Congratulations on another volume! It looks great.
Late to the game, I downloaded it a couple days ago, just started reading it, and plan to pose questions here as I read through the articles.
First, regarding "Giants of the Flanaess," Samwise, regarding Procan possibly being the sole creator of the Titans, and your discussion of other deific patrons of the giants, what role, if any, do you have for Xerbo (and Osprem)? I enjoy your discussion of Joramy being the original patron of the fire giants (and possibly an ascendant titan). Do you have a role for Ranet in this mix, or had Pyremius already poisoned her and stolen her portfolio of fire?
First, regarding "Giants of the Flanaess," Samwise, regarding Procan possibly being the sole creator of the Titans,
As it goes, Procan is not the sole creator of the Titan. He is merely the creator of the Titans that produced the Storm Giants, and thus the progenitor of the Giants.
At least according to the Giants of the Flanaess. Other Giants, and Titans, of Oerth may have different progenitors.
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and your discussion of other deific patrons of the giants, what role, if any, do you have for Xerbo
Xerbo is a Dragon, specifically a dragon turtle, as per his symbol. While not inherently hostile to the Titans and Giants, he has no particular consideration for them either, and treats them as any other non-aquatic creature that enters the ocean. That is, "If they die, they die, and if they cause trouble they definitely die."
[/quote](and Osprem)?[/quote]
Osprem is in a curious position. She is the mother of the Titans of weather with Procan, and thus the other progenitor of the Storm Giants. However, she did that to sustain the oceans that were in her care. However, Xerbo has taken over that task, and Osprem has turned her focus to the Mortals who use the seas. While Titans and Storm Giants will honor her, they are not a particular focus, and unless those Titans and Storm Giants are willing to watch over those Mortals sailing about, something very few of them are interested in, and something difficult for a Storm Giant to focus on, they will not become her clerics.
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I enjoy your discussion of Joramy being the original patron of the fire giants (and possibly an ascendant titan).
Thank you. I wanted to do something with Joramy, as aside from a random reference and a line on the list, there is nothing about her.
As it happens, she is not an ascended Titan, but of an earlier generation. For me, she is sister to Vatun, the two of them representing the emotional versus stoic response to the extremes of fate.
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Do you have a role for Ranet in this mix, or had Pyremius already poisoned her and stolen her portfolio of fire?
No. First, because she was an elemental power and not connected to the Titans at all. Second, because Pyremius had indeed already done away with her and she was not around when the Titans were created.
Xerbo is a Dragon, specifically a dragon turtle, as per his symbol. While not inherently hostile to the Titans and Giants, he has no particular consideration for them either, and treats them as any other non-aquatic creature that enters the ocean. That is, "If they die, they die, and if they cause trouble they definitely die."
I love how neat this is and that it raises questions about the relationship between gods, dragons, titans, aboleths, and other primordial beings. Similar to how your clarification about Procan being a progenitor of certain titans raises questions about other gods, other titans, and what they begot.
Samwise wrote:
Osprem is in a curious position. She is the mother of the Titans of weather with Procan, and thus the other progenitor of the Storm Giants. However, she did that to sustain the oceans that were in her care. However, Xerbo has taken over that task, and Osprem has turned her focus to the Mortals who use the seas. While Titans and Storm Giants will honor her, they are not a particular focus, and unless those Titans and Storm Giants are willing to watch over those Mortals sailing about, something very few of them are interested in, and something difficult for a Storm Giant to focus on, they will not become her clerics.
I see. In your view, what's the relationship between Osprem and Xerbo. Occasional partners? Parent-child? Something else? Either way, the relationship you pose between Procan and Osprem suggests that Xerbo and Procan are not simpatico . . .
Regarding the conventional giant deities, it sounds like you omit Annam. Is that right?
Regarding another part of your article, do minotaurs relate to / derive from the Fomorians? If not, what myths or legends do you prefer for their origins?
Finally, I really like your notes on giant reproduction!
I love how neat this is and that it raises questions about the relationship between gods, dragons, titans, aboleths, and other primordial beings. Similar to how your clarification about Procan being a progenitor of certain titans raises questions about other gods, other titans, and what they begot.
Thank you.
I have written a cosmogony with several pages on all of that. Hopefully it will show up sometime next year.
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I see. In your view, what's the relationship between Osprem and Xerbo. Occasional partners? Parent-child? Something else? Either way, the relationship you pose between Procan and Osprem suggests that Xerbo and Procan are not simpatico . . .
They are married. The shift in their portfolios is due to changes in the multiverse and among the powers. Osprem accepts that overview of the oceans has passed to Xerbo, and focuses on her new duties. Being Lawful, she accepts such decisions from Lendor and Beory.
