In another thread, Death of Greyhawk Canon, there has been IMO an all around excellent discussion of where we are today as Greyhawkers in terms of "canon." I recommend the thread but I think I can say that , at present, "canon" is in "flux" by some measure. Okay. Flip side.
To paraphrase myself from another venue, pardon to anyone reading this again.
What I really like to see or hear about is where people have diverged from "canon" or "official" history. If everyone followed canon, all games would be similar to a degree that it would make talking about things kinda dull, IMO. Its where we each choose to go our own way and do things differently that fascinates me. Someone may be doing something I never thought of and, having heard about it, I may give it a try to good affect.
Unfortunately, I think there is so much talk of "canon" that people are somewhat hesitate to say, "Screw canon! I have a better idea and here it is!" The people who make "official" products are no better or worse designers or DMs than anyone else. They just choose to do it for a living or get the odd chance. So, your home game of GH could be just as good or better. I wish people would talk more about what they are doing and why it rocks. Creative exchange fascinates me. Q&A about canon bores me in the main.
Jason Zavoda and his amazing index have made it possible for anyone to be an instant "canon expert;" you can access his index on the web or download a free PDF. Now what you gonna do with that "canon?" Therein lies the game!
So, I "hate canon" to the degree it may inhibit anyone from talking about much else. Which nine demigods did Zagig imprison? I don't give a flying "frog!" Which came first, the Short War or the Tenser's 53rd birthday and how many presents was he given and by whom? I think I'll hang myself now. These are, I suppose, academic questions of some value in their own right. But I think they become far more interesting if they actually have an effect on someone's campaign. And even more interesting to me is if, in your campaign, the Short War wasn't so short or it never happened at all.
When I read some of the topical submissions, almost all of which are very well written and thought out, I keep wishing the authors' had included a section entitled - "Now, here's how it went when I ran it or used it." Some have something of that but more do not.
By the same token, I think it would be facinating to hear people talk about their GH campaigns or experiences in this forum. I will say that, as a "newbie," having poked my head into online GH this past August, I have felt "constrained" by what I see as an over-emphasis on canon. I do not know if I am alone, nuts or whathave you but I just finally had to say something.
Please pardon the rant. I in no way wish to impugn the outstanding contributions everyone has made to this website. I would suggest there may be more possibilities that, IMO, could be just as interesting.
I will now take my brain tonic and promise to be better for it.
If everyone followed canon, all games would be similar to a degree that it would make talking about things kinda dull
Agreed, but there is diverging and there is rewriting the setting. Diverging would be Tenser was killed and stayed dead b/c you never used Rot8. Or diverging would be since I never had PCs get the Crook of Rao, the Flight of Fiends never happened and demons still run aplenty. Diverging is fine.
Rewriting the setting would be Keoland never existed but in its place the Scarlet Brotherhood started a dominion. This would be cool for those involved but hard for discussion amongst general GH folk. And it would be hard for incorporating of new Keoland materials written by outlets like LG, Dungeon or CF. So to a degree canon is very necessary if only to set the baseline for all divergences and new material will be gradually more useful to those who stay closer to the baseline setting.
Well I agree with both above poster's to a degree. I for one treat Zagyg much like Caliglia. Remember he battled Posiden or at least he believed he did and stole the treasures of the Sea. So why can't Zagyg have a similar experience. I can't forsee him actually having the power to lock away nine gods of any power level. But it's makes a great story. In reality Zagyg's battle with Iuz could of caused him to believe that many he battled were gods or maybe he was just insane from the begining. The fact is not actually knowing the truth on Zagyg is what makes him really unique. Much like the speculations on Cobb Darg.
So most people feel Zagyg's imprisonment of nine gods is canon. Good it could be canon but it doesn't mean it's true. Then there will be those who say I thought Robilar freed Hextor and other such gods which proves Zagyg imprisoned them. Tell me this could it actually be that Robilar used the story of Zagyg to his advantage just to boost his own Rep. Besides wouldn't the churches of those god's feel obligated to thank the one who freed their deity from imprisonment. Then again the same priesthoods could see Robilar as some one to quiet or pay for his crimes against their deities standing. How dare any mortal claim to have bested a God!
