Gary mentioned this at a greytalk and i told him I would get the ball rolling. One Zagyg is alot like Caligila in my version of GH. As far as his delusions of entrapping several gods and waging warsagai9nstthe deities themselves. Caligila once claimed to have battled Poseiden and taken his treasures which was but shells and sand from the beach. But Caligila thought it to be riches.
However Zagyg was still a very powerful wizard and was able to construct the famous Castle GH where it was rumored these gods laid imprisoned. This method gives us an explanation of how Iuz had such a great influence over the Temple of Elemental Evil. Iuz being the deceiver he is utilized Zagyg to entrap certain devas and demons which he made Zagyg believe where gods. Iuz pretended to be trapped by Zagyg in order to bring his plans to fruitation.
Given how slow the communications are across the Flanaess, and the fact that often the only sources of information are hearsay and conjecture from seventeenth-hand sources, it's no surprise that so much of ''canon'' is so jumbled. Some people with any modicum of sense can dismiss the most foolish ideas (that Hieroneous promotes the long sword as well as the battle-axe, for instance), but other ideas are not so easy to dismiss. How many residents of Northern Aerdy will know what's going on in Keoland? How many Furyonds know or care about what the Sea Barons have found in their expeditions across the Solnor?
It's this fact that allows DMs to blow off any canon they don't like, especially if it has the names Reynolds or Cook on it. Quite a bit of what's found in modern canon is true for me (most of it derived either from Moore or the LGG), but all the rest is fanciful myths, rumors, and what happens after information has passed through a dozen people. And some of it is just plain hallucination-you know the whole thing about the 'ship from the stars' in the Barrier Peaks? Never happened. That whole episode was what one man experienced after he made the mistake of sampling the mushrooms that grew up there... _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
I despise Zagyg. He and his Big Buddy Boccob are the Lhaeo and Elminster of Greyhawk, in terms of being annoying. Or maybe that should be the Skipper and Gilligan?
Zagyg is particularly annoying because he is Gygax' excuse for bad game design. Stupid, silly, game design that Gygax claims as intellectual genius. Like turning the party into _ACORNS_ in Hall of Many Pains, his latest incontinent design. Acorn PCs aren't clever, smart, challenging, cute, funny or anything but self-indulgent dumbness, they are stupid design from a designer gone to seed. Zagyg is too often the exuse for such "madcap" "romps."
Back on track, never much cared for TOEE. Never much cared who imprisoned who or whom when, where and what for.
Why? Because Iuz is Greyhawk's great fart joke of a villain. All big and bad but can't hold onto an empire and can't ascend. He is just stuck chewing the scenary, rightly consigned to "fear babe talk" because only a "babe" would fear him much outside of Furyondy.
Zagyg, Boccob and Iuz are the worst of Greyhawk, IMO. I try to ignore them as much as possible.
I agree, Zagyg is generally used as comic relief, crazy impulses are always laid at his door.
However Iuz, I like if only for his visciousness and the collapse of his empire is consistent, for all his ambition his love of chaos proves fatal in the long term. I wonder if Iuz would have been destroyed long ago if his "lands" had been more fertile and had more resources, even his conquests were generally poorly resorced. This I think is a valid rationale for Iuz's longevity, Furyondy and the south simply doesn't care if Iuz freezes in the barren north, he isn't worth the effort to drag him from his bolt hole but imagine if the land of Iuz had gold mines or a magical resource, I have a feeling the "Great Northern Crusade" would have begun long ago.
So you aren't a legit villian if you don't actually take over the world? I'm not sure I follow that one. Your assault on Iuz applies to pretty much all villians in fantasy What does Morgoth or Sauron ever do, really? Or Lord Foul? Or whomever you chose.
Iuz suffers the stasis inherent in published products. Greyhawk Wars shook up the status quo and generated a major backlash. And much of it was reversed in later materials. Iuz is certainly capable of being an effective villain (though there are others I like better, such as Iggwilv). It just requires that he be used as such by the DM in a dynamic campaign environment.
Do you really want TSR/WotC/whomever to be telling you what major crap Iuz is up to? I certainly don't.
As for EGG, he has a certain playstyle that's pretty well documented and certainly not the way I enjoy playing the game. It has a heavy emphasis on cross genre stuff and comic relief on regular intervals. Clones and wishes and all manner of wierd stuff going on. There are certainly folks who like to play that way.
