What are the worst canon violations you've ever seen or committed?
Myself, I am guilty of
.:Gunpowder (in limited quanities produced by Lortmil-based Dwarves, soon by any alchemist with the right tome)
.:Shifters (to me, they've "always been around")
.:Warforged (awakened by some nosy PCs during a well-publicized Githyanki incursion) This event also led to some very odd magical vehicles being used in the incursion... most were destroyed and now either form reefs or oddly-shaped greenery-covered hills.
.:My new "Amazons" project. This is not so bad. My Aztec Ninja and Axebeak Knights that go along with it are probably head-slappingly stupid to certain old guard types, I might think.
Of those, the gunpowder is probably the worst from a canon perspective, since undiscovered tribes, weird magic or new races are all practically de rigueur in D&D. I do seem to recall one source coming right out and saying that gunpowder had not only not been discovered, but was physically impossible.
So how about it? What have you done to murder the canon?
I don't do that much any more, but way back in High School, I made up some robot NPCs from Gamma World to confront the PCs while they were adventuring on the Isle of the Ape. They were equipped with force armor, super guns, motorcycles and even a tank! I balanced it by only providing a limited supply of ammunition and fuel so that they PCs wouldn't have access to that super-technology for very long after defeating them. I was afraid that I'd made them too powerful and would destroy the PCs with these NPCs.
It turned out that I never even used them. The Isle of the Ape proved so devastatingly destructive to the party's magical equipment that I never felt the need to throw such powerful NPCs at them.
I, too, have gunpowder and firearms in limited quantities (if it's good for Murlynd...).
I also have Byzantine-style Greek fire/alchemist fire-spewing flamethrowers called firecasters (and their larger cousins, the firespouts from Stormwrack, page 104) in the Iron Hills and Irongate. The firecaster was originally developed by the dwarves of the Iron Hills as a tool to deal with large patches of poisonous fungus, vermin swarms, and other such mundane threats. However, it was exported to Irongate during the Greyhawk Wars, where it saw military usage in late 584 CY during the sieges by Scarlet Brotherhood allied forces (in the form of a firespout) on the ships of the Irongate navy. Due to its great success, it was later deployed as mobile and fixed weapons emplacements throughout Irongate’s fortifications, and eventually developed into the infantry handheld firecaster.
That's just me seeing something from history, thinking "Cool!" and deciding it needs to be in my campaign.
...I also have Byzantine-style Greek fire/alchemist fire-spewing flamethrowers called firecasters (and their larger cousins, the firespouts from Stormwrack, page 104)...
That's just me seeing something from history, thinking "Cool!" and deciding it needs to be in my campaign.
I think that's the "right way" to violate canon, if you're gonna do it. On the other hand, there are ways to do it that even a heretic like myself would scratch their heads. 3.5 and Pathfinder have so much to add, its a wonder any of us get any gaming done with all the material available.
Since Mortellan brought up high school, I introduced Bill the Cat (from the Bloom County comic strip - I didn't even disguise the name, he was Bill the Cat) as a major deity in my Greyhawk campaign. There was a temple to him in my version of Greyhawk City.
Also, I ran WG7.
I have to say though, Mort, that Gamma World robots don't seem at all too strange for an adventure on a demiplane created by Zagyg.
Yeah, I ran the first four levels of WG7. I reasoned that the Castle was part of an alternate PMP that occasionally phased into the Cairn Hills. I mapped out the Citadel Union, the towers, and everything. My players and I had a really good time.
I adapted Doom of Daggerdale to the post-war Sea Princes.
I ignore 80% of the Liberation of Geoff and The Scarlet Brotherhood.
Olidammara was one of the Nine.
There is no Bilarro (sp); Robilar acted of his own accord.
There's only one Leomund and he was in the CoE.
Erac's Cousin has nothing to do with the Hierarchs.
.:Gunpowder (in limited quantities produced by Lortmil-based Dwarves, soon by any alchemist with the right tome)
Well, there was actually a feat in Dragon Magazine that gave the ability to make gunpowder to certain visionaries of Murlynd ... though it wasn't legal in Living Greyhawk. And there's always been an exception to the rule, so it's not really breaking canon.
Quote:
.:Shifters (to me, they've "always been around") /
There's plenty of canon for shape-shifters, and even tiger-men among the Wolf and Tiger nomads ... so, I don't really think that you're breaking canon with that one. I don't know that there's ever been anything said that makes it "these shape-shifters, and these only, exist in WoG. So, canon is - again - not really broken by their presence.
