Something I loved about the Greyhawk wars is that it taught me a world should not be static. By the published setting changing the borders it enabled me to wake up to the fact that my players could also change the borders. Instead of little non-world changing differences like founding a town it awakened me to the fact that it is OK to claim changes to the whole world.
It would be an interesting twist if Furyondy or the Shield Lands actually sent the PCs to HELP the Horned Society against Iuz - sort of the "enemy of my enemy" situation, knowing Iuz is the greater threat.
Well you did mention Gygax's From the Sorcerer's Scroll in Dragon Magazine (or The Dragon Magazine), the Greyhawk Wars had already started. What he was describing were NOT low tier conflicts in those articles and events were coming to a head. Those developments ended when he was pushed out of TSR but if you look carefully at the overall theme of the setting established in the Folio (a cold war turned apocalypse, recovery, then fall, recovery, build up again, break-up, then balkanizations, with several states on a collision course for war in a unstable powderkeg), War spanning Oerth is inevitable. GMs are certainly welcome just to play in a setting where they kick in the door, kick the monster in the junk, and take their wallets but if you look at the geopolitical situation Gygax set-up, that world is wound up real tight and it's ready to explode. Iuz was just a good foil to strike the match in Greyhawk Wars. The Five Shall be One etc as adventures aren't great but it's as good an excuse as any. But Vikings are gonna viking...and iirc there is a Sorcerer's Scroll article where they do start acting like proper Norse (danes). The Scarlet Brotherhood certainly aren't interested in the status quo either. And they are have been putting things in place to puppetmaster a big 'let's you and him fight' for at least a generation. Stopping them at a PC level likely not possible unless the DM leads them by the nose or you have a player really into international spy thrillers and willing to put the time and effort in building their own covert organization to counter them. The Great Kingdom is doomed to collapse and do it messily dragging everyone in. Gygax at his heart was a wargamer (at least when he wrote Greyhawk) and the Great Kingdom is pretty close to the Holy Roman Empire (or Austria-Hungary). Nyrond (France) is going to be drawn in regardless. Unless you are dealing with superhero PCs that are State level powers on themselves, preventing that mess if the GM runs that political situation out is well above their paygrade. Add in the other players in play in the World of Greyhawk. Against the Giants (invasion), the drow & underOerth overall, Zagig, the Circle (or Citadel) of Eight's quirks (Rufus had the right of them I think), not to mention the disaster area of Robilar (if you pay attention to Rob Kuntz's stories...yeah his character is the 'ur-adventurer' but as a character he's definitely evil and causes so much trouble and sets so many things in motion). The World of Greyhawk is brimming with tons of other highly destructive threats from cultists to abundant barbarian hordes (humanoids to giants), slavers, liches, and other planar invaders (Lolth & other fiends). I thought Sargent did a good job with From the Ashes in how to settle things in a bit more logical equilibrium if you paid attention to the over arching details of the setting.
Another great video, Joe, that addresses actual GH DMing concerns. I have long found the outcome of the Greyhawk Wars both raidlroady and unsatisfying. I began my current GH campaign on a grand scale 3 years ago, and made a conscious choice to start the PCs off in an indistinct peasant village in Idee, because I have long though that the Iron League got extremely short shrift in the context of the GH Wars box. In my view, the Iron League are far far more resilient and should be offered a more than robust chance at keeping the Great Kingdom in check. The PCs can be invested in defending these lands because that's where they're from, for instance. If you join that with your suggestions on interrupting Iuz in the North (yes! I'm on board with that possibility) and the Bone March-Nyrond part of the Great Kingdom equation, then things start to get really interesting. I think one of your key observations is not so much to railroad the PCs into an alternate timeline, so much as drawing things out. Letting every piece fall into place as it may, with PC intervention here and there. Properly done, that can give you years of campaigning rather than see the Flannaess end up inevitably where the GH and From the Ashes would have it, no matter what.
I think similarly to you that when From the Ashes originally came out I didn't feel it was in keeping with where my own Greyhawk campaign was going. However, I stopped playing in 96 for personal reasons but then started up again in 2017 and now after all this time I do appreciate the changes that were made and incorporate them in my re-established campaign. I still tweak things to fit with my own campaign, but I don't mind that Greyhawk became darker & more political in tone thanks to Carl Sargent's input. My own restarted campaign kicks off in CY600 with the freeing of Tharizdun from his imprisonment and the Oerth-shattering implications of that! He was freed by a monk PC I played from the Scarlet Brotherhood (back in the late 80s) so they are involved in all sorts of affairs. The humanoid armies of the Pomarj were crushed by forces paid for by this monk who then claimed that land for himself & 2 compatriots and it's been re-named Tharizdonia. The old Great Kingdom has been reunited by a Julius Caesar-like figure who has renamed that land The Empire of Aerdy. Ivid V and his undead minions in Rauxes have been cut off from the population by turning Rauxes into a necropolis and it's walled off from the locals. Iuz and Vecna are simply puppets of Tharizdun now (Iuz knows this, Vecna does not) . . . so there's all sorts going on with my campaign!