However, I do like a lot of the adventures of the early 80s era. Not so much for the specifics of the encounters (too much slugfest in most) as for the concepts behind them. I don't think I ever ran a purchased adventure "as is".
Zagyg is certainly primarily a DM plot device to justify breaches of the standard setting as most frequently used. No reason why you need to use him that way. I don't. I pretty much just ignore him. However, I don't see why you lumped Boccob in there with him.
Dunno about Hall of Many Panes. It may well suck, but then I never planned on buying it anyways.
Well, Zagyg is one of my favorites. He is too peculiar (which I like) to consistently change the world, but he does kick it every now and then. Iuz I dont use much, but he is a reasonable villain IMO. Boccob, well, he seems to be the only GH god who actually invites controversy among his ranks. Every other one, even those I like, are stage pieces, performing their assigned role and moving off stage. And I love Madcap.
Wee Jas is death and magic, there is not clergy arguing she is death, and another arguing she is magic. The intercine strife of the drow and Lareth seems to be the closest thing to actual religious tension in the whole GH setting. Kord? Oh, no they all seem to be unified.
So, while I dont expect you to use them if you dont like them, I dont actually see the "Flaws," so much as your preferences. EGG, well he was a wacky guy. After all, he invented D&D (with some quality help).
Well whatever take you want and say what you will about EGG or Kuntz or who ever. But remember the game of D&D was created in part by Gygax. Though I prefer Sargent's view of GH most of what Sargent did was from Gygax's notes but much more polished.
Well now that I got that outta the way. Let me add something else I changed in my GH. One their is no subrace of elves know as drow. Instead the drow are elves who are either evil or who have withdraw themselves from elvin ideals that they are no longer a pert of elvin society. Their skin color is not black they can be from any of the existing subraces of elves availbe on Oerth. However All elves are either of Valley or Grugach stock with location playing a factor on how they developed thier own personal fey societies.
Also I increased the power reach of racessuch as the Derro Illithid and lerara, not to mention many other subterrain races to make up for what i feel is the most sbused and uninteresting race in any game setting the Drow as you all now and love them don't exist in my Hawk!
What changes exist in your game to current or past published greyhawk materials?
Geez, seems like GVD is really offended by Gygax! Seems almost like a personal thing.
I might not think that having my players getting turned into acorns match my view of a perfect night of swords and sorcery fantasy but I can certainly see the opportunity to challange the players a lot. It is also a common theme in mythology and faerie tales about the hero being turned into a lowly form and having to overcome the danger to that form in order to achieve the goal. I haven't read HoMP yet so I can't really discuss the merits of this particular aspect.
I do regret seeing such bile and, dare I say, hatred against Zagyg, Boccob and Iuz. What's wrong with Boccob? Simply the fact that he is represented as a powerful deity of magic. Or is it that he stays aloof from mortal ken? Perhaps the fact that Wee Jas has gotten the shaft in comparison?
Zagyg can be troublesome, I agree, especially if you're going for a grim and gritty campaign. But there's no need to involve the jester of the gods in such a campaign. I doubt if every other demi-god has a prominent role in the campaign.
Iuz? What's wrong with Iuz? A "fart joke"? I can assure you that Iuz is no fart joke in my campaign but rather a devious and dangerous opponent based upon the description in the '83 box. Iuz and his agents has ended the career of quite a few PCs in my campaign and will continue to īpose a great threat for years to come. If you don't like the way TSR/WotC has handled Iuz since then you are free to alter that for your campaign. Hopefully you don't demand that the villain of your campaign managed to conquer the world and rid it of humanity cause such an event would probably lessen the fun factor of that campaign.
I think you set unreasonable standards if you judge these three as rubbish. Set aside your pet peeves and try to alter what you've been given into something that works for your campaign. _________________ Never say blip-blip to a kuo-tua
Zagyg as vehicle of anchronism and woopee cushion humour - I agree is rubbish. That's why I like to restyle him as the Wise Fool - a la the Fool from King Lear. He looks crazy and capricious, but there's a knowing gleam in his eye and a method to his madness. Trying to grasp what that is of course is the hard bit.
