Triads

 Welsh triads, a historical form found in Medieval manuscripts where folkloric and mythologic tidbits are presented in groupings of three seem a compact way of delivering some light setting info. 

Playing with the form, I came up with a couple related to the setting I posted about here. 

Three terrible spectres of the Realm:
Pendhol,who seeks his lost crown and lost head in the hills of Hern,
And Llaithwyn, Lady of the Night Mists, who the wise give courtesy but only fools embrace,
And Black Gawl, the hound loosed by the Beast from the Outer Dark to herald the doom of Men.

Three cunning folk of the Realm:
Morgna, witch and shape-changer, whose hut wanders the Marshes of Morva,
Wyrthegern the Mad, who lives in the wild and speaks in riddles,
And the Wizard Midhryn of Many Names, who was judged most cunning of all.

Weird Revisited: The Moving Pointcrawl

The original version of this post appeared in July 2015. I never did finish writing In Doom's Wake, but it got playtested twice I believe. I really should get around to finishing it one of these days.

The pointcrawl, which abstracts a map to the important points, eliding the empty places/boring stuff a hexcrawl or similar complete mapping would give equal weight, is [in 2025 certainly!] a well-established concept. One unusual variation not yet explored [it wasn't in 2015, and still isn't, so far as I know!] is the crawling of moving points.

Admittedly, these would be pretty unusual situations--but unusual situations are the sort of stuff adventures are made from: Exploring a flotilla of ancient airships or the various "worlds" in a titan wizards orrery; Crawling the strange shantytown distributed over the backs of giant, migrating, terrapin. Flitting from tiny world to tiny world in a Little Prince-esque planetary system. Some of these sort of situations might stretch the definition of pointcrawl, admittedly, and to model some of them in any way accurately would require graphing or calculus, and likely both.

Let's take a simple case--something from an adventure I'm working on. Say the wrecks of several ships are trapped in a Sargasso Sea of sorts. The weed is stretchy to a degree, so the wrecks move to a degree with the movement of the ocean, but the never come completely apart.

The assumption (to make it a pointcrawl, rather than just a hexcrawl, where the points of interest move) is that there were pretty much only certain clearer channels a small boat could take through the weed--or maybe certain heavier areas that a person who wasn't too heavy could walk over without sinking in complete.

The map would look something like this:

Note that this map is pretty abstract, despite appearances. The distances or size of the weed patch aren't necessarily to scale with the derelict icons. Length of connecting lines is of course, indicative of relative travel distance. The colors indicate how "stretchy" an area is: blue can move d4, orange d6, and red d8 in feet? yards? tens of feet? Not sure yet. Anyway, whether this drift is closer or farther away would depend on a separate roll of 1d6 where odds equals farther and evens closer. Of course, they can't come any closer than the distance they are away on the map, so any "extra" distance would be a shift to one side or the other.

Zigzags denote a precarious patch, where there would be an increased risk of a sudden thickening (if I'm going with boat travel) or falling in (if I go with walking). Dots will denote an extra wandering monster or unusual event check.

So there are a lot of kinks to work out, but that's the basic idea.

The Ruin of Mogh's Fort

Mogh's fortress is a ruin. Pigs root in the courtyard and roam noisily in his empty halls or drowse in sunbeams beneath a decaying roof. Mogh's once great chair is little more than kindling, crushed and splintered by generations of stout boars have scratched bulk against it.

The commote, a backwater of Hern trithing since its petty lords yielded to Arrn, is mostly the domain of the pig herds, which are both bane and boon to small and scattered villages. A few old folk have the knack of apprehending the grunting, snorting porcine tongue, and the pigs affirm (or so they claim) what the elders already knew: it is wise to stay clear of the ruins of Mogh's fort, particularly after dark.

The bandit lord and his bloody-handed reavers are long gone, but Mogh's doom is said to have come by a curse, and the curse may yet linger. Sometimes, the elders say (and the pigs, too, perhaps) that not all nocturnal visitors to the fortress come on four hooves. There are those demon swine that may choose to go about on two. 

Dread Knights and Dead Lovers

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night, but I haven't written about the previous session, so this covers both. The party only had one more shard of the mirror to collect. A mirror that would free the soul of Nocturose, but if that was for good or ill they didn't know for sure.

