This may have been asked before, but with the wealth of 3rd party material out there, I'm curious. What non-Greyhawk material do you use in your own campaigns? And not the little details, like what specific feats or spells, but what races, classes, campaign elements, etc., do you use? IMC, I use the Scarred Lands' Divine War as a piece of ancient history, Green Ronin's Assassin and Noble classes, Eberron's shifters and changelings, and the city of Freeport in the Lordship of the Isles. I also borrow a lot of thematic elements from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and have done extensive work on the languages of the Flanaess a la Tolkien and Tad Williams. I've worked to bring a more "pulp" feel to my WoG, inspired by REH, Lovecraft and Leigh Brackett, and political manuevering (as well as psionics) from Katherine Kurtz. Kara-tur is the western part of my Oerik, and parts of Mystara and my own ideas comprise Aquaria, across the Solnor ocean. And this is just some of what I've done. Please share what you've added to your Greyhawk. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
My old DM used to use Role Aids I think it was for the Caldera of Death. That was impressive.
I know the Mystara Gazeteer products had suggestions for where to place the GAZ settings in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms in addition to suggestions for Mystara. I haven't heard any one say yet that they've used them for Greyhawk.
I use Al-Qadim products for the Baklunish West (sha'irs, genies, copper automatons, etc.). I've had parties periodically get sucked into the demi-plane of dread (Ravenloft). I use the FR Moonshae Isles supplement for a group of islands far to the east. I use elements of the Kara-Tur setting, and will probably use elements of FR's Egyptian-themed setting, for lands far to the west. Because the party has had some experience with cosmic horrors and Far Realm type stuff, I use the madness mechanic and various ideas from the d20 Call of Cthulhu. I rewrite Dungeon adventures and non-Greyhawk adventures (e.g. Day of Al'Akbar, Blackmoor adventures) to shoe-horn them into Greyhawk. I also use a host of third party supplements for things like wild magic, clockwork and steam stuff, demonology, chronomancy, yada yada yada.
Always a good topic to bring back up every once in awhile Gargoyle! In my progression from 1e to 3e I actually pared back much of the outside influence on my GH campaign that had taken it in sometimes wildly different directions. This coincided with me finding my way to CF though, so I began to want to bring things more in line with canon. Previously I had patterned the Drow pretty closely along the lines of Warhammer's Black Elves, replacing the Suel barbarians with them. But unlike Warhammer my GH at the time was in more of a Dark Ages/Iron Age era, with the Oeridian nations of the central Flanaess being more like romanized Gauls and Britons. I ran a Bissel-based campaign where that nation was similar to a land-locked early Dark Ages Ireland ,with feuding lords under a weak "high king" type figure, fighting a Ket that was ruled by demon-worshipping necromantic witch-lords. I got the latter influence from the Thieves World books, probably the single biggest influence on my campaign at the time.
In shaping my 3e campaign I drew much influence from real-world history, setting it more in the late middle ages. Not so much coming up with GH analogues of real world cultures and nations, but adapting events and historical influences from the real world to GH. My treatment of the evolution of the cult of Pholtus and history of the Pale drew alot on the Reformation and early history of real world monotheistic religions. I had this "purified" church of Pholtus being spread all over the Flanaess by firebrand preachers, causing religious strife in a number of places.
My treatment of the the development of the Common language draws on the history of real-world lingua francas, especially Aramaic; and real-world ethnic minorities, such as Jews and Armenians, who filled a niche by establishing widespread trading networks.
I have adapted various modules to GH. Most notably, I used the Isle of Dread as presented in X1 , as part of my setting. Having since read some of the Savage Tide stuff, I plan to work some of that material into my version of the Isle for use in future GH games.
I, too, have adapted Freeport to fit into the Lordship of the Isles [as it was originally designed with some GH influences/inspirations in mind, this was too easy].
My Lordship of the Isles is a cross between 'Pirates of the Carbbean' and Norman-Gaelic coasts and isles. Think of Grace O'Mally sailing the Spanish Main but with medieval technology [and some magic] instead of fully rigged sailing ships and cannon.
I haven't placed it yet, but I have plans to plop Paradise Lake[ from Tale of the Comet] into GH- possibly in the Crystalmists [or maybe the Barrier Peaks- as would be obvious ]
My take on the Hold of the Sea Princes is pretty different from the brief glimpse we get of that society and nation in SKR's Scarlet Brotherhood[ to be fair, he really only mentions them in passing, and in a very narrow context]. They are not, for the most part, rapacious conquistadors who raid the Amedio. Stereotypes of 'evil slavers' seemed much too two dimensional for me- especially as the old alignment by country charts show the HotSP as a neutral- not an evil, land.