For example - Zagyg didn't imprison the nine demigods for giggles. There may have been some underlying reason to it and it's the inventive GM's job to find that. In a world of wheels within wheels, everyone's got and agenda - even the Mad Archmage. Did he foresee the Greyhawk Wars or the even more devestating War to come (the one that Sargent mentions in FtA and ItU)? Is he trying to forestall the Fading of Magic? If so - what role will those 9 gods play? Did he really just want to imprison Iuz, but to keep the Balance, he also had to imprison 8 others of the other alignments? If so, then why is Iuz so important? What potential does he have to upset the Balance? Might he become so powerful that to prevent the destruction of the Oerth and the maintainance of the Balance that the gods will have to remove magic from the Oerth, ridding Iuz of his power?
Boccob I have no real issue with. He's the Uncaring One. Doesn't give a diddly about anything but magic. Now given that magic will fade somewhere between 591 and 998 CY, you can't really dismiss him. Is he going to act to stop that (via Zagyg perhaps) or does he accept that magic will fade and look upon it with his usual equanimity (I suspect the latter)?
Iuz - as has been pointed out above, was not well served by the post FtA developments/course corrections. He's had his empire fall apart around him and is apparently on the back foot/claw. But that just leaves scope for interesting invention.
A god of pain and chaos as Iuz is was never going to be able to forge a stable empire. It's not his thing. Slaughter, yes. Stable empire, no. So why go a-conquering? Well, for a start because it gives him pleasure to cause pain and suffering, but that's not all of it. Bad guys being evil for the sake of it is what I call Stupid Evil. There's got to be a bigger goal.
So what?
Iuz's goal has to be ascention. The Oerth is his if he can become a full god. Viewed through this prism, the slaughter of the GH wars had to further that goal. Perhaps he is empowered by suffering and chaos? So the more of it he wreaks, the closer he comes to apotheosis.
After the Wars I don't see him just sitting in Dorakaa watching his empire crumble. To my mind, the reason why his empire seems rudderless is because it is. Iuz is elsewhere - on the Planes seeking godhood. Perhaps he has a similacrum sitting on the throne of skulls. Or perhaps the Boneheart are running things on his behalf, keeping secret his absence (as they know that if it became common knoweldge that Iuz was ooto, it'd precipitate the collapse of the empire and rob them of their power).
So how can you spin this into adventures? For a start, you just know that the Boneheart are going to start turning on each other. Some will remain loyal to Iuz (Halga and the other priests), others will want to claim power for themselves (the Mindbender and others).
What if the PCs stumbled on Iuz's dirty secret - think of the effect it would have on surrounding realms? Think of how it would make them marked enemies of the Boneheart and the church of Iuz.
Perhaps there's a faction within the church of Iuz that would prefer not to have the boss looking over their shoulder all the time? Godhood (and more pwoer for them) yes, but Iuz returning to the Oerth - nah.
And you can also bet that mommy and daddy don't want junior being more powerful than they. Iggwilv and Graz'zt hate and fear what their offspring might become and will be moving their pieces to thwart Iuz, destroy his powerbase on the Oerth and stymie his quest (trapping him on the planes would seperate him from the Oerth, where he is most powerful).
So far from being a joke, Iuz is an engine for a lot of potential development.
Well, I actually see Iuz's goals differently. He has never been a General Extrodinaire. An empire builder? Nope. So why go on a empire binge? Well, it has always seemed to me that he is seeking additional personal power.
He is more like a PC than Alexander the Great, or Tavish, or any other figure of empire. An empire helps towards his goals, and his goal may be to simply become the most powerful resident of Oerth. So powerful that no one on the plane can challenge him, and no one off the plane dares to interfere.
IMO he would prefere 100 powerful dutiful demonic servants to a 1,000,000 man army, well organized and able to control territory. Maybe we will never know his designs, IMC the characters can only guess at the motivations of any deity. The gods are the gods, complex and dangerous.
Great ideas posted in this thread. I too hate cross-genre play and too much comic relief-contrary to what EGG said in the 1E DMG, I consider the setting to be of paramount importance. It's vitally important, in my mind, to maintain, protect and nourish the purity, versimilitude and integrity of Greyhawk, all of which are ruined by too many in-jokes, too much silliness, industrialization, alien invasions, etc.
I really think the Wise Fool tactic is a great idea for Zagyg, as it not only makes him more usable in a campaign where the integrity of the setting is key, but also allows the DM to put a much more sinister spin on his humor-making him less like Bob Hope and more like the Joker, or at least making him more crazy and lunatic than silly and fun.
