D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Hussar]

Not to get too deep into the weeds, but you might want to be leery of some of those numbers: a hot topic in the Greyhawk meganerd community is if those are actual population figures, or military manpower figures: so there may not be 5 million people in the Great Kingdom, it might be that there are 5 million eligible for military service. Amd there is reason to think that based on the text, IIRC.

Oh I totally agree. The numbers are very likely not plausible.

But that does mean there are huge numbers of unaccounted for beings in the setting.

Beings like Dragonborn…

 

[Parmandur]

Oh I totally agree. The numbers are very likely not plausible.

But that does mean there are huge numbers of unaccounted for beings in the setting.

Beings like Dragonborn…

Fair point!

The LGG increased all the population numbers, by a lot, and that is probably one of the more reasonable changes I would expect to make it in.

 

[pemerton]

The real difference is that Greyhawk was built as a wargaming playground (hence the detailing of each state's troop dispostions and composition), while the Forgotten Realms were first and foremost a place to situate a broad array of fan-ficyion (hence why it has Lankhmar, Valinar, and Aslan)

Aslan?

 

[Staffan]

Aslan?

Nobanion.

 

[pemerton]

Nobanion.

That is weird in too many ways.

 

[Parmandur]

Aslan?

Yup, Narnia exists whole-hog in the Forgotten Realms. Never super highly detailed, like a lot of the FR isn't despite the stereotypes, but there is a forest with a Druidic theocracy filled with Awakened animals and trees directly ruled by a Lion demi-god. Just like Waterdeep is amicably just Lankhmar, and in the original published version of the FR and Greenwood's home game the Elves were slowly sailing over the Sea to the Undying West and fading from Faerûn.

gygax included Tolkienian stuff in Greyhawk a bit begrudgingly, but Ed Greenwood liked the old Sword & Sorcery that Gygax did while also loving writers like C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien pretty deeply.

 

[Azzy]

I mean, just from a practical standpoint, it would be difficult to support a powerful nation of that size with even medium-sized cities with that low of a population. Australia and Greenland at least have the excuse of having large swathes of inhospitable land, which the Great Kingdom does not. There's no sign of magic augmentation unless they have summoned fiends working in the army and in the fields on a massive scale (I don't doubt they have both on a small scale, though). Bluntly, the massive offensive they undertook in the Greyhawk Wars would have been impossible.

While not an answer to all of that, the Great Kingdom (and other nations) used orcs (and other humanoids) as mercenaries.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

For some extra stuff in the first box set the population was also human only.

The Free City of Greyhawk is said to have a human population of 58,000 just in the City, and 75,000+ in total including the areas around the city.

“Mercenaries, lawless groups, semi-independent and/or independent communities, and groups based in border and/or major geographical regions are excluded.”

For both Demi-Humans and Humanoids Greyhawk has a ranking of “Some”

“Where populations are given for demi-human and humanoid groups, the figure reflects fighting males only, as more complete data is unavailable. Where actual figures are not given, the term "many" can indicate overall numbers (including females and offspring) up to 20% of the human population; "some" indicates numbers up to perhaps 10% of the human population; "few" generally means 5% or less, in terms of overall numbers.”

So the city of Greyhawk has about 7500 Demi Humans and Humanoids each in its population.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yup, Narnia exists whole-hog in the Forgotten Realms. Never super highly detailed, like a lot of the FR isn't despite the stereotypes, but there is a forest with a Druidic theocracy filled with Awakened animals and trees directly ruled by a Lion demi-god. Just like Waterdeep is amicably just Lankhmar, and in the original published version of the FR and Greenwood's home game the Elves were slowly sailing over the Sea to the Undying West and fading from Faerûn.

gygax included Tolkienian stuff in Greyhawk a bit begrudgingly, but Ed Greenwood liked the old Sword & Sorcery that Gygax did while also loving writers like C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien pretty deeply.

Weathercote Wood is basically the Wood Between the Worlds from the Narnia series. The linked article doesn't mention it, but one of the early FR products (the Gray Box or perhaps the Savage Frontier) flat out stated that the gates to all the various other worlds were pools of water, which is directly out of The Magician's Nephew. It's no surprise that it's said Nobanion entered Faerun from there...

 

[Demetrios1453]

That is weird in too many ways.

Ed Greenwood had no problem cribbing ideas from basically everywhere.