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Regarding the conventional giant deities, it sounds like you omit Annam. Is that right?
That is correct.
Although I like a lot of Monster Mythology, I did not particularly like Annam and Io and their story, finding them incompatible with the Greyhawk powers. While I kept many of the lesser giant powers, I made those two aspects of Boccob. I do that with a lot of powers in my cosmogony.
That also allows me to distance them from the FR version of giants. While that is an interesting set up, it is FR, not Greyhawk. One of the goals I set when I started writing that was creating a specific Greyhawk myth cycle and story.
I have an extensive book on the races of the Flanaess in editing right now, and I do the same with the demi-humans and humanoids, modifying the excellent work Roger Moore did in Dragon back in the day, along with taking inspiration from the Mystara Gazzes, with some last minute inspiration from reading Poul Anderson, all to create specific Greyhawk versions.
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Regarding another part of your article, do minotaurs relate to / derive from the Fomorians? If not, what myths or legends do you prefer for their origins?
No, minotaurs are connected to Baphomet, though I have not yet developed further details.
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Finally, I really like your notes on giant reproduction!
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Thanks.
I wanted to come up with something to make giants more functional within the ecosystem, as well as give them something to really set them apart from mortals. Handwaving the diet requirements solved the first part, and the "extra" requirements achieved the second.
I have written a cosmogony with several pages on all of that. Hopefully it will show up sometime next year.
I look forward to it! I've not been in the Discord for many a moon, so I missed your return from "wandering monster" status until I saw your new posts here in the CF! forums, and I'm delighted that you've resumed sharing your imagination with us. (Makes me recall long ago days when you and Taras—can't recall his handle surname right now—prodigiously posted on GreyTalk.)
Samwise wrote:
Although I like a lot of Monster Mythology, I did not particularly like Annam and Io and their story, finding them incompatible with the Greyhawk powers. While I kept many of the lesser giant powers, I made those two aspects of Boccob. I do that with a lot of powers in my cosmogony.
That also allows me to distance them from the FR version of giants. While that is an interesting set up, it is FR, not Greyhawk. One of the goals I set when I started writing that was creating a specific Greyhawk myth cycle and story.
I have an extensive book on the races of the Flanaess in editing right now, and I do the same with the demi-humans and humanoids, modifying the excellent work Roger Moore did in Dragon back in the day, along with taking inspiration from the Mystara Gazzes, with some last minute inspiration from reading Poul Anderson, all to create specific Greyhawk versions.
Can't wait to read it, and all of this sounds lovely. It's also neat that Docjacques recently shared his take on the Suloise pantheon vis-à-vis Babylonia in that we'll have a few different takes on Oerth's cosmogony.
As I mentioned in my recent responses to Docjacques, I've enjoyed when we, Greyhawk fans, have posted about the prehistory of the Flanaess, including how its gods and races warred and established the pre-Migration situation. For example, various fans articulations about the contest between aboleth, kopru, and kuo-toa; titans and giants; dragons, lizardmen and troglodytes; quaggoth and goblinoids; elves; dwarves and gnomes; and eventually humans; etc. seems to have achieved a rough consensus that now forms the background of my campaigns.
In my Hold of the Sea Princes campaign, presently about a month after 583 Richfest, I established that bronze dragons inhabited the islands and mainland seacoast before the Great Migrations, and that the Flan venerated, or at least propitiated, them. (The Firstcomer Suel, of course, antagonized them, and the Migration Suel and Oeridians eventually killed or displaced most of them.) Now, with your "Giants of the Flanaess" article fresh in mind, I have a better way to make sense of the fire giants that featured in UK 2 & 3, as well as new ideas about a storm giant and/or mist giant in Jeklea Bay, and fomorians festering amidst the Kamph Mountains.
As an aside, how do you relate the kopru and anguilians? (I have yet to feature either in my campaign although the sahuagin have made a couple of appearances, and I have some vague ideas about using deep ones, skum, etc.)
As I mentioned in my recent responses to Docjacques, I've enjoyed when we, Greyhawk fans, have posted about the prehistory of the Flanaess, including how its gods and races warred and established the pre-Migration situation.
Speaking of the pre-Migrations, I have also written about that, and it is "coming soon".
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As an aside, how do you relate the kopru and anguilians? (I have yet to feature either in my campaign although the sahuagin have made a couple of appearances, and I have some vague ideas about using deep ones, skum, etc.)
That features in both my cosmogony and my ginormous races document.
The anguilians are a creation of the aboleth, as are the other piscine and batrachian races.
The kopru are degenerate aboleth and something else. (That is me creating hype for my races book.)
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