Edena_of_Neith said:
Unfortunately, the evil guys did enjoy killing ... and the evil guys killed almost every last person in Medegia.
Medegia had a capable military, despite Osson's assault (see the History of the Greyhawk Wars.) They could even have allied with Osson.
Medegia's army and Osson's army put together, could not have saved Medegia. They were militarily overwhelmed.
The question now is: given 100 years to prepare, how could they have prepared a military strong enough to withstand Ivid's juggernaut?
Be they bloodthirsty or not, they must find some answer, or face annihilation.
Well, they could just ignore From the As*ses, since it's crap anyhow.
Arkhandus said:
Yet the only reason Medegia was crushed so thoroughly in canon is because the authors felt like it, as an example and a sign of just how evil Ivid and his forces had become. And you continue to deny every possibility as though the authors had not, in fact, chosen to destroy Medegia purely on narrative whim. And yet that's exactly what they did. There was no in-game reason for Medegia to have been doomed. They could have seen the signs of Ivid's corruption and made secret preparations just in case. They could have done something. Ivid was not omniscient.
If Medegia's fate had been determined by actual PC-influenced events, it would've managed to ward off Ivid through all kinds of plans and tricks and alliances, building up enough power and sowing enough discord in Ivid's forces that, when the time came, Medegia would be able to turn Ivid's army aside with bolstered military forces and an extra-large number of mages and clerics on-hand. Because PCs, being clever and resourceful usually, would have done what was needed to forge alliances between Medegia and others, send out Medegians to learn magic and bring in loot from slain monsters to fund the escalating military and magic training in Medegia, etc.
So true. FtA was not well based on the pre-existing Greyhawk reality and did not take into account the tons of adventures scooting around that world. Instead, the changes it brought are a series of ad hoc deus ex machina changes made only because they seems kewl. Compare the Greyhawk boxed set cover with the FtA boxed set cover: undead riders on undead horses is wai kewler than knights on chargers.
If PC's had been allowed to intervene in these world changing re-writes, the various ways they could have saved Medegia (if anyone cared to):
-- Return to the Isle of the Apes, get the Crook of Rao, banish the Deux Ex Machina demon hordes from the armies of Iuz and Ivid
-- Assassinate or "save" Ivid
-- Cause a civil war between Rauxes, Ahlissa, the North Kingdom, and Rel Astra. Not too hard, it would seem.
-- Bring Medegia into alliance with:
--- The Iron League. Rebels against the crown of the Great Kingdom. This probably wouldn't have worked out well.
--- Almor and Nyrond. Enemies of the Great Kingdom, just outside its borders.
--- Rel Astra. Nobody ever messes with Rel Astra.
--- The Scarlet Brotherhood & the Lordship of the Isles. This could be a very bad idea, but it sounds far more interesting than what happened in FtA. And if you think this sort of thing never happens, nice little social democratic Finland allied with the Nazis to hold off the Soviets in WWII. If you think that's just an odd example of strange bedfellows, the Nazis and Nationalist Chinese were pals (the German general in charge of the Netherlands during the war trained the KMT army), until the Nazis and Imperial Japan allied. Evil is often flexible.
-- Run away! Lead the people into the Vast Swamp and worship the lich there. In a fight of Acererak versus Ivid, nobody would bet on boring Ivid.
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