Stump the Greyhawk Team, round 3

From: (No Name Available) [Archimagus@AOL.COM]

Sent: Thursday, December 17, 1998 2:50 PM

To: GREYTALK@mitvma.mit.edu

Subject: Re: [GREYTALK] Round 3 - Stump the Greyhawk Team

« Other RPGA material includes: The entire "Rats" series and the "Star Legacy" series are also placed clearly in Greyhawk. These modules include maps of the city of Littleberg, an ancient city of the magi, an obelisk, the Tower of the Seer, Zamure the arch mage, the Citidel of Power, parts of Greyhawk city, a close up of Veluna and many maps of lairs beneth the Hellfurnace Mountains; a place called the Caverns of Fire and Death, and another called Zurith's lair, including: Valanous the Anti-Paladin, a Duegar lair, Blackscale the Dragon,and a mitheral mine, and deep beneth the hellfurnaces is a Staff of the Magi. Other choice Greyhawk info includes: the preperations for an impending war between Veluna, Highfolk, and Furyondy against the Horned Society (This dates the modules), maps of a pass through the Lortmils, information on the Knights of the Hart,and a Rhennee barge.

Most of this was written between 83' and 85' and was part of a series of RPGA/TSR sanctioned tournaments. It meets all of the requirements to be considered canon.

Should it be considered Greyhawk? the answer ... yes really.

Will it be? the answer. .. nope.

»

These Rats/Star tourny's were written primarily by Kevin Melka and Keith Polster. Although players playing these tournaments were given RPGA points, the tourny's were run separately from the "official" RPGA tournaments. Only during the last few years was the RPGA ever really involved with the Star tournaments. Before then, Kevin and Keith wrote the tournaments, provided the judges, etc.

As far as I remember the RPGA only contribution was "marshalling" the tournaments and providing room assignments. Although I have copies of many of the tournaments, they are very farcical and would probably not be popular to many as "canon".

>»

So if one were interested in examining some of them how would we go about getting a copy? »

The RPGA would have copies to some of them. Others would be only available from Kevin or Keith (although at least one tournament, I think I have the original maps, so I'm not sure they would have copies of those.)

If both Kevin and Keith tell me its alright, I could probably provided copies. But without their permission, its a non-starter as both are long-term friends.

OJB

Fate of Istus

Subject: [GREYTALK] Fate of Istus
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 17:39:57 EDT
From: Tamerlain@AOL.COM
To: GREYTALK@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

Patrice writes:

>>Greyhawk the Adventure begins page 3 seems to say it is set between 578 and 582.>>

Paul writes:

>>Sages and savants -
Although I don't have an answer to Creighton's answer, I do have another question. I once saw a glancing reference to FoI as "non-canon" or no longer canon. Is this true, and why?>>

Rainer writes:

>>But the Scarlet Brotherhood adventure inside (the final one, where all the monks leave Oerth) sets it in 576 CY.>>

Lisa writes:

>>Actually, what I said was that some parts of it weren't considered canon.
For instance, the existence of Kara Tur since that was moved to the Realms. So,
at best, you should take stuff within FoI with a grain of salt.>>

(See explanation of this below---Steve)

Paul and all (except Lisa, who already knows all of this!),

At the Greyhawk Summit 98, Team Greyhawk decided that the Fate of Istus was only partially canon (actually, we had talked about this off and on for a while prior to the Summit).

The rationale goes as follows: 1) The new Greyhawk would act as if monks and assassins did *not* disappear (and they didn't disappear in many home campaigns anyway), and Scarlet Brotherhood Monks are not Oriental Monks, therefore the sections in FoI about the Kara Tur monks et al do not apply, 2) Some dates given in the FoI cause potential problems with dates presented in other products...fixes for these have to be made, or the FoI dates should be ignored where these conflicts exist, 3) Some things, like the Istus' plague very well could have happened without disrupting the rest of the setting (the date for this isn't set, but anywhere from 576 to 582 with no trouble.), 4) Some dated historical events are fine and do not conflict with other events in Greyhawk canon (such as the brief siege of Junre by goblins and orcs in the Hateful Wars 9253 [25])

In case 1) nothing is considered canon, in case 2) only some things are considered canon, after work, in case 3) the event is canon, but no date is attached (Roger was functioning within this framework for assigning the dates for FoI in The Adventure Begins), and in case 4) all are canon.

