Grey in the Hawk

Nitescreed

As Posted to Greytalk (Sun, 12 Apr 1998)

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In considering Greyhawk, whether a new WoG or your own campaign, I propose the following guidelines, of course they are just that and no more.

1st - Greyhawk is, or should be, a setting for experienced gamers. This is by default as it has been around so long and because gaming has also matured. There are plenty of other settings available for the kids.

But what components go into a game designed for experienced gamers?

1) Experience vs. Maturity Such a game need not deal exclusively or at all with "adult" topics like sexuality. The game merely needs to recognize that the players will be familiar with the conventions of roleplaying. That is all that need be ment by mature/adult or experienced.

2) Ain't No Black and White World Such a game needs to have complex characters, countries, situations and social relationships. The nine alignments are too simplistic. Characters, countries, etc. should not be easily classified on a good/evil or law/chaos scale. Rather, characters, countries, etc. will have both good and bad characteristics at the same time. The bad characteristics need not be "evil" but can be merely flaws. Birthright has taken this example to heart and is a good model to follow in this respect.

3) Conflicts Conflicts will include good vs. evil but also good vs good or evil vs evil rivalries. Conflicts would include situations that are good or evil depending on your world view i.e. morally relativistic, or neutral as some define it. Conflicts should not be one sided right or wrong.

4) The Action Rather, than an emphasis on monsters, the emphasis should be on NPC's. Along with monster slaying, politics, intrigue, romance, economics, social advancement, etc. should receive equal time and attention. As part of this, the PCs, rather than some NPC, should resolve major conflicts. PCs should drive the action and the setting. Many WoG published adventures follow this model - allowing the PCs to take the staring role. The Giant Series. Slavelords. Etc.

5) Presentation The presentation would establish the general outline of the world in sufficient detail to be playable. Follow up products would develop the key areas and conflicts of the world in greater, but not obsessive, detail. Subsequent releases should advance the history of the world, gradually changing and evolving it. This is not to say there can be no upheavals but evolution should not stop and must always be natural to the setting.

6) It's My Nickel A game for experienced gamers needs to be much more responsive to its audience. Experienced gamers are opinionated and want to have input. ;) The follow up and subsequent releases should be guided by what the audience wants. Radical concept, no? Bottom up rather than top down management and design.

7) The Setting The setting must present a wide variety of micro settings within the macro setting. This Greyhawk accomplishes. From ice caps to deserts, oceans to lakes, elves to humans, etc., Greyhawk has it all in a compact area. This variety provides the greatest likelihood that an experienced gamer will find something to their liking. Holds as a general principle as well.

8) Historicism The setting must have a history and events must make sense within that history. This provides context. Greyhawk again comes through. It is possible to achieve this not only in the original design but through the supplements that gradually evolve the setting.

9) Character Development Characters should be able to develop not only in terms of power but personality. Yes. I can do that now but it is not built into the rules system and we are talking design. Pendragon is an example of a game that does build in non power character development glory, vices and virtues etc.

10) Roots Characters should not just spring into being. Leave parthenogenesis to Zeus. Characters should have backgrounds and family ties i.e. baggage. It goes with the historicism and character development.

These techniques are nothing more than adaptations of common fiction writing techniques. Not the drivel TSR calls fiction but REAL fiction.

2nd - Moving from general principles to more specific Greyhawk applications - What does it mean for a product or adventure or even an entirely new creation to be suitably "Greyhawk?" What puts the "Grey" in the Hawk?

Criteria No. 1 Applied Internal Historic Consistency

Greyhawk has a strong internal sense of history that is consistently applied in all "Greyhawk" products or creations. However, not every product published under the name "Greyhawk" meets this criteria.

Greyhawk is a storied realm. It's seminal figures, good and ill, are interwoven throughout the setting. It has a defined history that strongly influences the present and future of the setting. Greyhawk's history is not a footnote but an integral part of the setting that must be understood to truly comprehend the relationships among men, nations and even gods. True "Greyhawk" products or creations build on this history, incorporate it and develop it. The best such products or creations leave enough open ends to allow for further such development. More mediocre products attempt closure of every loose thread.

Criteria No. 2 Player Resolution of Critical Events

The seminal events in Greyhawk's current history and development are all presented such that the players may not only take part but play a leading role. Player's could fight the Greyhawk Wars.

Players defeated the hordes of the Temple of Elemental Evil. Players defeated Lolth. Players turned the tide as Iuz aced Vecna.

