? I like it.

But if I were doing this, the world would be much less Faerun and much more the Flanaess, since Oerik's ethnic groups and history are a major part of what I like about the setting, and the ethnic groups and history of the Realms are a major part of what I dislike about the setting.

The things I like about the Realms are:

- Zakhara/Al-Qadim
- Imaskar
- Narfell
- The Hordelands
- Unther/Thay/Mulhorand/Murghom/Ulgarth (that whole area, although note that my Ulgarth is heavily based on Nehwon/Lankhmar)

And I pretty much hate the rest of it, so my hybrid would involve grafting that whole mess onto the Flanaess. Which I have partly done, as in the image below:

hordelands.jpg


Abbreviated timeline:

-9900 CY Dwarves settle the Firepeak Mountains
-6900 CY Tribes of Taagan humans settle the Endless Waste
-6360 CY Proto-Baklunish tribes settle the Raurin Plains
-5100 Baklunar Empire subjugates Taagan tribes
-2659 The War of Light and Darkness. Baklunar empire shattered. Baklunish flee east beyond the Sunrise Mountains to found new nation.
-900 The Oeridian kingdom is founded with its capital at Telchurkeep.
-780 Oeridians found Almorel
-644 Oeridia and Narfell destroy one another in decade-long war. Johydee prophesizes migration to the east.
-600 Orcs from the Sunrise Mountains drive Oeridian survivors from much of the Hordelands.
277 CY Rise of Yamun Khahan.
301 CY Tuigan army conquers Ket and Ull, invades Suhfang, Perrenland, Bissel, Zeif, Ekbir, and Tusmit.
302 CY Tuigan forces invade Gran March. Allied armies from the Sheldomar basin defeat the Tuigan. Yamun Khahan slain.
303 CY Tuigan bandits terrorize merchants on the Golden Way.
305 Hubadai, son of Yamun Khahan, declares himself Khahan and founds nation of Yaimmunahar, west of the Swordrise Mountains and north of Suhfang (the "High and Low Khanates").
307 CY Kourmira (I can't think of a better name - maybe Khindyla, after Chendyl?), capital of Yaimmunahar, founded.
309 CY Increased trade along the Golden Way prompts eastern nations to establish trading posts in Almorel and Kourmira.
314 CY The Mouqallad open a merchant enclave in Kourmira.
 
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You know, I actually don't know greyhawk's ethnic history very well. Does anyone have a summary I could see?
 

I remember someone mentioned that Sembia had lots of merchant cartels that were spending quite a bit of time assassinating each other. If there's some good resources for that then I'd say that makes for a great addition to the mashup.
 

rycanada said:
With that out of the way, how would you mix and match your favorite elements of the setting, if you were making ONE setting that had the best of both [GH and FR] ?

As with my GH interest, I'm an old-school FR fan (i.e., the Dragon Magazine articles, before the first box set was released). I always loved the sense of depth of history to the FR from those articles---that there could be history books written on the FR that you would be able to use to play a campaign at any time in its history. I also liked lot of the magic of the FR revealed through the "Pages from the Mages" and other articles---the scroll ink forumlae, the new spells and magic items (with histories), the magic doors, magic swords, magic shields, misc. magic items hidden in the Dragon Treasure Trove specials, etc.), curses, monsters, etc., etc. I also liked Undermountain, in concept (as the Castle Greyhawk of the FR), but not as much in execution when the boxed sets were finally released.

My love for GH however, was older, and richer. So, I would strip-mine elements from the FRs articles, fold/spindle/mutilate them, and insert them into my versions of Greyhawk. Spells were renamed, magic item histories discarded, and I adapted them to GH (and to my home campaigns). I've also adapted portions of the FR into GH, sometimes (using info on Anarauch to detail the Sea of Dust, for example), or the "small town feel" of the Dalelands to build out Hommlet and the surrounding regions.

That blending of gaming setttings and their elements was as natural a rolling a d6 for initiative, back in the AD&D days: players and PCs would migrate from one campaign to another (with tweaks), characters would adventure in Highport then the Myth Drannor school of magic from Dragon #95 ("Into the Forgotten Realms"), then wherever else their wanderings took them. While there was certainly a sense of differentiation between the worlds, there was a lot less factionalism among the fans of the settings (at least in part because the FR was new, and because GH was still supported, I'm sure ;) ).
 

rycanada said:
You know, I actually don't know greyhawk's ethnic history very well. Does anyone have a summary I could see?

Hmmmm. There are some general timelines and what-not on Canonfire! at http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=37 (history) and http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=59 (peoples and cultures). Your best bet would be to pick up the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer or one of the other "core" GH books (folio/1983 box set, From the Ashes, Players Guide to Greyhawk/The Adventure Begins), and read the info there on history and ethnography, then delve into CF!
 

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