I played a lot of D&D in the late 1970s & early 1980s. Mostly good homebrew and Keep on the Borderlands. I never bothered with Greyhawk and my D&D tapered off to nothing by the mid-1980s. I started reading modules and learning about Greyhawk a few years ago. It's been a stop & start thing. So, vaguely I understand who Tharizdun, Iuz, and Vecna are. You kind of have the League of the Super Villain's there, right? Do you call it, "Back to Ashes"?😇 Seriously, it is good to know that someone, else who took a long hiatus from D&D has mastered enough of this complex setting to run a campaign without a lifetime commitment. It's like the classic onion analogy, you keep pealing back layers while trying to focus on a particular region to deep-dive and develop. Adding the dimension of time, essentially triples the complexity level. I want to know enough about this so that I can work within it's confines and historical flow, or at least not against them. I have always preferred DMing modest low to mid level games. So high politics and titanic battles are not on my agenda. But it's fun to see what Gary Gygax bit off when he set his sights on "world building". I hope to keep learning and eventually participate in some Greyhawk campaigns and write a few low level adventures set firmly in the World of Greyhawk. It's going to be a stop & start & start again process, but we played some pretty good home brew back in the day. It would be a shame for that experience go to unpublished. What was that old school style? I like to characterize it by saying there was no "Pass without a trace spell". But if someone said they looked around and surveyed the terrain, they would find an overgrown drainage ditch that would be good cover and get the party to where it needed to go. That ditch would not exist at odds with the topography presented. Good luck with your campaigns!
I would most likely "just ignore it" :-) But there is potential in engaging in war-missions that can alter the course of history or mitigate the effects. There are A LOT of WWII movies like that, so it does make for tense stories. You could make your own fantasy version of Guns of the Navarone :-) You kinda hint at it in the video, but there is also the option for time travel. The party could be thrown into the future and see what a hellscape Greyhawk has become. Then they are whisked back and have a chance to avoid it!
I think the obvious vandalism of the Gygax legacy was why I never ran with the Wars. Looking back, it didn't have to be that way - the rise of Iuz was always prefaced in Greyhawk and I liked the development of oncoming wars in Dragon, so the Wars were not a bolt out of the blue, but as executed they never felt like a place where my players wanted to play. Your suggestions are good - they seem to give proper agency to the players rather than being mere witnesses to the devastation the TSR product. By contrast to the GH wars, I loved the cognate Rebellion in GDW's MegaTraveller - for me (I realise not everyone), the collapse of the Third Imperium opened up the whole 3I as a place for players to travel in with the political crisis acting as a push or pull in the background.
Hello Sir Grognard! Thank you for this video. I have to admit, the Greyhawk Wars have, all these years, been a setting that I understand only poorly and vaguely, so I admit that I'm one of the people who "just ignore it" when I want to set a game in Greyhawk. I didn't hate the idea of the wars, per se; in fact it's hard to deny that the original setting in the Gold Box was already on the very cusp of war. But as a much younger player the Greyhawk Wars seemed both complicated and expensive, when I didn't have the money to buy them. Stuff like this helps me to understand better what really happened to bring the Flanaess to "current day". Thank you.
In our campaign my dad didn't have to do anything special with the Iuz part, we the players realized something was up when Iuz showed up before we finished the spell, so we finished it & he had to improvise having the correct deity show up. With the Great Kingdom I think we dealt with that by assassinating the king and enough others that it disintegrated due to the inability of anyone to claim the throne. Similarly with the Scarlet Brotherhood my characters found evidence of them while doing A1-4 & afterwards a shadow war occurred wherein the Scarlet Brotherhood's agents were assassinated and ultimately an artifact was used to essentially nuke their headquarters.
Yes, another great topic. GG. I tend to ignore the Greyhawk Wars and either just use the original A&D setting or avoid part of the 3e setting which which changed so much -- i.e. I wouldn't run Nyrond as completely devastated or I'd just not set a campaign there. My big issue with the changes is that it defeats the purpose of a setting. The purpose of a setting is to SET the story somewhere, give everyone the same general idea of how things work, who people are, general politics, etc. By changing a setting, you now have issues explaining what is happening. Old players can't easily rely on their previous knowledge, new players might get confused by reading the 'wrong' setting, etc. I also loved the Arcanis setting, but it literally changed borders in the middle of the Living Campaign, had major changes with houses, etc. Yes, it made it feel alive, but man was it a lot of work to keep up. People could miss playing for a year, come back, and have the wrong idea of the setting, NPCs, situation, etc. It also left a bad taste when we went back to play it outside the Living system and many of us just wanted to go back to the 'original' setting. IMO, this defeats the purpose of a setting. In all the years I run 1e Greyhawk, I always used the same old box starting dates and reset any changes -- which I limited. To me, a setting is a setting. Any advantages to having major changes happen is typically not worth it. Just from a practical stand point, if you want to use older modules, that last thing you want to do is spend time dealing with setting inconsistences now in them.
I came here after Doc Necrotic wrote about your video on The Piazza. I really like Vatun being a real god. There are some rules, in Spelljammer about the process for bringing a deity into a new crystal sphere, that involve a year-and-a-day ritual, so the thing of collecting a bunch of swords might tie into that, quite well. I'll have to decide if I want Vatun to be the same god as Odin. I think I need to do a bit more research first.
The World of Greyhawk updates written by EGG and RJK in DRAGON Magazine did advance the timeline and also described some military conflicts. So, I think there was a precedent set for the campaign history to be guided by TSR. Still, I prefer to have that set in the background with the primary action of the campaign focused squarely on the players and their actions.
Love the work around ideas. I never would’ve come up with the Great Kingdom fix. It just seems so huge. And the Brotherhood, also hard to fix, but because it’s so covert in that case. I’ve hated them so long, I quit trying to think of fixes.