In the Forgotten Realms, for example, Ao decrees an event and the players get to clean up in the aftermath. Cyric destroys Zhentil Keep offstage and the players get to delve into the ruins. Gods die to be replaced by mortals and the players watch. Elminster sends players on a mission but ultimately keeps from them the greater goal the mission serves.

When you play in Greyhawk, you join in the weaving of a tapestry of which you are a vital part. Greyhawk is about your story in the context of Greyhawk's story. Roleplaying in Greyhawk involves playing your part in the longest running AD&D campaign in existence. It is bigger than you are but you can become as great as it is. That is the essence of Greyhawk's history. It enfolds, informs and connects every part of the setting and all who play there of any length of time.

Criteria No. 3 NPCs Reward More Often Than They Advise or Direct

NPC's in Greyhawk are not godlike figures who direct the course of events upon which your character is washed like the tide. Neither do they persistently show up to advise you. They may do both but more often they serve as the measuring stick against which your character's performance can be judged and serve to reward your character by recognizing their accomplishments or otherwise admitting your character into their august company.

The Circle of Eight are aloof. They do not want to be your buddy. Neither do they have a laundry list of chores for you to perform. Rather, in Greyhawk you will find adventure without such NPCs suggesting it for the most part.

In the Forgotten Realms, for example, Elminster is famous for sending characters on their way. The Harpers do the same. Ultimately, Elminster or the Harpers play the directing role and may indeed appear to steal the show or otherwise claim ultimate victory.

In Greyhawk, YOU are the hero. Without assistance from the likes of the Circle of Eight and without them acting as a safety net. You can go your own way, in fact, without them ever troubling you. This cannot be so simply said in settings such as the Forgotten Realms and has not a little to do with Criteria No. 2 (Player Resolution of Critical Events in Greyhawk vs. NPC Resolution of Critical Events in FR).

Criteria No. 4 Persistent Personified Evil

Evil in Greyhawk is persistent. It is halted, checked or imprisoned but it is not defeated with finality for all time. The triumph over evil is a relative thing, ultimately transitory.

Evil in Greyhawk is personified. Evil has faces and names attached to it that ring down through the setting's history. It is not an evil that pops up purely to give the players something to strive against and defeat before moving on to the next evil that similarly appears out of relative nowhere.

Vecna, Iuz, Lolth, Tharzidun, the Scarlet Brotherhood, Aerdi, Kas, even Turrosh Mak, all met this criteria. They are highly personified forces that spring from the setting's specific history. By comparison, evil in the Forgotten Realms is of the pop-up variety save for the Red Wizards and Zhentrim. Menaces appear from nowhere or with on the spot histories that never before appeared in the setting. Greyhawk allows for this type of toaster villainy but it also established from the first, villains of a historic character that transcend the needs of the adventure of the moment.

Criteria No. 5 Villainous Variety

Villainy in Greyhawk runs the gambit from the cosmic menace of Tharzidun, to the planar peril of Lolth, to the cambion menace of Iuz, to the purely mortal menace of Turrosh Mak. There is variety in the villainy. Villainy in Greyhawk is like a box of chocolates from Hell; you never know for sure what you are going to get (Best Example: The Giant Series). Greyhawk's villains do not announce themselves; you have to figure it out.

Compare villainy in the Forgotten Realms. The variety isn't there. You have scads of godly villains. The Red Wizards. The Zhents. It is feast or famine. And FR villains have signature trademarks that all but announce who you are facing, unless of course it is an evil toaster pastry.

Villains in Greyhawk will also turn on each other. The Iuz/Vecna conflict being perhaps the most famous. In other settings, villains are villains, identified by their clearly visible placards, sandwich signs or more "subtly" their black attire. You can count on them to always do the wrong thing.

Greyhawk keeps you guessing. Like a good Call of Cthulthu adventure.

Criteria No. 6 Heroism With a Price

Greyhawk's heros rarely slay the evil wizard, who will trouble the land no more, to the full voiced cheers of the crowd. Best Iuz and you are marked. He will be back but you will have to deal with a likely enraged Zuggotomy in the meanwhile. Greyhawk's villains don't exist in a vacuum and neither do Greyhwk's heroes. Everything is linked.

Heroism has a meaning within the setting that makes it more than a solitary act echoing in the vastness. It attracts attention, good and ill. It is immediate and brings a notoriety that other settings can only talk about. Notables exist to recognize your accomplishments and to measure you against themselves and the foe you defeated. And, they will have likely played little or no role in your victory. Evil too takes your measure for darker reasons.

