D&D 3E/3.5 Greyhawk Gazeteer and Demihumans

[Voadam]

I am currently reading through the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer providing a 32 page overview of the Greyhawk setting. I am doing a full read, not just a skim of parts.

I had owned and read and ran a long-term 1e/2e campaign using the 1e boxed set and owned From the Ashes and the 2e WotC Greyhawk books back in the 2e era.

In reading the 3.0 gazetteer kingdom listings I was struck by how few elves and dwarves show up, there is Celene for elves and a few places the various Ulek's but it mostly shows a lot of humans with some elves and dwarves sprinkled in as minorities throughout much of the land. This matches my impression from the AD&D era.

I thought this was in keeping with 1e humanity dominant and demihumans as options but not central.

Then I hit the forest and mountain descriptions. Elven tribes are in most forests. Multiple unnamed dwarven kingdoms are in most mountain ranges.

I find myself rethinking my views of Greyhawk a bit.

 

[Emirikol]

Someone on Lordgosumbas hundreds of interviews mentioned the random encounter tables as a good reference as well.
One weird thing: the quantity of 'cavemen' as an encounter entry.

Primitives arent just humans afterall. Greyhawk has grurachs', primitive galflungs and dwarves as well. Gnomes fall into a category that Gygax later (interviews) says are 'elemental' which makes very good distinctions with the forest gnomes. He based them on Poul Anderson's gnomes (if I got my math right).

Im running in Almor this weekend for Virtual Greyhawk Con (y'all should aign uo for Citadel by the Sea). (2events)
I wrote into the adventure apecifically why the demis and humanoids sgot thinned out.

Citadel by the Sea (D&D 5e - Prelacy of Almor)

tabletop.events

 

[Alzrius]

I am currently reading through the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer providing a 32 page overview of the Greyhawk setting. I am doing a full read, not just a skim of parts.

I had owned and read and ran a long-term 1e/2e campaign using the 1e boxed set and owned From the Ashes and the 2e WotC Greyhawk books back in the 2e era.

In reading the 3.0 gazetteer kingdom listings I was struck by how few elves and dwarves show up, there is Celene for elves and a few places the various Ulek's but it mostly shows a lot of humans with some elves and dwarves sprinkled in as minorities throughout much of the land. This matches my impression from the AD&D era.

I thought this was in keeping with 1e humanity dominant and demihumans as options but not central.

Then I hit the forest and mountain descriptions. Elven tribes are in most forests. Multiple unnamed dwarven kingdoms are in most mountain ranges.

I find myself rethinking my views of Greyhawk a bit.

I haven't done any sort of comparison or run the numbers, but is there any chance that's an artifact of how the 3E era of Greyhawk drastically increased the population of the setting?

 

[Voadam]

I haven't done any sort of comparison or run the numbers, but is there any chance that's an artifact of how the 3E era of Greyhawk drastically increased the population of the setting?

Its a little tough to say. That linked posting talks about Veluna increasing from 250,000 to 688,000 and leads to an old blog post that is no longer there for supporting that the population increased so I have to look up numbers myself.

The 3.0 Gazetteer lists things differently for populations than 1e did. Veluna has one large city and two small cities listed in the 3.0 Gazetteer with no total population. Large cities in the Gazetteer have 12,001-25,000 people and small cities have 5,001-12,000 people, so Veluna has at least 22,003 people ranging up to 49,000 for those three cities and an unknown number outside of them.

In the 1e boxed set it says the capital Mitrik (the large city in 3.0) has a population of 12,600, which is within the large city range so a consistent population. The 1e box entry also says that Veluna has a population of 250,000 plus demihumans including 10,000 elves and 7,000 gnomes.

1e also gives a population marker on page 1 for the Darlene map settlements, but since they have the total population numbers that does not seem necessary to check.

The 3.0 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer keeps Mitrik at 12,600 as 1e and the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer and lists the same two small cities as in the 32 page 3.0 D&D Gazetteer and lists them at 7,900 and 11,100 so consistent so far.

We get down to the total population entry in the 3.0 LGG though and we get the 668,000 number. So that is where the discrepancy enters.

 

[Voadam]

Looking up the 1e hills and mountains descriptions in the boxed set it mentions "groups of dwarves" and "some dwarves" but never kingdoms. In the Glorioles Mountains 1e says they are the "homeland of perhaps 10,000 or more mountain dwarves".

In the 3.0 gazetteer it says "They are home to dwarven kingdoms allied with the King of Sunndi."

In 1e the Iron Hills entry mentions the iron mines and that "Dwarves and gnomes do much of this mining."

In 3.0 it says "They are home to the dwarven kingdom of the Iron Hills, ruled by King Holgi Hirsute, an ally of Irongate."

 

[Alzrius]

Its a little tough to say. That linked posting talks about Veluna increasing from 250,000 to 688,000 and leads to an old blog post that is no longer there for supporting that the population increased so I have to look up numbers myself.

For what it's worth, the old blog post it linked to can be found at said blog's new page.

 

[haakon1]

Its a little tough to say. That linked posting talks about Veluna increasing from 250,000 to 688,000 and leads to an old blog post that is no longer there for supporting that the population increased so I have to look up numbers myself.

The 3.0 Gazetteer lists things differently for populations than 1e did. Veluna has one large city and two small cities listed in the 3.0 Gazetteer with no total population. Large cities in the Gazetteer have 12,001-25,000 people and small cities have 5,001-12,000 people, so Veluna has at least 22,003 people ranging up to 49,000 for those three cities and an unknown number outside of them.

In the 1e boxed set it says the capital Mitrik (the large city in 3.0) has a population of 12,600, which is within the large city range so a consistent population. The 1e box entry also says that Veluna has a population of 250,000 plus demihumans including 10,000 elves and 7,000 gnomes.

1e also gives a population marker on page 1 for the Darlene map settlements, but since they have the total population numbers that does not seem necessary to check.

The 3.0 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer keeps Mitrik at 12,600 as 1e and the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer and lists the same two small cities as in the 32 page 3.0 D&D Gazetteer and lists them at 7,900 and 11,100 so consistent so far.

We get down to the total population entry in the 3.0 LGG though and we get the 668,000 number. So that is where the discrepancy enters.

So, it might be about rethinking rural to urban population.

I also wonder if 1e populations were meant to be everyone, just working age adults, or military age males, or what.

 

[haakon1]

In 3.0 it says "They are home to the dwarven kingdom of the Iron Hills, ruled by King Holgi Hirsute, an ally of Irongate."

I have a table of all the independent and semi-independent states in Greyhawk, but I missed that one. I figure Dullstrand and Deksport and so forth deserve to be in the list, though they lack a full writeup.