Examine, if you will, the Forward to the Glossography from the 83 GH Set.
Simple question. Is it canon?
What we have here is like nothing else in the Greyhawk opus.
The Forward is written, and declared written, by Steve Winter and Allan Hammack, two then TSR employees. In the Forward, they address the reader as employees of TSR about the 83 Greyhawk Set but then also go on to provide purely setting specific details, as if speaking in the character of a Greyhawk source. Certainly, TSR is not typically thought of as canon Greyhawk at any point. However, the Savant-Sage and Pluffet Smedger etc. are held as canon as set forth in the Forward. In the Glossography we get a strange mix in a unified document - the Forward.
Paragraph by paragraph -
The first paragraph links TSR with the "Greyhawk manuscript." Surely, this is not canon. Is it?
The second paragraph is pure GH history and might be accounted canon.
The third paragraph is much as the second.
The fourth paragraph is much as the second and third.
The fifth paragraph is much as the second, third and fourth.
The sixth paragraph mixes purely GH information with a reference to TSR's publication of the Greyhawk setting.
The seventh paragraph mentions Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and links the published canon setting with that game by reference to what is arguably canon - Smedger's "game-model."
The eighth and final paragraph seems to draw the game away from the very (possible) canon material previously set out to look at GH as product of TSR.
Can one happily parse a unified document (the more so for being so interconnected and abbreviated) into parts - canon and non-canon? Sure. But the picking and choosing is obvious and somewhat unsatisfying on other than the most practical level because of that. And what canon maven would tolerate such an obvious subterfuge?
One could argue that because of the authorship, because the voice used is clearly that of Winter and Hammack, and not Winter and Hammack as Greyhawk authors but as TSR (by direct reference) employees producing a Greyhawk product, the entirety of the Forward cannot by any but the most wishful thinking be accounted as a canon source.
One could argue that if the Forward is canon then there is a time/space (and canon) connection between Oerth and our Earth. TSR is canon, then (L. Williams an avatar of Iggwilv?). Before you balk, remember Quag Keep. This kind of time/space connection is not without some precedent in the wider Greyhawk Opus. And Murylynd? And Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror?
Why is this important to anyone but a picker of nits (and isn't that what canon purists are)? Fifth paragraph. Second sentence. "During Smedger's time, magic was not a lost art, but apparently a fading one." This is the Dying Magic reference. It is elaborated on by the third sentence, fifth paragraph. "Happily, Smedger the Elder's curiosity and genius preserved a priceless relic from a world that no longer exists." The suggestion is that magic was "apparently" fading in Greyhawk and ultimately it, and Greyhawk, came to "no longer exist."
The point then of this post. Is the fifth paragraph of the Forward to the Glossography canon or not? If it is canon, why? If it is not canon, why? In either case, the answer must make reference to the Forward or it is unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable opinion. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but hardly a basis for a reasoned position.
So, what do the assembled magisters of Canon assay the matter to be?
And lest we again shrug, if the Dying Magic reference is canon, and it is almost 600 CY, and Greyhawk's calendar will be pushed forward in its next iteration as it is generally supposed to judge by the common clack, it seems another Greyhawk megaevent must be in the offing. Maybe Living Greyhawk is playing out Greyhawk's Tribulation, the rest of Revelation to come with the death of magic just around 1000 CY? Greyhawk - The Rapture. Luckily, there is a d20 product out there by that very name, The Rapture RPG, but it not much to look at and terribly expensive for what you get.
Lay on! Or lay back and think of Onnwal. I mean England
NS _________________ NightScreed
- There Can Be Only One
[quote="NightScreed"] The suggestion is that magic was "apparently" fading in Greyhawk and ultimately it, and Greyhawk, came to "no longer exist."
Hmmm..... perhaps they had been gazing into TSRs Crystal Ball
Shades of Galadriel's mirror "Remember that the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them."
I also saw the reference to the decline of magic in Greyhawk and thought about the comparison to Middle Earth. I have two questions that might be helpful. What is the half-life of magic? In other words, how long is it going to be before this is even an issue? The other is: Is there any relationship between the fading of magic in Greyhawk generally with the fading lands? Perhaps someone who is more familiar with the OJ and other sources on that could comment.
Some food for thought for the dying magic discussion, from an article on Boccob by Eric L. Boyd:
Polyhedron #128 wrote:
The Lord of All Magics is both gifted and cursed by his ability to foresee the future, for in it he sees the eventual disappearance of magic from Oerth, and the death of everything beholds dear. His appellation as the Uncaring is somewhat of a misnomer, as Boccob is actively battling to save Oerth from its creeping doom. The Archimage cares intensely about the weakening of the fabric of magic, and nearly all of his power is focused on delaying and reversing magic's apparently inexorable decline.
Consumed by his self-appointed task of preserving magic, Boccob has little time for day-to-day events in the Flanaess. The Lord of All Magics almost never leaves his realm, preferring to send his demipower servant, Zagyg the Mad. For his part, the Mad Archmage serves Boccob most carefully, but out of his own will and a desire to retain enlightened neutrality and uncertain humor everywhere. Boccob suspects, but cannot prove, that Tharizdun is behind magic's slow waning, and thus actively contributes to the Dark God's long-standing imprisonment.
Also On Hallowed Grounds notes that Oerth is a dying world.
The novel Nightwatch paints a very nonmagical picture of a future Oerth though it is debatable if it`s canon or when exactly it is set.
I havn`t read the recent Greyhawk 2000 article in Dragon. anyone got any info on that?
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