The last shard was on an altar amid standing stones on an island within a stinking bog. A poisonous, stinking bog. If all that wasn't bad enough, it had a guardian, a spirit naga. She wasn't much of a match for the whole party, though, but Shade was poisoned by inhaling too much swamp gas.

With all the shards in hand, they returned to the tower. The door was locked, and when Erekose tried to force it, he was blasted by intense cold. Luckily, he's resistant to the elements so it was a minor inconvenience. Within the crumbling tower, they saw a mirror in need of repair and an empty thrown. The ghostly Nocturose asked them to repair the mirror to free her so that she could be reunited with her love, the Dark Queen Morthalia.

The characters surprisingly quickly given a number of potential warning signs, agreed to give it a try. As they did, Nocturose revealed she had left one thing out: there were Dread Knights who guarded the mirror. The wraiths materialized out of shadow and were all "have at thee!"

The fight was on! It was two against five, but the party beyond Erekose had a hard time hitting them. Waylon went down and Erekose was close, but Dagmar's healing kept them in the fight, and she managed to blind one of the knights. Eventually, the party prevailed.

The party repaired the mirror, and Nocturose's spirit appeared within to thank them before fading away to return to her body. The party tried to make a pitch for her convincing Morthalia to join the fight against the Wizard, but it's unclear she got the message.

When they returned to report their success, they found a crowd including their old friend, Commodore Cog, the steam-powered ship captain. The reunion was spoiled when he revealed the monarchs leading the rebellion--Viola, Desira, and Bellona--had somehow been turned to stone.

This adventure was a modified version of Kobold Press' Shadows of the Dusk Queen.

Further Thoughts on Magic

Thinking about my Monday post further (and reading more examples of magic in McKillip's Heir of Sea and Fire), I feel like the part that perhaps the most central element to number of these magic systems I like is that they demonstrate Frazer's concept of sympathetic magic.

Raderle can create a powerful illusion of large lake, by digging a fist-sized hole and pouring water into it. Arthur in The Revolutions can snap a chair leg by snapping the stem of a wine glass. These are both examples of similarity, or like producing like.

The other common employed aspect of sympathetic magic is contagion. It shows up quite a bit in The Revolutions, but I don't think I quoted an example. It's where an item that was once physically connected to someone or something else still has a magical connection to that thing. This is being able to cast a spell on someone because you have a lock of their hair or the like.

Similarity shows up some in D&D spell material components, but I think more of these are sort of jokey correspondences instead.  These things are fine and could even be flavorful for bigger spells or more complicated rituals, I think more spells that used a perhaps caster-specific but reasonable application of similarity and contagion. 

Magic Systems I Like: The Riddle-Master series

I wrote a post almost a year ago related to portrayals of magic in fiction I'd like to see magic in fantasy rpgs be more like. In reading Patricia McKillip's excellent Riddle-Master series, I've come across more examples that are perhaps even more adaptable to fantasy adventure rpgs than some of the ones I mentioned previously.

In McKillip's setting, there are wizards but they are hidden/in hiding at the beginning of the story. The examples I've given here reflect the things able to be done by talented individuals (explicitly not everyone is capable of learning them) but not by people who either have the highest aptitude or training.

She had left, in front of Rood's horse in the College stable, a small tangle of bright gold thread she had loosened from her cuff. Within the tangle, in her mind, she had placed her name and an image of Rood stepping on it, or his horse, and then riding without thought every curve and twist of thread through the streets of Caithnard until, reaching the end, he would blink free of the spell and find that neither the ship nor the tide had waited for him. 

- Heir of Sea and Fire

Raederle (the "she" above), is also able to use this same technique to trip someone immediately (like in a combat situation by throwing a tangle of thread or similar material in front of them. She also is noted to be able to make a thorn bush into (or perhaps seem to be) a difficult to traverse bramble and to find her way out of a magical forest that confounds visitors and gets them lost.

These abilities seem more like spells of the AD&D sort, though they are perhaps wider in application than many and certainly less flashy than most. Another commonly employed magical ability in the series is "the shout:"

...Rood caught his breath sharply and shouted.

Morgon dropped the crown. He put his face against his knees, his hands over his ears. The wine glass on the desk snapped; the flagon on a tiny table shattered, spilling wine onto the stones. The iron lock on a massive book sprang open; the chamber door slammed shut with a boom.