Besides one god is a great power what do you think nine are possible of acheiveing. You can claim it was Oerth magic or what not but if castle Zagyg contained such power wouldn't it have a strange effect on the land as it does in Blackmoor.
I like to think of Iuz reason for not invading Blackmoor might have to do with a secet alliance with Wastri or prehaps the members of the old Faith are a bit too much for him. Plus if oerth magic is beyond a god's ability to control then how could a mortal ever contain such energies.
These are questions I ask myself when deciding what is truly canon and what is a canonical story. what I mean by this is what holds true on oerth and what is believed to be true on oerth. Remember preception can obscure what is truth and what is fiction especially in a fantasy world.
In my new campaign, the party will start in a prospering holding of a proclaimed "Duke" in Yeomanry. One of the party is a former member of the Duke's militia. Once the party travels out of the area, they may encounter patrols form other landed nobles or spokesmen who may or may not be on good terms with the Duke. Their actions could cause political unrest in the area. They will go off adventuring not realising this and when they come back, suddenly there are all these lil wars. Now you have the Scarlet Brotherhood, thrice damned they be, taking an interest from their bases in the Hold of the Sea Princes. Then there are monsters from the mountains to deal with, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I like the canon material in that it gives me a solid foundation to work with, but allows me to be creative and drive the campaign in the direction I want it to go. When the party goes to Keoland, I can keep it a rich and fertile area with a long history, but the stone cities will be different than the latticed windows in the cities of Ulek. Granted, I could use some maps, but that's what i have you guys for All in all, I can use some parts of canon and ignore others. But if your intertested, I'll keep anyone informed of how my newest campaign enterprise fares.
It seems that many relatively new fans of GH find Canonfire! (CF!) a place that over-emphasizes canon. This is somewhat strange because a substantial factor in this website's creation and origin stems from the late 1990s, when several fans resolved to promulgate "heresies" (to canon) via the GreyTalk (GT) listserv. Montand (Taras) and Samwise were principals in this "movement," but in general "the list" seemed to have responded well by the time I joined GT in late 1999.
Another way that GH fans characterized their home campaigns was by the term, "Alternate Oerths," which I find mentioned by Gary Gygax on 4/15/1999 in GT. Some meme of that must have found its way into my Inbox, for the idea stuck, and I tried to evoke and elaborate on it in an OJ editorial.
In sum, CF! continues an emergent line of GH projects, whereby fans share their elaborate Alternate Oerths ("heresies" from a dogmatic point of view). This "line" of projects owes much to earlier foci of the GH community, which substantially analyzed, argued, and formulated conclusions about GH "canon."
IMO, to imagine and share an elaborate Alternate Oerth, it is highly useful to know deeply the GH "canon." This is one reason why Iquander's article on the Nine Imprisoned Demigods and Stelios's meditations are crucial. When DMs study well the GH texts to which we have access, and then use them to inspire our imaginations, the resulting campaigns that we create collaboratively with our players construct rich Alternate Oerths. When shared with other DMs (and knowledgeable players), the resulting CF!articles stimulate our individual imaginations and thereby contribute to the collective imaginary of GH.
if you want greyhawk, from people who know and love the setting, come to canonfire.
Also, as an aside, and rejecting Tzelios's ramblings about the hearsay of celebrity authors being more canon than the actual work of devoted fans, the material by folks such as Erik Mona and Rob Kuntz that lives here on Canonfire is just as unpublished and thereby unofficial as the rest of the articles. If they are immediately canon, so is everything else here.
