"in 1st Edition...every DM...assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye"?

[Savage Wombat]

This story is solidly embedded in 1e lore. It originally comes from Dragon magazine's "Point of View" articles, on the demihumans, and was later "officialized" around about UA.

The "Racial Point of View" articles were so well written and thoughtful they became more-or-less canon material as soon as the Best of Dragon came out. The Orc article is especially good.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What attitude?

If you're offended by someone talking about the old days, when Roger E. Moore's Point of View articles were wildly influential with many groups, don't read the online articles.

Gruumsh getting his eye shot out was definitely part of the default D&D lore. Heck, my favorite Dragon adventure of all time, Citadel by the Sea, relies on that myth, even though there's no suggestion that it takes place in the World of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Piratecat]

The "Racial Point of View" articles were so well written and thoughtful they became more-or-less canon material as soon as the Best of Dragon came out. The Orc article is especially good.

Okay, phew. I'm not imagining it. I remember reading that at the time, and loving the idea.

 

[diaglo]

Okay, phew. I'm not imagining it. I remember reading that at the time, and loving the idea.

yeah, not originally in the books. but it came into existance during the 1edADnD days b/c of articles in the 80's when 1edADnD was still being played and changed by supplemental books like UA and then Doug niles hardbacks.

 

[Kerrick]

What bugs me is the assumption that "just about *every* campaign every DM ran assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye, that the drow fought the other elves and were driven underground, that Acererak the lich created a Tomb of Horrors somewhere on the planet, or that the Rod of Seven Parts was lying around someplace waiting to be found."

Now, when I played 1E, back in the day, it wasn't regularly, so I didn't have any set campaign world... but when I hooked up with my current DM a few years later and got into 2E, he used a homebrew world that he and his friends had been playing in since '77 or so. No Corellon; we had Gruumsh, but he had both eyes; no Tomb of Horrors (that I know of), and definitely no Rod of Seven Parts. Or any of the other artifacts from the book, for that matter - they made their own. We do have drow, and they did have a war with the elves and were driven underground, but they're albino, not black (yeah, I know, big whoop).

What I find amusing is that the designers assume that we'd crammed Faerunian gods (Corellon, Gruumsh) and lore (drow) in with Greyhawk locations (the Tomb) in this big mish-mash of a setting. And I'm sure some people did... but not "just about *every*" DM, I can guarantee. Lots of people played straight-up Greyhawk, or FR, or something completely different.

My point is that

...we've created a new skeleton of linked assumptions (proper names, artifacts, stories) to anchor the fluff of the "implied" setting.

might not always fit with people's homebrew settings. It obviously doesn't fit with FR - they have to shoehorn the ideas in. This has been brought up before: that not everyone will have an "infernal empire", that their settings already have a set history, and that they'd have to seriously retcon them to shoehorn in said empire, the war with the dragonborn, etc.

We're not actually building a world out of the "core" setting.

Now, for my own part, I favor the idea of sketching a simple map of that setting and thinking up a name for it.

So which is it, Rich? It seems to me that there IS a metasetting there - the history, the racial backgrounds (and most likely feats and skill bonuses tied to them), even the classes all point to it. Let's call a duck a duck and be done with it, hmm?

 

[Tarek]

Corellon and Gruumsh made their first appearance in the 1st edition Deities and Demigods book, they were definitely part of the Greyhawk setting.

It was the Forgotten Realms which took the handful of Elven deities and expanded it into a large pantheon, introducing a couple dozen gods and demigods, so I understand why you might think that these two deities are "Forgotten Realms" deities.

Further, the Drow are *definitely* Greyhawk. G1-4 were set in Geoff and the Crystalmist mountains, the Underdark was under the Crystalmists (iirc), and there are hex references for the Greyhawk hexmap for the locations for all of these. The drow did not originate in the Forgotten Realms, though again it was FR which expanded and IMO overused them to the point where people identify the Drow with FR.

If anything, I find that Forgotten Realms is the "mishmash" setting which takes everything and dumps it into one huge pile without even making an attempt to make the pieces join together in any rational way.

But yes, if I weren't playing in Greyhawk, I'd be wary of slapping everything into the same world. Some things just don't fit together very well. And it does bother me a little that the designers seem to think that most people took the "Forgotten Realms" approach and just shoehorned everything into one setting.

 

[Wolfspider]

my favorite Dragon adventure of all time, Citadel by the Sea,

Oooh! Great adventure for sure! I will have to take another look at that one. Been too long.

 

[the Jester]

If anything, I find that Forgotten Realms is the "mishmash" setting which takes everything and dumps it into one huge pile without even making an attempt to make the pieces join together in any rational way.

Yep, just look at their pantheon- gods swiped from Greyhawk, Norse and Finnish and Egyptian mythology, etc.

Also, I've always resented FR for stealing Kara-Tur from its original setting in Greyhawk, as implied in the 1e OA hardback.

 

[Semah G Noj]

My thoughts exactly. I like the fact someone pointed out the error, but there isn't a reason to inflate this into a major issue.

This hasn't stopped anyone in the past.

 

[Silver Moon]

I think people are missing the point - it's mythology! With all mythologies there are different stories and different interpretations. So if on my world the people felt that Corellon and Gruumsh were best friends who drank tea together, and Gruumsh actually lost his eye as a result of a childhood accident with a Red Rider BB Gun*, that would be okay and not necessarily impact anyone else's mythology.











*Which, in fact, is actually how he lost it, despite the many warnings from his parents and teachers.