Outdoor / Overland Map
With colored pencils at hand and a sheet of plain paper, the region in which the City of Greyhawk lay was born in a night, enhanced in but a few more days’ time. There were many features to explore. In the great lake to the north were both monsters and piratical foes. To the south was an ever-growing borderland where brigands and savage creatures lurked in hills and forests. Eastward were swamps, and past western steppes through which a mighty river flowed were mountains. All those places too were rife with threatening things. On the land were little hamlets and villages as well, places to stop, rest, re-supply, and throw an adventure in to the bargain as well. All of this remained undetailed – special encounters were not written up. A table with random encounters served where the imagination of the Dungeon Master failed.
The motivation was finding outdoor encounters and such, collecting money and magic, just the base stuff then. As everything was new then, and the enchantment hadn't died with the publication and codification of the parts as yet, this motivation was of course satisfactory enough to keep interest levels high. Today such stuff would be considered passé and boring.
The few small states that lay around the City of Greyhawk were based on the medieval model, logical neighbors for a large, free city such as Greyhawk. Here a strong kingdom, but with tumultuous marshes bordering it. There a county palatine, and in the hinterlands robber barons and bandit lords. This was done randomly, based on terrain. If the geography was "favorable”, than a feudal state was located in such a spot. Wild forests, marshes, great hills too were locations in which the outlaws, thieves, and worse lurked.
Improvised Outdoor Adventures
There were two kinds of wilderness adventures: firstly, unstructured adventuring in the dangerous wilderness, using the outdoor survival map, with random monster encounters and randosmly determined castle encounters [1]. The wilderness, opposite to how it is today, was very dangerous and for higher level play -- you could run into hundreds of humanoids, find large treasure if you met them in their lair, and the castles were ruled by fighers, wizards and clerics at the top end of the named level ranges, who had many dozens of armed men and monsters like dragons, chimeras, giants and vampires at their beck and call, or rocs ridden by heroes.
Secondly, a hexcrawl-procedure, by which the players discovered the terrain surrounding the castle [1]. Randomly generated dungeons -- or just made up ones, strewn about could also be explored. Both are well described in the OD&D rules. Like the original dungeon exploration, there was no larger story initially, just the excitement of fighting monsters and looting their lairs.
I had a rough map of the area around Greyhawk sketched out on an 8.5" x 11" sheet if paper--long since lost. The OS board was for outdoor adventures away from the city. The ponds were castles, and there one's PC or PC party could often engage in some chivlrous combat...or slap an evil knight or mage. #8258
The OS board made a perfect generic terrain board, the pond areas being either hamlets or castles. With a check for loss of direction and another for encounter, the whole matter was easy and fun for the players adventuring outdoors.#6375
Outdoor adventures are mainly treks to reach some destinarion or exploration expeditions. Never mention hexes or squares, of course. Just say that the party has traveled what seems like X miles. Terrain description is the way to channel the team--roads, tracks, game trails, gullies, canyons, passes, wharever. "There is thick brush to the north and a cliff to the south, so continuing westwards seems the most likely route through this area." Of course you should have a map where there are set encounters that can be used to keep the session interesting. Of course, regular random encounter checks in wilderness--three in daylight, three in darkness also liven things up...even if no encounter occurs or the result is a weather change. As the GM be prepared to invent a lot in such adventures [11]
We used the map, moved counters on it, and rolled for getting lost, so that one was never certain which direction one would head on a turn. Random encounters were used, and the ponds were castles, so there was some jousting rather than regular mortal combat. #8649
Actually we found the random tables great when the PCs were out in the wilderness on non-scripted adventures, encontering monsters randomly, finding treasure likewise. Of course often times the DM added extra monsters guarding the loot--whatever it turned out to be eventually. Mordenkainen did well waylaying bandits, brigands, and pirates thus, but sometimes coming up empty after a hard fight with magic items expended for little reward. #616
What appears in the DMG is the result of my devising and using the random dungeon generation system :wink: I just didn't use it very often with my player group, as I had lots of dungeon levels ready to go. It came in handy when a dungeon was discovered during a free-form outdoor adventure. [11]
I did sketch maps only for areas where there would likely be a lot of adventuring. Otherwise I winged it. Must have done a fair to middling job, as Rob so enjoyed Robilar's adventures in the City of Brass while returning from the Mysterious East that he went on and developed a detailed city of that name of his own design #1309
Old Greyhawk Region Map
The game world is a parallel earth, but the continents are somewhat different. Most of our campaign activity takes place on what corresponds to North America, on the eastern half of the continent. The "Blackmoor" lands lie far up on the northeast coast. "Greyhawk" is in the central portion. There are a few other independently run campaigns located on this map. There are also some other dungeons related to the "Greyhawk" campaign located at some distance from the free city of Greyhawk. Players in our campaign may freely play in "Blackmoor", but to get there they must adventure cross country. With one or two other campaigns, we do not allow any cross-campaign play other than this, for these is too great a disparity of DMing. The territory within 500 or so miles of our main dungeon is mapped out at 5 miles to the hex. Territory within 50 miles of Greyhawk city is mapped more closely, and monster locations are indicated. The entire world is mapped out in rough form, with notes regarding typical encounters in given areas as well as particular special places, for hardy souls who wish to go forth to seek their fortunes.
