If only…

Back in the early 1980’s I was a huge fan of the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting, and especially of the articles in Dragon magazine by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, which “advanced the timeline” and laid out the goings-on in setting during the two years after the established date of CY 576 for the folio/gold box era.

I know “advancing the timeline” has a bad reputation in many quarters of Greyhawk fandom, thanks to the bad taste that Greyhawk Wars and From the Ashes left in folks’ mouths, but I loved these articles at the time. I really wish that Gygax/Kuntz had been able to at least cover the whole of the Flanaess, but unfortunately the series was discontinued before the south and central Flanaess could be covered.

I hereby present a wish, an “if only this had been able to be”, in the spirit of the original articles. It hopefully adds a little color to the setting at this time, without directly contradicting anything that comes afterwards.

Man, I would have given up a lot to have actually read this article back in the day.

You can see a thumbnail of the article in the upper-right. You can read the whole thing here.

Edit: The pdf has been updated to change the reference to Strandkeep Castle, which didn’t fall until a few years later, according to the time-frame of Artifact of Evil.

Written by 

Wargamer and RPG'er since the 1970's, author of Adventures Dark and Deep, Castle of the Mad Archmage, and other things, and proprietor of the Greyhawk Grognard blog.

9 thoughts on “If only…

  1. Too bad real life is not as easy to sort out as D&D games are — both now and in the 1980s. We fans could request RJK finish the series of articles — or oversee others to ensure it fits the feel of classic Greyhawk. Of course, were real life sorted out, all of the EGG Greyhawk material would be out in print and under the same banner as the game that started it all.

    1. Oops. I see that I forgot a clause in there:

      "or oversee others to ensure it fits the feel of classic Greyhawk, like the linked PDF by Joe does."

      My apologies, Mr. Bloch.

  2. That was beautiful!

    One of my biggest pet peeves about From The Ashes was the drastic shift in setting tone, as well as so many states being wiped off the map.

    Now, if the setting had been advanced like this, I could get behind it.

    Please do more of these!

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