I had a high school ancient history teacher who made a comparison between the defences and tunnel works of Armengar in the Riftwar Saga with the Hittite capital of Hattusa (?). I think it was an attempt to engage the interest of the fans in the class. Not terribly accurate but it was pretty cool...
You can use Google's Translate feature to read the page in English.
This document points out to the modern reader that Greyhawk was established with medieval concepts of nationalities and loyalties which are different than the modern concepts. Where there might have been French or German people way back when, they didn't think of themselves first as French or German but as loyal to their own province and first and foremost to their religion. The provinces were allied with a king of the land but not in the centralized base of power way we think of kings today.
You can use Google's Translate feature to read the page in English.
This document points out to the modern reader that Greyhawk was established with medieval concepts of nationalities and loyalties which are different than the modern concepts. Where there might have been French or German people way back when, they didn't think of themselves first as French or German but as loyal to their own province and first and foremost to their religion. The provinces were allied with a king of the land but not in the centralized base of power way we think of kings today.
i asked a friend of mine to translate, lets hope he find the time to do it
Fist let me mention, if you use the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer 8, it will automatically offer to translate the page for you. Considering that my GF is Swedish and I have to translate webpages all the time and whatnot, Google is the best one that I have found, especially for translating idioms and whatnot, without having to go to other sites to do it.
I have long kown that Greyhawk (and D&D) has helped me in my studies, but I hadn't ever specifically seen a professor use it in their lessons. I know that if it weren't for D&D dungeonmaps, I souldn't have ever wanted to become a draftsman making blueprints. My language skils has also largely ben affected by reading thevocabulary of D&D (which is often higher than normal reading). And certainly, I would nt be an artist if not for hours of idle time in my youth wanting to draw fantasy illustrations.
That being said, the article is actually rather interesting. I will note that before I translated it (Protuguese being very similar to Spanish) I did note that it was written by a Professora Zeze - which means that this professor is a woman, and she seems to be a marvelously brilliant one.
At the end are questions pertaining to the text, and they are phrased as if she is addressing them to a class or to students. The article itself is moslty about our modern concept of a "feudal monarchy", and how we (as players of the game) tend to have idealized concepts of a fantasy world that is tinted by our modern "Enlightenment" which makes things not really add up to true historical feudalism. She discusses things like "Nation" and "State" in a world or era that didn't really have such political entities that were apart from the King that ruled them. Also, she briefly touches on the fact that there isn't only one religion with a single driving and unifying force like there was in medieval Europe, and posits whether the religions of the Flanaess are similar enough to share the same role as Christianity did in IRL history. She does use Belvor IV and Furyondy several times as points or examples for use by way of comparison.
In it's entirety, the article is well-written and very carefully thought out. I will say that it's college-level themes of politics and history may not suit evey reader, but it is still a remarkable effort on the author's part to make two seperate topics more interesting by combining them. Clearly, Professora Zeze knows her subject and is a Greyhawk fan to boot. I am more confident in knowing that the pople like this in our world that make not just learning fun, but also makes our hobby much more fascinating.
There is a link at the bottom of the page for contacting the author ... I might just give it a shot ... if I can feel confident in translating ino Portuguese!!
That's really kind of cool! I'm glad that someone is getting in touch with her ... and I suspect your Portuguese may be better than mine. Be sure to update the thread when/if you hear from her. That would be incredibly cool for us to hear from another fan from far, far away.
... and since we're on the topic, would anyone have comments on what she wrote? Or, hey, maybe some of us could respond to the questions that she wrote at the end of the article! That would make for a great discussion topic in this thread! If anyone would like to come to the Thursday night Greytalk chat tomorrow night after eight or so (use Undernet IRC, #GreyTalk, or the link to your left on the webpage), we can talk about it live with other Greyhawkers, inclding Gary Holian, co-author of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer! (Yes, that was a shameless plug, but we'd love to have a really group for discussions.)
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Be sure to update the thread when/if you hear from her. That would be incredibly cool for us to hear from another fan from far, far away.