Because of these reasons, Team Greyhawk has a very flexible attitude about FoI as one might imagine (Sean cursed it once within the last two months, even as I was trying to provide rationale for some of its dates. Erik and Roger were generally just laughing...and then they started trying to sort the mess out for the particular dates we were working on... ;)

I'd suggest the following if you want to include the 576 date for FoI:

576-582 CY---Events in the adventure Fates of Istus 9577 [3]

576 CY---Passing of the "Millennium" date predicted by Huro for the Scarlet
Brotherhood, Millennialist Party begins to decline (6091 SD)
Note: See c 490's 11374 [17], 9253 [110]
---Scarlet Brotherhood discovers Weeping Hexagram (6091 SD) 11374
[86]
---beginning of the plague of Istus (although this could go
anywhere between 576 and 582.) (based on 9253 [110], modified by 9577 [3])
Note: this date assignment is not *canon* just my suggestion.

581 CY--- Band of mercenaries penetrate defenses of the Hidden City of the Scarlet Brotherhood (Hesuel Ilshar), and steal an Weeping Hexagram (6096 SD) 11374 [5, 86] NOTE: This event could well easily be modified to be the party of adventurers from FoI (9253), primarily, while the Weeping Hexagram might still have been destroyed, don't automatically assume that the party was as per 11374 [5].

(Compiled dates from the GreyChrondex)

If an early date is assigned to the plague, and the character party is assumed to be the 581 CY bunch that steals the Weeping Hexagram, it is possible to stretch the events of the FoI out over several years, and have the plague act as one of the major pre-cursor event to the Wars.

For campaigns that have used FoI and already have it "set" in time, it would be easy enough to say that parties that successfully got to Hesuel Ilshar and left (alive) were the party that stole the Weeping Hexagram (and move that date if necessary).

This is "retro-fixing" but it does make FoI fit better. To keep the annoying "upgrade" tendencies of FoI out, just work out new rewards/punishments for characters at the end of each chapter that changes the class to 2nd ed. The adventures in FoI aren't bad, and the city descriptions are nice to have, but having the whole thing drive a change to 2nd ed was a poor "setting" decision (even if it might've been a wise marketing one). It is our "Avatar" book, and we should just be glad it was only one adventure.

Steve Wilson
Greyhawk "Sage," Team Greyhawk

Serten the sacrifice

Subject: [GREYTALK] Serten the sacrifice Re: [GREYTALK] Serten the Still
Dead
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 06:09:27 -0400
From: Jason Zavoda
Reply-To: The GREYtalk Discussion List
To: GREYTALK@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

On Sun, 20 Aug 2000, Erik Mona wrote:

> I don't have that source in front of me, so I can't check to see if all of
> those mentioned are indeed mages (Iuz?), but ignorance of the "real" Serten,
> whether by the mercenaries who wrote Greyhawk Ruins or by part of the vaunted
> "Team Greyhawk" is hardly solid ground on which to build a rhetorical castle.
> :)

Serten is one of the old guard and the battle of Emridy Meadows one of the legendary events. Neither should be altered casually.

> >>>
> And the battle has several paragraphs written about it as well.
> >>>
>
> Piffle.

Piffle? Hardly Piffle. Three paragraphs on Pg11 of the guide to the world of Greyhawk, three = several, a few slight mentions elsewhere.

>
> The sum total of information on that battle can hardly be classified as
> "several paragraphs." Certainly there is no accounting of even the generals
> in the battle, or even, for that matter, where the hell "Emridy Meadows" is,
> specifically. I hardly think the loss of a borderline retarded priest of St.
> Cuthbert, even if he had powerful friends, qualified for the type of
> "top-line" news ("the good guys won") that we have on the battle so far.
>
Sure it does, why was Serten brought up in the LGJ in the first place and sacrificed except for name recognition. History can be rewritten and named characters can be killed.
Woo-Wee!

