Signup
Welcome to... Canonfire! World of GreyhawK
Features
Postcards from the Flanaess
Adventures
in Greyhawk
Cities of
Oerth
Deadly
Denizens
Jason Zavoda Presents
The Gord Novels
Greyhawk Wiki
#greytalk
JOIN THE CHAT
ON DISCORD
    Canonfire :: View topic - Map of Odd Alley
    Canonfire Forum Index -> World of Greyhawk Discussion
    Map of Odd Alley
    Author Message
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
    Posts: 3310
    From: Michigan

    Send private message
    Sun Jul 13, 2008 1:39 pm  
    Map of Odd Alley

    This was the best I could do to reconcile the description of Odd Alley from Gary Gygax's book Night Arrant with the canon (Maldin) map of Greyhawk. I'm assuming there's some sort of disguised (possibly with illusion magic) entrance in a nearby alley that connects to the other side of the portal at the end of Odd Alley, which would explain why it was so hard for Gord and Chert to find.

    Odd House in Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins seemed an obvious reference to Odd Alley, and it was in the Old City so I put Odd Alley nearby. Heward seems a likely candidate for putting the gate there anyway, though unfortunately I couldn't justify putting it right next to his house.

    The "Lengle Family" is probably a reference to the author of the young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time.



    Relevant excerpts:

    Quote:
    The distant end of the alley, a place evidently shunned by all living creatures, had its gate, certainly. The portal was old, iron, and locked. Knocking, banging, and pounding did no good. - Night Arrant, pages 51-52.


    Quote:
    "There are only a few places here that I can recall. There is the junk store run by that miserly old half-elf Scriggin, the used clothing shop, Freedle's Librarium, the potter's booth, the Sunken Grotto Tavern, the money changer's stall, Green Wulfurt's apothecary, the crazy limner's place, Zreed's Antiquary - that's where we tried to unload the, ah, stuff - and the old warehouse and stable across from it at the mouth of the alley." - Ibid., page 56.


    Quote:
    It had taken them hours of searching, walking through the twists and turns of the mazelike lanes and alleys of Old City. A false turn, backtracking, a street angling in the wrong direction. They had even entered a few of the establishments bordering their destination with the intention of finding an excuse to slip out of the back doors and, thus, reaching their destination. But to their astonishment, none of the places had back windows, let alone back doors! And they had been not-so-nicely ejected from the Sunken Grotto Tavern when they were caught painstakingly searching a back room of the establishment in hopes of finding some sort of exit.

    They probably would never have located the area save for the fact that they happened to end up in just the right location s the last rays of the setting sun illuminated the close and the passage leading from it. The light gave a glimmer of metal for an instant, and the sharp-eyed barbarian was quick to notice. - Ibid., page 57.


    Quote:
    "Odd House" is the nickname given this strange, ramshackle building once used as a government office when Old City was the entire Greyhawk. Some old-timers also call this "Hew's Place" after a peculiar gentleman who taught music there over a century ago. The gentleman was known to be a close friend of Lord Mayor Zagig Yragerne, and he vanished shortly before Zagig himself. The house has the odd trait of making pleasing musical whistling noises like several flutes when a high wind blows around it...

    "Odd House" was one of the original dwelling places of the mortal form of the quasi-deity Heward, maker of the legendary Mystical Organ and a variety of miscellaneous magical items...

    Heward's old home, now held by the Lengle family, still has active gates within it joined to several odd demiplanes.
    - The Adventure Begins, page 125.
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 30, 2001
    Posts: 170
    From: Niflheim, 9to5

    Send private message
    Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:16 am  

    Wow, I had never come across this in the canon before. Thanks for the research and reconciliation!

    Don
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 06, 2003
    Posts: 119
    From: The FAIRest VIEW in the PARK

    Send private message
    Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:20 am  

    Wow, very interesting. Now that is deep in the canon, and a fantasic way to spring up adventure ideas.

    -O
    _________________
    Prince Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Castles and Crusades Society
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Dec 30, 2002
    Posts: 147
    From: 1313 StoneCastle Way, Free City of Dyvers, W0G 13F

    Send private message
    Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:59 am  

    Shocked Now you’ve gone and done it... you are setting precedence and all I can say is...
    “Nice job!!” Laughing

    It’s a good avenue and I’ve used info from the Gord novels as background or plot involved material in a few of my campaigns of old... 2nd Ed comes to mind, ah... the good old days... Wink

    Looking forward to seeing more. Smile

    Cheers

    AncientGamer Cool aka BusterBudd
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 06, 2005
    Posts: 39


    Send private message
    Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:05 am  

    You are a good man Rasgon.

