I'm starting a new campaign, and I plan it to have ties with the ancient Elven Kingdoms. I know that there was 4 Elven realms (Highfolk, Celene, Arrisa and the lost kingdom of Aliador) after the Olven "migration" in the Flanaess. Olven history also stated that 12 Gray Elven cities were founded. Of this number, two are identified: Erieadan and the City of Summer Stars.
The City of Summer Stars is in the Adri Forest (in Coldwood). That's ok for it. But I wonder where are located the other 11 (including Erieadan)???
Does anyone have clue about their name an location?? And where can I find references about them (if possible Canon infos, but any other sources including your own imagination can gives good ideas).
I thank you for the time you'll take to write some answers...
Now that's not to say they don't exist (or can't in your flavour of GH).
P.
Wait until New Year's Eve for the material!
I tend to the point of view that Eriadan was not part of Aliador, but is to be found more to the south. (The Griffs are a rocky region - bigger battles like the ones between Vecna's and the Olven armies are unlikely to have been fought there; IMO.)
And please, don't start campaigning without it... It would break my heart if someone came up with ideas better than the ones I propose...
;) About the other cities, I must confess that I don't know.
I think Skrellingshald had some Olven origin.
According to all the stuff I gathered for *Kul'gobsula*, the Sable Woods would be a good place to start, too.
However, what I got from my work are some hints were Olven population could have dwelled (always remember, this may be Greyhawk lore, but not exactly canon.)
- Vesve Forest
- Valley of the Mage
- The Great Rift
- Sable Woods
- Hyboria (over the Sea)
And BTW, I heard rumours that the Olven conquest had not only religious motives, but that some high clerics are after ancient sunken ruins...
Mike
But anyway, I'd like to know about any forgotten elven cities or realm in GH.
I would like to thank all fellow Greyhawkers that participated in this tread
By the way Ivid, I'm curious about your works. I know that you are really active on this board, and I'll definately take the time to read your "campaign", if it is right to name it that way.
I think I'm gonna be addict to this board. I'm a greyhawker since the release of this world in 1983. I think I know much about Greyhawk, but I always find new ideas (or reflections) that are worth their weight in gold. Sure it is a geat way to keep Greyhawk alive.
Fearghal
I'd like to know about any forgotten elven cities or realms in GH.
ahh huh...
You sure you've been a 'hawker since 83'?
/sniff /sniff
Fe fi fo fum, abysslin smells the blood of a realmsman!
heh jk! ;)
Cheers
Nell.
By the way Ivid, I'm curious about your works. I know that you are really active on this board, and I'll definately take the time to read your "campaign", if it is right to name it that way.
Kul'gobsula will be a sourcebook detailling what happened to the Olven of old Aliador from the war against Vecna until present day Flanaess and what the land looks like today.
I hope that I will finish it about Christmas. I will publish some more previews on these boards when I know what the final book will look like.
As now I consider the Olven my personal Oerthian baby, I've done a lot of research about their culture: The main problem is that the idea of the Olven Empire is Greyhawk lore, but not canon. So, what's out there, may be contradictibe in some part.
I had a picture of the Olven Empire in my mind, when I started writing. These were my assumptions, without direct canon or lore background, but they may help you to invent your own ideas:
- The Olven Empire did not include 12, but about 20 cities.
- The lands of the Olven were mainly in the East, from what is now Tenh and the Pale to the Ocean.
- The real king of the Olven was no prince; it was in fact The Silver Beast, Dragonus.
- The elves of Aliador didn't lock the world out, they were locked IN.
It would be my dream that some of you use Kul'gobsula not only to detect my English spelling and grammar errors ;), but play some home - made campaign there!
Since GoFP is considered by some to be set on GH (same as the famous Night Below), I was tempted to include that fact in my campaign.
As far as I know, the *Elder Elves* found there live under the surface, so maybe this excerpt from Kul'gobsula may be of use.
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=316961
*Doing kinda promotion whenever I can*
When I dm'd the above adventure, the pc's did befriend the elves at one point and the gnomes at another. The elves that may be encountered are a warder band that keep an eye out for raiders entering the Velverdyva River valley(presumedly from the lands of Iuz). I decided that the elves were gray elves, and that they did have a city within a hidden valley in the Yatils. The city was reached by traversing a wooded and hilly region full of twisting paths and dead ends, with the true path to the elven city being further hidden through the use of hallucinatoiry terrain spells and other magic. Additionally many local creatures also guard the winding pathways leading to the elven city, including treants, dryads, and other fey and natural creatures in addition to the gray elves of the city.