> >>>
> To glibly throw out such a
> useful character especially because he is a mystery and still a legend
> is an unfortunate choice.
> >>>
>
> What about Serten makes him "useful"? I can think of a few reasons why it
> might be neat to have the dumb but well-meaning cleric from Rogue's Gallery
> still alive, but all are outweighed, in my opinion, by the implication that
> the "heroes" (or at least "main characters") of the Greyhawk campaign are
> mortal.

No, they're fictional, and so is the entire setting, but consistancy helps to make the fiction believable and keeping away from glibly killing off major NPC's keep the setting useful to the widest range of gamers.

>
> And, if you like the guy so much, I guess there's some similarly-named
> misguided mage out there that everyone's free to use. :)
>
> >>>
> Choosing to alter the campaign in such a notable way is even
> more unfortunate.
> >>>
>
> Whatever. If the choice is between leaving the campaign stagnant or exploring
> some of its mysteries and going forward, always leaving new mysteris behind,
> I'll choose the latter.
>
> --Erik
>

Whatever? Serten and the Battle of Emridy Meadows are both notable. Killing off a character and altering past history, just to prove a point, these things did nothing to create mystery or even explore the mysterious. They only prove that the campaign can change at any moment, that is more of a Forgotten Realms way of developing a campaign.
If you wanted to expand the setting you should have made Serten live, put depth and history behind him, make everyone understand why he had earned a name and place among the great and powerful.
Better to say that the Living Greyhawk made Serten live and be worthy of his well known name, than to say Living Greyhawk killed Serten to prove a point.
Death does not relieve stagnation it merely ends future potential.

Jason Zavoda

Serten, Hero of the State

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [GREYTALK] Serten, Hero of the State [was: Serten the Sacrifice]
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 07:11:00 -0400
From: Tracy Johnson
Reply-To: tmj@EXIS.NET
Organization: Justin Thyme Productions
To: GREYTALK@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
References:

I agree with Jason, but only because my earlier doubts about Living Greyhawk and Greyhawk Canon are becoming true, despite assurances that Living Greyhawk and Greyhawk Canon were supposed to be two different things.

So it seems now that Living Greyhawk is starting to be substituted for Greyhawk Canon.

As a person that buys Hasbro products off-the-shelf, now it appears that in the near future, there will no longer be printed canonical Greyhawk material to spend my money on. Just nebulous bits and bytes that will live briefly for the moment on the "web"
like the mayfly it is. In a few years, these Living Greyhawk websites will die due to neglect and underfunding, then we can all go back to the printed material.

Even if a permanent site for GH canon material is sponsored by corporate giant Hasbro, can it be trusted that such material won't be tampered with? Has "1984" has come true in Greyhawk? Will yesterday's "Hero of the State" now be a traitor due to the whims of those in charge? "Oceania is our friend? Today, dear traitor, we're allied (and have always been) with..." "Do you say friend, that you read that Otto is 5'10" on the Hasbro website? I'm looking at it right now and it says he's 3'11"
and is a Gnome, as far as I know, he's always been this way."

Jason Zavoda wrote:
>
> Whatever? Serten and the Battle of Emridy Meadows are both
> notable. Killing off a character and altering past history, just to prove
> a point, these things did nothing to create mystery or even explore
> the mysterious. They only prove that the campaign can change at any
> moment, that is more of a Forgotten Realms way of developing a campaign.
> If you wanted to expand the setting you should have made Serten
> live, put depth and history behind him, make everyone understand why
> he had earned a name and place among the great and powerful.
> Better to say that the Living Greyhawk made Serten live and be
> worthy of his well known name, than to say Living Greyhawk killed
> Serten to prove a point.
> Death does not relieve stagnation it merely ends future potential.
>
> Jason Zavoda