Good stuff. My PCs are midway through giants and, assuming they survive, I want to then play drow and, eventually, greyhawk wars. Using (heavily house rules) 5e so by the time I get to greyhawk ware they will be close to 20.
Fantastic idea--I would actually start some of the original module sets, T1-D3, disrupting the giant attacks on Geoff and Sterich. The PC's should be high enough level for comain level play at this point. So depending on the party make up, Kimbertos Skotti of Keoland might task them as emissaries to the Ulek states as well as the Yeomanry to shore up Keoland's alliences, using the natural borders of the Sheldomar Valley to provide security against the chaos that seems to be sweeping across the Flannese. This might well uncover some of the designs the Scarlet Brotherhood has in the Hold of the Sea Princes. Then, PC's go to the Sea Princes to thwart the Scarlet Brotherhood, or maybe Brotherhood has a partial success, but have Prince Jeon II be among those who survived the mass assassination attempts--if I recall correctly he's a 20th level fighter. That's a pretty tough target. Jeon, the PCs and the surviving princes take to their ships and start raiding the lands of the Scarlet Brotherhood, destabilizing their recent conquests. To the north, in the March of Bisel, the Knights of the Watch are torn between trying to aid the knights of the Hart and fend off an invasion from the Paynims and Ket.
I agree the wars were controversial however....the more destruction caused, the more that good is being threatened and pushed back....the more opportunities and need for Heros to halt the tide of evil, to save the innocent, to recover lost items. Change what you want to move the focus of the wars...and wherever or whatever is done...make sure your heros are important to it! Their actions influence the war for good or evil and if they fail....the next heroes are needed even more! I like the premise of a large conflict altering the political landscapes and world, whether or not its the Hells sending forces to oppose Iuz Abyssal troops...which inspires the celestials to send aid to Nyrond and Furyondy to help halt and drive back the evil.... Or large waves of orcs and goblins driving in Greyhawk from the pomarj, waves from Iuz into Furyondy and from the bone marches into the great kingdom... Maybe Iuz fails to take the Horned society and there is a bitter war between 2 evil nations in the North....war and conflict are such great changes that DEMAND heros....so step up, grab your sword and shield and lets get smiting! With maybe a little looting along the way...
Wrapping up two wars in AD&D games I'm running. Party died, but... their side won last game. Other one still going (but the number of quests they are leaving undone is hilarious). I take the views players should be involved in wars, and in pushing them certain ways, even if they don't realise it (say with a low politics game). Did the same thing when I ran Star Wars Tie fighter pilots (the Empire won). So give them a chance to shape things; have them save important people; get more quests, lean to a side and see new factions emerge, and give them options to walk away and focus upon other things if they don't like so much politics, or go far more all in, save the Duke, outwit enemy generals, thwart plans. Whateve the case and result, have it be known that whatever they do shapes the course of events of the story, then give them a good epilogue (live or die). If the Greyhawk wars didn't end in a satisfactory fashion (like Game of Thrones), let them change the very world, in small ways or impacting major machinations.
This was interesting to watch. While I do have a copy of the Greyhawk setting, and we did use it for a few campaigns, I knew nothing about the Greyhawk wars until I watched this video (I just didn't buy those supplements, not out of any conscious attempt to avoid them but because you can't buy everything), so thanks (again!) for the education.
I thought about that too. The foils you had were good, but I would like to see Cuthbert involved. It's hard to run Greyhawk without the genius of Gary.
I always thought the Vatun being Iuz thing as being kind of funny. It was like the old Scooby Doo motif where you pull the Vatun mask off and its Iuz and he spits "And I would have got away with it too if it wasn't for these meddling kids!" ;)
Heh... I really should do a FAQ and put that at the top. I got them through an online company that will put whatever image you upload onto just about anything. There are a bunch of them out there; you should have no problem finding one.
Excellent topic. This hearkens back to your recent Homebrewing Greyhawk video. What should (perhaps must) happen from 582-584 CY to keep your campaign canon GREYHAWK? This watered down wars idea is intriguing. With some finesse you might get the best of both worlds.
I like the idea of having the world shaking events be driven by the PCs. I have never been a fan of how the game companies did their setting endings and major changes with railroading and NPCs.
Once again, the auto captions are funny... They render "Iuz" as "I use" (I kept wanting to ask, "Uh, what DO you use, Joe?") and the Duchy of Tenh as "Duchy of 10."
I ran the adventures and my friend was playing a Suel barbarian from the Ice Tribe. He figured something was up so he and the rest of the party aligned with a cleric from his tribe. They actually freed Vatun and they kicked the crap out of Iuz and his minions. So Iuz wants revenge but Vatun is too powerful.
This begs the question, how else could Iuz rise to power? Such a thing was teased prior, but would have been different by Gary's hands. I'm all for not screwing up the north and having Vatun give Iuz a throttling. But, I don't want him to be out of the picture either.
I'm currently preparing to run a 1st ed. Greyhawk campaign. Assuming it goes on long enough, I anticipate including the Greyhawk Wars and their aftermath, though not strictly by-the-book (the world becoming more hellish does appeal to me, though). Browsing Howl from the North/5-One, the premise seems like too much of a bait-and-switch.
This was a very enjoyable, interesting and informative video. I love each and everyone of your suggestions. I myself actually would want to run the Greyhawk Wars but with some slight modifications here and there, i.e. your suggestions, and see how it plays out. Oh yeah by the way I ordered a copy of Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary and received it today ( awesome book by the way) and also, it was Kitty Pride who goes back in time to warn the X-Men about the possible future in the 'Days of Future Past ' story.