This criterion can best be seen in the breach. The interconnection of people and places and the loose ends creates this effect, though few published adventures use it to motivate future adventures. The revised supermodule series provides the greatest opportunity on this score. But note the connection in Isle of the Ape - Iggwilv is pissed because someone (the PCs) offed Drelzna in the Caverns of Tsojcanth!

Criteria No. 7 Militant Neutrality

On Oerth, the forces of neutrality are arguably at least as powerful as those of good and evil and certainly as active.

Iquander has accurately defined this characteristic of Greyhawk and I acknowledge his work. Greyhawk is not concerned with the triumph of good over evil. The very nature of the evils loose on Oerth makes such triumphs fleeting at best. Greyhawk endures evil and circumvents it. It does not defeat it.

Evil forces, of course, will attempt to conquer Oerth. And just as certainly they will be opposed by forces who will seek to banish evil from the world. Neither will succeed. Neither in the long history of Oerth has ever succeeded. Good and evil are well enough matched that outcomes are never certain and always close calls one way or the other.

Moreover, evil on Oerth is not monolithic. Various demon lords and ladies contend with each other. Iuz battles Vecna. Kas seeks Vecna's destruction. Iuz feuds with his mother and father. Evil beings are true to no one save themselves.

Perhaps accounting for all of this, Oerth has strong and active neutrally aligned forces, working to preserve a balance between good and evil. While hardly organized, these forces nonetheless manage to be quite effective. The Circle of Eight, mighty wizards all, seeks a middle path. Istus, the divine Lady of Fate, tests all but favors none. Druids are a quiet but ever present presence. Indeed, many of Greyhawk's deities reflect a distinct neutral bent.

Compare Toril. Evil is overmatched by Elminster, the Seven Sisters (good aligned minions of the goddess of magic), the Harpers, the Lords of Waterdeep and activist gods. Evil is on the run and kept that way. It has but few strong holds and is highly transient, rarely surviving long enough to present more than a temporary challenge. Good triumphs on Toril. The dragon is slain, never to rise. The horror you never heard of before yesterday is laid to rest. The bad gods are thrown down.

The differences could not be more striking. Greyhawk is about struggle against evenly matched and long standing opponents. FR is about victory over transient and overmatched opponents.

Criteria No. 8 Personal Magics

Greyhawk is not a low fantasy setting save by comparison to settings on magical overload. Birthright is a low fantasy setting. The Forgotten Realms is a high fantasy setting. Greyhawk falls in between.

What distinguishes magic in Greyhawk is that it is highly personalized. Look at the spells. Mordenkainen's this. Nystul's that. Otiluke's the other. Magic is personalized by any wizard not of the hedge variety. Look at the artifacts for still more proof. What Birthright strives to achieve sparingly, Greyhawk has already accomplished in fair profusion. Spells have a history as due magic items. While there are +1 swords of no certain fame, many are the items with specific histories. Look at the Greyhawk Adventures hardback.

Similarly magical instruction in Greyhawk is personal. Greyhawk does not know great guilds of wizards but flourishes with a developed system of apprenticeships. One need but look at the Circle of Eight to see this. They, with one, possibly two, exceptions, belong to no guild of mages, and they that do belong do so as patrons at best and more probably as figureheads. Neither can the Circle itself be considered a guild. This mighty example and the utter lack of a single magical guild of any note, fairly well makes the case.

These then are the eight traits that define the Greyhawk feel. Most critical are 1st (Applied Internal Historic Consistency), 4th (Persistent Personified Evil) and 7th (Militant Neutrality) points. At the barest minimum to be considered truly "Greyhawk" a product or creation must adhere to these three criteria. Better products or creations adhere to progressively more of these criteria. The best also display a mature approach the experienced gamer can appreciate.

Without doing a full dress analysis of From the Ashes, I think we can see that it utterly fails to adhere to the 7th criterion. FtA throws neutrality out the window in favor of paring off goods and evils in a Flanaess tilted wildly toward evil. Furyondy/Nyrond is pared off with Iuz. Aerdi is pared off with Nyrond. Keoland is paired off with the Scarlet Brotherhood/Pomarj. While overall, evil is clearly ascendent. This sort of dark fantasy, whatever its merits otherwise, defies the tradition of active neutrality that defined Greyhawk beforehand. That about half all WoG players rejected FtA supports this hypothesis. FtA's designers, to include the Greyhawk Wars, were ignorant, willfully or otherwise, of the setting in which they worked. The resulting products while technically proficient, even well done on their own merits, were sadly lacking in that Greyhawk feel. Of course, some would choose to ignore this, finding the change "bracing," others with duller senses wouldn't even notice.