- The Riddle-Master of Hed

More magical powerful individuals can generate more powerful shouts, even to the point we are told of laying low armies in rare instances. We are told that individuals able to shout are only able to do so at times of intense emotion, so it isn't exactly an "at will" power. Still, fairly D&D spell-like.

It's interesting to me how, in broad strokes, the magic conforms to Isaac Bonewits concept in Authentic Thaumaturgy in that, at base, its most common presentation is psychic phenomena. Characters are able to communicate telepathically and invade the minds of others to read their thoughts or memories. There is also a psychic attack--the mental equivalent of the shout--that came overwhelm the mind of an unguarded person and stun them or knock them unconscious. I suppose this psychic magic is hardly uncommon in literary (at least older lit) and real world belief, but it's very different from the energy-wielding magic of many modern portrayals.

Shape-changing is also common in the series, though a number of practitioners only have one form they are able to assume. Danan of Isig, for instance, is only able to turn into a tree, but that's a usual talent for hiding or resting in overland travel. Others are able to assume multiple forms in a way that would give a lot of rpgs fits due to concerns of game imbalance.

Overall, though, I think D&D magic could be molded more in the direction of this series pretty easily. A lot of it would be in reconsideration of the special effects of spells really. Oh, and for you bard fans, there's a bit of harping magic in the series too.

A Partial Gazetteer of the Planet Sagar

Sagar is the alien world that astronaut John Blackstar found on the other end of a black hole as revealed in the Filmation animated series Blackstar (1981). Here are a few of the fantastical locales he visited in the series:

CITY OF THE DESERT DWELLERS. A walled city beyond the Gorge of Winds where live an elfin people (perhaps related to the Desert Sprites) who possess the Healing Stone and guard it from the gargoyles who serve the Overlord. [ep 05]

DEMONLANDS. A barren region of jagged, coral-like formations and strange trees with boil-like growths where demons are particularly easy to summon. It is the location of a temple where the Overlord’s ally Taleena is high priestess and last worshipper. [ep 12]

MARAKAND. Floating city of the rapacious Shaldemar, the Zombie Master. The passing of Marakand leads to destruction of cities, but living beings are helplessly drawn up by its beams and Shaldemar uses his Sphere of Souls to transform his captives into soulless automatons, subject to his will. [ep 13]

TAMBORIYON. A lost city of the Ancient Ones, it lies on a jungle-choked island in the middle of a lake beyond the volcanic Flame Mountains. Tamboriyon's slender spires and domes bedecked with precious metals and jewels are now jungled-choked ruins, but the giant aumaton, Sumaro, who is the city's guardian, merely slumbers and may be reawakened by the unwise. [ep 02)

The BraveStarr Bible

 Poking around the Internet Archive yesterday, I discovered the series bible to BraveStarr, the 1987 Space Western from Filmation. The most interesting part to was the illustration. They aren't credited, but some of them have a bit of Moebius vibe.

Others strike a gritty tone that the series and remind me of illustration in pulp magazines.

Even ignoring the text, I feel like there's rpg inspiration to be found in these pages.

The Omega Team

Here's an idea for a campaign for an action/covert mission rpg. Outgunned is what I'm thinking of, but it would work with something like Top Secret/S.I. too, I think. I see it as having something of the vibe of an 80s indie comic, so keep that in mind when reading the pitch:

In the "near future" (from the 80s, so maybe it's like mid to late 90s?) a young man with immense, psychic power has gone rogue, escaping the top secret facility he has been living in. His ultimate goals are unclear, but the first thing he does is make the world's nuclear arsenals inoperable. The Soviets (they're still around) suspect some sort of U.S. super-weapon attack (which isn't far from the truth, really). Everybody's paranoid and non-nuclear war breaks out in various places around the world.

That was just this guy's first trick. What will an unstable, poorly socialized individual with almost god-like power and a grudge against the U.S. government do next? The government doesn't want to find out. The PCs are the agents they send to solve the problem--with extreme prejudice. They're the solution of last resort: the Omega Team*.

The Omega Team would be an eclectic group of experts in various fields tasked with tracking this guy down and ending his menace. He probably has recruited others with paranormal abilities (but much lower powerful levels), and he moves around a lot, so it's no easy task.

The idea shameless lifts the basic plot idea from Marvel Comics' Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja, but Akira, Thriller (the comic), Odd John, and the anime Lazarus are also inspirations, as well as 80s team stuff in general like G.I. Joe.