The naturally confusing and magically veiled path wended its way to a hidden mountain-side cave. This cave was the beginning of a large and meandering mile long tunnel naturally lit by chimneys leading upwards through the living rock of the mountain to the open air at irregular intervals. At the other end of the tunnel is the majestic gray elven city. I cannot remember what I named it(nor can I find all of my notes from that adventure), but one of my players is one of those list making psychos, so hopefully he has it written down somewhere. If I find it, I will post it.
In the adventure, the pc's sought refuge in the gray elven city and learned of some of the dangerous locales of the area, but not of Iggwilv's Horn(though they found it eventually).
The Gray Elven city is called "The City of Stars" in Elvish, though in the Common tongue it is known more simply as "Highvale". I invisioned Highvale as being a sister city to Highfolk, at one time both being part of a greater Elven nation in the area of the Velverdyva River valley that has long since fragemented due to incursion by other folk and other reasons.
I located the city near the border of hex's D5-87 and E5-88.
A particuarly nastly sword I beleive was at the centre of it. Something to give stormbringer nightmares!!
There were 4 Elven realms in the Flanaess, of which at least one was Olven. The others were kingdoms of the High Elves and the Sylvan Elves, relatives of the Grey Elves, but not identical!
So, if we speak of 12 Olven cities, then I think of 8 to 10 on the Thillonrian Peninsula and the in later Aerdy East and 2 to 4 in some other regions. (Maybe in the Hellfurnaces or in the Yatils, but not much more down south.)
For sure, there were other Elven cities all along the Flanaess, but they were not necessarily Olven.
Methink the four Olven realms of the Flanaess were centered on:
- the current Kingdom of Celene
- the Vesve
- the Adri Forest
- the general area of Nyrond (at the time, the Gamboge and Celadon forests were just one single wood)
But that's just me. And the exact number of Olven realms isn't canon anyway.
EDIT: corrected to account for Mortellan's comment
And the four Olven realms aren't canon anyway.
Just to clarify since some of us keep dismissing our opinions with this phrase...there is canon evidence of old olven realms just not the exact quantity. Given the available sources four kingdoms minimum seems highly probable. Now coming up with twelve cities is more of a quandry...I am without a book handy, what current olven monarchs are out there? Queen Yolande...etc. Maybe something can be gleaned from available royal/noble titles. Because IIRC there is no king in the Highvale/Vesve region, just an assortment of noblese.
And you would be correct, cwslyclgh.
Methink the four Olven realms of the Flanaess were centered on:
- the current Kingdom of Celene
- the Vesve
- the Adri Forest
- the general area of Nyrond (at the time, the Gamboge and Celadon forests were just one single wood)
But that's just me. And the exact number of Olven realms isn't canon anyway.
EDIT: corrected to account for Mortellan's comment
That's the more or less the OFFICIAL version, I think.
The lore, however, suggests (see OJ 1, page 4), that the Elves split into different groups long before the contact with the humans.
The result would be that there were different Sylvan, High Elven and Olven tribes. Maybe they mixed again between them, but I tend to see them as different people, maybe speaking in different dialect of the old Elven tongue.
I so would use the term *Olven* to describe an elven *nationality*, not a race.
*As it were the Flan who are supposed to have reported the tales of the old times...*
What I wanted to emphasize, was that there was no *Great Elven Empire*, IMO, but a bunch of several independent city states and realms.
Do you have a clue what the olven names for their own kind could have been?
Happy new year!
The grugach are at one end of the faerie spectrum closer to the buckawn, brownie...etc, the sylvan elves are less so, about one step removed from these types of faeries.
The high elves are somewhat in the middle (and therefore furthest from faerie racial stock), whereas the gray elves are at the opposite end of the faerie spectrum being closer to the more ephemeral faeries like dryads, sylphs, naeries, etc. What grugach know of the faerie mysteries would be quite different from what a gray elf would know.
The Valley elves fit in between the gray elves and the high elves (the same place racially as the snow elves if you use them in your Greyhawk game) but they abandoned their faerie nature and became outcaste to elven society, somewhat like the drow but at a later time and to a lesser degree of vileness.
I find this works well in my campaign, and explains many things, like why is a wild elf shorter than a high elf and why is a valley elf taller than a gray elf. Why a gray elf has silver hair and a grugach have red or brown hair.
You can make a case for the other races (halfling, dwarf, gnome) to also be from further departed faerie stock, but I haven't made that connection in my game.
