Usenet: DnD Greyhawk

A lot of my old activity online in the 90s was on Usenet, some of my writings on the World of Greyhawk appeared in the newsgroup  rec.games.frp.dnd
These are copies of my old posts from there in chronological order, but with my deadname updated, the names of others may be partially obscured, but links to the Google Groups copies of the originals will probably still be included.

Rather than keep formatting precisely as it was, I'll clean up the spelling and put quotations of people other than myself in italics, to keep the line lengths automaticly adjusted instead of the old 80 character limits.  I'm also removing my old e-mail address from the copies since someone else has that address now.

Contents

1993

Re: Greyhawk Adventures: 3, 4, 5 Are there more?

1993 August 31 13:19 rec.arts.frp.dnd Greyhawk Adventures: 3, 4, 5 Are there more?

Krista B Siren Aug 31, 1993, 1:29:06 PM to

In article <1993Aug22.. (C. M.) writes:

>I was in the local dollar shop the other day, where everything in the store costs just one dollar, and I found a really great bargain.  A set of three books, GREYHAWK ADVENTURES 3, 4, and 5, by Rose Estes.  They involved the adventures of a young would-be shaman named Mika, his bonded wolf TamTur, a princess named Julia, and a host of strange companions.


[C.M. continues]

> I am wondering if Rose Estes ever wrote, or plans to write, any sequels chronicalling what takes place afterward, or others involving the same characters? Does it tell in any of the Greyhawk AD&D source-books? PLEASE contact me...I've got to know!


[My response]

I know that there was a Book 6, (the fourth Mika book), I have seen these available in The Mail Order Hobby Shop - TSR's catalog, but I don't know if they are still around.


None of these characters (Save Iuz - who is greatly underpowered in these books IMHO) appear in any of the Greyhawk sourcebooks.


I don't have the new Rogues’ Gallery, so they could be in there, but I think that it only covers Forgotten Realms characters.


[C.M. continues]

>BTW, what do you all in rec.arts.sf.books think of Rose Estes? I know that your opinions of the Dragonlance authors, Weis and Hickman, do not tend to be the highest...I'm curious, do you feel that way about all TSR/TSR-type authors? Why or why not? (Geez, now I sound like an exam question...)


[My response]

I think you are looking for 'rec.arts.sf.written' - I read it, but don't post there often. Of the TSR books, I've only read Gygax, Estes, and Weis & Hickman. Of those, I enjoyed the Dragonlance novels as novels most, Gygax's as info for fleshing out Oerth - I managed to get about 64 pages of game material out of his series - although most of the pre -Gygax/TSR split material has come out in Carl Sargent's source books - and as for Estes, I found it to be mind candy, enjoyable for something light, but only after I accepted that this was not the Oerth I was familiar with.


Krista 

Re: Who Are The Scarlet Brotherhood?

1993 September 9 23:12 rec.arts.frp.dnd Who Are The Scarlet Brotherhood?

Krista B Siren

Sep 9, 1993, 11:12:50 PM


[KOZ wrote:]

>>I have been reading references to the Scarlet brotherhood in D&D products for several years now. Other then the fact that they are from The World of Greyhawk setting (Doggonit whats the world name!!!) and that they are monks I have no idea who these people are.  Would someone please describe these chaps to me.


[Ron replied]

>Brotherhood of LE monks dedicated to the acquiring of power over much of Greyhawk. In that Ashes supplement it seems they were quite successful at least to some degree.


[I replied]

The world is Oerth, the Continent - Oerik, the region the Flanaesse.


The Scarlet Brotherhood is also a nation/organization of Suel supremacists.

The Suel are those whiter-shade-of-pale guys who lost their old country in the Sea of Dust to the Rain of Colorless Fire in the Suel-Bakluni war a millennium ago.


The ruling members of the Brotherhood are Monks, the next echelon are assassins (1st ed.) and the next order are thieves. Other character classes exist as members of the Brotherhood as well, but they probably don't hold explicit political power.