In any event, now we have a list of what puts the Grey in the Hawk. This list is by no means exclusive. I may have overlooked something and I know some listed criteria are of lesser note than others or mere permutations. However, I think overall the list can stand up to close scrutiny.

3rd - Now that we've defined a game suitable for experienced or mature gamers and taken a look at what makes Greyhawk Greyhawk, lets examine Greyhawk circa From the Ashes with an eye toward a new Greyhawk. What must we necessarily consider?

First, FtA is part of Greyhawk's history. It will not be repealed or ignored. This is a given. But a new set will move beyond FtA just as FtA moved beyond the original material. This is a given. Only a complete ignorance of both the setting (see above) and marketing (see sales) would have things left the way they were presented in FtA. FtA will be part of Greyhawk's history, like a REALLY bad Dark Ages, but FtA is history when the new set arrives. But anon.

1 - The Blood War

Planescape set this baby up and, like it or hate it, it is hard to avoid. Greyhawk, with devils (Baatazu) infesting the GK in Ivid the Undying and demons elsewhere in profusion (Iuz), looks a lot like the Blood War. At the least it looks like a set up to it with advisors growing more numerous until they become actual combatants.

The presence of so many lower planar creatures in Greyhawk cannot be ignored and must be plausibly dealt with. Any new WoG must address this issue. To say "they left" would not be sufficient.

2 - The Undead

Almost an undead version of the Blood War exists in Aerdi as the various animi slug it out, the entire area pretty well thrown into chaos, with Ivid now creeping around forever to keep things going. Again, this cannot be ignored. It must be addressed in a new set. Adding more undead, like saying Oerth needs yet more invaders from the lower planes, is foolish. Less is obviously called for as a new set will not merely rehash FtA unless the designer is a complete idiot. So how do we get less undead in Aerdi? And less devils and demons all over?

3 - The Scarlet Brotherhood

Once cool conspirators, the SB have been outed and are now just another bunch of conquerors. Ho hum. Something must be done to restore their mystique. The unknown SB was scary. The new well-known SB - Lords of the South - are just thugs in bedsheets. The mystery needs to be injected back into the SB. And of course, their widely flung empire makes sense only to people who think the Mechs in Battletech make actually military sense.

4 - Assassins and Monks

Staying with the SB for a moment, assassins and monks were done away with in Greyhawk in the Fate of Istus module. BAD MOVE! These are part of Greyhawk and need to return. They were particularly important to giving the SB its sinister personality. Part of helping the SB regain its mystique would be to return the three tiered structure of assassins, monks and thieves.

5 - Iuz

His empire is more defendable than the SB's, which requires a naval capability the SB sorely lack, unless they have developed Carrier Taskforces and Battleship squadrons with which to conduct gunboat diplomacy. Iuz' problem is more an inability to get the job done against Furyondy while at the same time wasting effort in the west, and not doing too good of a job even at that. Pretty bad for a legendary cambion with major planar allies. But anon.

Iuz is more than any other factor responsible for polarizing the middle Flanaess into good vs evil camps. For that reason alone -Iuz must be cut down to size. The empire must be rolled back so that he can be a threat but not such a polarizing one. There are any number of options but something must be done. Two opposed camps - Good Furyondy & Nyrond vs Evil Iuz is not Greyhawk. Its a bad, really bad, imitation of the Realms cornpone moralism.

6 - Rary

What is Boccob's name is Rary DOING out in the Bright Desert? He is a threat? To what? Rary needs to be brought on line as a villain. THIS guy has POTENTIAL! He killed Tenser and Otiluke. He smashed the Circle of Eight. He's got Robilar for military punch. But he is woefully underused. Iuz? Been there done that. RARY has untapped potential, we have not seen his kind of villainy before. He's kinda like the Dominion in DS9 - he wants ORDER - HIS way! He may actually think what he is doing is necessary, even at a fearful cost. There are so many shadings to this guy. He is one complex character to be explored. So let's explore him.