*The Omega Team was the name of a comic my cousin, brother, and I created as kids about a group of mutants working for the government. I've recycled it before for this idea.

The Patchwork Kingdom Crawl

 As has been pointed out before, the kind of frontier envisioned by old D&D owes more to Westerns than it does to the Western European Middle Ages or most of the fantasy works in the Appendix N. The modern idea of the "points of light" setting is perhaps closer to these things but still tends to miss the mark for many sources of the game's inspiration.

There's another option that shows up often, in disparate places from Le Morte d'Arthur to Star Trek, and many works in between. We have heroes wandering from one place to another, perhaps with a goal, perhaps not. These places are more or less civilized jurisdictions, but they have unusual customs (from the perspective of the protagonists) or eccentric or antagonist authorities. While one of the examples I mentioned above describes voyages covering a significant amount of territory (interplanetary!), some fairy tale-ish or picaresque stories (like Oz novels) do the same thing over a much smaller area: A patchwork of fiefdoms or petty kingdoms. The sort of campaign that could easily be made from a map of Holy Roman Empire:

This differs from the points of light setting in that there really isn't a distinction between wilderness for adventure and civilization for safety. In fact, the challenges of the wilderness in such stories may be much more limited than the challenges of civilization. The various eccentric monarchs and humorously dangerous social situations Manuel finds himself in in Figures of Earth are good examples, as are the strange and isolated cities John Carter visits in his wanderings across Barsoom.

The advantages of this sort of setting to me would be that it's very easy to work in all sorts of adventures from social conflict and faction stuff to traditional dungeons and overland travel.

Religion in Middle-earth

Art by Falmarin de Carme

I came across this site a couple of weeks ago that compiles additional background material generated for a Finnish Middle-earth based role-playing campaign. What I found most interesting is its extrapolation and elaboration of the religions for Middle-earth. 

This is a perceived area weakness pointed out in Tolkien's work in the past. In Imaginary Worlds, Carter notes critically that Tolkien's world "has no religion in it." In Dragon #127, Rolston in his review of Lords of Middle-earth for MERP gets to the gamer brass tacks of it:

According to Lords of Middle-earth, Middle-earth has a "seemingly inexhaustible collection of deities, pantheons, practices, and religions." However, all of them are wrong. Eru is the only god, and the Valar and the Maiar are simply his servants. Enlightened folk (Elves and Dunedain) practice a nonritualistic monotheism with no formal clergy - pretty boring stuff by FRP standards. 

A lot of epic fantasy has followed Tolkien's areligious example (Jordan's Wheel of Time series, for one) and as modern society becomes ever more secular, it probably is less and less seen as a deficit. Still, if you think of religion is a fascinating aspect of the real world well worth including in imagined worlds (where you at, Gloranthaphiles?) it's cool to see the work Sampsa Rydman has done here. The religions described build on the details provided in Tolkien's extensive writings and (so far as I am familiar with the lore) the new things added seem consistent.

For instance, the orthodox worship of Númenor is as described in terms of its simple ritual and insistence that only the king prays to Eru. The description of a Trinity of Eru, Word, and Flame Imperishable seems a credible extrapolation from details given. Likewise, the sort of Satanic faith of the Black Númenoreans is given a creed that is consistent with what me know about the downfall of their land but with reasonable details as to what Sauron might have convinced them to get them on his side. "Doing evil" (from the point of view of the doer) has historically not really been a common motivator for human religions, so it makes more sense that those that Sauron seduced to his cause were given some other line: "The Valar have wronged both you and the true god, and the true god will redress that wrong if you help him out."

Art by Angus MacBride

Of course, an issue with religion in Middle-earth is canonically we know what's true and what isn't. For a game campaign I think it might be more fun, as Rolston implies, if that weren't true. Going as far as Jacqueline Carey's The Sundering duology and switching the moral polarity of the two sides doesn't really help, but borrowing her idea that the Creator is out of the picture and the lesser gods have differing understandings or interpretations of how to carry out their mission leads to a more ambiguous situation with more possibilities for equally valid appearing religions. In other words, something like the sort of cosmologies or interpretations offered in fantasy works that utilize Judeo-Christian mythology as their backdrop. Really just making the complete truth unknowable to beings within the world (even immortal ones like the elves) would serve the same purpose, though I think most people familiar with Middle-earth would tend to make assumptions that would make this minimal change approach Less effective.