The Brotherhood are the sneaky behind the scenes manipulators in Oerth.  They have agents in many of the courts of the land - some operate openly, as in the Iron League, but most do not.


As Ron said, check out the Ashes Supplement to find out how they made out in the Greyhawk Wars.


Krista Siren

The Gray<Mouser at my college e-mail>

1994

Re: Greyhawk City Population

1994 July 8 14:41 rec.games.frp.dnd Greyhawk City Population

Krista B Siren Jul 8, 1994, 2:41:01 PM to

>In article <CsLB2F.LE...  Andrew W. wrote:

>>Has anyone who uses the Greyhawk Campaign setting ever figured out precisely where in Greyhawk City they manage to fit 50,000 inhabitants?


>>Going by the map of the city I estimate it would hold roughly 10,000 citizens!?! A far cry from the documentation.


>>Can anyone help me out by suggesting why I can only reach 10,000 (and that's pushing things!)? I've discussed this with some of the others I roleplay with and by agreeing that the map doesn't show all the buildings, that the Slum Quarter is packed out and assuming excessive numbers of lodgers in taverns and inns we can still only reach 15,000 to 20,000. What gives?


[I responded]

For one thing, I think they give the excuse that not all buildings in the city are depicted on the map. In other words, the actual city is more densely populated with less important buildings. An other excuse could be that much of the populace that frequents the city actually lives and works on the outlying farmland which supports the city. Another, and IMO more likely explanation is that TSR's post 1986 Greyhawk is a ghost of the the more Lankhmarish city which Gygax describes in his novels. A partial description of this version of the city may be appearing in the upcoming net.Greyhawk book. If you think you can handle Gygax's writing try reading Saga of Old City and Night Arrant for more direct access to this version of the city.


Krista Siren

The Gray<Mouser@ my undergrad e-mail address>

1998

Greyhawk ala Gord & Gygax

1998 June 9 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Greyhawk ala Gord & Gygax

Krista B Siren Jun 9, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to


Hi all,

I just wanted to let interested folks know that I'm dusting off extensive (size ~ 300K) notes that I made on Gary Gygax's Gord novels and putting them into web form at:


http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/gordmain.html

[Go to current Gord's Greyhawk instead]


The Greyhawk city and residents sections (the first third of the notes) are mostly formatted properly, but the rest of it is still jumbled all together. I started working on this before the City of Greyhawk boxed set, From the Ashes, Carl Sargeant's stuff, and Planescape came out.  These notes are intended to both supplement and provide an alternative vision of the World of Greyhawk, one more closely reflecting that of Gygax's campaign, at least in so far as was revealed through his novels.


I'll be reformatting the remainder of the notes over the next week or so in order to put them into a more readable format.


These are in a note format and I haven't tried to edit them since 1994, so expect them to be a bit choppy.


Also, expect to find complete spoilers for the plots of those novels.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: When We Didn't Know Better

1998 June 19 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd When We Didn’t Know Better
Krista B Siren Jun 19, 1998, 3:00:00 AM


When I was 11 or 12, my friend Jon and I took our mega-party of characters and ran through the G1-3, D1-3, Q1 series. 


<here's some spoiler space>


If you've ever played the Vault of the Drow, you know that there are about 12-20 warehouses scattered throughout the vault, which, while well guarded, have large amounts of gems and jewelry, each having a "base value" of some amount. This meant that you could role the dice and increase or decrease the value of the gem or article of jewelry in question to some degree or another. Well, we ignored encumberance and were either very lucky or fudged the die roles and wound up finding hordes of gp's worth of stuff.  We also overlooked the thought that all of this raiding would likely prompt some sort of reprisal by the drow before too many warehouses/family estates were hit. Well, we finished that adventure and made it through Queen of the Demonweb Pits as well and had managed to get a portable hole somewhere. In the room before the final confrontation with Lolth, there is a room filled with treasure, while 95% of it is supposed to disappear, we shoved it all in our portable hole (allowed it all to fit), calculated the volume of the room, estimated how much loot that would amount to, and surprisingly enough, reduced it by the 95%.


