World Of Greyhawk

This entry contains comments Gary made about the published World of Greyhawk, how it came to be, what the inspirations and backgrounds were, what the plans were would he have remained in charge of it. He himself switched to using that world setting then from the real-world map based one he had used for his home campaign, and set the published modules he wrote and tested for his home campaign there, too. The writeup on Wikipedia provides an excellent overview.

Creation of the World of Greyhawk

When I was asked by TSR to do my World of Greyhawk as a commercial product I was taken aback. I had assumed most DMs would far perfer to use their own world settings. Furthermore, as I was running a game with a large number of players involved, I really didn't want to supply themwith the whole world on a platter. I'll repeat here what has been told before;)

I found out the maximum map size TSR could produce, got the go-ahead for two maps of that size, then sat down for a couple of weeks and hand-drew the whole thing. After the maps were done and the features shown were named, I wrote up brief information of the features and states. Much of the information was drawn from my own personal world, but altered to fit the new one depicted on the maps.

Whatever came out from TSR regarding the World of Greyhawk up through 1985 was from me, with a bit of material added as filler coming from Frank Mentzer after I approved the work.  #1649

When I was asked to create a campaign setting for TSR to market, I did a new and compact "world"--that only in part, of course, as that was all I could fit onto the two maps allowed. So that became the World of Greyhawk. At that point my campaign play gradually moved from the amorphous "real" planet on which Greyhawk was located to the material one published by TSR. Being busy as ever, saving what amounted to duplicate labor was happily accepted. #160

Brian asked me to create a world setting for the A/D&D game as quickly as I could. I took him at his word. First I found out the maximum size map we could print, then hand-drew the double-sized map that appeared in the World of Greyhawk product. [35]

That entailed putting in the terrain features and names, names of states, location and names of major population centeres. The naming part was more work than was placing the map features. That took me about two weeks time. [35]

Writing the material for the whole was fairly easy, as I could look at what I had drawn and let my creative imagination have free reign. Of course having been a DM for many years by that time I was well aware of what sort of variety would please the gaming audience.It was also relatively easy to manage, because I purposely left much of the detail for individual DMs to insert, thus making the setting their own. [35]

As Darlene was working on printable version of the map, I went back and did a bit of further development and polishing to the ms., and that was that. A month of dedicted and constant attention to the project, and finished after about 250 hours work time. Frank Mentzer did some further development, adding his and my later material, for the boxed set version. [35]

I wasn't about to detail a whole bloody world :roll: Besides the amount of effort needed to do that, the time required was not acceptable. TSR wanted a world setting in a month. Thus I asked what the largest map size possible for us to produce was, hand-drew two continent-spanning maps, and while Darlene was converting one to a proper version, I wrote the explanatory material for the other, then did the same for the other map. [35]

As I had other things to do besides the world setting, I devoted myself to the completion of the work so as to be able to return to my other duties...not to mention that it was a project that I was much enthused about designing. [35]

There was no particular competitive reason for the urgency of the design. There was no particular marketing push planned by TSR for the product once it was completed. [35]

The WoG product as published by TSR came into being about two or three months before the date of its printing and sale. Brian said that a campaign setting was needed, so after ascertaining the maximum size map sheet we could have printed, I free-handed the land outlines on those two sheets of paper, used colored pencils to put in terrain features, located the cities, and made up the names for everything. That took me about 1 week. Then I went to work on the text while Darlene made prettier maps out of what I had done. Two or three weeks after the rough maps were done I turned over the text, as there was a big rush to get the product out. [35]

Design Principles

The World of Greyhawk setting was crafted to allow for individualization by DMs, of course, and so was as non-specific and vague in places where the DM was likely to have created his own material. I did intend to expand the world and do some area specifric modules--mostly at the edges of the Flanaess, but that wasn't to be... #4978

The relatively low level of NPCs, and the balance between alignments was done on purpose so as facilitate the use of the world setting by all DMs. With a basically neutral environment, the direction of the individual campaign was squarely in the hands of the DM running it. The Circle of Eight came into the setting when it seemed to me that my PCs were generally too powerful to remain in active play, and they were put into the mix for DMs to use in case they wanted to keep the setting from being dominated by Good or Evil, to a lesser extent Law or Chaos and even true Neutrality. That was done because to my way of thinking dominance by one alignment group tends to restrict the potential for adventuring. #1649

In regards to the timeline for the WoG setting, I had no immediate plan for advancing it as the world was meant to be used by all DMs so desirous, each making it conform to his own campaign needs.