Quote:
.:Warforged (awakened by some nosy PCs during a well-publicized Githyanki incursion) This event also led to some very odd magical vehicles being used in the incursion... most were destroyed and now either form reefs or oddly-shaped greenery-covered hills.
While The "Incursion" (Dragon Magazine #309, for those not in-the-know) wasn't canon, there was a good long section that involved setting the Incursion in GH. Personally, I like the Warforged for the City of the Gods, since there's canon for all kinds of mechanized/clockwork/robot goodness there.
Quote:
.:My new "Amazons" project. This is not so bad. My Aztec Ninja and Axebeak Knights that go along with it are probably head-slappingly stupid to certain old guard types, I might think. [/list]
Again, I don't think that you're really breaking canon here ... I don't think that it's ever been specifically stated that there are no amazonian cultures in Greyhawk. Granted, there's not canon source for it, but, it's not "breaking" anything.
Though I am not really one for going outside of canon, I am a strong proponent of fitting as much as we can within canon. To me, canon is kind of like a water-baloon: you'd be surprised how much you can make fit in before it bursts. It is a fragile thing, and does burst easily, but, there's an awful lot of wiggle room in there. THe biggest thing is simply using the canon to establish a good story for how the stuff got there.
That being said, I think that the closest that I've ever really come to "breaking canon" is with my Rhennee material, and some of the stuff that I've made up there ... or perhaps my treatment of the Wolf and Tiger Nomads ... I tend to favour those two cultures, and have added a lot of IRL mythology and fantasy to them in my campaign. Also ... using supplemental material from Legend of the Five Rings to fill out Shaofeng and the Celestial Imperium.
I have to say though, Mort, that Gamma World robots don't seem at all too strange for an adventure on a demiplane created by Zagyg.
I hope mort's a handsome devil since you're confusing me for him.
Icarus wrote:
But, you know ... I was very young, and it was the eighties. :)
Is there anyone on Canonfire! so young that they can't empathize with that?
In addition to my Gamma World robots, I incorporated some of the Forgotten Realms Bloodstone modules into my Greyhawk campaign and a few of the Dragon Lance modules as well. Eventually, I just decided that it wasn't worth the effort to try to shoehorn non-Greyhawk material into the campaign seamlessly.
Not counting changing history in my current campaign (which still adheres pretty close to canon, it's just alternate history), probably it was replacing the Suel barbarian nations with a collection of Drow city-states. Basically they were the Black Elves from Warhammer with some tweaking.
My PCs once discovered wall carvings in an ancient city hinting that Oerth was visited by UFOs. The inhabitants of which engaged in genetic manipulation, paving the way for the eventual appearance of Oerth's myriad of life forms. These were, in fact, the Celestials, as I was a big Marvel zombie at the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestials
So how about it? What have you done to murder the canon?
I've ignored animuses and rewritten the history of the Great Kingdom accordingly
I've made Tiamat CE and a (former) resident of the Abyss
I've left Vecna as a hero-deity/demi-god who's still a secret (ditto on the Scarlett Brotherhood)
Most drow don't worship Lolth
Iggwilv may be male (or a hermaphrodite, or a shape/sex changer)
The cult of Elemental Evil survived the fall of the ToEE, and originated in Dyvers
I'm sure there are plenty of others that aren't leaping to mind atm, since they're so normal to me now. _________________ Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html
Well, the deal with that is that Iggwilv was referred to as male in the original tournament version of Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and as female in later versions. So probably heretical, but not off-his-meds crazy.
Also, I confused Sir Xaris with Mortellan because... I never learned how to read. There. It's out. I feel better now. I've sacked the secretary responsible.
I confess my heresy of attaching the Grand Duchy of Karameikos to the southern edge of the Bright Desert. It was the only terrain map I had from the Expert Rules. Then I got my hands on Greyhawk. So, for the sake of my campaign continuity, I just fit it in. Suddenly Karameikos was a bit smaller, but the same general shape, and there were lands bordering it. Its still there and has nothing to do with the Mystara world's version of Karameikos. It also lets me leave open the possibility of letting the players fail and have the place fall in to the Sea of Gearnat, or having it run by the player's themselves without messing up the rest of Greyhawk too much. Rary's betrayal and occupation of the Bright Desert provided a convenient nemesis.
rasgon wrote:
Since Mortellan brought up high school, I introduced Bill the Cat (from the Bloom County comic strip - I didn't even disguise the name, he was Bill the Cat) as a major deity in my Greyhawk campaign. There was a temple to him in my version of Greyhawk City.
"Bill the Cat" appeared as a PC run by one of my player's - back in high school as well. The player was the fan, not me. Did not make a terribly memorable ranger.