Slaves in the Hold have certain very minimal rights and protections, and are possibly treated a bit bitter than are serfs in some lands [looking at you, Great kingdom of Aerdy]. The Holders buy 90% of their slaves in peaecful commerce from the coastal tribes. Ask a Holder about the morality of it all, and he'll probably make an excuse like''well, the savages would eat these poor folks- who are mostly war captives] if we didn't buy them. Once we buy them, well, of course they should be given useful work and direction from civilized folk- can't let a bunch of savages just run around loose with no one to look after them.'' Skin color is NOT important, and Suel as well as Olman are made slaves. There are freedmen who work as laborers and artisans. A slave may save money to buy his freedom, but this is not common and might take years of work [working on the side to earn the money and maybe negotiating a contract with an understanding master].
I have notes for various islands, hidden kingdoms,etc beyond the Darlene map, but these notes are yet unfinished. They include the former deific realms of Ehlonna and Obad-Hai, an couple of poulated archiplegoes [one quite large- a sort of 'earthsea' region], and other things besides. All this stuff is pretty much 'Terra Incognita ' for now. I'll place things as they are developed in greater detail. There is a whole Oerth out there- and the vast bulk of it is uncharted and unknown beyond rumor. I happily ignore that Dragon Annual map.
I've used mutliple advnetures from both Tales from the Outer Planes and the 1989 FR supplement Lords of Darkness(NOT the newer one) which is chock full of mini adventures each of which are themed to a specific kind of undead. Other than that I've used some spells and magic items taken from a variety of non-GH campaign settings, as I like to mix things up in that regard so as to present something new to the players every now and again. I haven't used any classes, kits, specialty priests, or PrCs from other campaign settings over the years though. Add to that some adventures I have altered to be Greyhawk specific and that would cover most of it. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
In my campaign I used lot of outside sources, chief among them is the Call of Chuthulu book by Monte Cook. Ravenloft and Al-Qadim are also part of my Greyhawk campaign. I have also used the Thieves' World Material on occasion.
While I used external sources, I incorporate all of them into my Greyhawk. There is no planar travel to "Exotic" locations.
Oh, yes the CoC stuff and the Mists of Ravenloft also find their way into my WoG.... Scary stuff, that. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Ravenloft and Sigil are both part of my Greyhawk though I have scaled them both back some. I also added some stuff in that I liked from Dragon Magazine that may not have been GH specific but worked for what I wanted. I also have added in Frank Mentzer's Aquaria and Kara-Tur as presented in the 1e Oriental Adventures is a part of my Oerth.
From history I added in Atlantis with some very sinister tones taken from modern conspiracy theory and the Lovecraftain mythos. As well as borrowing ideas from things that just feel right to me.
That is all I can think of right now. _________________ Agape,
I love threads like this.... it always gives me several great ideas.
I’ve never used Thieves’ World for Greyhawk but when Derfelca brought it up I was like “Duh – what a great match!”
I use most of the core 1st edition Greyhawk cannon with the 1st edition manual of the planes for the cosmos. I use a lot of Oerth Journal, Dragon Magazine, and Dungeon Magazine stuff where it fits.
I also have been using Freeport/Green Ronin stuff for the Lordship of the isles.
For Baklund I’ve always loved Eric Mona’s Baklundish Delights from Oerth Journal and use it as the main ‘flavoring’ for the region while I use some of the ideas from Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s Rose of the Prophet trilogy and the classic Arabian Nights for more flavor. I’m not a big fan of Al-Qadim but I’ll steal stuff from it if it fits mechanically and thematically.
I also subscribe to the theory of Oerth being a planar nexus of sorts so there are occasional incursions of otherworldness such as Ravenloft, the Fading Lands, Isle of Dread, etc. But these are usually short lived events that create plot hook for the characters to deal with. This lets me get away with inserting some interesting adventures that might normally not have anything to do with Greyhawk.
I also have an old Lankhamar RPG box set and use some of it, especially the huge and very well done map of a major city.
I use the normal Greyhawk religions with some minor twists (usually along the lines of how the specific pantheons are organized and worshipped – for example a Baklundish priest is a priest of the entire pantheon while an Oeridan priest would worship a specific deity, etc) but some demon/devil, elder gods, and Cthulu occult get some action and brings a bit of horror into the campaign.