Well, that still was a whole mess of gp's. We knew that each gp won converted to an xp but we didn't realize until high school that you were only supposed to advance one level per adventure. We wound up with multi-hundred level characters.


We decided that since we had so much luck dealing with Lolth, we'd take on the other deities that were bothering us.


We just astral traveled to whatever plane the deity resided on, knocked on their door and attacked. Very silly. Our spell casters decided that this was becoming tedious and a more effective means of dispatching gods, demon princes, and arch-devils was required. We'd read about the Machine of Lum

the Mad and the Mighty Servent of Leuk-o, and were inspired. We drew up plans for what was essentially an armored personel carrier. It seated

nine in captains chairs, had a table for making plans in the center and stable room for four horses in the back. It had tank treads. On the hood, were a central cannon and a wand on either side, all three of which launched spells. On the sides, were animated zombie arms, each bearing a sword. On the roof, adapted from something we found in S3, was a twin laser cannon. And, to top off this Monty Haul munchkin-fest, we had a scoop on the bottom of the vehicle, to pull in all of the loot as we drove over it.


Well, we retired those characters shortly and I soon saw the error of my ways. Except for a small lapse when I was 13 or 14 and one of my characters purchased the Orb, Scepter, and Crown of Might for the prices listed in the 1st ed. DMG, we became role-player/problem-solvers.  After dividing their xp's by 20 and getting rid of that dammed truck, I converted the characters in question to rarely used, high level (12-20th) npc's with somewhat altered histories.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: Old Greyhawk Geography vs Current Release

1998 June 19 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Old Greyhawk Geography vs Current Release
Krista B Siren  Jun 19, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to


In article <358966... the count writes:

>In the original Greyhawk boxed set, there was mention of the Suloise-Baklunish wars in which fire fell from the sky and laid waste to entire empires.  Presumably this is why the land to the west and southwest of Oerik is uninteresting. Well, it might be good for artifact hunters, but no civilization to speak of.


[the count continues]

>To the south is an equitorial continent filled with dense jungle and primitive tribes. There is a module (UK6 - "All the glitters...") which is set on this continent. Module C1 (The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan) is also a likely candidate for this continent, as is I1 (Dwellers of the Forbidden City).


[the count continues]

>Preumably there is a continent equivalent to our Antarctica, which would be uninhabited (by humans...) and relatively uninteresting.

>Not sure about any other continents, however.


[the count continues]

>I'm sure there's a module or three that would be highly suitable for any given continent. Much of the 'I' series looks like it could fit the old Suloise or Baklunish homelands, though I have never played them myself.


[My response:]

Although this is hardly official, in the last book or so of the Gord series, EGG named Gonduria as a vast continent west of the Agitoric Ocean, which, in turn was west of Oerik. He also named the Moving Islands as south of Gonduria in the same work. Now, the name Gonduria calls to mind both Gondor of Middle-Earth and Gondwana of our Earth's geologic past.


On our Earth, Gondwana consisted of the then joined Africa, South America, Antarctica, and Australia, as well as the Indian sub-continent and the Arabian peninsula. If you follow Roger Moore's suggestion in the Greyhawk Campaign Index, that Oerik may be a warped version of Eurasia's mirror image, this Gonduria could be a similarly warped version of Gondwana. Well, it might make more sense if we didn't already have the Baklunish nations as Oerth's Near East (Near West?) and central African oriented stuff going on in Hepmonaland, but the geography is already supposed to be warped.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: The Xvart

1998 November 10 rec.games.frp.dnd The Xvart
Krista B Siren  Nov 10, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to

In article <364793c2...


>On 10 Nov 1998 00:28:15 GMT, (BlakGard) wrote:

>>>Does anyone have any information on this monster?