    But where is the extradimensional map of the place where Gord went? Shocked
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 29, 2001
    Posts: 170
    From: Second Primordial Ooze on the Left

    Send private message
    Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:27 pm  

    While I never tried to place the locations from the story, I actually did have Odd Alley in mind when I created that particular dead end (which of course doesn't exist on the original CoG map from the box set), but couldn't tag it into canon, of course, by officially labelling a WotC map with EGG material.

    Denis, aka "Maldin"
    Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
    Your City of Greyhawk headquarters
    Grandmaster Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 23, 2004
    Posts: 1212


    Send private message
    Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:07 am  

    Rasgon, would you prep this for an article? You have some very good conent.
    _________________
    Plar of Poofy Pants
    Black Hand of Oblivion

    Joined: Feb 16, 2003
    Posts: 3835
    From: So. Cal

    Send private message
    Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:26 pm  

    I like this little bit. I could do a more detailed map for this, if you do it as an article for The Oerth Journal. Should be able to squeak it into the EGG OJ #25 issue too. This would also really force me to finish enough of my city building graphics too. Another potential project for me should you choose to go The Oerth Journal route(PM me if you are interested). Then of course I'd be ready to start on some detailed city maps.

    What have I DONE!!! Shocked
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 13, 2001
    Posts: 64
    From: Stockholm, Sweden

    Send private message
    Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:18 pm  

    Great map! Odd Alley is one of my favorite passages game-wise from the Gord books.
    _________________
    Never say blip-blip to a kuo-tua
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Dec 30, 2002
    Posts: 147
    From: 1313 StoneCastle Way, Free City of Dyvers, W0G 13F

    Send private message
    Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:36 am  

    Happy So how are things progressing??

    Any new developments? Any other cool excerpts?

    Later

    AG Cool
    Mad Archmage of the Oerth Journal

    Joined: Dec 09, 2002
    Posts: 342
    From: Ohio

    Send private message
    Mon Jan 08, 2018 8:26 pm  
    progress/regress?

    Is anyone still working on this? I'd love to see it! I'm working on a few articles of my own in the meantime.
    _________________
    Cheerz,
    -Rick "Duicarthan" Miller
    Editor-in-Chief, Oerth Journal
    http://www.oerthjournal.com http://www.greyhawkonline.com/duicarthan
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Feb 18, 2007
    Posts: 86


    Send private message
    Sun Apr 22, 2018 3:42 pm  

    Can you repost the map?

    Thanks in advance!

    Sergio :-)
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 01, 2007
    Posts: 699
    From: On a Cape on the East Coast

    Send private message
    Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:06 am  
    broken photobucket

    Yeah ... these images need to be fixed, the links are **SO** broken, since photobucket changed it's fileshariing permissions and method.
    There's no more direct-linking from photobucket like that.
    Su-u-u-u-ucks.
    _________________
    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>
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
    Posts: 3310
    From: Michigan

    Send private message
    Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:25 pm  

    Here's the map in question:



    In retrospect, the named locations should probably be on the other side. We should probably assume the buildings bordering Odd Alley itself are continuations of the other buildings, and have no doors leading to the alley. The space between Odd House and Zreed's Antiquitary is hard to notice, except under a certain light.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Feb 18, 2007
    Posts: 86


    Send private message
    Sat Apr 28, 2018 6:13 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    Here's the map in question:


    Thanks!

    Sergio :-)
    Display posts from previous:   
       Canonfire Forum Index -> World of Greyhawk Discussion All times are GMT - 8 Hours
    Page 1 of 1

    Jump to:  

    You cannot post new topics in this forum
    You cannot reply to topics in this forum
    You cannot edit your posts in this forum
    You cannot delete your posts in this forum
    You cannot vote in polls in this forum




    Canonfire! is a production of the Thursday Group in assocation with GREYtalk and Canonfire! Enterprises

    Contact the Webmaster.  Long Live Spidasa!


    Greyhawk Gothic Font by Darlene Pekul is used under the Creative Commons License.

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.34 Seconds