I also had a "cheat" in mind. I'm hoping to start a new GH game with some new players, using 5th edition (mostly because it's easy to understand and an accessible version of D&D), and I really want to run The Isle of Dread properly, for once... I thought, what if the PCs finish that adventure and come home only to find that the Flanaess had drastically changed (now in the post-war period) in their absence? Either because it took so long to explore, survive, and get home from the Isle, or because the Isle itself exists in some weird warping of time (which might explain why there are dinosaurs on it) and time "slowed down" for them while they were there. Then I could just skip all the blow-by-blow of the war that I find so complicated and jump right to the aftermath. --Ok apologies if I ramble too much in your comments. 🙂
I never had a problem with the Greyhawk Wars, in fact I thought it was a brilliant way to progress the timeline. Though it did so by making the setting a much more dangerous place. I always saw it as a "Choose Your Destruction" type of scenario because you had these three massive, dominant evil factions to the North, South and East (and to some extent Rary doing his best Saruman impression in the West) putting the squeeze on the kingdoms in the centre. The factions were the worst of Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful evil so DM's had all bases covered. I can understand arguments against: it wasn't Gygax and the status quo was obliterated. But in terms of adventures and sourcebooks it was great. In terms of progressing the timeline naturally...I think it worked. Plus it always seem to me to be a bit of a nod to the Gord the Rogue books which moved towards an Armageddon style scenario.
I always just saw it as a controlled demo of Gygax's legacy. I treat it like poison but if someone is able to get something out of it that's good for them.
Sort of. The Great Kingdom would probably not collapse in war because Nyrond wasn't distracted by the fall of Tenh, but the Scarlet Brotherhood would still take over the south. And Turrosh Mak would still be there to create his empire of the Pomarj.
Great video Joe, but Greyhawk Wars always pissed me off. The perfect fulcrum of circumstances for the Evil powers and those in opposition basically let it happen, even with the plethora of Divination magic available. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - plenty of that in Greyhawk, especially from the Gods - a bloody demigod gives them the shaft and none intervene - Heironeous "the Invincible" should the known as "the Cowardly" coz he did SFA but his worship didn't diminish? Why don't they (Good gods) intervene, some cosmic crap in the background preventing "deific" interference that never gets defined - after all, we want an abundance of conflict, which sells more products and conveniently introduces new iterations of the rules. Like other Evil powers would go into bat for a minor deity like Iuz? Apparently, Evil does cooperate very well in WOG based on history of published setting material. One of the reasons I now prefer home-brew worlds and published settings are only used to borrow/steal material. The only "good" god to gain any power was Pholtus, who conveniently got swayed to a far more L/N(L/E) bent in the newer material - just another narrative device for drama & conflict, that's all, from authors limited by real-world politics and lack of imagination (or driven by the mandate from above to drive more sales). Heironeous, Pelor, Trithereon, and the list goes on, totally MIA but who cares - it pushes the crap they were shovelling! Please don't use real-world history as an excuse - haven't seen any gods intervening lately, nor raising of the dead, nor casting of spells in my neck of the woods (those that believe in such, seek help). That's the problem with classic AD&D - the gods make no sense at all - the good powers sit back and do SFA (oh, they act through the characters and such), whilst evil flourishes. Can see why modern iterations are gravitating to no alignment basis. I still play in WOG, but from the Gold Box advanced many years, and was playing 2nd Edition AD&D but revising it for Labyrinth Lord (heavily house-rules). Cheers!!
Act tu Al lie...This is how Blood God Khorne, Lord of Rage, Taker of Skulls, rose to power in the World of Greyhawk, and Greyhawk becomes another beautiful place of Warhammer death and destruction. As the Alpha and Omega of all that is chaos and unholy, Khorne is summoned by the swords and proceeds to destroy both Iuz and Vatun. Afterwards his hordes are portaled in from the Chaos Wastes, and defeat and subjugate the pathetic forces of the northern barbarian tribes and kingdoms, and then overrun the rest of the Flanaess.
Khorne is also infiltrating the Forgotten Realms, where he intends to destroy the Red Wizards of Thay, whom Khorne knows are a front organization for the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Hasbro WotC imps who employ the 'Pinkertons'. Khorne will allow the PCs to work for him, as he intends to promote Chaos.
Something I loved about the Greyhawk wars is that it taught me a world should not be static. By the published setting changing the borders it enabled me to wake up to the fact that my players could also change the borders. Instead of little non-world changing differences like founding a town it awakened me to the fact that it is OK to claim changes to the whole world.
It’s your world bro, do what you want.
Great overview! Thank you!
Such an underrated channel! I was born in the early 2000s, but I love the older D&D settings!
Thank you so much!
It would be an interesting twist if Furyondy or the Shield Lands actually sent the PCs to HELP the Horned Society against Iuz - sort of the "enemy of my enemy" situation, knowing Iuz is the greater threat.
Well you did mention Gygax's From the Sorcerer's Scroll in Dragon Magazine (or The Dragon Magazine), the Greyhawk Wars had already started. What he was describing were NOT low tier conflicts in those articles and events were coming to a head. Those developments ended when he was pushed out of TSR but if you look carefully at the overall theme of the setting established in the Folio (a cold war turned apocalypse, recovery, then fall, recovery, build up again, break-up, then balkanizations, with several states on a collision course for war in a unstable powderkeg), War spanning Oerth is inevitable.
