More Greyhawk questions

[Atom Again]

Hey dudes. More questions on Greyhawk:

1. How does one pronounce "Oerth" and "Flannaess"?

2. What are the quintessential Greyhawk resources for 3.0/3.5? Obviously the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer...but anything else? I've heard it said that the splatbooks (Masters of the Wild, etc.) are all Greyhawk-based/themed. True? Would it be worth picking them up to use as a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign?

3. Since Greyhawk is the "default" setting of 3.0/3.5, does this extend to the Monster Manual as well? In other words, if the Monster Manual says "Creature X does Y and is usually found in Z climates" should one assume this is true of the Flannaess?

4. How important is metaplot/back story to Greyhawk? If I try to run a Greyhawk campaign will I be bombarded with Greyhawk fanatics who will get angry that I'm doing something "wrong" with the setting or that I am missing out an important historical detail? (i.e. "How can there be orcs in this region? They were all driven out in the War of the Sacred Stone ten years ago!")

Thanks brothers! I'm really getting fascinated by Greyhawk...never looked at it much before but it may just become my new default setting.


Atom Again
[who recently kicked the Forgotten Realms hive mind in the stones]

 

[Volaran]

1. Though I've always liked the sound of "Orth", I believe the official pronunciation is "Oith".

Of course, if I'm wrong, this will soon be corrected.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Hey dudes. More questions on Greyhawk:

1. How does one pronounce "Oerth" and "Flannaess"?

Oerth: Depends, most pronounce it "orth", I've also heard it "oyth" and "urth".
Flanaess: "Flan-EHS"

2. What are the quintessential Greyhawk resources for 3.0/3.5? Obviously the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer...but anything else? I've heard it said that the splatbooks (Masters of the Wild, etc.) are all Greyhawk-based/themed. True? Would it be worth picking them up to use as a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign?

You'll want to look at the Living Greyhawk Journals. They are now in Dungeon/Polyhedron. Past issues were placed in Dragon magazine, and prior to that it was an independant magazine in its own right.

3. Since Greyhawk is the "default" setting of 3.0/3.5, does this extend to the Monster Manual as well? In other words, if the Monster Manual says "Creature X does Y and is usually found in Z climates" should one assume this is true of the Flannaess?

Yeah, you probably could assume it. Certain regions, of course, are known to have historical presences of certain monsters, while another region with the same exact climate has never seen the monster. But only Greyhawk fanatics would know minutia like this.

4. How important is metaplot/back story to Greyhawk? If I try to run a Greyhawk campaign will I be bombarded with Greyhawk fanatics who will get angry that I'm doing something "wrong" with the setting or that I am missing out an important historical detail? (i.e. "How can there be orcs in this region? They were all driven out in the War of the Sacred Stone ten years ago!")

You will most cerainly be bombarded by Greyhawk fanatics, after all, they would be fanatics! The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer has gathered almost all metaplots and backstory into a single book, so if you have this, you will be able to learn nearly anything a fanatic might know about. That said, most Greyhawkers, even the fanatics, understand that the point of Greyhawk was to leave enough room for every DM to make the setting his own. Metaplot and story will be important to fanatics, but that cannot be avoided.

You should take a loot at Canonfire!, a Greyhawk fansite that is not devoted to any version of the rules. There is a lot there which fans have contributed to. If anything, you will see just how varied individual Greyhawks are out there, enough to give you confidence to go nuts with Greyhawk yourself. www.canonfire.com


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Alzrius]

Hey dudes. More questions on Greyhawk:

1. How does one pronounce "Oerth" and "Flannaess"?

I've yet to see any official pronounciation guides for these, though older materials may have had something for that.

Oerth was originally conceived of as being an alternate Earth, or something like that, though this design was dropped before the original Greyhawk setting was released; hence the name's similarity to "Earth". In that vein, I think it should be pronounced "oh-earth".

As for the Flaeness, I always pronounced it "flan-ess", but again, no official word on that that I know if.

2. What are the quintessential Greyhawk resources for 3.0/3.5? Obviously the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer...but anything else?

Sadly, no. With the possible exception of the D&D Gazeteer, which is like the entire Living Greyhawk Gazeteer compressed down to a tenth of the pages, there is nothing that even remotely resembles a setting book for Greyhawk in 3E or 3.5E.

I've heard it said that the splatbooks (Masters of the Wild, etc.) are all Greyhawk-based/themed. True? Would it be worth picking them up to use as a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign?

It is true, but that doesn't mean it has much Greyhawk content. Basically, all the D&D books out now that are generic use Greyhawk, but only as (as you noted below) a default. This means that no additional Greyhawk material is given beyond what is absolutely needed. If a paragraph needs to mention an evil god, it'll be a Greyhawk god, but it won't go into more detail than that, for example.

3. Since Greyhawk is the "default" setting of 3.0/3.5, does this extend to the Monster Manual as well? In other words, if the Monster Manual says "Creature X does Y and is usually found in Z climates" should one assume this is true of the Flannaess?

For the most part, yes. The creatures in the MM could all be conceivably found in the Flaeness.

4. How important is metaplot/back story to Greyhawk?

I'm inclined to say it's rather important. Although it's being somewhat "watered down" now, Greyhawk is a fully-fledged setting, with decades of history for it.

If I try to run a Greyhawk campaign will I be bombarded with Greyhawk fanatics who will get angry that I'm doing something "wrong" with the setting or that I am missing out an important historical detail? (i.e. "How can there be orcs in this region? They were all driven out in the War of the Sacred Stone ten years ago!")

That probably depends more on the players you get than anything else. I'd try to be prepared for it though. You'd be best served in this regard by avoiding unofficial sites like Canonfire!, since they don't have official material, and it sounds like you're concerned a lot with things like the official campaign history.