My version of Greyhawk has Iuz actively seeking to create a power base in the Abyss. He's set his servants into a ghoulish competition of murder, pillage and destruction in the Cells of Iuz. All the pain, misery and suffering they cause helps him out immensely in building his own personal power as a being, and the hard power his servants will acquire in magic and treasure also helps increase his power base. Much like with Eclavdra and the Giants, whichever Cell Iuz chooses to be his new mortal base will function as a link between the material plane and his own Abyssal home, the better to acquire power and cause misery and chaos in both realms. Iuz knows he was born to cause suffering and destruction, and if everyone's going to hate him and view him as a freak because of his parentage, then he's only too happy to oblige their fears.
As for Boccob, I don't see what's so offensive about him. Would you rather have a deity of magic that actively works for good, tries to protect the mortal races, and in the past has actively denied evil wizards and deities access to magic simply because she didn't like their moral leanings? Mystra did all that in FR. Compared to her, Boccob is cold as ice. _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
Boccob is Zagyg's patron. The two go together like Heckle and Jeckle, Frick and Frack, Dumb and Dumber. Separate the two and Boccob would be less objectionable.
While Zagyg might be redone as "the Wise Fool," canon has him just a "fool." Gygax makes him worse, the "whopee cushion" someone mentioned. Gygax then spits on his own creation and has barely room to object to "funny" Castle Greyhawk, in such event. Of course, he claims Zagig as "humor" and somehow better than a fart joke. Wrong.
Iuz suffers a similar fate. He _could_ be made quite interesting and _quite_ the villain. No GH author since Gygax has been able to see this however and instead they preseve him in situ, uncertain what else to _do_ with him.
As Greyhawk canon authors seem to have exhausted their creativity or will to use it with respect to Boccob, Zagyg and Iuz, rather than force the matter, I'd say just get rid of them. _________________ GVD
I don't know - Iuz the Evil and City of Skulls are both pretty nasty. There's nothing wussy about the Iuz presented there. This from the guy that lost 4 pregen PCs in Dorakaa in a 6 hour session (suffice it to say our attempt to spring Holmer did not go well).
Iuz was pretty dynamic and threatening in FtA. Sargent sketched out a dark vision of the future, where, over the next decades, powers -good, evil and neutral - were going to be scrambling for the might that would give them the decisive advantage in the Last War, the war that won't end in stalemate.
Unfortunately, a lot of that energy and forboding was neutered by Moore in tAB.
The way to reconcile the foreboding of FtA and the shining new age optimism of tAB is to assume that despite all the glimmers of hope, and the bright promise of new lands, the threat of the Last War hasn't gone away. Men, short of life and memory, might forget the danger, but you can bet that other players won't - Iuz foremost among them (the olve too without dought, which makes Yolande's refusal to commit Celene to battle in the Greyhawk Wars less baffling - why spend your strength in the opening skirmish when the real battle has yet to be fought?).
My favourite line from the excellent "Usual Suspects" is: "The best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist".
The best trick Iuz could pull is convincing the goodly realms he's a spent force, not worth bothering with, a has been. You think Iuz is a loser? Maybe that's what he want's you to think. Iuz knows that in 20 years the men that stymied him at Chendl and Critwall Bridge will be either dead or grey with age. He'll be undiminished - probably even more powerful. Let the goodly realms become distracted by other matters. Let Furyondy slumber. All the while Iuz grows stronger, creeping ever closer to his goal of full godhood. Then, when the time is right, he can return in might and terror to remind the Flanaess and the Oerth at large why Iuz is a name to be feared.
ItE and CoS might not give a long term plan for Iuz, but that's the DM's job. I'd rather have hints and suggestions than either a cast iron direction on one hand or the kind of bland "they have no active plans anywhere" nonsense that we saw in the Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook.
No character in GH is hopeless, it all depends on how canon and the individual DMs use them.
Boccob can be useful as Zagyg patron perhaps he isn't as "uncaring" or he can ignore everything. GVD wants a proactive Boccob which is fine, I prefer the aloof uncaring one myself and look to Wee Jas for a more proactive magic deity.
Zagyg can be the "wise fool" maybe we are simply not clever enough to see his pattern and his truly bizarre episodes are meant to distract from the deeper plan but given the past most canon authors have used him for slapstick comic relief.