GMs are certainly welcome just to play in a setting where they kick in the door, kick the monster in the junk, and take their wallets but if you look at the geopolitical situation Gygax set-up, that world is wound up real tight and it's ready to explode. Iuz was just a good foil to strike the match in Greyhawk Wars. The Five Shall be One etc as adventures aren't great but it's as good an excuse as any. But Vikings are gonna viking...and iirc there is a Sorcerer's Scroll article where they do start acting like proper Norse (danes).
The Scarlet Brotherhood certainly aren't interested in the status quo either. And they are have been putting things in place to puppetmaster a big 'let's you and him fight' for at least a generation. Stopping them at a PC level likely not possible unless the DM leads them by the nose or you have a player really into international spy thrillers and willing to put the time and effort in building their own covert organization to counter them.
The Great Kingdom is doomed to collapse and do it messily dragging everyone in. Gygax at his heart was a wargamer (at least when he wrote Greyhawk) and the Great Kingdom is pretty close to the Holy Roman Empire (or Austria-Hungary). Nyrond (France) is going to be drawn in regardless. Unless you are dealing with superhero PCs that are State level powers on themselves, preventing that mess if the GM runs that political situation out is well above their paygrade.
Add in the other players in play in the World of Greyhawk. Against the Giants (invasion), the drow & underOerth overall, Zagig, the Circle (or Citadel) of Eight's quirks (Rufus had the right of them I think), not to mention the disaster area of Robilar (if you pay attention to Rob Kuntz's stories...yeah his character is the 'ur-adventurer' but as a character he's definitely evil and causes so much trouble and sets so many things in motion). The World of Greyhawk is brimming with tons of other highly destructive threats from cultists to abundant barbarian hordes (humanoids to giants), slavers, liches, and other planar invaders (Lolth & other fiends). I thought Sargent did a good job with From the Ashes in how to settle things in a bit more logical equilibrium if you paid attention to the over arching details of the setting.
"I ain't afraid of no Pinkertons!"
I have to ask what the significance of this joke is, having seen it in several comments XD
@@apresmidi153 Do a web search for "Pinkertons" "Wizards of the Coast" "Magic the Gathering" and read away.
@@apresmidi153 Do a web search on : pinkertons wizards of the coast magic the gathering
I remember when Gary Gygax referred to From the Ashes and Greyhawk Wars as "From the asses".
Another great video, Joe, that addresses actual GH DMing concerns. I have long found the outcome of the Greyhawk Wars both raidlroady and unsatisfying. I began my current GH campaign on a grand scale 3 years ago, and made a conscious choice to start the PCs off in an indistinct peasant village in Idee, because I have long though that the Iron League got extremely short shrift in the context of the GH Wars box. In my view, the Iron League are far far more resilient and should be offered a more than robust chance at keeping the Great Kingdom in check. The PCs can be invested in defending these lands because that's where they're from, for instance. If you join that with your suggestions on interrupting Iuz in the North (yes! I'm on board with that possibility) and the Bone March-Nyrond part of the Great Kingdom equation, then things start to get really interesting. I think one of your key observations is not so much to railroad the PCs into an alternate timeline, so much as drawing things out. Letting every piece fall into place as it may, with PC intervention here and there. Properly done, that can give you years of campaigning rather than see the Flannaess end up inevitably where the GH and From the Ashes would have it, no matter what.
I think similarly to you that when From the Ashes originally came out I didn't feel it was in keeping with where my own Greyhawk campaign was going. However, I stopped playing in 96 for personal reasons but then started up again in 2017 and now after all this time I do appreciate the changes that were made and incorporate them in my re-established campaign. I still tweak things to fit with my own campaign, but I don't mind that Greyhawk became darker & more political in tone thanks to Carl Sargent's input. My own restarted campaign kicks off in CY600 with the freeing of Tharizdun from his imprisonment and the Oerth-shattering implications of that! He was freed by a monk PC I played from the Scarlet Brotherhood (back in the late 80s) so they are involved in all sorts of affairs. The humanoid armies of the Pomarj were crushed by forces paid for by this monk who then claimed that land for himself & 2 compatriots and it's been re-named Tharizdonia. The old Great Kingdom has been reunited by a Julius Caesar-like figure who has renamed that land The Empire of Aerdy. Ivid V and his undead minions in Rauxes have been cut off from the population by turning Rauxes into a necropolis and it's walled off from the locals. Iuz and Vecna are simply puppets of Tharizdun now (Iuz knows this, Vecna does not) . . . so there's all sorts going on with my campaign!
I played a lot of D&D in the late 1970s & early 1980s. Mostly good homebrew and Keep on the Borderlands. I never bothered with Greyhawk and my D&D tapered off to nothing by the mid-1980s. I started reading modules and learning about Greyhawk a few years ago. It's been a stop & start thing. So, vaguely I understand who Tharizdun, Iuz, and Vecna are. You kind of have the League of the Super Villain's there, right? Do you call it, "Back to Ashes"?😇
Seriously, it is good to know that someone, else who took a long hiatus from D&D has mastered enough of this complex setting to run a campaign without a lifetime commitment. It's like the classic onion analogy, you keep pealing back layers while trying to focus on a particular region to deep-dive and develop. Adding the dimension of time, essentially triples the complexity level. I want to know enough about this so that I can work within it's confines and historical flow, or at least not against them.
