Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Derwa Leafsister

Wed Dec 17, 2003 12:05 pm A Touch Obscure

I had a player pose this question to me a long time ago (years back) and I wanted to throw it our for general discussion. The question:

Why did Tracy and Laura Hickman place a location called "The Gates of Sule" (that is the correct spelling from the module) in I3 - Pharoah, the first of the Desert of Desolation series. (See page six of the module, encounter area B.)

I had no idea what to say. Does anyone else know what the story is? IE: was it coincedance, or did the Hickmans maybe have an eye to the series possibly becoming official Greyhawk material? I know the first of the I series was official material.

Any thoughts?
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:18 pm

IIRC, and maybe I just could be wrong, the DOD series wasn't intended for Greyhawk, but as a stand alone for plugin anywhere. Later is got attached to the Anarauch Desert of the Forgotten Realms. To me, the Suel have little or no connection to any quasi-Egyptian culture that would produce the settings for the DOD series. Probably just a semantic coincidence.

But that's just me.

Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:04 pm

Thanks Semaj.

I know that all of the I series except for I1- Dwellers of the Forbidden City and I 14 - Swords of the Iron Legion were intended as non-gameworld-specific adventures. I did notice that I8 - Baltron's Beacon has been added as part of the official Living Greyhawk Kingdom of Keoland triad map.

Your point about the Egyptian theme is well taken though. That certainly does not fit in with the ancient Suloise culture as we know it now.

Thanks for the reply.
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Fri Dec 19, 2003 10:37 pm

Wasn't I2, Tomb of the Lizard King set in Sunndi and the Great Swamp?

Mon Dec 22, 2003 4:08 pm

Actually, so far as I know, I2 was set in a swamp, but it was not tailored to Greyhawk. S1 Tomb of Horrors was definitely located there, however.

Now, it is possible that this became a canon module if the Sunndi Triad put it there, as was done with Baltron's Beacon for Keoland. However, the original module has no references to any Greyhawk-specific locations.

I'm curious where you got the idea for its location, btw. The Vast Swamp would be an excellent place for it, however, there are a whack of other swamps as well and the Vast already has Wastri's temple and the Tomb of Horrors\Return to the Tomb of Horrors. Greyhawk adventures tend to clump up in spots.

Hope that helps...
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Tue Dec 23, 2003 10:32 am

The one time I was a player in that adventure, it was set south of Sunndi in the Swamp. Perhaps the DM just placed it there, and I grew to associate the two. Hmmm.....

Mon Dec 29, 2003 7:35 am

Tue Jan 06, 2004 11:28 am

I just noticed that there is a thread about retrofitted modules in the Greyhtalk forum as well. I'm looking for this kind of information for a pet project, so if anyone has info about older adventures that were refitted by Team Greyhawk for use with the setting, I'm all ears.

(This is also why your reply about the possibility of I2 being set in Sunndi was of great interest to me, Semaj.)
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Sun Jan 11, 2004 4:08 pm

I2 has been retro-fitted to take place in the county of Eor in SW Keoland, near the Yeomanry border, IIRC.

Tue Jan 13, 2004 12:55 am

Thanks very much Rob! As a side note, do you happen to know where C2 - Lost Isle of Castanamir and UK 6 - All That Glitters were located? I know that those modules were also opted in, along with I2, I7 and Night Below.

Any help on tracking those locations down would be of great assistance for a map set I am working on completing. I am also running an Excell list of all of the Greyhawk adventures I have plotted so far (181 at last count) which has the recomended party levels and locations in the Flanaess for all of these things.

(Don't let that 181 figure fool you... I broke several things down to get that many, EG: each adventure card in COG and FTA counts as one, fer instance.) Anyways, any help would be deeply appreciated.
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Thu Jan 15, 2004 11:50 am

When I was young(er) I had a host of modules that we tried to fit into Greyhawk. Getting back to the Desert of Desolation - has anyone every tried to squeeze it into the Bright Desert. It worked when I was a kid Laughing

, but I haven't looked at the true logistics of it in years. Any thoughts?

Sat Jan 17, 2004 11:14 pm

Sun Jan 18, 2004 8:18 pm

Hi Grodog.

Post it? Absolutely! I don't have much more to add to it now, so I could likely send it along shortly. I could also send it now if there was a way to do updates if required.
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Sun Jan 18, 2004 11:50 pm

I don't know how much of a hassle it is for Issak to upload updates to existing files, but if they're all just .zip archives like the one you just sent, I don't imagine that it should be a problem....
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Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html

Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:11 am

Happy to oblige and yup, any updates should be in exactly that form.

Hope its useful!
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:51 am

Mon Jul 10, 2006 9:35 am

Thanks Rasgon. It's been a while since I was last on this thread and in that time I managed to come into a copy of the LGJ you mentioned and found the reference.

Although it might break the canon set up in that LGJ, I had already settled on the area near Lendor Isle for the location of the module in my personal campaign. This was done partially to add some detail to that portion of the Flanaes.

I rationalized the conflict by saying that Castanamir would want as isolated a location as possible for his personal stronghold. From a Zeif dweller's viewpoint, a small island that far away would fit the bill nicely.

Further, the adventure itself makes heavy use of teleportation to get from one room to the next, so it was obvious that whoever created the place had access to the spell. Building on this, I figured that if the designer could link room after room by permanent teleporters, then it would not be beyond his or her powers to set up another leading back to Zeif.

Thus, when Castanamir wants to spend time working on an important project uninterupted, or simply wants downtime from the politics and responsibilities that high level mages tend to accrue, he steps into a personal, hidden teleporter and Poof! arrives at the island. He could also arrive via his own casting of teleport or teleport without error.

Since the stronghold was placed within the island (as opposed to on top of it) the fact that the location is tectonically unstable doesn't matter as much. The island can sink and rise as it likes and the interior remains waterproof.

Thoughts?
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<div>Braggi, Swain and Varlet at Large<br /></div>

Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:29 am

Interesting guys, Braggi comment about "clumping" of adventure locals, at first I simply put it down to laziness on the writers part.

However, there is a rational reason they would be "clumped"- curiousity - the same reasons that draw heroic PCs would entice villians namely power and wealth. Once the location is looted, some villians would obviously use the location as a base especially since constructing your own takes alot of time and effort, not to mention the funds and attention.

So much like the "humanoids" layered claims to territory, I can see certain areas, due to isolation, attracting villians to the same ruins over time to be reoccupied.