In my early days (again it was the eighties) I discovered a lot of D&D worlds together and started DMing in Krynn. When I bought the T1-4/A1-4/GDQ series, I moved the campaign by sea voyage to the Wild Coast and Hommlet/Verbobonc before buying the boxed GH set and settling there. So at one point, Ansalon lay to the south east of Oerik in my campaign.
Having settled in GH, I seem to recall, I retconned the whole thing off Oerth and never went back.
I have said one of my main heretical subjects before and that is Mordenkainen was evil an manupulated the CoE to his power and not those of Neutrality"
Thundercats... Need I say any more
And I have been known to "borrow" CHaos Warriors from Warhammer.
(I will go and say many hail mays whilst flagalating myself in a dark room)
Dogretch, the party's arch nemesis and pirate/slaver that works with the Slavelords has a most excellent catamaran warship.
and
I occasionally used several versions of the Land of the Lost pylons. One of the party members has a magical ring fashioned by the wizard Castanamir (also not canon I guess) that is linked to the pylons and gives them access to them. We've got a lot of mileage out of those. Just haven't been able to work in Sleestak yet though.
[quote="jephkay"]What are the worst canon violations you've ever seen or committed?
Myself, I am guilty of
.:Gunpowder (in limited quanities produced by Lortmil-based Dwarves, soon by any alchemist with the right tome)... Of those, the gunpowder is probably the worst from a canon perspective...
-I agree with Azzy. If it's good enough for Murlynd...
I have stuff that gets transported in from other planes, so that's OK, IMNSHO.
[quote="jephkay"].:Warforged (awakened by some nosy PCs during a well-publicized Githyanki incursion) This event also led to some very odd magical vehicles being used in the incursion... most were destroyed and now either form reefs or oddly-shaped greenery-covered hills...[/list]
-Again, with that explanation, that's not really murdering canon if it was part of the campaign.
The closest I have come to that is taking an adventure obviously not set in Greyhawk, putting it somewhere in Greyhawk, and altering what needed to be altered to make it fit into the overall Greyhawk background. Yep, I am pretty much a purist. The only adventure where changes were not required all that much was Ravenloft, and Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, but those were set on an alternate plane of its own(so it does not really count all that much) that I did not make the weird little realm of the Ravenloft Campaign Setting, but more of a normal alternate prime of its own. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I dunno about murder, but I am not opposed to advanced interrogation techniques. ;)
When I started my first online game, I called my House Rules section "Loose Canon". It seemed to fit. I suppose having the Land of Black Ice be the result of the Blizzard of Black Ice, magical "fallout" from the summoning of the Rain of Colorless Fire, might qualify.
These days, with my game set beneath the surface of the sea, the changes I make tend not impact the Drylanders. Making sea hags the daughters of merrow and greenhags, for example, or adding the Devils' Purse, an abyssal trench in the Solnor, for another.
I would have added making Celene into a Dyson Sphere, but Greyspace already mentioned subterranean caverns there, so I dialed it back a bit. I did add a third "stolen" moon - but it's just a tiny little thing.
Adding new races, classes, magics, and whatnot doesn't really count in this category... making stuff up is half the fun. :)
Addressing the original poster, I do not have gunpowder, but my water dwarves have been experimenting with crystals they call "frozen thunder". I have placed "temporally-displaced" items, including guns, but GH is known for that anyway (GA mentions a clipper ship in Turucambi).
And do the metal-skinned Spawn of Kwalish count as warforged?
I do not believe it is actually possible to include anything that is inappropriate to Greyhawk. In the canon it is established that there are places that connect to multitudes of parallel dimensions.
I do not like Greyhawk because of its content of published history-From the Ashes is not worth the paper its printed on. I like Greyhawk because there are no absolute definitions of what "is."
I have a bunch of shipwrecked gnomes from Krynn working in a shop in Greyhawk, albeit in a warehouse. They've cannibalized parts of their ship to make steam engines and machines for production... and the roof that opens to the night sky.
I'm also prolonging the length of time before the Pact of Greyhawk is finally given up, as most of my PCs live and adventure in and around the city. I'm doing this as a device to keep a Scarlet Brotherhood envoy living openly as a main antagonist who toys with the PCs.
I do not believe it is actually possible to include anything that is inappropriate to Greyhawk. In the canon it is established that there are places that connect to multitudes of parallel dimensions.
I do not like Greyhawk because of its content of published history-From the Ashes is not worth the paper its printed on. I like Greyhawk because there are no absolute definitions of what "is."
