Campaign Notes and FAQ

What Edition of Dungeons & Dragons is this for?

Which ever you choose. I have purposefully left game mechanics off these pages so it can be adapted easily for any gaming system you might wish to use, even GURPS. When I actually ran the campaign I used a kind of bastard combination of 1st and 2nd edtition AD&D; rules. I kept the classes of Bard, Monk, and Ranger, as they were presented in the 1st Edition and used the proficiencies rules from 2nd Edition. I do know that halflings as described in the 3rd Edition rules are not the Hobbits of Greyhawk.

Is this web site associated with the Living Greyhawk campaign?

No. A lot of the materials I used in my campaign differ siginificantly from what has been presented in Living Greyhawk. Greyhawk was revived and presented as the default setting for third edition Dungeons & Dragons and as a result the version used now by Living Greyhawk and Wizards of the Coast has been changed. Halflings used to be the AD&D; version of Hobbits, now they are more like the Kender of Dragonlance than Hobbits. As the default world of D&D;, these changes have also affected this race in the official Greyhawk materials. Another difference in my campaign has been the race of Gnomes. Gnomes in my campaign resemble the Woodland Gnomes of writer Wil Nuygen & illustrator Rien Poortvliet, but otherwise follow the statistics given in the first edition AD&D; Players' Handbook.

Is this a game you are running now? Can I join?

No, this website was put up mainly for informative purposes only, in the hopes that DMs running current campaigns in any setting could gleen ideas or useful information from it. I played and DMed the Greyhawk campaign from the early to late eighties and resurected it from 1992 to 1994. I haven't actively gamed since 1994 but I was still keeping up with new materials until about 1998. I have since become a collector of old vintage gaming material from the past. Sorry, but there is no current game to join.

Are you selling any of the old modules and sets?

No, there is nothing for sale here. If I ever have a need to sell anything then I will probably list it on ebay, not on here. If you are looking for vintage gaming material ebay is the place to look.

Are/Were those characters actual players' characters from your campaign?

Not exactly. First of all I had my own ideas for how the game would progress and had a set of characters of my own that I would play through the senarios in my head, then there were the players' actual characters that were played through the adventures... I don't have access to those actual player characters any longer, but rest assured that they were very similar to these characters that I have presented.

Which races have pointed ears?

Elves/Olvenfolk: All elves have pointed ears, in some of the subraces the points are more defined than in others.

Dwarves/Dwurfolk: Dwarves do not have pointed ears.

Hobbits/Hobniz: Hobbits don't have pointed ears either, exept for Fallohides who do have slight points.

Gnomes/Noniz: Gnomes have slightly pointed ears

Why are Halflings being called Hobbits?

Because we all know that is what they are supposed to be in the first place, so that is what they are here. Some men do refer to them as Halflings but this tends to be a derrogatory comment on their size.

Harfoots = Hairfeet; Fallohides = Tallfellows; Stoors = Stouts

Are Hobbits the only Tolkein influences in your campaign?

No, I used all the Tolkein names that were in Chainmail and the Original Dungeons & Dragons white boxed set. Treants were Ents and Balors (Type VI Demons) were Balrogs.

Harfoots = Hairfeet; Fallohides = Tallfellows; Stoors = Stouts

Dwarf women have beards?

Yes they do. And no there aren't any exceptions. And no, they aren't supposed to appeal to you, they are a different race than humans. Keep this in mind.

Those Gnomes look like garden gnomes!

They are... well actually they are Woodland Gnomes but there isn't much difference in the appearance of the two. When I think of Gnomes this is what comes to my mind so I made the Gnomes of my Greyhawk campaign the same. Otherwise they follow all the statistics listed in the Player's Handbook.

Oerth isn't the center of it's universe? The Greyspace module from Spelljammer says it is!

So? I like the idea that the scholars of Oerth believe this, inspite of having magic to help them decipher the secrets of the universe, and are wrong. Also Gary Gygax stated that this claim was made "in character" in the 1983 glossography and wasn't supposed to be taken as true. I imagine that a lot of people on Oerth believe the world is flat too...

Who is that Merlin guy? Is he supposed to be a cowboy or something?

That is Murlynd not Merlin. Murlynd (or Murlon or something like that) was the character played by the late Don Kaye in the original Greyhawk campaign of Gary Gygax. Yes, he is a cowboy. Don Kaye loved westerns and was a fan of the Boot Hill RPG so his character was even allowed to use gunpowder firearms. It is my personal suspicion that this character was the very reason that gunpowder was declared off limits in the Greyhawk campaign. In 1976 Kaye, who had been Gygax's childhood friend, died of a heart attack. In tribute Gygax presented Kaye's Character Murlynd as a Quasi-Deity in the 1983 Boxed Set.

Other Quasi-Deities?

Keoghtom, Tom Keogh was another of Gygax's childhood friends. Tom passed away around 1968.

Hugh (Heward) Burdick (Heward's Mystical Organ). A close relative of Gary's who tuned/fixed church pianoes and organs. He died shortly after the formation of TSR.

Crom? Isn't that the god that Conan always swore by? What's he doing in here?

Actually that is my reworking of the Greyhawk god Kord. In my campaign he was Crom and was, for the most part, the same Crom revered (or not, whatever) by Conan. I am a Robert E. Howard fan and Conan is my favorite of his characters so I put Crom in as a god for barbarians. They may revere him, but they know that he is indifferent to the sufferings of mortals so there is no need to offer up any prayers to him.

What is the deal saying Forgotten Realms setting is on magical overload?

To understand this you need to be aware of how the regular guy in Greyhawk sees things... They just don't see all these magic-users running around casting spells all over the place, heck most of them have never even seen a real wizard at all... And elves? Well Outside of the elven nations elves are rare, except in the big cities like Greyhawk and Dyvers. And even there they aren't paid that much attention to by the ratcatchers and the streetcleaners and the guy at the cobbler shop making shoes all day, etc. Humanoids are heard of (people tell their kids frightening stories about them, usually some kind of morality play) a glimpse of them might be caught at night or out in the forests... Both are places decent people have no business being. Those adventuring types aren't decent people. What about Iuz? Isn't he a cambion who is now a demigod and is ruling a country in Greyhawk! Well yeah, but lets ask Erlick over at the livery stable about that one... "Yeah they say that Iuz is the son of a demon and all that... but hell, they also say that about the wicked son of the High Graff. You know the one who raped that girl and kills peasants in barfights and never even went to trial... so what?"

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