D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Micah Sweet]

Heck, in the process of de-OGL-ifying Pathfinder 2e, tieflings and aasimar (and basically every other "outer" planetouched heritage) were unified under the name "nephilim", and despite understanding perfectly well why the change was made and it being an entirely separate game system/setting/cosmology, I still have a gut instinct to default to using the names tiefling and aasimar that is nigh impossible to overcome.

I don't see tiefling and aasimar as the same issue as warforged, as neither name demands a specific setting context to make sense, and warforged does.

 

[AstroCat]

Unfortunately, the history of Greyhawk and its ties to Gary Gygax meant that it was replaced by Forgotten Realms. They both share the same space because the inclusion of FR was to remove Gygax’s influence from the company down to the very setting he used. TBH, I’m not sure that Gygax wasnt actually happy about this. I don’t think he ever really wanted Greyhawk to be a big deal. He never really understood the purpose of settings when he was the head honcho.

There is a ton of content for GH, going on for decades, including full campaigns and tons of support. So it’s been very much in use and a real setting, so what are you saying, exactly?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes.
Just as the Player's Handbook says, "Wild elves in Dragonlance are called Kagonesti. In Greyhawk they're called "Grugach." It's that easy to note their differences and still have all the things.
There's no reason (other than sheer oppositional, argumentative obectionism) there can't be fiendlings or ironborn or artificers in Greyhawk (especially with it's history).

I agree. I just think the name "warforged" is too specific to be effective outside of the context it was invented for, even though the species itself is perfectly acceptable.

 

[AstroCat]

Greyhawk survived Unearthed Arcana with it cavaliers and PC drow. It survived 2e's From the Ashes with kits and specialty priests. It survived 3e with dwarf wizards and sorcerers. It will survive this.

And if you are right and Greyhawk is dead because of dragonborn warlocks, then if deserved to die and be harvested for parts. Let something new and glorious be born from the ashes of the old.

What are you talking about? I literally said the opposite. You can add new things while doing so while respecting the setting in an organic way. I was sarcastically laying out the absurd resistance to this I’ve been encountering. I never even said anything about Warlocks.

 

[Mournblade94]

It's one of the reasons I'm honestly baffled they weren't included in Monsters of the Multiverse with the changeling and shifter...

Kalashtar are firmed hooked into Eberron lore in a way that's hard to disentangle, but for all their Eberron-specific flavoring, the core idea of what warforged are is remarkably setting neutral.

ITs probably 100% a business decision. If WOTC Owned DDB at the time I would say it definitely was. Just FYI I bought Artificer alone off of DDB and I can still access it. Not that anybody asked. But I don't have anything elese from the eberron book.

 

[AstroCat]

But lore isn’t really the clearest way to do that. Considering that Forgotten Realms has mined Greyhawk for a very long time, there are going to be obvious overlaps. Does that mean that GH and FR feel the same in play?

Well, no. Because the key here is “in play”. You differentiate by presentation. In FR, you tend to have a more epic fantasy approach. Big individuals doing big things. They talk about Realm Shaking Events for a reason.

But Greyhawk is much more characterized by local adventuring. That’s the whole sword and sorcery vibe. You aren’t saving the world. Your adventures tend to be more focused on specific places. So you have things like Against the Giants which only concerns one fairly small nation state instead of the whole setting like Storm Kings Thunder.

The mistake you are making is presuming that lore is the primary or even sole source of flavour in a setting.

It’s not all or nothing, this is more of the absurd absolutes I keep encountering. Lore, the lands, people and places of the world lays the foundation and inspiration, of course it matters. It’s literally the story and reason for the world, it’s what makes it exist, so yeah important. Grand vs local means nothing by itself, that’s trivial, you don’t need any setting for that.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

IMO, the name "warforged" has issues in any context that does not include a conflict in which manufactured intelligences were created and used. Otherwise, by definition it makes no sense. I am convinced the name is the primary reason why they did not appear in MMotM, when many other less popular species did. As a result, I see no good reason to keep the name as primary outside of Eberron. It's simply too setting specific.

Is there no other setting where, say, a powerful mageocracy might have tried creating an army of construct soldiers to fight a war with, even if that happened so far in the distant past that only a couple of those soldiers have survived to the present day and the nation they fought for is utterly forgotten to history?

Because that sounds like something that could be dropped into Greyhawk or FR in a heartbeat without issue, and that's with me being only barely familiar with either at much more than a surface level.

 

[Mournblade94]

Thing is that Greyhawk was never designed as a setting with a whole lot of integrity. It was a place where pretty much anything could and did happen. Greyhawk is a setting with about as much integrity as the English language – the only reason the old books aren't filled with planetouched, dragonborn, sorcerers, and whatever is that the books predate the invention of those things, and during the time those were invented no-one was making much stuff for Greyhawk.

This is different from a setting like Dark Sun. Dark Sun is defined by deliberate choices about what isn't there. Dark Sun doesn't have orcs, because all the orcs were victims of genocide millennia ago. And while Dark Sun predates tieflings and aasimar, I personally would feel that they were out of place there because Dark Sun has very limited planar contact (although that's a later addition to the setting).

I bought the Dark Sun set on release, and I remember the planar assumption being it was cut off. This was further reinforced in the early novels. So your definitley correct about that assumption in the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is there no other setting where, say, a powerful mageocracy might have tried creating an army of construct soldiers to fight a war with, even if that happened so far in the distant past that only a couple of those soldiers have survived to the present day and the nation they fought for is utterly forgotten to history?

Because that sounds like something that could be dropped into Greyhawk or FR in a heartbeat without issue, and that's with me being only barely familiar with either at much more than a surface level.

Of course you can tell a similar story on another world. The issue as I see it is, with that name, you have to tell that story or they don't make sense. What if you want robots but don't have a setting background of them being made for war? Why the heck are they called "warforged" then?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Is there no other setting where, say, a powerful mageocracy might have tried creating an army of construct soldiers to fight a war with, even if that happened so far in the distant past that only a couple of those soldiers have survived to the present day and the nation they fought for is utterly forgotten to history?

Because that sounds like something that could be dropped into Greyhawk or FR in a heartbeat without issue, and that's with me being only barely familiar with either at much more than a surface level.

Since I did a Dragonlance version of this, let's do a Greyhawk version.

Before the Twin Cataclysms, the Suel Imperium created wonders beyond present-day imagining. Recently, explorers in the northern edges of the Sea of Dust discovered an vast network of ancient bunkers, filled with strange mechanoid soldiers, apparently created in the last stages of the Baklunish - Suloise Wars, ready to march when the order was given. However, the Rain of Colorless Fire meant that that directive was never given, and the creatures have lain dormant since then, protected from the cataclysm in their bunkers. When the explorers entered the complex, they accidentally awoke the constructs, who, due to the person or persons authorized to give them orders being long since dead, now have free will and have set out exploring the world.


Blunty, this isn't hard. I've created two canon-appropriate origins for warforged for two different settings, in a matter of mere minutes for each. Neither will "wreck" the lore or feel of the world.