[Randy B. responded]

>>I believe the 2nd Edition stats were printed in the Fiend Folio edition of the Monstrous Compendium. I cannot recall seeing it since.

>

>Indeed, it appears in both the first and second edition Fiend Folios.

>

>Their first ed. stats go something like this:

[I replied]

clip


They also had a prominent role in the first edition module UK2, The Sentinel. Part one of the excellent Alderweg pair of modules.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: Bigsby, Tenser and gang - their background?

1998 November 10 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Bigsby, Tenser and gang - their background?

Krista B Siren  Nov 10, 1998, 3:00:00 AM


In article <364856B8...,

Michael C. wrote:

>> I noticed several named spells in the PHB. I am wondering, are there any information as to the background of these wizards - like Bigsby (the hand spells), Tenser (the disk), Leomund (hmm...his name sounds like "lemon"), etc?


Rache B. responded:

> Well, I don't know what *type* of backround you want, but you may find this interesting anyway...

> The mages you mentioned (as well as several other 'prominent' names spread around the various published articles/stories/books) come from Gary Gaygax's Greyhawk campaign. Those names were from the various PC's he had in his games, here's a list (from Dragon Annual #2): Rob & Terry Kuntz were the fighters 'Robilar' and 'Terrik'.  Don Kaye was the mage 'Murlynd' and Ernie Gygax was the mage 'Tenser'.  Elise Gygax played a cleric with a name Gary couldn't recall.  Gary himself played the PC's: Mordenkainen, Yrag (Gary spelled backwards), and Bigby as Gary got to 'play' when Rob co-DM'd.

RB


[My response]:

Or when Dave Arneson ran a Blackmoor game (see http://www.tc.umn.edu/~monax002/Council/OJ6/city.html). Ernie's characters also include Serten and Erac's cousin - who loosed the demon er... Tanari Fraz-urb-luu (see http://www.tc.umn.edu/~monax002/Council/OJ4/erac.html) Otto, was an NPC mage whom Robilar et al. encountered in Greyhawk Castle and who became a henchman to Robilar. (see Oerth Journal 7)


Serten, Tenser, Erac's Cousin, Mordenkainen, Bigby, and Riggby (another of Gary's Citadel of Eight characters, a cleric) originally appeared in the

1980 version of The Rogues Gallery. Murlynd appears in the first edition module EX2, The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.


Mordenkainen, Bigby, Yrag, and Riggby appear in WG5, Mordenkainen's Fantastic adventure in slightly altered form, from a time period early in

their careers.


Tenser has a well known fondness for the color blue, as first noted in WG6, the Isle of the Ape.


Mordenkainen, Tenser, Bigby and Melf appear in Gygax's Greyhawk Adventures / Gord the Rogue series of novels from which I've compiled some notes. See these URL's:


http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/greyhawk.html#tenser

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/flanpc.html#mordenkainen

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/flanpc.html#bigby

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/wmarklands.html#melf


Drawmij was Jim Ward's character. Leomund belongs to Len Lakofka - who wrote the L series of first edition modules and had a regular column in

Dragon magazine entitled "Leomund's Tiny Hut". I'm not sure how involved either of them were in Gary & Rob's campaign, although Ward joined the company fairly early on with his Metamorphosis Alpha game and the Gods, Demigod, and Heroes suppliment to D&D (later Deities & Demigods, later Legends and Lore). Sustarre was the last name of another one of the Lake Geneva players, (David Sustarre, I think). Don Arndt lends his name to the artifact, The Invulnerable Coat of Arndt. I'm pretty sure that Keoghtom and Heward were also characters of Don Kaye, with Tom Keogh being a pseudonym for Don. I'm guessing that Leuk-o of Mighty Servant fame is Luke Gygax or a character of his.


Others have mentioned more up to date places for information on some of these characters, which while more detailed, varies somewhat from how these characters appeared prior to Gygax & TSR's falling out in '86, although the most recent group of Greyhawk material does a good job of reconciling the pre & post '86 versions of these characters (not that we have all that much to go on for the pre '86 versions).