I have always preferred DMing modest low to mid level games. So high politics and titanic battles are not on my agenda. But it's fun to see what Gary Gygax bit off when he set his sights on "world building". I hope to keep learning and eventually participate in some Greyhawk campaigns and write a few low level adventures set firmly in the World of Greyhawk. It's going to be a stop & start & start again process, but we played some pretty good home brew back in the day. It would be a shame for that experience go to unpublished.
What was that old school style? I like to characterize it by saying there was no "Pass without a trace spell". But if someone said they looked around and surveyed the terrain, they would find an overgrown drainage ditch that would be good cover and get the party to where it needed to go. That ditch would not exist at odds with the topography presented.
Good luck with your campaigns!
I would most likely "just ignore it" :-)
But there is potential in engaging in war-missions that can alter the course of history or mitigate the effects.
There are A LOT of WWII movies like that, so it does make for tense stories.
You could make your own fantasy version of Guns of the Navarone :-)
You kinda hint at it in the video, but there is also the option for time travel. The party could be thrown into the future and see what a hellscape Greyhawk has become. Then they are whisked back and have a chance to avoid it!
I think the obvious vandalism of the Gygax legacy was why I never ran with the Wars. Looking back, it didn't have to be that way - the rise of Iuz was always prefaced in Greyhawk and I liked the development of oncoming wars in Dragon, so the Wars were not a bolt out of the blue, but as executed they never felt like a place where my players wanted to play. Your suggestions are good - they seem to give proper agency to the players rather than being mere witnesses to the devastation the TSR product. By contrast to the GH wars, I loved the cognate Rebellion in GDW's MegaTraveller - for me (I realise not everyone), the collapse of the Third Imperium opened up the whole 3I as a place for players to travel in with the political crisis acting as a push or pull in the background.
Hello Sir Grognard! Thank you for this video. I have to admit, the Greyhawk Wars have, all these years, been a setting that I understand only poorly and vaguely, so I admit that I'm one of the people who "just ignore it" when I want to set a game in Greyhawk. I didn't hate the idea of the wars, per se; in fact it's hard to deny that the original setting in the Gold Box was already on the very cusp of war. But as a much younger player the Greyhawk Wars seemed both complicated and expensive, when I didn't have the money to buy them. Stuff like this helps me to understand better what really happened to bring the Flanaess to "current day". Thank you.
In our campaign my dad didn't have to do anything special with the Iuz part, we the players realized something was up when Iuz showed up before we finished the spell, so we finished it & he had to improvise having the correct deity show up. With the Great Kingdom I think we dealt with that by assassinating the king and enough others that it disintegrated due to the inability of anyone to claim the throne.
Similarly with the Scarlet Brotherhood my characters found evidence of them while doing A1-4 & afterwards a shadow war occurred wherein the Scarlet Brotherhood's agents were assassinated and ultimately an artifact was used to essentially nuke their headquarters.
Yes, another great topic. GG.
I tend to ignore the Greyhawk Wars and either just use the original A&D setting or avoid part of the 3e setting which which changed so much -- i.e. I wouldn't run Nyrond as completely devastated or I'd just not set a campaign there.
My big issue with the changes is that it defeats the purpose of a setting. The purpose of a setting is to SET the story somewhere, give everyone the same general idea of how things work, who people are, general politics, etc. By changing a setting, you now have issues explaining what is happening. Old players can't easily rely on their previous knowledge, new players might get confused by reading the 'wrong' setting, etc.
I also loved the Arcanis setting, but it literally changed borders in the middle of the Living Campaign, had major changes with houses, etc. Yes, it made it feel alive, but man was it a lot of work to keep up. People could miss playing for a year, come back, and have the wrong idea of the setting, NPCs, situation, etc. It also left a bad taste when we went back to play it outside the Living system and many of us just wanted to go back to the 'original' setting. IMO, this defeats the purpose of a setting.
In all the years I run 1e Greyhawk, I always used the same old box starting dates and reset any changes -- which I limited. To me, a setting is a setting. Any advantages to having major changes happen is typically not worth it. Just from a practical stand point, if you want to use older modules, that last thing you want to do is spend time dealing with setting inconsistences now in them.
I came here after Doc Necrotic wrote about your video on The Piazza. I really like Vatun being a real god. There are some rules, in Spelljammer about the process for bringing a deity into a new crystal sphere, that involve a year-and-a-day ritual, so the thing of collecting a bunch of swords might tie into that, quite well.
I'll have to decide if I want Vatun to be the same god as Odin. I think I need to do a bit more research first.
I avoid them by only owning Gygax-era GH publications. Out of sight, out of mind! ;)
A purist. Very civilised of you.
The World of Greyhawk updates written by EGG and RJK in DRAGON Magazine did advance the timeline and also described some military conflicts. So, I think there was a precedent set for the campaign history to be guided by TSR. Still, I prefer to have that set in the background with the primary action of the campaign focused squarely on the players and their actions.
Love the work around ideas. I never would’ve come up with the Great Kingdom fix. It just seems so huge.
And the Brotherhood, also hard to fix, but because it’s so covert in that case.
I’ve hated them so long, I quit trying to think of fixes.
Greyhawk curtains come in handy!
Good stuff. My PCs are midway through giants and, assuming they survive, I want to then play drow and, eventually, greyhawk wars. Using (heavily house rules) 5e so by the time I get to greyhawk ware they will be close to 20.
