FW: The big picture

Date Sent: Mon, Sep 1997 09:35:00 -0700
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From: “Matthewson, Kent” pykm@FINANCE.UBC.CA
Subject: [GREYTALK] FW: The big picture
To: GREYTALK@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

From: Anders Lindborg

“In the Guide to the World of Greyhawk a small map shows the larger continent that the Flanaess is a part of. Was any of this area developed by Gary Gygax or the other early contributors to the World of Greyhawk? If so, has any of that material been published?”

There’s two answers to this.

Mr. Gygax developed these areas in a very peripheral way by means of references in his “Gord the Rogue” series. He mentions the Suhfang Kingdom, and Changol, Jahind, and Mulwar to the south and the folk of Sa’han, Behow and Chomur to the west.

By inference from one of the characters in “Sea of Dust”, Jahind would correspond in some respects to India. The Sufang Kingdom corresponds possibly to China or another far eastern nation.

Things are more complicated than this, of course.

There also appeared a little while back a map in the Dragon Annual – a fairly simple sketch of the remaining continental land masses of Oerth, with labels of various nations and empires, and a quick summary of these areas by Skip Wilson. The article says that the map was drawn by Dave Sutherland with “the world’s original creator” (they don’t mention EGG by name – probably taboo).

However, Mr. Gygax has recently mentioned that he did not make that map (I tentatively ask if it’s possible Mr. Gygax simply forgot? It was a long time ago, and the map looks the result of just a quick brainstorming session, not a sustained and detailed effort). I suppose the only way to really find out who did compose the map is to write Dave Sutherland and ask him.

You can find this map, and a much clearer and detailed version (including lat/long lines on my website:

CODEX OF GREYHAWK,
The encyclopaedic collection of Greyhawk material on the net:

http://142.103.100.20:80/users/students/matthews/greyhawk/

Kent Matthewson