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: looking for a players guide to aquaria

1998 November 11 rec.games.frp.dnd looking for a players guide to aquaria

Krista B Siren

Nov 11, 1998, 3:00:00 AM

to

In article <19981108143941...@ng37.aol.com>,

Rune C. wrote:

>>I've never heard of it. Are you sure it's called Aquaria?


Kebenaran <kebe...@aol.com> wrote:

>I believe the original poster is referring to the other continent of the World of Greyhawk, which was detailed in Frank Mentzer's R series of RPGA modules, mostly in the last two of the series. The I12 compilation of the R series, Egg of the Phoenix, takes out the sections in the original modules that dealt with Aquaria. Besides the R series, I don't think anything else has been published about Aquaria, though I am sure that Frank has lots of notes on it somewhere.  Perhaps if Gygax did not have to leave TSR long, long ago, a supplement about Aquaria might had been published eventually, but that's purely my speculation.  BTW, the R series modules are going to cost you a forture if you want to buy them on frp.marketplace, probably at least $80 per module. Good luck...


There is a zip file which is supposed to detail Frank Mentzer's Aquaria at:


http://www.afn.org/~afn47861/aquaria.zip


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: TRIVIA: Trying to find a picture

1998 November 13 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd TRIVIA: Trying to find a picture
Krista B Siren  Nov 13, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to

In article <364c4460...@news.mindspring.com>,


>On Thu, 12 Nov 1998 23:38:16 -0500, Gebhard B. wrote:

>>I've been vainly searching for a certain picture, and I was wondering if someone out there knew where it was. (Yeah, I know - lame - but it's

>>been driving me crazy not being able to find it.)


>>It's a picture, by Jeff Dee ("D"), of a halfling lifting a tankard of ale, while a nearby elf (or human?) is leaning against a wall with his arms crossed.


[John S. replied]

> Greyhawk Adventures, p. 115. The halfling's companion looks human to me.


[my response]

That's a reprint. It shows up originally in A3, the third Slave Lord module, whose name escapes me just now. The guy leaning against the wall is a thug type who hangs out at a tavern in the Slave Lords' hidden city in the Pomarj. I'm fairly certain that it does not also appear in White Plume Mountain as some one else mentioned on this thread. There's just no context for it there.


<Imagining a _drunken_ party with the Black Razor... heaven forfend!>


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: Baba Yaga

1998 November 23 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Baba Yaga…
Krista B Siren  Nov 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM


>[Scott W. writes] 

>>If u intersted write me and i'll tell u about a perfect monster also from

>>russian mythology - about "Koshey Bessmertny" in english Koshey Deathless -

>>i think it's very perfect one ... to defeat him u've to make some wery

>>intristing thing ...:)


[John S. replies]

> I'm not sure who wrote the above, but I'd like to know more. In the SANDMAN comic, there's a story featuring Baba Yaga and "the emerald heart of Koschei the Deathless."


He also shows up as Kostchtchie, the demon lord, in the Monster Manual II and has a bit part in EGG's Gord novels. I don't know if he made it into Planescape or not - I never bought the Planes of Chaos set or the Into the Abyss module, but I think he was in module H4, Throne of Bloodstone - the steal Orcus's wand adventure.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: Campaign suggestion? (newbie)

1998 December 7 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Campaign suggestion? (newbie)

Krista B Siren  Dec 7, 1998, 3:00:00 AM

In article <dgraham-ya0231800...  (Dougal G.) writes:

>How come i have never heard of planescape or greyhawk????????

>ive only heard of Dragonlance, Realms, DarkSun, and like Ravenloft. why so?

>anyways, ive always just made my own worlds, this usually works pretty well and gives you room to change and add and put in yer own touches.

>

>anyways, since ive never actually used any of them, what is the difference and where can i find books about 'em?

>

>thanx.

>

>Dougal G.


