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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 4201173" data-attributes="member: 48692">The best piece of advice I can give you is this: Something is canon only if you say it is canon.  Like jdrakeh, I lament the fact that Greyhawk has become laden with so much canon over the years, and even more so that many of my fellow Greyhawk fans seem to want to closely adhere to official canon, rather than make something up themselves that suits their campaigns and their needs.  Now, as far as I'm concerned, the crashed spaceship in the Barrier Peaks, the cybernetics of Blackmoor as described by Dave Arneson, Murlynd, and basically everything modern and/or technological, or that makes reference to something outside the traditional bounds of swords and sorcery, is not canon.  Why not?  Because I say so, that's why.  I consider Murlynd, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and Dave Arneson's fantasy tech to be abominations that have no place in a true Greyhawk campaign.  Similarly, I hate much of what Sean K. Reynolds writes, and therefore it is not canon either.  I don't need any justification for this other than my say-so.  Now, that's just me and my own personal view of canon.  My buddy GVDammerung, who posts both on Canonfire and on here, loves these things and includes them in his verison of Greyhawk, and that's just fine.  If I were playing in his game, I would cheerfully accept them-he's the DM, and he's the one who decides what goes in his version of Oerth.  Now, when planning out your personal version of Greyhawk, feel free to mix and match elements of official TSR/WOTC canon, fanwork like at Canonfire, real-life mythology, or whatever you wish.  If you say something is canon, then it's canon-if you say it isn't, then it isn't.  Much of what I write on canon is done for my own personal amusement, but if I can inspire any DMs or players out there, so much the better.  If there are any DMs or players who've lifted any of my stuff, you can expect that they'll have only taken those elements that suited them, or otherwise adapted it to fit their own games and concepts of the world.  Many of the previous posters have shown the tendencies that have cropped up in Greyhawk products and fandom over the years, and you're more than welcome to use them, if you like.  But if you don't, don't feel like you're not playing the world the way it's "supposed to".  Here's how I recommend you explain Greyhawk: The setting is your basic toolbox.  Canon and fanworks have additional tools that you can take if you feel you need them.  Only you can decide what tools are most useful to you in your projects, and in conjunction with your players you can cherry-pick those instruments that will be most useful to you.  Greyhawk, as originally conceived by Gary Gygax (RIP), wasn't meant to have a specific flavor, and EGG specifically says in the 1E DMG that he left things sketchy on purpose so DMs could insert their own stories, settings and histories with a minimum of fuss.  Keep that in mind, tailoring the setting to suit your specific needs, and you can't go wrong.</blockquote>

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