Greetings. I am interested in running a campaign based on Gygax's unpublished campaign setting, so I have a few questions on how I will do that.
First of all, has someone recreated the original map and if yes, where can it be found?
Have there been efforts to compile information on the original campaign? What is available online and where?
Which races and classes were available to the players?
Which gods existed in the original campaign? I will be using the OD&D Law-Chaos alignment system so how should I convert the AD&D gods' alignment?
What was the original cosmology (if any existed at all)?
For monsters, spells, magic items etc. I will only be using what was published for OD&D (including Strategic Review and Dragon Mag articles) will that be OK? Will I run into problems when using modules which were meant for AD&D?
1. The original map was, I understand, basically a map of North America divided into numbered regions. The Duchy of Ten was in region 10. There was a Great Kingdom in approximately the region of New York State, a kingdom of Blackmoor directly north of that, Greyhawk was where Chicago is, and Dyvers was approximately where Minneapolis is. Hommlet was in there somewhere, too.
Blackmoor should be based on Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor campaign, which predated Greyhawk, rather than on the Archbarony of Blackmoor from the World of Greyhawk boxed set. Havard's Blackmoor blog is a good source of information on pre-Gygaxian D&D.
3. I'd assume we're talking about the original White Box here. Obviously, Gygax was playing D&D before that was published, but that's more or less what we're talking about. So the classes and races (a race was treated as a class then) were Fighting-Man, Magic-User, Thief, Halfling, Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, and a note saying, "there's no reason players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin as relatively weak and work up to the top." As an example, the book suggests a PC might start as a young dragon and advance as it gains in levels.
4. The gods were pretty much anything-goes. Erac's Cousin summoned Zeus and Robilar worshiped Odin. Some of the Greyhawk gods we know about existed - Pholtus and St. Cuthbert were popular. Serten worshipped St. Cuthbert. Melf worshiped Celestian but switched his allegiance to Zagyg, before switching to St. Cuthbert again (see http://doomsdaygames.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=generalgreyhawk&action=display&thread=172). I think all the Greyhawk deities that Gygax fully fleshed out in the 1983 boxed set (and Dragon before that) were available at some point. If you're going back to the earliest form of Oerth, though, keep in mind that it was a parallel Earth and equivalents of every Earth country existed somewhere on the world. Any of the gods from the OD&D Gods, Demigods, and Heroes book would be appropriate, and that book used the 3-alignment system.
Generally good deities will translate as lawful and evil deities will translate as chaotic. Neutral deities remain neutral.
5. The earliest D&D cosmology I'm aware of (from The Strategic Review magazine) had only five outer planes: Elysium, home of godlings (CG), Hell, home of devils (LE), the Abyss, home of demons (CE), Heaven, home of saints (LG), and Neutrality (N), which may not have been an outer plane. I don't think the original campaign worried much about such things, though, and obviously this postdates the three-alignment system.
Thank you very much. This is very useful information. I remember that Gygax said that the map (based on N. America) was long lost, but I was hoping that someone had made an attempt to recreate it. Oh well, I'll probably give it a shot.
I'll probably use all of the OD&D classes (with the possible exception of the Monk) since I guess they must have been used in his game at some point (otherwise why were they included later in the AD&D PHB?).
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