Greyhawk... well you probably haven't heard of Greyhawk because you're relatively new to the game. Greyhawk Castle, which was near the city of Greyhawk, in the Flanaess region of the planet Oerth, was Gary Gygax's home campaign, the first D&D campaign setting & the second rpg setting (Dave Arneson's Blackmoor came before D&D and was based on a modification of Chainmail, D&D's immediate predecessor). Since you don't know Greyhawk, you might not know that Gygax and Arneson (more so Gygax) invented the game. In the mid 70's, scattered refferences to Gygax's campaign world appeared in some of the gaming material published.  Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Otto, Murlynd, Heward, Serten, et al. were all figures in his campaign.


In 1978, the Giants-Drow-Lolth series of modules began to make their appearance and were officially set in Greyhawk. Other modules followed and with the publication of a folio description of the world and some maps in 1980, all of the AD&D modules, as well as the first BD&D module, B1, were set in the World of Greyhawk until around 1983 or 1984 even if they weren't written by Gygax, his co-DM, Rob Kuntz, or his co-world designer Frank Mentzer.


Around 1986, Gygax at TSR parted ways. You can read about how that happened elsewhere like at http://www.gygax.com, but basically Gygax had lost the controling share of the company and didn't want to stay on if he couldn't maintain creative control.


Post Gygax Greyhawk products were pretty poor for a stretch as the much of the focus at the time was on developing the Forgotten Realms and new settings like Ravenloft, Spelljammer & Dark Sun. In the early 90's, Greyhawk got a boost by David "Zeb" Cook and Carl Sargent. They updated and redesigned the setting somewhat by setting the Flanaess to war and releasing From the Ashes - basically an update of the World of Greyhawk boxed set, which updated the 1980 folio, and the source books: The Marklands, and Iuz the Evil (another source book, Ivid the Undying, is available online at TSR's website). For whatever reason, this mustn't have had the commercial appeal necessary, despite being a well made setting - probably because everyone was playing MtG and VtM - and by 1994, Greyhawk was pretty much abandoned by TSR.


However, Greyhawk is back. A number of products detailing the setting have been released starting this past summer. Anne Browne wrote the Player's Guide and Roger Moore wrote the ergg... can't remember the name, but it's the overview book meant for DMs.


Because the setting has been around so long, a lot of Greyhawk gamers are older. Because the setting was initially left sketchy during Gygax's tenure and because there were long periods where TSR Greyhawk development lay fallow, many Greyhawk DM's have put a lot of their own spin on the world. It has an appeal in that there is enough material out there to attract interest, but not enough to make one feel constrained to one set path. Unfortunately, I felt that kind of constraint when the deluge of Realms product hit the shelf in the late 80's, early 90's, which is one reason why I kept my campaign based in Greyhawk then.


So, if you want to get into Greyhawk, find yourself those things Browne & Moore wrote earlier this summer, or find the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set or the From the Ashes set. Then look for some of the classic older intro level modules like T1-4, The Temple of Elemental Evil, the U1-U3 Saltmarsh series, N1 The Cult of the Reptile God, WG2-3, the Alderweg series or L1-2, the Lendore Isle series (Bone Hill & The Assassin's Knot).  You'll have to hunt in the used sections or check r.g.f.marketplace since except for the new stuff, it's all OOP.


As for Planescape, well I've only got the first boxed set and MC supplement - it's pretty cool monkeying around in the outer and inner planes type stuff, with lots of room for intrigue among factions supporting varying ethical bents. It was supposed to be the next big thing around 1993 or 94, and probably lost out because a lot of folks were playing White Wolf or MtG instead at the time.


Oh. Another thing about Greyhawk, Gygax wrote seven books set there.  Andre Norton wrote one (Quag Keep) and Rose Estes wrote a bunch also, but neither Norton's nor Estes's (particularly Estes's) were very close to the way Oerth was presented elsewhere. Norton had the excuse that she was writing in 1977-78 before much Greyhawk material had been published.  