Fantastic idea--I would actually start some of the original module sets, T1-D3, disrupting the giant attacks on Geoff and Sterich. The PC's should be high enough level for comain level play at this point. So depending on the party make up, Kimbertos Skotti of Keoland might task them as emissaries to the Ulek states as well as the Yeomanry to shore up Keoland's alliences, using the natural borders of the Sheldomar Valley to provide security against the chaos that seems to be sweeping across the Flannese. This might well uncover some of the designs the Scarlet Brotherhood has in the Hold of the Sea Princes. Then, PC's go to the Sea Princes to thwart the Scarlet Brotherhood, or maybe Brotherhood has a partial success, but have Prince Jeon II be among those who survived the mass assassination attempts--if I recall correctly he's a 20th level fighter. That's a pretty tough target. Jeon, the PCs and the surviving princes take to their ships and start raiding the lands of the Scarlet Brotherhood, destabilizing their recent conquests. To the north, in the March of Bisel, the Knights of the Watch are torn between trying to aid the knights of the Hart and fend off an invasion from the Paynims and Ket.
I agree the wars were controversial however....the more destruction caused, the more that good is being threatened and pushed back....the more opportunities and need for Heros to halt the tide of evil, to save the innocent, to recover lost items. Change what you want to move the focus of the wars...and wherever or whatever is done...make sure your heros are important to it! Their actions influence the war for good or evil and if they fail....the next heroes are needed even more!
I like the premise of a large conflict altering the political landscapes and world, whether or not its the Hells sending forces to oppose Iuz Abyssal troops...which inspires the celestials to send aid to Nyrond and Furyondy to help halt and drive back the evil....
Or large waves of orcs and goblins driving in Greyhawk from the pomarj, waves from Iuz into Furyondy and from the bone marches into the great kingdom...
Maybe Iuz fails to take the Horned society and there is a bitter war between 2 evil nations in the North....war and conflict are such great changes that DEMAND heros....so step up, grab your sword and shield and lets get smiting! With maybe a little looting along the way...
Wrapping up two wars in AD&D games I'm running. Party died, but... their side won last game. Other one still going (but the number of quests they are leaving undone is hilarious).
I take the views players should be involved in wars, and in pushing them certain ways, even if they don't realise it (say with a low politics game). Did the same thing when I ran Star Wars Tie fighter pilots (the Empire won).
So give them a chance to shape things; have them save important people; get more quests, lean to a side and see new factions emerge, and give them options to walk away and focus upon other things if they don't like so much politics, or go far more all in, save the Duke, outwit enemy generals, thwart plans. Whateve the case and result, have it be known that whatever they do shapes the course of events of the story, then give them a good epilogue (live or die).
If the Greyhawk wars didn't end in a satisfactory fashion (like Game of Thrones), let them change the very world, in small ways or impacting major machinations.
This was interesting to watch. While I do have a copy of the Greyhawk setting, and we did use it for a few campaigns, I knew nothing about the Greyhawk wars until I watched this video (I just didn't buy those supplements, not out of any conscious attempt to avoid them but because you can't buy everything), so thanks (again!) for the education.
I thought about that too.
The foils you had were good, but I would like to see Cuthbert involved.
It's hard to run Greyhawk without the genius of Gary.
I always thought the Vatun being Iuz thing as being kind of funny. It was like the old Scooby Doo motif where you pull the Vatun mask off and its Iuz and he spits "And I would have got away with it too if it wasn't for these meddling kids!" ;)
hello I recently found your channel and have been enjoying your vides. I have a question. Where did you get the world of greyhawk map curtains from ?
Heh... I really should do a FAQ and put that at the top. I got them through an online company that will put whatever image you upload onto just about anything. There are a bunch of them out there; you should have no problem finding one.
It would seem that somehow utilizing either Istus and Chronos (as in the Gord the Rogue books) might be an option.
Excellent topic. This hearkens back to your recent Homebrewing Greyhawk video. What should (perhaps must) happen from 582-584 CY to keep your campaign canon GREYHAWK? This watered down wars idea is intriguing. With some finesse you might get the best of both worlds.
I like the idea of having the world shaking events be driven by the PCs. I have never been a fan of how the game companies did their setting endings and major changes with railroading and NPCs.
Once again, the auto captions are funny... They render "Iuz" as "I use" (I kept wanting to ask, "Uh, what DO you use, Joe?") and the Duchy of Tenh as "Duchy of 10."
I ran the adventures and my friend was playing a Suel barbarian from the Ice Tribe. He figured something was up so he and the rest of the party aligned with a cleric from his tribe. They actually freed Vatun and they kicked the crap out of Iuz and his minions. So Iuz wants revenge but Vatun is too powerful.
This begs the question, how else could Iuz rise to power? Such a thing was teased prior, but would have been different by Gary's hands. I'm all for not screwing up the north and having Vatun give Iuz a throttling. But, I don't want him to be out of the picture either.
I'm currently preparing to run a 1st ed. Greyhawk campaign. Assuming it goes on long enough, I anticipate including the Greyhawk Wars and their aftermath, though not strictly by-the-book (the world becoming more hellish does appeal to me, though). Browsing Howl from the North/5-One, the premise seems like too much of a bait-and-switch.
This was a very enjoyable, interesting and informative video. I love each and everyone of your suggestions. I myself actually would want to run the Greyhawk Wars but with some slight modifications here and there, i.e. your suggestions, and see how it plays out. Oh yeah by the way I ordered a copy of Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary and received it today ( awesome book by the way) and also, it was Kitty Pride who goes back in time to warn the X-Men about the possible future in the 'Days of Future Past ' story.
