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

[Scribble]

But if you restrict the discussion solely to 1E, then the accounts are consistent on all those points -- Gruumsh had one middle eye; it wasn't shot out by Corellon; Gruumsh used a spear. No one can show any 1E quote to the contrary.

The only funny inconsistency is the Moore article saying Correllon missed the one eye, when DDG says Corellon never missed anything. There's the mythology.

What I want to know is which came first, the chicken or the egg so to speak...

Did the 2e account create the idea for the players? Or did the players already commonly accepting that as the real story give rise to the idea for the article?

 

[Vocenoctum]

Kenobi: Its not about being offended. I wouldn't be offended if they named me personally and tried. I'd find that flat out funny. No, its about being written off as a customer. I am not very happy about that, since in the past I liked and bought some WotC stuff. That seems unlikely now.

As a gnome fan, I welcome you to our group and hope you enjoy the view.

 

[Glyfair]

To add to the trivia-fest:

The demi-human deities where not originally part of the Oerth/Greyhawk pantheon(s). .

To be fair, much of what was published about Greyhawk (from the beginning) was not part of the Greyhawk campaign.

They where done by those other then Gygax in Deities and Demigods, and then expanded in Dragon by others (Roger Moore?), but always presented as "generic" alternatives to the human centric Norse, Greek, and other pantheons from Deities and Demigods. Of course, Col. Pladoh confused the issue by reprinting the expanded pantheons in Unearthed Arcana. But they where not part of the World of Greyhawk boxed set (any cross reference?), and he has noted on these boards that he did not use them, and that they where not needed for Greyhawk. Though he of course has no problem with people using them.

I'm pretty sure that Gygax "wrote" a letter to Dragon complimenting the racial deity articles and stating that as far as he was concerned they were official from then on (I'll have to check this when I get back to my Dragon review thread).

He might not have used them in his campaign, but "official Greyhawk" and "Gary's Greyhawk" were not necessarily the same.

 

[T. Foster]

The 1983 WoG set didn't mention any of Jim Ward's non-human deities from D&Dg in the god-listings and mentioned demi-human and/or humanoid worshippers of various of the gods that were detailed (elven worshippers are mentioned in the Ehlonna write-up, dwarves and gnomes in another one, several of the evil gods mention humanoid worshippers, etc.) which led me to believe at the time that the D&Dg gods didn't exist on Oerth. With the later canonization of the Moore material I think there was some implicit (or even explicit in one of the later Dragon articles?) retconning along the lines of "demi-humans in human-dominated areas tend to worship the human deities but in their own lands they worship their own gods."

 

[Delta]

Of course, the other thing is that Lolth and Blibdoolpoolp (clearly creations from the Greyhawk-based GDQ series) were sitting in the Nonhuman Deities' section of DDG, right alongside Corellon, Gruumsh, and all the rest. So to my 10-year-old-mind, that sort of carried the implication that they were all equal status in the Greyhawk campaign.

 

[Mark Hope]

What I want to know is which came first, the chicken or the egg so to speak...

Did the 2e account create the idea for the players? Or did the players already commonly accepting that as the real story give rise to the idea for the article?

I'd guess that the picture of Gruumsh that accompanies the article on orcs in Dragon #62 may have helped give rise to the idea that Gruumsh used to have two eyes, but lost one. As pointed out above, he is shown with an eye-patch over his left eye in that article (as opposed to the cyclops image that prevails elsewhere.) I wouldn't be surprised if that had something to do with it - it's a cool picture and may well have stuck in the memory longer and more clearly than the intricate details of the text. That way the story could well have its origins in 1e after all, lol

 

[TerraDave]

T.Foster, Delta, Glyfair: thanks and good points.


Thats the great thing about the D&D "canon": it doesn't really exist...

 

[Sanguinemetaldawn]

To address a topic of actual substance here: the eye patch in Dragon Magazine is a good point. Lets look at what else the artist screwed up: look at the armor he is wearing. Only a generous interpretation would call that "gleaming black platemail". Scale mail possibly, more probably splint mail. And he is missing the torch he supposedly appears with.