Estes... well let's just say I prefer her Endless Quest books.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: Greyhawk question


1998 December 7 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Greyhawk question
Krista B Siren Dec 7, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to

In article <19981205135856... (Rasgon) writes:

<clip>

>And Gygax's novels had three "overpower" types who opposed Tharizdun:

>

>PROCTOR CHRONOS

>LADY TOLERANCE

>MASTER ENTROPY

>

>These gods were intended to be far more powerful than any others, saving Tharizdun himself (who might be an offshoot of Master Entropy).


As an addendum here, Proctor Chronos (Father Time) is most likely head of the Time Elementals & Lady Tolerance is pretty clearly Lady Fate/Lady Fortune, i.e. Istus. O Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Krista B Siren  Dec 15, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to

In article <36768f83....@news.enteract.com>,

> (Bruce L. G.) wrote:

>>This brings up an interesting point; how many of the dragon articles have been printed elsewhere? Other than the Snarfquest graphic novel I can't think of any.


[Aardy R. D. replied]

>Snarfquest, Yamara, What's New?, and KoDT all had/have collections published of material which originally appeared in Dragon. Those're just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, there very well may be more.


[I responded]

While I'm sure this isn't the point, as they were republished by TSR and not another publisher, but much of Unearthed Arcana, the Monster Manual II, the World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983 version), and the Forgotten Realms Boxed Set (1987 version) originally appeared as articles in Dragon. The UA and MMII material primarily appeared in EGG's column, The Sorcerer's Scroll, the Greyhawk material that I can think of was the Deity & Quasi deity descriptions and the weather system. Then, just about everything that Ed Greenwood had written in Dragon prior to it's publication (other than some "Ecology of the *" articles, which later got their own boxed set) wound up in the FR boxed set. Also, five volumes of The Best of Dragon were published, carrying articles from The Strategic Review and the first eighty or so issues of Dragon.


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

Re: Greyhawk Names?

1998 December 16 3:00 rec.games.frp.dnd Greyhawk names?

Krista B Siren  Dec 16, 1998, 3:00:00 AM to

In article <3677C07C... Black Dragon wrote:

>> I say duchy of "jeff" because one the the players in my campaign is named "jeff" spelled Geoff so I never even thought of saying it any other way.


[Andy C. replied]

>Interesting. Since I am named "Jeff," spelled J-e-f-f, I always thought of it as Gee-off.


I'm pretty certain that it's pronounced "Jeff" as in Jeff Perren, co-author of Chainmail and namesake of Perrenland. Similarly, I think that Keoland & Keoghtom are meant to be pronounced Kay-o-land and Kay-o-tom, since they're named after Tom Keogh which I'm pretty sure is an alias for Don Kaye = Murlynd, and the funder of the initial publication of D&D.  Somewhere, though is a pronunciation guide from an old Dragon article which should settle this. Can anyone confirm that Tom Keogh & Don Kaye were one and the same?


Krista Siren

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]

1999

Gord's Greyhawk


1999 February 2 rec.games.frp.dnd Gord’s Greyhawk
Krista B Siren Feb 2, 1999, 3:00:00 AM to

Hi all,

Last June I uploaded all of my campaign relevant notes taken from EGG's Gord the Rogue novels. It took me about a month to format them in html and now I've finally finished adding all of the crossreferencing links and doing an initial proofread of the whole document. There are notes on the characters and locations found within those novels, from the Flanaess to the Outer Planes, as well as miscellaneous things such as which names were changed to what in the Trigee books. I've also included a handful of notes and links to external pages, referencing such things as where Gary got the name of thus and such demon and what pre-EGG departure Dragon article has more info on that land. The URL for the page is included in my sig.


Enjoy!


Krista Siren [my old ICQ #]

[my grad school e-mail and web page]

Gord's Greyhawk [this link to current site instead https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/]

Myths and Legends: [dead link]

UNH Observatory: [dead link]