[Gygax's letter A&E#15 (Oct 76)]
500 miles at 5 miles a hex would imply 100 hexes in each direction from GC, and even if small hexes on available graph paper, there are only about 50-70 in each direction per sheet, so this would take 3-4 sheets pasted next to each other and would be a unwieldily large map.
Ancient History of Greyhawk
The long history with ages passing is great, but that means all manner of additional material needed for the campaign, including possible past races, gods, etc. Enough of the past can be garnered in a history that spans only some tens of thousands of years, not billions or many millions. I envisioned the Oerth, the World of Greyhawk, as a parallel earth far removed from out own probability, a much more recent one that was spun off by the deities that are found there. If another DM wants to have it as one as old as this world and can manage the details, fine. #1114
Old World of Greyhawk
When I initiated the Greyhawk campaign, I envisaged a world of parallel earth sort. Thus the geography then assumed was pretty close to that of earth. Being busy running game sessions, creating dungeon levels, the map of Greyhawk City, writing new material, and also really enjoying "winging it," I never did a large-scale map for the world.
I began the campaign world, had Rob join as co-DM when the adventuring group size was generally over 12 and rather overwhelming. Thus the dungeons were an an amalgamation of his and mine, but all the rest of Greyhawk was my sole creation...with inspirational input from many players, of course :D #5479
I settled on Greyhawk because I happened to admire Chief Blackhawk of the Sac & Fox Indians that inhabited and fought the settlers in this area. As hawking was a much beloved medieval hunting form I did indeed consider the name as fitting.
Old Greyhawk World Map
You are correct about my original campaign world--I simply used existing maps of the world, or went from memory. #8253
All I needed for outdoor adventures was my imagination and an atlas to consult in extremis ;) #6371
North America and the rest of the globe, in fact. the West coast was a land of dinosaurs and cave men... :lol: Greyhawk was about where Chicago is, and Dyvers was located around where Milwaukee is. #6365
That is so, but Oerik was not as as it is, rather it was North America with a Western European flavor east of the Mississippi and other cultures to the west of it. So Japan was where it is on earth #3316
When I was using the pre-WoG map for my world setting the West Coast of North america was the Pleistocine region inhabited by savage cavemen and their contemporary fauna. Otherwise, I did consider that subhuman cavemen were a not uncommon peril to encounter in remote wildernedd areas;) #3941
Yes indeed it was--easier to use existing outline maps than creating a world setting from scratch. Greyhawk was about where Chicago is, and Dyvers was about where Milwaukee is. The West Coast was isolated by higher mountains than the Rockies, had many volcanoes and Jurassic-like flora and fauna. The PCs went there only by accident. Dinosaurs and cave men have little in the way of treasure. This was learned by Terick, Robliar, and Tenser as they separately returned from China. there was an Orient, Middle East, Africa, Europe, and even a South America and Australia. [35]