Any special changes added to the setting in "the future" would have been done in modular form so as to be optional. #7346

Decreeing major wars in the Flanaess would have been quite contrary to the design philosophy behind the WoG. It was a template for use by DMs to use in developing their own campaigns based in the milieu. The various alliances and hostilities were set forth, but where they went was meant for each DM to determine as suited his own creative application of the base information. That said, I did indeed find the concept of FtA quite inappropriate #7745

Age of great Sorrow was meant to be the time of the migrating tribes into the Flanaess, as the Oeridians destroyed the older culture and society. I believe I meant the Turmoil Between Crowns to be the time when the Great Kingdom arose. As you likely suspected, those were hooks left for further development...that never got developed.

Inspiration for the World of Greyhawk

Of course a good deal of my wargaming experience, knowledge of history and geography and use of such in other projects came into play in creating the map and the states on it. [35]

Inspiration came from much rading, map making, writing of historical and game materials, and the necessity of producing something that would be lots of fun for everyone. Imagination and creative thought then took over... [35]

Switching to the published Version

Of course as my campaign world was active, had many players, I did not wish to detail it, so I created Aerth, the continent of Oerick, and all that went with it for general use by other DMs. I found I liked it so well that I switched my group's play to the World of Greyhawk soon after I had finished the maps and manuscript. #5479

When I did the map for the World of Greyhawk product I made up 90% of the material on the spot...and liked it better than what I had been doing so switched my own campaign to the newly created world of Oerth. Only the places surrounding the City of Greyhawk came from my original campaign setting. #8253

When I switched to Oerik as the main continent, most of the putdoor adventuring took place to the east and up north around the big lakes. A couple of years back a group from Tennessee visited, and I designed an adventure for them that would indeed take them from Greyhawk all the way west of Zeif, looking for a haunted city there. After eight hours they'd not made it much further that Rel Mord, so that was the end of the adventure. Pity... #3218

Gazetteer

Flanaess: "Flan-AeCE," the stressed syllable almost sounding "ace," the "Ae" like "Ay" perhaps. #1439

Nyr Dyv: "Nir Div," with a punning "Near Dive" when PCs were about to be immersed.

The Egg of Coot is a creation of Dave Arneson's. He has stated that it was drawn from the name of Gregg Scott, a chap who disdained fantasy as "unmanly"--as opposed to the micro-scale armored fighting vehicles he manufactured and purveyed. #3316

The Blackmoor on the Oerick maps is certainly not the same as Dave Arneson's campaign setting. I liked its ring, so put it onto the map as I was making up names for the various states.

Furyondy is sort of an idealized medieval Great Britain with the Norman influence. [35]

The Yeomanry is the idealized English countryside, including the Lowlands of Scotland. [35]

Perrenland is based on the Swiss Confederation where both my father and Jeff Perren's were born [35]

South Province would be Austria, Hungary, or Bulgaria. [GenCon 1998 seminar]

Think of the Great Kingdom as en empire, Aerdi as the core. It is the Great Kingdom because it rules all the other parts outside of Aerdi, just as Great Britain was and is more than England. [35]

Aerdi has Gothic architecture, BTW, while the Great Kingdom has Byzantine... [35]

As the one that conceptualized the character of Ivid V, Overking, I assure you he is demented, malign, and thoroughly evil. Think of the Emperor John Ominer in The Broken Lands by Fred Saberhagen, and then make the mental image more vile and scheming. [35]

With the sad news of Fred Saberhagen's passing fresh in my mind, I must say that the Great Kingdom I pictured as akin to John Ominer's Empire of the East. #7762

[Duchy of Tenh] As I never was privy to any campaign material that was created by Dave, I simply used a name similar to that which had been mentioned by him. #1672

I had the Sulhaut Mountains as the "Lost world" setting in my compaign, although we never did much of anything there as events kept the PCs bust elsewhere. (I wanted to do something fun with the 'Rift as well, but never got there. #3941

As I wrote it Rel Astra is the capital city of the See of Medigia--named for a wargame opponent of mine, BTW, than no one has ever asked about or picked up on, Mike Magida. Perhaps I made the error, or more likely a busy editor inserted the "free city" tab for Rel Astra. One can live with a free city as a capital, of course. London was a free city and the capital of England. [35]

The spell-worker ruling the Valley of the Mage was envisioned by me as a demi-urge in retirement rather akin to Tom Bombadil. #8299