7 - The Neutrals

These guys, best eptimoized by the Circle of Eight, and if you read EGG's Gord books - the druids, have been all but forgotten in FtA. They need to make a comeback. Neutrality needs to be a player. Good vs Evil ain't Greyhawk; its Realms. Greyhawk is active, militant neutrality. FtA forgot this and its time for the neutrals to strike back!

8 - City of Greyhawk

Tell me anyone LOVED the CoG map in the boxed set? Go on. I dare you! Nobody liked it. You especially hated it if you had read EGG. And the Polymorph Squad? Holy Realms! Elminster! Sum it up. Not a very good job on THE city the setting is named after. The City of Greyhawk needs to be redone. Don't scrap COG, just "update" it with a vengence. And while were at it lets MAKE IT MATTER! Greyhawk City circa FtA ain't a major player. But the setting isn't called World of Greyhawk for nothing. DOH!

That takes care of the major players and factions and the concerns they present. The issues must be addressed but we're not done yet. Let's talk history. FtA has given WoG a lot of history but there was history before FtA. It has not been remotely considered. Let's consider it.

4th - History

History adds context. You don't have to keep trying to invent something new to happen to WoG all the time, when you have so much history.

1 - The Suel

Favorite bad guys, we know little of the Ancient Suel. Their pantheon of gods tells us something but not enough. A page on the Ancient Suel Empire would do wonders for the setting from setting up adventures in the Sea of Dust to given insight into the Northern Barbarian Suel, the Keoland Suel who aren't that bad and the SB Suel who are. Potential is the word.

2 - The Baklunish

The Suel's foils in the Twin Cataclysms. They still exist in the west but what do we REALLY know about them? Next to nothing. Even their pantheon is mysteriously small. Again, any information would be great and the potential is vast, particularly with the FtA incursions of Baklunish peoples into the Flanaess proper.

3 - The Aerdi

Once they dominated the Flanaess. What were their historic boundaries? We know the outer dependencies gained freedom. How about a map that tracks the collapsing Aerdi Empire. Their influence, ruins etc. would make for many adventures and a greater understanding of the Flanaess.

4 - The Flan

Another little known people we are very familiar with. How do the Amerind Rovers fit with the "Duchy" (Euro feudal term) and square with one another. What about the Empire of Sulm that used to exist in the Bright Desert? Potential.

5 - The Olman

We know they had an Empire. We know it was sort of Mezo-American. Did they have contact with the Empire of Sulm in the Bright Desert? Again, any information would be welcome.

Then there are the mysterious areas of the map and beyond.

5th - The Periphery

These are the mysterious areas generally at the edge of the map. Hepmonaland, The Land of Black Ice, The Amedio Jungle, The Sea of Dust. Each offers adventure. Roger Moore did an excellent piece in the Oerth Journal on the Amedio Jungle. I say put it wholesale into a new Greyhawk boxed set. Do pieces of equal size on the other aforementioned areas. There still remains a great deal of unexplored area within the traditional confines of the original WoG map if an effort is made.

6th - The New Lands

Of course, with the publication of the Oerth Map in the first Dragon Annual, the gloves are off. Greyhawk is more than just the Flanaess. With the aforementioned principles in mind there is no reason to suppose that these areas can't be explored and still have it feel and be Greyhawk. In fact, the Map is an open invitation to just such. I say take it. Perhaps not in any great detail but perhaps in outline. Some commentary on the Map or whatever map may be otherwise decided upon.

Conclusion

What you have hear is a Guide to Doing Greyhawk. You keep it adult, not juvenile. You keep the Grey in the Hawk. You address the question of the forces FtA unleashed. You keep in mind Greyhawk's history. And you explore both the potential of the lands we already know in small degree and the unknown lands beyond.

Box it up and I'll give you $40 for it. Include three maps - 2 of east and west Flanaess, one of the new lands beyond. The typeface may need to be like that of Faiths and Avatars or Powers and Pantheons but those products demonstrate that it can be done if the will to do it is there.

And for gods sake advertize the thing like you mean for people to know about it and buy it. Put Greyhawk fliers in the Dragon. Put them in the bags at Gencon. Get the RPGA to run lots of Greyhawk tournaments. Make the AD&D Open at Gencon that year Greyhawk. Sell it like you mean it. Really mean it. Not mean it kinda or only after the Realms.

Make the art bright and bold so it leaps off the shelf. Make the interior b&w art crisp and clear. Do some nice layouts like Al-Qadim.

If you want it to sell, you have to sell it. Design is only half the equation. Both are equally important.

Now, let's get to it.