D&D General How To Reconcile the Settings

[Coroc]

So you would possibly have (albeit rare) a tiefling in oerth if they were explicitly descended from graz'zt? He has some of the earliest cannon entries for signifficantly populous tiefling lines (even though this might seriously rankle 5e players as tieflings are an exclusively infernally touched race now whereas in the grazzts rowdy college days he was causing them to exist left and right)

I would, but not as a PC. In fact I allow tieflings as a PC race in my current GHK campaign, but only when they descend from some Batezuu, so have devlish origins. Those who are demonic offspring are the enemy, since major plot arc is party vs Iuz schemes.
If there are many demons running around, like in Greyhawk in those areas where Iuz rules it totally makes sense that some may have offspring. In fact Iuz himself is some kind of tiefling, since his mother at least once was human.
Devils might be interested what the demons are doing on Oerth and have their own agents in play and create offspring as well.
So in this case this absolutely makes sense, but dragonborn? Where did they hide all the time? Did some spelljammer crash which brought them? Nope I just ignore them, they might be fun and make sense in different settigns but not in Greyhawk (unless from a crashed the spelljammer, but never native).

 

[Tonguez]

Its really about the story you want to tell and how those races interact. I‘ve done post industrial urban setting with just Humans, Dwarfs, Half-Ogre,, Sidhe and Goblins (also had a ghoul PC join that party), a setting based on tropical islands and decided the the native humanoids were goblins, gnomes, goliaths. Humans were new settlers just starting to expand. No Elfs, no Dwarfs, no Halflings, no Tieflings or anything else (though I did have some Aakaroka NPCs and considered using sea elves for underwater encounters)

Then there are the general settings where I allow players to choose any race they want and then make those races the only races the PCs will encounter in the setting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My trick is time spheres, like parallel earths or alternative timelines. This allows crazy mash-up, for example Dragonlance with the hyperborea-punk of Dark Sun, or the Dark Powers from the demiplane of the dread invading and tainting a complete crystal sphere in the material plane.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would, but not as a PC. In fact I allow tieflings as a PC race in my current GHK campaign, but only when they descend from some Batezuu, so have devlish origins. Those who are demonic offspring are the enemy, since major plot arc is party vs Iuz schemes.
If there are many demons running around, like in Greyhawk in those areas where Iuz rules it totally makes sense that some may have offspring. In fact Iuz himself is some kind of tiefling, since his mother at least once was human.
Devils might be interested what the demons are doing on Oerth and have their own agents in play and create offspring as well.
So in this case this absolutely makes sense, but dragonborn? Where did they hide all the time? Did some spelljammer crash which brought them? Nope I just ignore them, they might be fun and make sense in different settigns but not in Greyhawk (unless from a crashed the spelljammer, but never native).

Yeah if Iuz is a major component of your campaign Tiefling PCs are problematic even if they're a renegade.

Justifying one is can be done I think but that's also why a special race could be restricted to one per party.

Foreigners also work but it's annoying if everyone wants to do that.

In Midgard I ended up with 2/6 foreigners in not Egypt. I did say some things like DC would be lower for locals in some cases.

 

[Hussar]

Yes put in a sidebar saying this is where Tieflings come from but they are rare.

Only one rate race per party (maybe 2 if it's a 6+ person party).

Tiefling make a reasonable amount of sense on Greyhawk, but they probably won't have it easy.

But if you have a party of a Drow, Tiefling, Half Orc, Gith and Goliath you're kinda missing the point IMHO.

Personally I'll probably use alignment and racial restrictions on a 5E GH Homebrew.

Heh, our Ghosts of Saltmarsh has an orc, firbolg, gnome artificer and a human. And, guess what? It fits into Greyhawk perfectly without any problem.

 

[Zardnaar]

Heh, our Ghosts of Saltmarsh has an orc, firbolg, gnome artificer and a human. And, guess what? It fits into Greyhawk perfectly without any problem.

You can still have fun but it's not really classic Greyhawk.

You're basically playing FR with a Greyhawk skin at that point. What makes GH different than FR if it's anything goes?

Artificer could fit FR maybe, Dragonlance maybe, Midgard yes, Spelljammer yes,

 

[Hussar]

You can still have fun but it's not really classic Greyhawk.

You're basically playing FR with a Greyhawk skin at that point. What makes GH different than FR if it's anything goes?

Artificer could fit FR maybe, Dragonlance maybe, Midgard yes, Spelljammer yes,

Nope. You are wrong. It's pretty much classic Greyhawk.

Artificers have been in Greyhawk for a LONG time. Lum the Mad, Murylynd, Kwalish. Nebulun, gnomish god of inventions has been around since 1992. So on and so forth. Let's not forget fallen spaceships like the Warden II. Not sure why you would think that artificers don't fit in Greyhawk.

What makes GH different from Forgotten Realms is that GH is largely undetailed. All the nooks and crannies haven't been filled in by decades of lore in GH. It's largely a DM's setting and the expectation is that NO ONE plays a "classic" Greyhawk. Greyhawk is the setting that you make your own long before you feel that you have to kowtow to any notion of "canon".

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I would, but not as a PC. In fact I allow tieflings as a PC race in my current GHK campaign, but only when they descend from some Batezuu, so have devlish origins. Those who are demonic offspring are the enemy, since major plot arc is party vs Iuz schemes.
If there are many demons running around, like in Greyhawk in those areas where Iuz rules it totally makes sense that some may have offspring. In fact Iuz himself is some kind of tiefling, since his mother at least once was human.
Devils might be interested what the demons are doing on Oerth and have their own agents in play and create offspring as well.
So in this case this absolutely makes sense, but dragonborn? Where did they hide all the time? Did some spelljammer crash which brought them? Nope I just ignore them, they might be fun and make sense in different settigns but not in Greyhawk (unless from a crashed the spelljammer, but never native).

Ive seen luz called a cambion and a teifling in different published pieces. The difference really is just how much outsider blood that author decided luz had. If i remember correctly.

Its interesting that tieflings started out mostly the descendants of grazzt (such as luz and his descendants/cousins) and now are mostly descendants of baatezu.

There are also some weird reproductive plot holes with the baatezu descended ones that i wonder if by 5.5 will be filled.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I would, but not as a PC. In fact I allow tieflings as a PC race in my current GHK campaign, but only when they descend from some Batezuu, so have devlish origins. Those who are demonic offspring are the enemy, since major plot arc is party vs Iuz schemes.
If there are many demons running around, like in Greyhawk in those areas where Iuz rules it totally makes sense that some may have offspring. In fact Iuz himself is some kind of tiefling, since his mother at least once was human.
Devils might be interested what the demons are doing on Oerth and have their own agents in play and create offspring as well.
So in this case this absolutely makes sense, but dragonborn? Where did they hide all the time? Did some spelljammer crash which brought them? Nope I just ignore them, they might be fun and make sense in different settigns but not in Greyhawk (unless from a crashed the spelljammer, but never native).

also yeah. Whenever i mess around in oerth i ignore the dragonborns too. I also feel lke they are a major shoe horn. They just dont fit.

 

[Larnievc]

When I used to run a home brew Midkemia campaign we only had humans, elves and dwarves and gnomes (re skinned as another type of dwarf).

That worked okay