 

[JeffB]

The Greyhawk Players Guide (circa 1998) had a pronunciation guide for various greyhawk places and peoples.

 

[grodog]

Hi again Atom.

Hey dudes. More questions on Greyhawk:
1. How does one pronounce "Oerth" and "Flannaess"?

On this Q you'll want to check out the thread on the WotC Greyhawk board at http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?threadid=161674
Definitely good stuff there.

2. What are the quintessential Greyhawk resources for 3.0/3.5? Obviously the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer...but anything else? I've heard it said that the splatbooks (Masters of the Wild, etc.) are all Greyhawk-based/themed. True? Would it be worth picking them up to use as a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign?

The single best resource is the Living Greyhawk Journal (published 5 distinct magazines, then got rolled into Dragon, then Polyhedron, now in Dungeon). For an index of the LGJ issues, see Canonfire! at www.canonfire.com

3. Since Greyhawk is the "default" setting of 3.0/3.5, does this extend to the Monster Manual as well? In other words, if the Monster Manual says "Creature X does Y and is usually found in Z climates" should one assume this is true of the Flannaess?

You can probably make most monsters fit within GH, without too much trouble. Don't forget that some GH original monsters were published in Monsters of Faerun too (bullywuys, peryton, etc.).

4. How important is metaplot/back story to Greyhawk? If I try to run a Greyhawk campaign will I be bombarded with Greyhawk fanatics who will get angry that I'm doing something "wrong" with the setting or that I am missing out an important historical detail? (i.e. "How can there be orcs in this region? They were all driven out in the War of the Sacred Stone ten years ago!")

Greyhawk is what you make of it: do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law Seriously, though, the whole idea of Canonfire! is that you can fold/spindle/mutilate canon to your heart's content, and that it is a good thing if it makes your GH game a better place!

Thanks brothers! I'm really getting fascinated by Greyhawk...never looked at it much before but it may just become my new default setting.

Glad to hear it! You should definitely drop by some of the dedicated Greyhawk forums, Atom Again---you'll get everyone else's undivided attention, and a lot more GH input to your queries as as result.

 

[grodog]

You'd be best served in this regard by avoiding unofficial sites like Canonfire!, since they don't have official material, and it sounds like you're concerned a lot with things like the official campaign history.

Actually, FWIW, not everything on Canonfire! is 100% unofficial. There is a fair amount of apocryphal material there that was cut from the LGG, various LGJ articles, original materials from Gygax and Kuntz's campaigns, etc. So, some of the stuff on Canonfire! is a bit less unofficial than others....

 

[johnsemlak]

Actually, FWIW, not everything on Canonfire! is 100% unofficial. There is a fair amount of apocryphal material there that was cut from the LGG, various LGJ articles, original materials from Gygax and Kuntz's campaigns, etc. So, some of the stuff on Canonfire! is a bit less unofficial than others....

Interesting.

I was having an argument with a friend about 'official greyhawk'. He said he wanted to stick to 'Official' greyhawk, meaning all stuff by WotC (which includes all TSR stuff). So that includes all the 2e stuff, which which was of varying quality and also by people with different visions of the setting. He also wanted and to avoid all 'unofficial' material such as that found on the Canonfire site.

However I guess he believes by sticking ot WotC's current version of Greyhawk, he can have some amount of consistancy.

I tried to argue for a more critical look at what to regard is 'canon'. My arguemnt is if you include everything published by TSR/WotC in all editions you get a entagled mess of conflicting ideas, and plus some stuff that's not very good quality.

I guess some people just have different ideas on what they want out of Greyhawk.

As posted above, Greyhawk is what you make of it.

 

[Olive]

Actually, FWIW, not everything on Canonfire! is 100% unofficial. There is a fair amount of apocryphal material there that was cut from the LGG, various LGJ articles, original materials from Gygax and Kuntz's campaigns, etc. So, some of the stuff on Canonfire! is a bit less unofficial than others....

Anything in particular?

 

[Calico_Jack73]

4. How important is metaplot/back story to Greyhawk? If I try to run a Greyhawk campaign will I be bombarded with Greyhawk fanatics who will get angry that I'm doing something "wrong" with the setting or that I am missing out an important historical detail? (i.e. "How can there be orcs in this region? They were all driven out in the War of the Sacred Stone ten years ago!")

In the end it is your campaign. Do whatever you want with the setting. WOTC isn't going to come drag you to court just because you come up with some plot that kills off Mordenkainen. Your players need to understand that for your story to work you've got to be allowed to play with the background. If they don't like it then explain to them that this same issue is the reason that the Dragonlance setting is so static. Nobody wants to mess with the setting lest they disrupt the delicate balance of the background story. Fie on that!!! Mess with it all you want. I came to this realization on my own recently. In another discussion someone had decided that in their campaign the Blood War between the Demons & Devils had come to an end and now the powers of the Abyss and the Nine Hells were turning their attentions solely on the prime. Despite how unlikely it would be for the Demons and Devils to ever decide to cooperate it is all up to the DM. My own campaign is going to be richer for my new view on DMing (I hope). IMC I am going to have Asmodeus finally attain godhood and he'll rally the evil gods to his banner. One of my players is a Cleric of Torm and Asmodeus is going to destroy Torm first (yes, this is all taking place in the Forgotten Realms). The Cleric will suffer the stigmata of his diety being destroyed and until he can realign his faith to a surviving god he will be without his powers. The whole point is that in the end it is up to the players to save the day no matter what the setting may be. Most people would say that Mystra wouldn't allow my story to happen or Elminster would step up and thwart Asmodeus plans but to hell with that. I want the story to go MY way!