Rift Canyon I alweays envisioned the Roftcanyon as a twilight place full of dangers reminiscent of REH's "Red Nails" short story...plus caves and caverns. There are many ledges and caves along the way down, and one is fortuitous indeed to reach the perils that await at the bottom [27]

[Nerof Gaskal] It is just a name I made up, one that seemed suitable for the persona it identified. Actually, it was inspired by the name of a chap that ran a local butcher shop here in Lake Geneva, Frank Gascal. I suppose that I am attempting to emulate Jack Vance in regards character names. [35]

Peoples

The Flan were not meant to be anything like the American Indians. they were of Hamatic-like racial origin, Negroes if you will. Little is known of them because they were generally absorbed into the waves of other peoples immigrating eastwards through the continent, so their culture was generally lost. #2800

You are correct in regards the Paynims, they being much like the Tiger and Wolf Nomads. All three do have some medium cavalry. The Paynims do not have the long-distance signalling, but have ambush skill. [35]

Additional Continents 

The exact form of the remainder of the globe was not settled upon. I wanted an Atlantis-like continent, and possibly a Lemirian-type one. Likely two large continents would have been added. The nearest would house cultures akin to the Indian, Burmese, Indonesian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese. Another would likely have been the location of African-type cultures, including the Egyptian. A Lemurian culture would have been based off the Central and South American cultures of the Aztec-Mayay-Inca sort.#1094

Yes indeed, Frank spoke truth. As I have said before I did intend to expand the WoG setting to cover the complete planet. In that regard Len Lakofka, Francois Marcela Froideval, and Frank Mentzer were all to be involved in the shape of the added continents and islands. #1992

I had a sketch map of the remainder of the globe, to the east, west, north and south of Oerik. I had planned to have Len Lakofka and Francois Marcela Froideval do parts of the entire world, but that was coming after 1985. So as far as things now stand, there is no remainder of the WoG beyond the original two maps I did. #3699

Len Lakofka had an eastern continental addition as well as the Lendore Isles, so what Iplanned to so was incorporate Francois' and Len's maps with Oerik, complete the lower continent below it, and have a real globe #2819

[Chronicles of the Black Moon] Yes, and yes. His area of Oerth was located to the west, and it included the island of Mephreton.

The would would be a complete globe with more continents and states thereon with contributions from Len Lakofka and Francois Marcela-Froideval. #1082

Pantheon

Only after I had completed the last of the core rules books for AD&D was there time for me to address growing audience interest in the World of Greyhawk and its deities. When the version of that setting was ready for publication, the need for a more detailed pantheon of deities was apparent, so that's when the details were set down. That made Len Lakofka happy too, for I brought in the deities he had been using for his campaign #2732

Pantheons of deities are the usual in authored fantasy, and they suit a role-playing game in that genre well. That is why I adopted the concept so as to have a reason for and empower the clerics in the game.

The World of Greyhawk deities came directly from my creative imaginings, or those of a few others such as Len Lakofka and Roger Moore. #5580

Boccob is a deity, and archmagi are basically mortals or demi-deities. [35]

Erythnul was conceived of a bloody, Nerull as dark and against life. #1762

Erythnul was my conception, and it was inspired by need in the pantheon being created, and the "Demon of Blood & Seed" from Hindu mythology provided the conceptual basis for one of his capabilities.

Kelanan, the Sword Lord, was something I made up out of whole cloth. I do have a fighter PC that kept finding magic swords, totes a number of them around, so there was some inspiration involved from there--he needed a deity [35]

I created the name "Lolth" as a name that seemed "right" for a spider-like demoness. I was not thinking of the mythical Lilith when I made up that name.[35]

Wastri, ah, a favorite of mine. His original appearance was in an early, never fully published (rightfully so) novel called THE GNOME CACHE. In withdrawing to the marshes to live a life of contemplation, Wastri found only that he loves batrachians, that hunting small demi-humans with giant toads was amusing sport, and the only enlightment he received was from the first used to roast prey taken. Perhaps it was a comment on extreme conceits of religious sort.... #341

The giant toads are the steeds of the followers of Wastri, the Hopping Prophet, certainly of Oerth and the pantheon of the Flanaess. #5351

As for Bit T, well, I decided a really nasty and wholly evil deity was needed, so I created Tharizdun from whole cloth. When I wrote the FToT I had that in mind, and from there I developed him into what I hope is a truly dispicable entity. #383

No, the Elder Elemental God I envisaged as an entity of vaguely Chronos-like sort, a deity of great power but of chaotic sort, and not always highly clever in thought and action. Big T on the other hand is the epitome of pure, reasoning and scheming evil. / Eclavrdra, being more of the mold of Tharizdun, would prefer to have as "master" a powerful deity she might hope to influence, thus the EEG. #683

