From: rnmg1200@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (A Lady and her Walrus)
Subject: Greyhawk (was Re: Tales from the Floating Walrus)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 22:39:53 GMT
Keywords: Greyhawk, Trashed

In article <67389@hydra.gatech.EDU> tmiller@prism.gatech.EDU (Thomas Miller) writes:
>  I have run the _same_ Greyhawk campaign since 1985 or so, using three
>different parties, whose exploits spanned a range of about 11 game
>years.  Even thinking about Greyhawk Wars tears apart everything I've
>worked on for all this time.
>  It might be a neat change of pace, though, having your established
>world destroyed.
>  Right.
>
>  Can anyone who actually _has_ this set provide some insight?  Thanks,
>
I have it, but I'm not certain what you want to know.  The best I can tell you
is this:

Over the course of the last two+ years, TSR has been systematically destroying
Greyhawk.  It really started with the module Vecna Lives, wherein  the Circle
of Eight (consisting of Otto, Bigby, Rary, Otiluke, Jallarzi Sallavarian, 
Tenser, Nystul, and Drawmij--recognize any of those names?) were killed--not
by Vecna, oh no, but by a semi-lich who didn't even have any spell-casting
abilities.  Admittedly he was carrying the Hand and Eye of Vecna, but at
least _one_ of them should've gotten away.  

Then, out comes Greyhawk Wars, hot on the heels of the Barbarian modules,
which introduced the "Great God of the North" (actually Iuz in disguise) who
united the northern barbarians with the Hold of Stonefist and began marauding
south.  Thus began the war, which also involved the death of Ivid (ruler of the
Great Kingdom) and lots of other meaningless stuff.  The end result is that
the Scarlet Brotherhood manipulated everybody (with the exclusion of Iuz)
into signing a peace treaty.  At the time of the signing, Rary got a case of
Deus ex Machina-itis and decided to Rule-the-World-Bwah-ha-ha.  He set 
various magical traps meant to kill the visiting dignitaries (like they're going
to show up themselves, without boo-coos of magical protection, sheah, right)
and assume power "for the public good."  This plot was foiled when Tenser, 
Bigby and Otiluke just "happened" to stumble across the evil Rary, who was
setting up the traps.  Rather than do something intelligent like, say, cast
Power word Kill or Teleport, or better yet try to LIE his way out of it, he
set off the traps, killing Otiluke and Tenser and severely wounding Bigby.
Rary and his partner-in-mayhem, Lord Robilar, moved into the Bright Desert,
where they have now set up shop and are lording it over the natives.

The main problem that I have with this is that a) there is no continuity:
In Fate of Istus the Scarlet brotherhood is destroyed, yet this boxed set
has them as a major power (with Korenth Zan, their leader, still alive yet).
In Vecna Lives, the Circle is killed (supposedly permanently), yet in the
set they're back again, and in the Treasures of Greyhawk (which I kinda 
liked, actually) module, they're still dead but Mordy is looking for
a slice of tissue Bigby had lying around in order to clone him.  b)  None of
it makes sense:  if this Great God of the North is so powerful, why hasn't he
put the hurt on Iuz for impersonating him?  Rary turned evil because Otiluke
ticked him off?  Get real!

Anyway, that's pretty much the story; looks like they've been leading up to
this for some time, and now they have the chance to finish it:  They're 
remaking Greyhawk to spite EGG.  Pretty sad, actually.  Almost as bad as what
EGG himself did at the end of the Gord novels (i.e., destroy the planet and
everybody on it), which I always thought was out of spite, myself.

The Walrus


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