From: Stéphane Tanguay
Subject: [GREYTALK] GH notes from GenCon
Hi everybody !
> Is THIS the "exciting" news TSR had to tell us about Greyhawk? I sure hope not!
From my own GH notes at GenCon (please remember that english is not my first language so I could stand corrected):
NO Hardcover or Faith and Avatars style book are coming.
Sean did finish a "Return to the Slave Lord", set in 591 CY. The story begin in Dyvers and goes along the wild Coast, into the buffer zone and the Pomarj. It is a 128 pages document, divided in 4 sections, each section containing about 25 % source material, 25% informations on the Slave Lords, 25% on how to introduce your group to this adventure and 25% of adventure hooks. Should be for level 4-7 at the beggining. I think it will be released in spring 2000, in 2nd edition format.
If there is ever a Faith and Avatars product done, chances are that the Avatars part will be slim since Greyhawk don,t have much of an history in term of avatars intervention.
There is no deadline set for the Big Flanaess map that Kij Jonhson was working on. The map is about 4' by 5' and defy most attemps at printing it. At this moment, the map is in the Cartography department at TSR, being rendered in suitable format (it was originnaly hand drawn). In the meanwhile, the map is used as an internal tools by GH products designers. We may see some excerpt of it in future products featuring GH.
They will be other novels like Against the Giant. White Plum Mountain, by Paul Kidd, is due October and a Descent into the Depths of the Earth is announced for spring 2000.
Chances are that we will see other "Return to..." type modules.
There is also a chance that we will see something with Iuz as someone at WotC (Adkinson ? I can't remeber...) is quit fond of this villain.
A new Rogue Gallery is on the wish list. Some of these NPC make an appearance in the Return to the Slaves Lord adventure.
It is possible that we see a "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" since Gary is back in WotC fold and that it is hard not to imagine him NOT doing it.
There is plans to put everything GH on a CD-ROM.
WotC will keep the timeline in GH at 591 CY and, in fact, will probably don't release more GH specific products, since GH will be the default world for the core products, the same way GH was the default world for the first edition rulebooks and modules. Supposedly that Return to White Plume Montain will be a good exemple of this new philosophy (RTTKOTB was NOT a good example !). Even the map in the core products shall fit nicely in Greyhawk New development in Greyhawk proper will be done by the Living Greyhawk campaign. Erik Mona is presently working on a gazetter which will include 2-3 pages on each nation and a timeline, for the least. He hope to be able to send this information to regional triad by november. There is a good chance that this information will be more generally released by the begginning of 2000, either as an RPGA only thing, or for general public consumption, with maybe a RPGA pre-release. They just don't know yet so please don't jump at them ! As Erik is making good use of Roger Moore's notes, there is even a lesser chance that we see an new hardcover one day.
WotC want the RPGA (and Living Greyhawk) to become a big thing. There is a lot of activity going on there and we shall expect to see more and more GH articles in Polyhedron
Against the Giants was sold out at GenCon on the second day IIRC. Sean added 65 000 words to the original 32 000 words of the trilogy. I won't go further into this, since Samwise already posted a review.
Morgan Rodwell is gonna be the new OJ editor. He plan to accept shorter articles (along with the longer ones) and non-canon GH articles. They are always looking for volontary editor.
At Gary's "Evolution of the Greyhawk world", we were able to get some interesting tidbits, the most surprising being that Nyrond was indeed behind the Scarlet Brotherhood when this one kidnapped Thrommel. How about that for an interesting twist ?
Gary also found his originals notes for Castle Greyhawk and I hope someday they are going to see the light. Lisa Stevens and a few others had a chance to have a look at it.
Looks like someone from Texas really has the original of Gary's Stoink map. Gary told us how surprised he was when that guy contacted him to certify the authenticity of this map.
Hope this help !
Stéphane Tanguay
stanguay@francomm.com
P.S. it was great fun to meet with other GH fans before that only known online. I met Paul Stormberg, Scott Casper, Erik Mona, Steve Wilson, Morgan Rodwell, Nathan Irving, Rick Miller, Wayne Rossi, Tom Harrison, Nathan Irving, Kenneth Newkist and two other Blackrazor guild members, etc. Many of them looks quite different in real life than you can imagine online. I look forward to meet them again.