I don't think a Middle-earth game (or a game in any setting) has to have religion (unless you got clerics, in which case, you sort of already do), any more than you are required to explore any other element of culture, but if you're planning to run a long campaign I think it's an interesting facet to add.

Urshurak

Scott 'Dwarfland" Driver once opined that there was often more gaming inspiration to be had from "bad" fiction than from good. He was specifically talking about the works of Lin Carter, but I think this is often true in general. I haven't read Urshurak by the Brothers Hildebrandt and Jerry Nichols, so I can't comment on it specifically, but that seems to be the internet consensus. Here's a typical review.

Regardless, the art was surely the main selling point for purchasers in 1979. That and curiosity got me to pick it up on ebay a few months ago. It's gorgeous if you like the work of the Hildebrandt Brothers, though it could easily, I suppose be derided as too traditional or even generic nearly 50 years on. Certainly, the images and a thumbnail description of the plot mark it as a work of a more naive time when it comes to genre fantasy. There are heroes and a quest with swords and sorcerers and elves and dwarves in a vaguely faux Medieval Europe sort of setting. There are some sci-fi elements (it's a bit of fusion of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars), but no gestures toward realism, grittiness or deconstruction to be found.

Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but naive fantasy has a certain sort of appeal to me, though. It's not that I never want fantasy to go new places, but having seen the new places it has gone over the decades become, in their own way, stale or cliched or really shine in their focus on aspects other than adventure and action (which are the most relatable of fictional elements to the gaming table), I sometimes feel the pull for gaming inspiration to the things that wouldn't have made my reading list a decade or so ago.

And honestly, more fantasy epics could probably benefit from high tech Amazons. 

A Pantheon from Kirby's New Gods

Art by Alex Ross

Jack Kirby's so-called "Fourth World," an interconnected group of series at DC Comics from 1970-1973, posits a new group of god-like beings emerging from Ragnarok. These beings are presented and engage in action largely like other modern-era superheroes, but I've been thinking about whether one could make a pantheon from them usable in a traditional, medievalish fantasy game.

A notable trait of the so-called New Gods is that they are arranged in a sort of dualistic polytheism (not unlike the gods of Tekumel in Empire of the Petal Throne). The gods of New Genesis are the "good" gods and those Apokolips are the "evil" gods. 

As presented in the comics, the portfolios of the Apokolipsian gods (to the extent they are clear) are modern evils. They are mostly related to concerns of its author in post-World War II West, rather than traditional concerns of ancient or Medieval peoples. They will require some modification. They work better as devils or demons, probably, as Apokolips is pretty much Hell.

Interestingly, the stories that take place on Apokolips regarding the escape of Mister Miracle and friends have an almost gnostic dimension. Darkseid is a Demiurge sort of figure, while the Promethean Himon is the serpent in the stifling, poisonous Garden of Apokolips leading Mister Miracle to freedom.

In contrast, the gods of New Genesis are a bit more straightforward, harkening in many cases to Norse or Greek polytheistic figures. The problem is they just don't always have really clearly portfolios. 

Anyway, here's what I've got:

New Genesis:

• Highfather - Patriarchal leader of the gods of New Genesis. God of Wisdom, Diplomacy, and Rulership.
• Lightray - God of light, probably the sun too.
• Orion - God of War; given to berserker rages.
• Mister Miracle - A dying and rising god, probably with a mystery cult.
• Big Barda - Warrior goddess; defector from Apokolips
• Black Racer - Psychopomp and god of Death.
• Lonar - the Wanderer; god of horses and hospitality
• Metron - God of knowledge and travel.

Apokolips:

• Darkseid - Supreme god of evil.
• Kalibak - Monstrous son of Darkseid; god of violence and destruction.
• DeSaad - Lord of torture and cruelty
• Doctor Bedlam - God of Madness
• Female Furies - A (more) evil version of Valkyries
• Glorious Godfrey - God of Lies
• Granny Goodness - The cruel mother; a stealer of children, perhaps a Baba Yaga sort?
• Kanto - God of assassins
• Mantis - Vampiric lord of plagues and pestilence
• Steppenwolf - Dark lord of the hunt

Setting Folklore

I was on vacation last week and visited Antwerp where I saw the Brabofontein in the Grote Markt. It depicts events related to the legendary founding of Antwerp, where Roman soldier Silvius Brabo defeated Druon Antigonus, who had been demanding tribute to use a bridge over the River Scheldt. Brabo's killing of the giant provides the folk etymology of the origin of the name Antwerp as Brabo did to Druon what the giant had done to unfortunates who couldn't pay his toll: he cut off his hand and threw it across the river. Hence, the name Antwerp is supposed to come from handwerpen (throwing hands).