The artist mirrors a tendency of artists (and editors) to get things wrong from time to time, resulting in things like "Reynardia" (actually Reynard's) supposed lesbianism from WG6 Isle of the Ape, of the screw-up of the Eye of Fire into the eyeball with the upper lash aflame in the Temple of Elemental Evil, instead of the correct Y-shape in Triangle, and so on.

On the further topic of the great value of details from Dungeon #62, we can consider the veneration of Miss Piggy from the Muppets by some orcs of Dungeons and Dragons, as described here by Roger Moore:

"Only time will tell whether they worship a true goddess or just a picture; whether they shall fade away with time, or whether the orcs will someday all follow the ways of the mysterious goddess known as 'Mispigie.' "

Good stuff.



To address the ankle-biters:

Re-reading my posts, the only statement I have been able to possibly construe as melodramatic was the statement about stepping on a dead animal.

So see if you can follow me here.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was once an actively supported game system. Generally, supported game systems are described as "living". Now it is no longer supported. Generally speaking, when a game system is no longer supported, it is described as "dead".

Everything clear so far?

Now, I am constructing an example to convey a point about AD&D. AD&D was once "living", and is now "dead" (see above). So, for the example, I want to use something that could have once been living, and could now be dead. Lets see. We have microorganisms, we have protazoa, we have fungi, we have plants, and we have animals. Pretty much everything else is an object, and thus could not be living. Arguably I could have used a sun/star for the example. I actually like that better, but didn't think of it at the time. So, I chose animal, because likening AD&D to a once-living protozoa, or once-living fungi would be...weird.

So now what action do I use as symbolic of the designer's action?

Spitting on something? No...thats disrespect. Disrespect requires acknowledgement, which is the opposite of the point I am making. Besides, no overt disrespect is expressed. Dismissal is the point. So how does one interact with a once living, now dead thing, without acknowledging it/ignoring it? Maybe...stepping on it...? Like a dead worm, dead frog, dead slug etc...



But perhaps you're right. Perhaps my statement draws in mind the image of a disconsolate nerd with rivers of sorrow cascading down my cheeks. I can only aspire to the detachment and clarity of a three line post of insults that reads as if it was written in 30 seconds by someone frothing at the mouth.

So maybe my example is too "melodramatic". If thats the case, by all means, instruct me in the better formulation of my example, that I might improve my communication skills. Perhaps if I had described it as "Ignoring a dead plant" my cool reason and detachment would have been better exhibited. Yes, there it is. "D&D 4E designers treat 1E like ignoring a dead plant." Much better.


Further...

Lets assume the designer in question was, in fact, part of some first edition campaign that didn't have/ignored D&Dg, that got Dragon #62 yet didn't read the article (but why would they think Corellon would have done it without reading the article? Why isn't it just some scar from battle?). So the DM/group/player in question ignores what would be the reliable sources, and takes this picture to be the source, and comes to the conclusion that almost all campaigns thought Corellon put out Gruumsh's eye, based on the solid anecdotal evidence of his/her highly accurate and normal playing group. Well, then I must bow to your superior reason:

Excellent point!! Bravo, sirrah, you have won the day!




Though I must riposte in all three groups I played with during 1E, neither I nor any of them thought Corellon put out Gruumsh's eye, whether he had one or two to begin with. But Uh oh! Thats anecdotal, and we all know how worthless that is next to the accuracy of a good poll.

Coming right up!

 

[Henry]

Sanguine, let's please cut the sarcasm; if someone's calling you out or tossing insults, using the "report a post" function on their posts works a lot better than escalating it with name-calling or sarcasm of your own.

Thanks.

 

[Sanguinemetaldawn]

Sanguine, let's please cut the sarcasm; if someone's calling you out or tossing insults, using the "report a post" function on their posts works a lot better than escalating it with name-calling or sarcasm of your own.

Thanks.

It was supposed to be genuinely funny, aside from a few minor points. This thread has become ridiculous already. Whats really funny is how angry people become about such insignificant things.

It would be different (IMO and in all seriousness) if I was a designer for a new edition, and thereby dictating the broad gaming environment the future years. Me?

Not so much.