Iuz definitely should not be done away with, granted his "naked ambition" evil is a fantasy staple, which is why he is needed for those who don't want the intrigue of the SB or the civility of GK but just want somewhere to bash away. Iuz or any other villian is only as good as you make them and the sheer sadistic pleasure that Iuz embodies has so much potential, come on DMs, get in touch with your savage side. In my earlier post, my resource theory was simply a rationale for how Iuz seems to be able to recover, it is human nature if the cost is greater then the percieved benefits people and nations rationalize excuses despite any moral considerations, Hitler being the obvious example in the 30s when everyone was trying to "work with Herr Hitler instead of confronting him".
Well, GVD, that seems to be where we differ. You seem to think the incompetence and/or stylistic incompatibilities of the canon authors matters in some way and want to throw out the baby with the bathwater as a result.
Zagyg was used by someone else in a way incompatible with my campaign? So what? None of that happened. My Zagyg is the wise fool, though I'd never thought it out explicitly in those terms before. But that's a great description of how I see him.
I pretty much toss the whole SB and Valley of the Mage stuff right out, too. Doesn't mean I've erased the Scarlet Brotherhood from the campaign or that there is no Valley of the Mage at all.
Some, not all, of those "funny" or cross genre adventures are actually cool. But none of them fit in my campaign, so if they get used its as a break from the regular campaign and characters.
IMC, I rule, as every DM does in his or her campaign.
If we are speaking of "what if" in terms of published(publishing) "canon" Greyhawk, then a different set of parameters apply, I think.
Then, there is the "cross-polination" between the two, when canon strikes a DM so strongly that, even though they can do whatever they want, they somehow feel compelled to "respond" to what was done in canon in their home game - even though they do not strictly have too.
I think I'm confused. But I'm closer to speaking in terms of No. 3 or No. 2 than No. 1.
If you are arguing that, because canon authors have failed to utilize Zagyg and Iuz in an effective manner that matches your style of gameplay, they should just be removed from canon by a future author... well, I think that idea sucks.
If you are just using hyperbole to attract attention to your opinion that they aren't well served by the extant canon, well, that's close to a no brainer.
If you are trying to say something else, I sure don't know what it is....
If you are arguing that, because canon authors have failed to utilize Zagyg and Iuz in an effective manner that matches your style of gameplay, they should just be removed from canon by a future author... well, I think that idea sucks.
If you are just using hyperbole to attract attention to your opinion that they aren't well served by the extant canon, well, that's close to a no brainer.
If you are trying to say something else, I sure don't know what it is....
I must plead guilty to having no brains in that case. "Not well served" is putting it mildly, IMO.
But IMC I do completely ignore Zagyg. Never used him. Never plan to. He is ignored.
IMC Iuz is very much a villain but I have evolved him significantly from canon's ineffectual ranter.
IMC Boccob is nearly ignored. He likes it that way. _________________ GVD
That is about what I do. Zagyg does exist and gets the occassional mention, but has little or no impact on my campaign.
Boccob is noticably important, but not a central figure. I set my campaign in the Sheldomar Valley and Wee Jas gets the glory there...
And I have evolved Iuz into something rather more dangerous than a high powered local tyrant. THough he's not a major villain in the campaign, either. I use a rather different structure of the cosmology and its somewhat of a "Gods vs Demons" thing. The demons want to dissolve the world into pure chaos, which even the evil gods don't want... Iuz is transforming himself into a demonlord, not a true god. Anyway.. in the campaign itself, Graz'zt, Orcus, and Ssendam get the main billing for "icky force the bad guys follow".
However Zagyg was still a very powerful wizard and was able to construct the famous Castle GH where it was rumored these gods laid imprisoned. This method gives us an explanation of how Iuz had such a great influence over the Temple of Elemental Evil. Iuz being the deceiver he is utilized Zagyg to entrap certain devas and demons which he made Zagyg believe where gods. Iuz pretended to be trapped by Zagyg in order to bring his plans to fruitation.
An interesting explanation. I follow a different one, actually from LGG. In LGG it is mentioned that after Iuz' imprisonment false Iuzs appeared. The whole situation is clarified in the ToEE article of the fresh OJ16.
In our home campaigns, PCs never encountered Zagyg or Boccob so far. So far the two had minor involvement in PCs' lives. However, I am working on an idea of a Zagyg centered scenario. It is really hard to compile an interesting story, and it will certainly be no major plot.
PS: from Supreme Enemy of the Orders:
Argon wrote:
See I can understand you.
I am sure you can. Sorry about an early harsh critique of your first article, truly.
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"Not well served" is putting it mildly, IMO. 
