Re: Greyhawk Grumbler

Re: [greytalk] Greyhawk Grumbler
Monday, November 16, 2009 10:37 AM
From: "Chris Anderson"
To: "Mark Carscadden" Cc: "greytalk"

Just so we're clear... the first printing presses were simply weights pressing wood block type down onto paper. I think that's well within Greyhawk's technical base.

Later on, the screw was introduced... so that you could screw a flat plate down against the woodblock, against the paper.

-- Chris

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Mark Carscadden wrote:

I think a printing press is something that would be a better fit in the FR setting, IMO. Gygax would have certainly at least briefly mentioned something as significant as a printing press if it existed in his setting. But as always, that's the way it will be in MY Greyhawk campaign...
----- Original Message -----
From: Wade Nolen
To: 'greytalk'
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:36 PM
Subject: RE: [greytalk] Greyhawk Grumbler

Insisting that the print run of the Grumbler is more than the population of the Free City of Greyhawk itself is the utmost sheer folly.

And beyond that … the “single guy” is doing the same thing in CoGH … no one said that these things are everywhere. No one said that there are more than just the Grumbler (although we know that there are two.) This is a localized thing, specific to Greyhawk City, and what’s more, there’s nothing (of which I am aware, other than the author’s post-script here) that it’s not wood-block printing, or something other than the “mechanized” stuff that you insist on. There were printing presses long before Industrialization or the Mechanized era.

Wade K. Nolen
aka "Icarus "

I'm off to gallivant among the clouds!
" ... and he did fly, and he was seen on the wings of the wind."

From: CJ MacLean [mailto:icar@shaw.ca]
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 2:57 PM
To: 'greytalk'
Subject: RE: [greytalk] Greyhawk Grumbler

I'm not talking about a single guy with bits of clay producing 20 copies of something. I am talking about the level of mechanization society has to have for a press run of 5000-30,000 (or more).

From: Vest III, Robert W [mailto:rvest@ius.edu]
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:15 PM
To: 'greytalk'
Subject: RE: [greytalk] Greyhawk Grumbler

There is actually a canonical precedent for having printing presses in the Flanaess. See the Age of Worms backdrop article on Alhaster (Dungeon 131), which mentions an underground broadsheet in Alhaster called The Sinchaser Report.