I also had a "cheat" in mind. I'm hoping to start a new GH game with some new players, using 5th edition (mostly because it's easy to understand and an accessible version of D&D), and I really want to run The Isle of Dread properly, for once... I thought, what if the PCs finish that adventure and come home only to find that the Flanaess had drastically changed (now in the post-war period) in their absence? Either because it took so long to explore, survive, and get home from the Isle, or because the Isle itself exists in some weird warping of time (which might explain why there are dinosaurs on it) and time "slowed down" for them while they were there. Then I could just skip all the blow-by-blow of the war that I find so complicated and jump right to the aftermath. --Ok apologies if I ramble too much in your comments. 🙂
The time travel option hmmm... There is no fate but what we make
I’m sorry, I’m new to the lore of Greyhawk. What is the main source material for the Greyhawk Wars, the board game?
I never had a problem with the Greyhawk Wars, in fact I thought it was a brilliant way to progress the timeline. Though it did so by making the setting a much more dangerous place. I always saw it as a "Choose Your Destruction" type of scenario because you had these three massive, dominant evil factions to the North, South and East (and to some extent Rary doing his best Saruman impression in the West) putting the squeeze on the kingdoms in the centre. The factions were the worst of Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful evil so DM's had all bases covered.
I can understand arguments against: it wasn't Gygax and the status quo was obliterated. But in terms of adventures and sourcebooks it was great. In terms of progressing the timeline naturally...I think it worked. Plus it always seem to me to be a bit of a nod to the Gord the Rogue books which moved towards an Armageddon style scenario.
I always just saw it as a controlled demo of Gygax's legacy. I treat it like poison but if someone is able to get something out of it that's good for them.
Great topic!
So, thwarting Iuz really is the key. Stopping him is like not toppling the first domino.
Sort of. The Great Kingdom would probably not collapse in war because Nyrond wasn't distracted by the fall of Tenh, but the Scarlet Brotherhood would still take over the south. And Turrosh Mak would still be there to create his empire of the Pomarj.
another awesome tshirt, good idea thanks we chose not to follow the standard timeline
I would have Vatun show up and utterly destroy Iuz for daring to impersonate a God.
Iuz plays his trap card, trapping the God and sapping his power. Mmmm, juicy.
Not happening, at best Iuz is a Demigod. Vatun is a lesser God and can send Avatars until Iuz is dead.
There were no "Greyhawk Wars." It's a myth that some people keep promulgating. 😛
Great video Joe, but Greyhawk Wars always pissed me off.
The perfect fulcrum of circumstances for the Evil powers and those in opposition basically let it happen, even with the plethora of Divination magic available. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - plenty of that in Greyhawk, especially from the Gods - a bloody demigod gives them the shaft and none intervene - Heironeous "the Invincible" should the known as "the Cowardly" coz he did SFA but his worship didn't diminish?
Why don't they (Good gods) intervene, some cosmic crap in the background preventing "deific" interference that never gets defined - after all, we want an abundance of conflict, which sells more products and conveniently introduces new iterations of the rules. Like other Evil powers would go into bat for a minor deity like Iuz? Apparently, Evil does cooperate very well in WOG based on history of published setting material.
One of the reasons I now prefer home-brew worlds and published settings are only used to borrow/steal material.
The only "good" god to gain any power was Pholtus, who conveniently got swayed to a far more L/N(L/E) bent in the newer material - just another narrative device for drama & conflict, that's all, from authors limited by real-world politics and lack of imagination (or driven by the mandate from above to drive more sales).
Heironeous, Pelor, Trithereon, and the list goes on, totally MIA but who cares - it pushes the crap they were shovelling!
Please don't use real-world history as an excuse - haven't seen any gods intervening lately, nor raising of the dead, nor casting of spells in my neck of the woods (those that believe in such, seek help).
That's the problem with classic AD&D - the gods make no sense at all - the good powers sit back and do SFA (oh, they act through the characters and such), whilst evil flourishes. Can see why modern iterations are gravitating to no alignment basis.
I still play in WOG, but from the Gold Box advanced many years, and was playing 2nd Edition AD&D but revising it for Labyrinth Lord (heavily house-rules).
Cheers!!
Not unlike taking another hallowed fantasy setting "in a new direction" ...
Vatun: Iuz in Disguiuz!
I blame the Scarlet Brotherhood.
I don't mind the wars, actually I like the idea but I still pay homage to GG
I really liked from the ashes
😮 I like the ideas pressed😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌
Act tu Al lie...This is how Blood God Khorne, Lord of Rage, Taker of Skulls, rose to power in the World of Greyhawk, and Greyhawk becomes another beautiful place of Warhammer death and destruction. As the Alpha and Omega of all that is chaos and unholy, Khorne is summoned by the swords and proceeds to destroy both Iuz and Vatun. Afterwards his hordes are portaled in from the Chaos Wastes, and defeat and subjugate the pathetic forces of the northern barbarian tribes and kingdoms, and then overrun the rest of the Flanaess.
Khorne is also infiltrating the Forgotten Realms, where he intends to destroy the Red Wizards of Thay, whom Khorne knows are a front organization for the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Hasbro WotC imps who employ the 'Pinkertons'. Khorne will allow the PCs to work for him, as he intends to promote Chaos.
If your PCs CAN'T alter the course of the world's history, why are you even playing?