Anyway, the legend and the statue caused me to consider why isn't there more of this sort of folklore and folk etymology in settings? I sort of did some of this with the City and Weird Adventures (see "Thraug's Head", and perhaps "Saint Joan of the City" and "Short People, Big Worm"--admittedly, these blur the lines because they are depicted as relating history, not folklore, but I think they serve a similar purpose in their fancifulness and mostly not direct applicability to adventuring), but I haven't really done much of that in other settings.

I feel like little details like this both make places feel more real, but also potentially provide springboards for adventure because in fantasy worlds, even the strangest details might well be true. I suppose some people might think this sort of thing is excessive or maybe even unhelpful because it might confuse player's about what's true and what isn't, but I would argue a ruthless economy of setting details, limiting them to only things relevant to adventuring/dungeoncrawling and the need for every one of those details to be literally true or at least definitively falsifiable loses an aspect that differentiates rpgs from other sorts of games, that is, the ability to truly explore an imagined world.

Weird Revisited: Robot Dungeon

The original version of this post appeared in March of 2015...

I've written previously about a world where the dungeoneering was an done by androids who were the remnant of human civilization (all that's here). Well, there's another way to get dungeons crawling with robots, and that's by having a future, post-apocalyptic world that's been overrun by them. Instead of apes, or fairies, or vampires, let the robots take over something like Screamers (and the Philip K. Dick story it's based on "The Second Variety"), Terminator, or Magnus: Robot-Fighter. Unlike those examples though, human civilization can have been pushed back to pseudo-Medieval levels.

Say the robots have moved mostly underground, leaving humans to limp along on a damaged surface world. The underground bases of the robots would be a lot like dungeons. Robots would have made various robotic or bio-robotic guardians--monsters, of sorts. Maybe the robots are even aliens? A post-sentient, techno-organic swarm that landed and buried itself into the earth, spreading underground like roots, building robotic creatures in a myriad of forms as it went. You'd have a whole underground ecology of robots. Add "magic" (really psionic powers in disguise) and you've got a fantasy world, or close enough.

For a real fantasy world, assume that the alien robotic swarm invaded a fairly D&Dish world (except with maybe less conflict to begin with).

Arduin Got It

I don't know much of anything about Dave Hargrave or his inspirations for Arduin but the art and content suggest Hargrave's inspirations (or at least his artists inspirations) were much closer to mine and my friends' early influences than the likes of Gygax, Arneson, or Barker. 

I had read a few works off Appendix N in the first couple of years I played (some Howard, some Lieber. Tolkien) but it would probably be well into the 90s before fantasy comic books, art by Frazetta, Vallejo, and Whelan, etc., and animation weren't bigger influences that literary fantasy.

The things I see in Greyhawk now that I think were informed by Gygax's interest in historical wargaming would have been over my head when I first encountered it, and were not something I would have sought to add to a setting. Barker's world has a bit of Sword & Planet vibe but would have felt too bound by propriety and protocol. Greenwood's Realms seem geared toward trilogy novel so of play, but Tolkien's was the only trilogy I was interested in at that point. Hargrave, on the other hand, had insect people like Bug from Micronauts and Amazon warriors of the sort that were all over comics and seem de rigueur for fantasy worlds.

I can't say that (beyond the art) I've ever been particularly interested in Arduin. I came to it too late. Had I discovered it around age 12-13, it might have been a different story.

[Greyhawk] The Wild Coast

In the waning days of the Great Kingdom, folk who were faced with debts they could not pay or disagreements with the legal authorities that might see them imprisoned or facing the hangman often found it convenient to flee narrow area of flatwood, sandhill, and wetland along the Northwest edge of Wooly Bay. There, they would be, if not welcomed, at least accepted into the independent community that had grown up among the several, squabbling towns. The region had an infamous reputation and was known as the Wild Coast.