Len deserves the lion's share of the credit, and blame if any, for the Suel deities. I simply did a bit of editing of his work. #8733

Actually many of the Suel, Wee Jas included, were the creation of Len Lakofka #5411

As the deity under consideration here was an invention of Len Lakofka, I can't speak to the source for his creative thinking or to the matter of how her name is pronounced...other than to note that Len said "Wee-Jaz," with a slight stress on the first syllable. #1970

Olidammara is a creation of my own that Len added to his pantheon. #8741

Actually, I can vaguely remember what I envisioned for said deity, Dorgha Torgu. He was based on the Mongolian, so picture a Ghengis Khan-like warrior with a head similarone of the Chinese "General" deities--oni-like, dark blue or bright red, with bulging eyes and protruding tusks and fangs. Garments like those worn by the Mongol leaders, weapons also. [35]

I did the quasi-deities late in the game, so to speak, so only minimal use of them was made by me in the campaign. As the higest level PCs were then in the Evil alignment, they were not at all interested in seeking our such quasi-deities...and getting their butts kicked. [35]

Further Plans had Gary remained in charge of TSR

Had I remained in creative control of the D&D game line at TSR one of the projects I planned was the complete development of of the Oerth world setting, and production of source modules for the various states and outstanding features of the Flanaess--such as the Rift Canyon, the Sea of Dust, etc. #6511

There would be several WoG sourcebooks detailing places such as the Great Kingdom, the "Barbarians (Frost, ice, Snow)," etc.

A major module would be done regarding the area around the Rift and the place proper. Another dealing with the Sea of Dust would be done. Possibly adventures regarding the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Horned Society would be available. Likely a couple of more from Len and Francois would be in the line.

There would be some "portal accessed" adventures, these likely found in a series of modules detailing more of the Underdark and the Sunless Sea. The portals would lead to non-fantasy-genre settings.

In all, for every question answered regarding the world, at least one new one would be created and left unanswered, for my purpose was to have a world that the DM could complete and customize as suited his group.

In all likelihood Castle Greyhawk and the City of Greyhawk would be available products.

That's it off the top of my head--first time I've actually gone to such detail in considering what I would likely have done. #1082

Interestingly, the City of Greyhawk was published as a boxed set by TSR, not the real city, of course, with a nice map, and I bought it, but found it pretty unplayable. A lot of background info, but no outlines of adventures or intrigutes that players could be sucked into.

Yes, when I devised the Scarlet Brotherhood I based the concept on an organization of monks who were augmented by assassins and clerics, with a large number of fighters around, of course.

Most of the play in my campaign was around the Nyr Dyv and westwards. Thus the Brotherhood's machinations were not central to the action. I was planning to do a module to two featuring them, but that didn't happen, so I have no detailed plots regarding them and their conspiricies. As with many places on the continent of Oerik, they were there for use as needed, a tool for the DM #1433

While I am much impressed with the Australian Aboriginies, and also with the Bushmen of Africa, I never contemplated adding them to the mix simply because their cultures are so far from those used as bases for the milieux of Oerth adventuring. The amount of work necessary to establish the groundwork for play therein would be rather daunting, both for the author and the DM utilizing the material. It would be a simpler matter to manage it for the LA game system, but for D&D I can foresee all manner of lengthy additions to the rules being necessary. BTW, by D&D, I am speaking broadly, and mean AD&D as well. #1131

Stoink, "The Wasps' Nest" as it were. The whole place was designed for feloneous activity, double-dealing, and thuggery. It saddened me a lot to have to forget further development, as was the case with Shadowland and a couple of areas of the Flanaess I had hoped to set adventure modules in--the Rift, Scarlet Brotherhood, and the jungles of Hepmonoland in particular. #4754

Shadowland was a module that Skip williams and I were in process of writing when the trouble came and I left TSR. I suggested thereafter that we complete the work, but Skip demurred. No more need be said... #4355

An agathocacological plane of insubstantial stuff has always fascinated me since I began contemplating additional realms. So the shadows from A. Merritt's Creep Shadow, Creep novel were included in the AD&D game, and new and similar monsters added to the projected plane betweem light and darkness. Skip Williams was going to co-author a long adventure module and sourcebook for the place, but he decided to remain a loyal employee of Lorraine Williams instead. I have my notes, but his are amongst them, so doing such a work now is pretty much unlikely. #8264

[References: see Greyhawk References]