I would agree with you in Principle, CP. I would broaden the statement just a little, though. There is a lot of definition of what "is". It's just that there's a whole lot of room open for what "could be". Not trying to nitpick, at all. I like your idea of an open world that has plenty of room to fill in the lines of what someone wants GH to be in their home game. _________________ Owner and Lead Admin: https://greyhawkonline.com<div>Editor-in-Chief of the Oerth Journal: https://greyhawkonline.com/oerthjournal</div><div>Visit my professional art gallery: https://wkristophnolen.daportfolio.com</div>
I placed the Thundercats in Hepmonaland, under the pretence of a throw back from Aztec/Myan. I didn't go the whole hog with Mumbra as I just really liked the idea of Cat-people.
I placed the Thundercats in Hepmonaland, under the pretence of a throw back from Aztec/Myan. I didn't go the whole hog with Mumbra as I just really liked the idea of Cat-people.
You could associate them with the Rakasta of the Isle of Dread.
I just introduced Drizzt into my Sterich campaign as an NPC. I win the Golden Heresy Cup.
Just kidding, but it would be the ultimate heresy.
Meh. Well ... yeah. Insofar as "murdering canon" goes ... if someone did, that would pretty much be blatantly, openly assassinating canon. Heh ... in an open-topped car with a bullet to the head while in a parade.
But, if one were to do so, that'd be just about the best place in GH for him. Frankly, I've always wanted to play in a Forgotten Realms campaign were someone RP'd Drizz't as an NPC really well (as opposed to all the PC clones of him who're never played well).
Well, the deal with that is that Iggwilv was referred to as male in the original tournament version of Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and as female in later versions. So probably heretical, but not off-his-meds crazy.
Also, I confused Sir Xaris with Mortellan because... I never learned how to read. There. It's out. I feel better now. I've sacked the secretary responsible.
Well, maybe Iggwilv was affected by one of Gary's favorite gender-swapping belts sometime early in his/her career. Who knows?
It wasn't my heresy (at first, but I have run with it in my own campaign), but back in the 80s (lord yes, good times) the very first AD&D campaign I ever played was set in Greyhawk. The GM told me all about the Theocracy of the Pale, since the campaign was set in Tenh. Only, he told me that it was run by the Hextorians and LE in alignment!
Later, I found out he had changed that, but I kept it for my game. In this version of Greyhawk, the Hextorians assauted the Pholtans a couple of centuries ago and drove them from the Pale, burning their shrines and holy places in the process--and the people of the Pale welcomed the Hextorians because the Church of Pholtus had gone just a bit overboard in their quest to eradicate evil with a rigid society of laws and rules that Cuthbert would have balked at!
Well, needless to say, the Pholtans are STILL pissed, and occassionaly try to do to the Hextorians what the Hextorians did to them! One of my fondest memories of a game I ran was when the party I was running was in Greyhawk City, and the high priest of Pholtus was being an A-1 ****. One of my players (who didn't even like Hextor, even though he was born in the Pale) looked him square in the eye and said, "And guess what? For all that power your goddling Pholtus has, the Hextorians are still having orgies in your old temple, every Starday."
It was just the way that he said it, but I burst out laughing for five minutes straight--and the cleric of Pholtus nearly had a stroke before his guards chased the group out of the temple! My group decided it would be better just to skip the Pholtans quest.
... the Theocracy of the Pale, ...was run by the Hextorians and LE in alignment!
OMFG ... that is friggin' hilariously funny. not just the idea, but "they're having orgies in your temple, every Saturday." That has got to be a fantastic memory. I'm just hearing it second hand, and I was laughing out loud just reading it ... and even now, I'm chuckling as I write this, and every time I read it out loud again, I chuckle more. Bravo, sir. Bra-vo!
In middle school I ran a game in Greyhawk where I had a Baklunish member of the Scarlet Brotherhood. I honestly just had not the literature readily available to have let the setting sunk in, and was running from a module that I spiced up with plot.
In middle school I ran a game in Greyhawk where I had a Baklunish member of the Scarlet Brotherhood. I honestly just had not the literature readily available to have let the setting sunk in, and was running from a module that I spiced up with plot.
Lol!
You couldn't have gone much farther wrong if you had purposefully tried to do so.
The Temple of Elemental Evil. That book was so "Monte Cooke" I could not stand it. Setting aside the vast disregard for most of the setting, there was also no attempt at characterization beyond the exposition (which did so directly). Not only did this guy fail at maintaining author invisibility, he did not allow the characters to affect the story with any decisions of their own. The novel was a giant allegory for the Diplomacy skill. Whether you come up with a good story or a bad one, only the numbers matter if you're playing by the book. I have read business cards that had a better plot.