It's why I've never been comfortable with the whole "Apocrypha" topic section on this site, it lends undue weight to articles based solely on authorship, and undermines the deserved judgement on quality that the works of other authors should recieve. _________________ What would Raxivort do?<br />
I'll chalk it up to my "newbieness" that I have not heard anyone call Canonfire topical submissions heresey.
I entirely agree about "celebrity" author submissions. They are interesting, depending on personal preference, but I think are taken too much as gospel or literally or as "canon," IMO. This is not, however, the individual author's fault. I think it goes with the noteriety that any person, however "famous," will find attached to themselves, whether they want it or not. Some people will just swoon when Brad Pitt or Jennifer Anniston (or dog help you Wil Wheaton) smiles, just because they make movies. Same principle. Of course, when celebrity occasionally breeds a certain "prickishness" or sense of "entitlement" that would be another matter.
Leaving the celebs to one side, to me its a case of what do you want - a living, breathing setting or one confined, more or less, to what the authors, primary and thereafter, imagined. The former is only possible via fan based activity, I think. Canon, while our common point of reference, can become actuarial in its application if too much heed is paid to it.
Looking around for a "neutral" example, I'll take the LGG, believing its authors can take the "heat." The LGG is essentially a fan creation as its authors were predominantly fans given the opportunity to write for WotC. Good for them. Honestly. The LGG, I believe, is well researched and well written in the main. It does, however, IMO suffer from a certain timidity. That happens to work because of where the LGG was coming from after FtA. There was a good deal of housecleaning in order and LGG did a great job and more. I would have preferred, all the same, if it had more aggressively pushed boundaries, however. That it didn't, I think, in part stems from a degree of over reverence for canon and a desire to "get it right" or "not screw up." I don't know this but I'm guessing. Maybe the authors were instructed, "You go this far and no father." I don't know.
The same, I think, is true of Dragon/Dungeon Greyhawk. Nicely done. But how about we kick out the jams? "Do" Greyhawk. Advance the time/storyline in a major way. Quit simply accounting for canon or gaps therein. A lot of the GH content is very good, and some not near as good. But let's push the boundaries. Maybe they are not allowed to by WotC. Don't know. But I think the example will hold as above.
I think canon is a very tricky business on both sides of the question. Too much? Too little? If I must choose, I choose, "To little."
To use a personal example, in the Ur-Flan piece I submitted to the topical section of Canonfire, I abandoned the canon of Tenh as described, largely because what was done did not thrill me, but tried to work with that canon all the same. I won't say I was successful. That is for someone reading it to decide. What I will say is that I did not just embroider on existing canon. I overturned that canon and said, "Here, I think this is better." Tenh is going to be united, its the bad guys (and new bad guys who have not taken the stage before) going to do it for a "good" cause, adding a touch of moral ambiguity, and Tenh is going to be other than the afterthought it has been since EGG. Its that spirit of risk taking, however more or less you want to see it, that I find intersting in others' work and would not see bound by overly reverent notions of canon.
Raising the Isles of Woe by the LG, switching topics, was along the right line but the execution just sucked.
Different IMO is good. Work with canon, sure. But don't be a slave to it or afraid to overthrow it entirely.
So saying, I'm a meta-DM. I like dealing with the large picture as much as the small. Others will choose to more finely focus their efforts. Nothing wrong with that and kudos to those overturning canon locally as well as globally.
Canon is what you make of it, if something by ANYONE strikes your fancy and tickles your Greyhawk bone, then use it. There is a danger of being divergent to the point of obscurity, but then thats the risks of going on your own. Waiting for new GH direction or tangents from an official source is futile. On Canonfire and other forums/sites there is plenty of material to fuel the creative fires. Too much time gets spent in challenging the canon of an event , author or place rather than playing and making it fun, which is what its about afterall
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I in no way wish to impugn the outstanding contributions everyone has made to this website. 
I would suggest there may be more possibilities that, IMO, could be just as interesting.
All in all, I can use some parts of canon and ignore others. But if your intertested, I'll keep anyone informed of how my newest campaign enterprise fares.
