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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 5865066" data-attributes="member: 6688049">The relevant passage in the Foreword of the 1983 Guide to the World of Greyhawk: "...The Savant-Sage is known to have lived in the city of Greyhawk during Oerth's Epoch of Magic. Evidence suggests that this was not the first age in Oerth history, hut nothing exists to indicate how many ages preceded it, or intervened between it and the present. Late in this period, the Savant-Sage compiled his "Catalogue of the Land Flanaess, being the Eastern Portion of the Continent Oerik, of Oerth." Out of this epic seven-volume work, only the third volume survives: "A Guide to the World of Greyhawk". The topics discussed in the other six volumes are unknown, but the complete encyclopedia is believed to have covered almost every aspect of life in the Flanaess.""The Sage's work was not widely circulated during his lifetime. It disappeared completely after his death, and did not reappear until several centuries later, when a copy was discovered in an Illithid's lair in the Riftcanyon. This copy eventually found its way to the Royal University at Rel Mord, where it was examined by Pluffet Smedger, the Elder, a scholar and historian. Despite the fact that the encyclopedia was by this time several centuries out of date, Smedger was impressed by its freshness and thoroughness.""Smedger spent several decades compiling glossographies for each volume, detailing facts and information overlooked by the Savant-Sage, or too recent to have been included in the original. When Smedger's work was finished, the Encyclopedia became a standard reference catalogue in universities and libraries throughout the civilized areas of the Flanaess.""To aid his study of the Sage's books, Smedger the Elder created mathematical models, or games, that he used with his students at the university to recreate and examine historical events and political interactions described by the Sage. During Smedger's time, magic was not a lost art, but, apparently, a fading one. Happily, Smedger the Elder's curiosity and genius preserved a priceless relic from a world that no longer exists..." The bold-face sentence gives the in-story origin of the D&D game.</blockquote>

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