I believe in double-standards in gaming. I do not want a fantasy novel based on a campaign setting to actually be anything like the game. I don't want to read **** like in The Tomb of Horrors where the author actually wrote something like, "Having already deflected one arrow, he felt like he could not do so again for several seconds."
Another crappy novel I read was from the Pathfinder line called Prince of Wolves. The novel was written in the first person, and it alternated between each of two characters between chapters. The two main characters would often stop, and then just muse silently for a dozen pages about the history of Golarion. The actual plot was quite passable, being part mystery, but the pedantic characters got annoying quickly. I "friended" the author, Dave Gross, on facebook for about a week. I read a post where he confessed to being on the Oxford side of the Shakespeare-authorship debate, and alluded that his being so was a sign of how logical he was. His writing made sense, then. He does not know how to write, that is the only way he could buy into that Oxfordian crap. The book had a Prologue, contained within which was a scene from later in the book. The Prologue contained a scene that had not yet happened. The Prologue. Also, as pedantic as the characters were in telling you the history of the setting, they would regularly reference things detailed in the system's rulebooks, and leave them unexplained within the context of the novel.
I think I read that book, but it is hard to believe I don't remember something like a Baklunish Monk of the Scarlet Brotherhood in there.
Then again, I don't recall the book being that memorable. Most of the books in the Greyhawk line at that time were not so memorable. Some things that are memorable you even want to forget, like Valley Girl pixies, like, ya know? Fer sure! _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I think I read that book, but it is hard to believe I don't remember something like a Baklunish Monk of the Scarlet Brotherhood in there.
Then again, I don't recall the book being that memorable. Most of the books in the Greyhawk line at that time were not so memorable. Some things that are memorable you even want to forget, like Valley Girl pixies, like, ya know? Fer sure!
The Paul Kidd books were entertaining, but I am glad he stopped at three. By the third book he had devoted himself wholly to be iconoclastic to the whole "D&D thing."
I remember using X4 Master of the Desert Nomads and X5 Temple of Death in Greyhawk. I had paced Hule in the Dry Steppes, and the Great Pass was through the Crystalmists. I think. God that was so long ago... _________________ The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. - Bertrand Russell
Since this thread is a confessional of sorts, now would be the time, but I dare anyone to admit to using one of the Conan modules in Greyhawk. With Conan. _________________ The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. - Bertrand Russell
Ceb - Chaotic Prime is absolutely right; it was "Temple of Elemental Evil". It was - if memory serves - set after the original module took place ... let's see, according to the LGG:
Licing Greyhawk Journal", page 15 wrote:
Adventurers put down an attempted resurgence of the Temple of Elemental Evil in 579 CY.
Sadly, it was a product of it's times. I don't dislike Thomas Reid as an author, because he was essentially told what to write. At the time, one of the concepts of fantasy writing (when it was based on an adventure module) was that the story should basically lead readers to the game itself. So, they did a room by room retread of the adventure. "Against the Giants" was the same way. There's not a whole lot one can do when handed a project and is told precisely what the plot is, how it progresses, and that game terms and game mechanics have to be emphasized. ... Also, he wasn't given the proper research time or - I presume - material.
Thomas Reid has written other stuff that shows his own writing style much, much better ... but, that doesn't mean that the book wasn't a complete tragedy. This Scarlet Monk was little more than window dressing, and it was completely and blatantly wrong. The thing that broke my heart the most was not that Reid wrote it (he is blameless to me for the tragedy), but, that no one caught it. There was no fact-checking, no editor who knew the setting, no advance copies given to readers who knew what it was about. They basically said, "here's this cobbled-together thing - here, you make it readable." I can't imagine that I could do all that much better if someone told me that I had to do a room-by-room novelization of a 70s era module, and include round-by-round fighting.
Since this thread is a confessional of sorts, now would be the time, but I dare anyone to admit to using one of the Conan modules in Greyhawk. With Conan.
No. But my players did meet Elric. After their ship on the Nyr Dyv was attacked by a Melnibonean battle barge. See, the people of the Isle of Woe were really Melniboneans and...
I remember using X4 Master of the Desert Nomads and X5 Temple of Death in Greyhawk. I had paced Hule in the Dry Steppes, and the Great Pass was through the Crystalmists. I think. God that was so long ago...
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I balanced it by only providing a limited supply of ammunition and fuel so that they PCs wouldn't have access to that super-technology for very long after defeating them. I was afraid that I'd made them too powerful and would destroy the PCs with these NPCs.