I forgot to mention that I also use the Spelljammer Greyspace supplement, mainly for detailing Celene and Luna. Castle Greyhawk did have that teleportal to the wasp-class spelljammer on a snow-covered mountain top, after all. :-)
My Greyhawk campaign is quite bastardized, as we have a lot of characters coming from other planes like FR and Mystara. One of the biggest and baddest NPCs is Meredoth from Ravenloft. We have used Spalljammer and a lot of Planescape, although I made my Planescape much, much less urban and way wilder (mainly inspired by 1e Manual of the Planes.
I have also added the pantheons from Deities and Demigods so that Suel barbarians now revere Thor, Odin, Frey etc.
I have used a lot of historical reference books for the Thillronian, and the lands there are now very similar to medieval Scandinavia.
We also recently adopted Pathfinder rules, with the Conan RPG combat system (armor as DR, armor class as parry/dodge).
And obviously, tons of dungeon/dragon items and classes (we have Lyans and Paremandirs, FR staves and amulets etc.)
I use just about anything I can get my hands on. I have used items from most of the others posts. My players do not like spell jammer or psionics so I do not use them. We use 2nd ed guidelines with many house rules and "guide lines" from other game systems. I use other "worlds and/or games" as different continents, planes, dimensions, etc. Sometimes they just generate an idea for a plot line. Greyhawk is their home, the rest serve as flavor. As long as everyone is enjoying themselves, who cares where is comes from? My players always say, "The module is just there to give them a room discription, the rest I pull out of my butt." ;)
I used a lot of the "X" series, particularly the Desert Nomads series in the Bright Desert. Same with the Desert of Desolation series, although these are not 3rd party publishers.
I've also used some Judges' Guild stuff over the years. The City-State of the World Emperor made for an excellent Rel Astra IMC, and I think I set Verbosh somewhere in Keoland (...many, many years ago...) I'd someday like to insert The Dark Tower into a desert-based campaign, haven't got around to it yet. If anyone else has played this dungeon in GH please share, I'd like to hear how others used it.
I've used over time pretty much anything I can get my hands on, Realms, some Dragonlance, Judge Guild, almost anything,. Whatever suits the need of the gamers or the particular way I want to go forward.
As for the other aspects of the game I have tried to keep at the very least upto date with cannon stuff (if not actually using it all). An example is Mordy is evil having set up Robilar to take the fall for Iuz, Temple etc, he orchestrated the war to keep the Circle busy whilst he tried to deal with Vecna and Iuz.
The main enermies I have for the players are the drow. I just can't get enough of them. If not working in the open then somewhere in the background, or should I say shadows.
Some of the other things I changed had to do with the war and how it went down. The Great Kingdom split over the return of a Rax heir and lines of assent, Iuz attacked Furyondy first and was the key player in Thrommel's abduction, The Scarlet Brotherhood was crushed and scattered by the Iron League and so on.
Other changes are that Vecna never became a god, Rary and Rioblar betrayed the Co8 before the war and were working for a yet unnamed power and finally to mark the passing of GH's creator Mordenkinen has disappeared and the Obsidian Citadel is magically locked. _________________ Agape,
@Julian_Grimm: Where is Niangua? I'm familiar with a lot of Missouri, but not there. I'm from the KC Metro, and summered in Mack's Creek, by Lake of the Ozarks.
Anyway, thanks everyone for your input. There's a lot of neat stuff here. (Yes, I said "neat stuff"!) I also use most every spell I've come accross: Fantasy Flight's Spells and Spellcraft, Sword & Sorcery's Eldritch Sorcery and Relics & Rituals I and II, Malhavoc Press's Books of Eldritch Might and Hallowed Might, and a bunch of (modified) spells from the various Mongoose books. I have them all edited into a huge doc (currently about 120 pages, double colum, 10pt font) so my players don't have to hunt for spells. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
@Julian_Grimm: Where is Niangua? I'm familiar with a lot of Missouri, but not there. I'm from the KC Metro, and summered in Mack's Creek, by Lake of the Ozarks.
I'm about 28 miles south of Lebanon if you know where that is. I am actually closer to Grovespring but the mailing addy's are funny here. I know Macks Creek having been a Lake and River rat in my single days, it's pretty country that way. One of these days I need to make a Lake trip again. _________________ Agape,
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having set up Robilar to take the fall for Iuz, Temple etc, he orchestrated the war to keep the Circle busy whilst he tried to deal with Vecna and Iuz.