There was a good deal of outdoor adventuring, and Robilar, Terik, and Tenser traveled all the way from my world's equivelent of China back to the city of Greyhawk, half the globe's circumference distant. #3218
As I have related elsewhere, my original setting for Greyhawk was basically the earth, and the City of Greyhawk was about where Chicago is, Dyvers on the shore northwards where Milwaukee stands. #5479
The city of Greyhawk was located on the lakes in about the position that Chicago is, and Dyvers was north ar the Milwaukee location. The general culture was pseudo mediaval European. Some of the kingdoms shown on the WoG map were around the adventure-central area, the City of Greyhawk. #1168
Greyhawk City corresponded to Chicago and Dyvers to Milwaukee, the area around New Orleans was the Wild Coast, the Great Kingdom was around New York and DC, the Pacific NW was a Pleistocene area, and so on. We also know that, at least in the early phase of the campaign, there was a small scale map of the area immediately surrounding Greyhawk City and Castle that characters like Robilar and Terik eventually built their castles on, but when characters would venture out beyond that area the wilderness was represented by an infinitely repeating series of Outdoor Survival game boards. [42.6]
The Castle & Crusade Society “Great Kingdom” map was imagined, at least on some level, to be the map of the greater world where Greyhawk existed (hence the World of Greyhawk has so much overlap with the First Fantasy Campaign; also, cf. “The Gnome Cache” as someone else pointed out). An even more macrocosmic view was that Oerth is a fantasy version of Earth, with Greyhawk as a fantasy version of Chicago. A chute in Castle Greyhawk could take you to the other side of the world to a fantasy China [42.4]
Here is an in-depth analysis of the Great Kingdom map (to copies exist, one by Dave Megarry, and one published in the Domesday Book). On this, Blackmoor is to the NorthEast of Greyhawk/Nyr Dyv, similar to the later published World of Greyhawk map. It also seems to be referred to in the intoduction to the Tsojconth module from 1976. However, is not clear to me if it actually was used like this in the campaign, where Blackmoor has been described repeatedly as being to the NE of Greyhawk castle, not the NW, or if it only served as inspiration for the various kingdoms in rough relations, and for the latter Darlene map.
When the International Federation of Wargaming was at its peak, it contained many special interest groups. I founded one of these, the “Castle & Crusade Society”. All members of this sub-group were interested in things medieval and I began publishing a magazine for them entitled Domesday Book. In an early issue, I drew up a map of the “Great Kingdom”. Members of the society could then establish their holdings on the map, and we planned to sponsor campaign-type gaming at some point. Dave Arneson was a member of the C&C Society, and he established a barony, Blackmoor, to the northeast of the map, just above the Great Kingdom. He began a local medieval campaign for the Twin Cities gamers and used this area.[Dragon #7 (June, 1977), Gary]
Many of the Kingdoms were named after friends and family, e.g. Duke of Walworth was Gary, who lived in Geneva in Walworth County, Perunland/Perrenland was named after Jeff Perrin, Keoland after Tom Keogh, etc. This trend continued on the published map later on.