First, Gary Holian, a LGG co-author and webmaster of Canonfire!, and Samwise, a former (and seemingly leading) LGG Keoland Triad member who recently posted an amazing Sheldomar Timeline, at http://www.canonfire.com/htmlnew/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=506, have focused my attention on the importance of the Dreadwood, which the From the Ashes (1992 boxed set) Atlas of the Flanaess indicates as having a large population of sylvan olves (8,000). This number accords with that in the Catalogue of the World of Greyhawk (1983 boxed set). This population is 1,000 olves larger than that listed for the Gnarley Forest, fyi.
Somewhat surprisingly, reviewing the Catalogue indicates that there are no significant populations of grey olves in the forests and woodlands of the Flanaess. In contrast, significant numbers of sylvan olves live in these places. Thus it seems that Celene is the only major (known) concentration of grey olves in the Flanaess.
Carl Sargent, in The Marklands and Ivid: the Undying added some, like the grey olves of the Timeless Tree or the aforementioned ancient City of the Summer Stars, but reviewing the WoG materials suggest that grey olves are significantly less common than sylvan olves, which had more of a presence throughout the Flanaess than I recalled.
Second, as indicated by my usage above, I use the term olven to refer to all elves in the Flanaess. As I understand it, this usage comports with that indicated by Gary Gygax in the WoG and confirmed by Roger E. Moore in The Adventure Begins. Olve, like dwur, hobniz, and noniz are words of the Flan-vocca. Note that Carl Sargent broke with this usage, e.g. using Uroz, Jebli, etc. to name tribes or clans of orcs in Iuz: the Evil.
Third, Mr. Gygax has suggested that the Flan predated the various demihuman races in the Flanaess. While his statements on such matters are sometimes inconsistent, it's an interesting notion that would affect one's campaign substantially. IMC the Flan and the "demihumans" co-existed in the Flanaess for uncounted centuries (more than a millennium?) before the Great Migrations, which brought the euroz (orcs) into the Flanaess beyond the Crystalmist and Yatils mountain ranges. In contrast, jebli (goblins) existed in the northwest of the Flanaess prior to the Great Migrations.
As an aside, IMC jebli and ho-jebli (hobgoblins) descended from the exceedingly diverse bakemono, who served the Baklunish Empire as subalterns. (Note that this version differs from the "humanoid mercenaries" originally noted in the WoG and Roger Moore's account in GH'98 products, which indicated that the Ancient Baklunish used euroz mercenaries.) Finally, celbit (kobolds) and xvart communities existed in the Flanaess long before the Great Migrations. They formed the ancient enemies of the Flan and demihumans but posed relatively inconsequential threats as compared to the latter-day humanoids -- as exemplified by the euroz, but also including the orogs, ho-jebline and to a lesser extent the jebline. (I use the -ine suffix to indicate the plural and possessive forms. -i indicates a singular noun.)
Third, and returning to this thread's main subject, I really like Lassiviren's suggestions regarding the relationship of the olves and the fae on Oerth. I'll respond to this in detail in Ivid's "The Awakening" thread, at http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=355230.
I think your comments are very important because they lead to a next question: Is the Suel timeline as we saw it in OJ 1 and one later issue to be used without discussion?
IMO, it conflicts with the vision of a prospering and highly - advanced multicultural Flanaess.
I don't think the given dates are conflicting, but I think a Suel dominance in north - eastern Oerik would implicate that a *numenorian* kind of society, like I think the first Flan settlers could have looked, was long gone or on decay.
If I am not mistaken, the main idea for the Flan is that they lived on the eastern side of the Crystalmists until they were overthrown by western invaders. Before that time, they seem not to have cared for the east (Thillronian Peninsula). So, can we say with certainty that the Flan were the first humans to befriend with the olves of the *later so - called* Flan Peninsula? *The Suel befriended with the olves too, but we have to guess that they did later, IMO*
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Concerning what you said about the grey olven population, that's what I wanted to emphasize: What in the 590s are known as Grey Olves are the rests of a elven subrace from ancient times.
In my fiction, the Grey Elves are hunted to their extinction by Vecna and his foes. However, some survive and their descendants form the Grey Olves of the present. *This could also explain their human-hostile attitude they show on the Lendore isles*
Sunndi is ruled by a gray elf and inhabited by a good population of them. Perhaps one of those cities lies just to the south of the Glorioles.
Very posssible.
Maybe refugees from Adri Forest?