Primarily, the Wild Coast served as a safe haven for brigands and outlaws from the woodlands west and smugglers and pirates from Wooly Bay to the east. Trade went on between the groups without fear of Dyvers' or Greyhawk's tax agents. The towns grew up to crater to the needs of these clientele but also drew others in search of freedom: escaped serfs and slaves, political dissidents, fringe religionists, and more than a few nonhumans. 

The freedom of the Wild Coast was just as often manifest as lawlessness. Existence was precarious when local powers shift quickly and much of the population is transitory. Humanoids raided up from Pomarj and monsters driven out of other areas sometimes found this sparsely populated region ideal.

It seems like Gygax wanted the Wild Coast to evoke a bit of the American "Wild West." I drew inspiration from a number of places: the Romagna during the late Middle Ages/early modern period, Barataria Bay in the early 19th Century. Mostly, it's just a fantasy region though.

[Greyhawk] North Province

Art by Mihai Radu

The Overking was traditionally appointed by vote of the magnates ruling the constituent territories of the Aedi. One of these was the region now called North Province which was held by House Naelax since the Great Kingdom's founding.

In time, Naelax seized the Malachite Throne themselves after the period of strife known as the Turmoil between Crowns. This dynasty came to a end under Ivid V, sometimes called Ivid the Mad, though that epithet fails perhaps to distinguish him from his predecessors. Before his ascension, the young Ivid was hardly considered a likely candidate for the throne, given that he was not possessed of any exceptional qualities to make him standout from his numerous siblings. 

In the fullness of time, though, Ivid was proved to possess the most essential quality for rulership: he was still alive. Not a few of his siblings were likely murdered and these assassinations are laid at the feet of Ivid's cousin and staunchest supporter, Grennell, who was ultimately elevated to Herzog of North Province.

Grennell, born to a cadet branch of House Naelax, was not in line to inherit even a lesser holding, so he put his skills at the application of violence to use, first in skirmishes against the Northern Barbarians and orcs, and then as assassin for his cousin, first in secret, then more brazenly. In the end he was rewarded with a ducal throne. After the reign of terror perpetrated by the pair, there were few other potential claimants left.

By all accounts, Grennell is a man of perversity and sadism. People who had displeased him or even ones who provoked his interest for any reason were taken by his henchmen and brought to his Iron Tower where they were subjected to the art of a scarred hobgoblin who served as his chief torturer or the attentions of the Herzog himself. His passions excited by these horrors, he then joined his retainers in feasting, gambling and debauchery.

The commoners and lesser landholders of the area around Eastfair lived in fear of their Herzog. Many have taken to having their children and heirs moved to the hinterlands or even out of the province to at least save them from Grennell's appetites.

[Greyhawk] South Province

Under the enlightened rule of the Herzogin, Eliamund, South Province could reasonably boast to being the most cultured and genteel realm of the Aerdi. The first Aerdian university was founded with her encouragement and patronage. The poets and troubadours who were welcome at her court composed ballads of chivalry, romance, and courtly love that then spread throughout the Kingdom. Perhaps owing to a culture dating back to the realm of Flan queen Ehlissa, women enjoyed a greater role in South Kingdom than in the more patriarchal north.

In the North, legends painted Ehlissa as a wicked enchantress, cruel to her subjects. The Southron troubadours, however, sang of her as a wise and benevolent, an interpretation encouraged by Eliamund.

This bright age did not last. The Turmoil Between Crowns saw Eliamund forced from the throne. She lived out her remaining days in an abbey. 

The South Province of 576 CY was not the land it once was. An ill-favored cousin of the Overking, Faastal, sat upon the ducal chair, a man incompetent as he was arrogant. He had been given a task that would have challenged someone of greater talents: to put down rebellion in the South and return the cities of the Iron League to royal control. Faastal crushed the people with taxes to fund his military blunders and dealt over-harshly with any dissent. His efforts only served to stoke the fires of rebellion he had been sent to quell.

For the rebel bands hiding in the forests and the towns barricaded against the Herzog's men, Eliamund became a symbol of their struggle and was given devotion like a saint or hero-god. 

Greyhawk So Far

I've got more posts to come, but I figured it was a good time to put all the posts I've written so far together in one place:

The project idea (though it's perhaps become a bit less Medieval over time than I initially intended. It's still a large part, but not the sole focus).

The Bone March

The Horned Society

The Iron League

Ket

The Holy See of Medegia

The Pale

Rel Astra

The Duchy of Tenh

The Aerdian Church of Law

And some real-world images for terrain inspiration.