The Egg of Coot was a player in Dave Arnesons 1969-70 Napoleonics campaign named grEGG sCOT. Mr. Scott was not happy when Arneson switched from napoleonics to medieval fantasy "Blackmoor" games and said some less than kind things about it. According to Jeff Berry, he also played a nasty "joke" on Arneson that cost him time and money. Thus he was immortalized as the evil Egg of Coot. Note that this all took place before Gary Gygax even heard of fantasy role playing(fall '72). [42]
Nyr Dyv
If the Nyr Dyv has a bottom, whatever lives down there is likely to not want anyone visiting its abode. However, I should think it's mostly primal ooze lying in cold and darkness. The good thing is that any DM that so desires can have something really interesting down there [35]
There were indeed plenty of underwater adventures in my AD&D campaign--and since then (see The Hermit for an example), but the action on the Nyr Dyv was confined to ships, the reason quite inexplicable now that I consider it. #4629
Switching to the published version
My personal Greyhawk world was a version of earth, but as many players were involved in the campaign, I did not want to use that as a base. The funny thing is that about a month after the printer WoG was out I liked it better than what I was using, so for the most part my campaign play moved to Oerth, Oerik. [35]
I used my own special homebrewed setting for A/D&D up to about 1978, then switched to the published WoG. #1161
Cities, States and Empires
There were various states on the continent ther were akin to those shown on the later WoG map I did. the Great Kingdom was around NY, and Dyvers was a place, a city-state north of Greyhawk that was larger than a relative Milwaukee compared to Chicago would be. Downriver around the Gulf of Mexico were the piratical states. Other than the West Coast being a pliestocene environment, I can't recall much, for all the maps and notes have been lost for decades now. [35]
Actually the states are very loosely based on actual historical ones so as to enable the DM to have some idea as to what the culture and society in each will be. [35]
There was some adventuring in Dyvers, and in the pre-WoG campaign that city was the same as that detailed in the Greyhawk folio. That applies to Hardby as well...although the players avoided the place as they found the Amazonian-types running it as hot to their adventuring taste. #7047
I must say that the Despotrix of Hardby is not hot #7053
[Baklunish] The culture was basically turkish/Persian. [35]
The Moon
Herb thought it was a good idea at the time, rather as some SF writers on our world thought that firing a space vessel from a giant cannon to reach the moon would be workable. Rob took the whole thing quite calmly, all things considered, the huge outlay of gold pieces that Robilar had made. However, it soured him on Lunar exploration, which saddened me, because I was planning on having the moon a place like "Hothouse World," with all manner of mutant plants and people on it, as well as some little sprite-like races dwelling around the verge of the vast central jungle. #1840
The main moon of Oerth was a viable sphere, although none of my players ever made it there. Mars and Venus were likewise habitable ala ERB. Getting to those places was via portal or special spells that I never did manage to get around to detailing. For real space travel I intended to do a Science Fantasy genre spinoff of AD&D, absolutely nothing similar to Spelljammer. #7385
Wizard Guilds
I did not have any magical guilds at all in my campaign, and that is why they are not mentioned in the WoG. Your assumption about D&D mages being too likely to be sufficiently powerful to seize government and rule is likely accurate. I see them as also rather elitest and secretive about their knowledge as you envisaged them to be. #6258
The Pantheon
When one "creates" a fantasy world setting that is totally divorced from our world, it is logical that special, unique deities are needed to fill it, for clerics subsume deities that are served. Thus I began adding deities to my campaign early in 1973, and those became the first deities of the World of Greyhawk. #2717
St. Cuthbert and Pholtus were amusing to the players with cleric PCs so I spent time detailing them. The balance then followed as I brought into play evil deities to serve as villians and to frustrate the aims of the PCs. #2732
I neglected to mention that the Blinding Light is a part of the name of "The Church of the Presumptious Assumption of the Blinding Light." [35]
In my campaign the demi-humans and humanoids acknowledged the same pantheons as humans did. #2652
Saint is not a term that is exclusive to the Christian religion, and St. Cuthbert was more of a joke than otherwise. Consider the advocacy of pounding sense into someone's head by dint of blows from a club.
I do not advocate any use of actual religion in an RPG. Any references I have made to Arab-like civizilations do not include any hint of Islam in them. The same holds for Judaism and Christianity. #6348
Zagyg is based on a sort of joke--me as the mad designer of Greyhawk Castle and its dungeons. After all, how else could such a place exist? Zagig was never a PC, only an NPC played by me...
The Planes of Existence
The planes sort of developed as a mix of reading and game need. What I did was to take the mythological and fabulous, arrange them to suit the D&D system, and as AD&D was developing they sort of gelled into the cosmology shown therein. In all it was a great facilitator for creatures and beings from outside the material. #232
If you assumed that the majority of the resulting planar material was not what I envisaged, you are on the money. Treating the many planes named in the DMG would be a long and demanding task, and it is one I never got to. About the closest to an extensive treatment of any one of them other than the PMP is what I wrote about the Abyss in the Gord yarns. Skip Williams and I put together extensive notes for a treatment of the Plane of Shadow, but that never got past the preliminary stage because of my separation from TSR at the end of 1985. #1813
[References: see Greyhawk References]
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