Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Brom_Blackforge Jul 23, 2003 8:18:38	I was thinking about the topic of official Greyhawk canon and about messing with canon, when I thought about alternate histories. What would the Flanaess be like in 591 CY if the Suel and Baklunish empires had been able to avoid their mutual cataclysms in ancient times? Has anyone touched on this in their own games? I'm curious about what sorts of changes other people have made to the established timeline. (BTW - how many historical campaigns are going on out there?)
#2 Argon Jul 23, 2003 10:21:04	Well their are many ways you can go with it. Think of the Suel as the Spanish and the Baklunish as the ancient Egyptions. Then think about whether or not the Oeridian Great Kingdom would of ever been forged. There are several scenario's either The Suel stop the Baklunish from casting their spell or the Baklunish stop the Suel from casting their spell. It would be nice to see a war of attrition between these two people's. In either case the Flan would make great slaves for both Empire's. You can make a Flan rebellion against one of the Empire's, with the aid of the Oeridian people's. In the end some Empire's are forced to retreat further behind their expanded borders. The result could be a Perrenland under Baklunish control a Veluna with Suel Arch-Clericy. A Furyondy with Briton-like Oeridian and some Flan people's. There are endless possibilities some of the best Idea's are given through out history and religious texts. Ulitimately it's your decision. So good luck with your historic campaign.
#3 Brom_Blackforge Jul 23, 2003 11:26:05	Just to clarify, I'm not planning to run a historical campaign; I just thought it would be an interesting topic for discussion. :D I suppose one way to go would be to compare the Flanaess without the Twin Cataclysms to Europe without the invading barbarian tribes (Vandals, Huns, etc.). Or the Holy Land without the Crusades.
#4 zombiegleemax Jul 24, 2003 21:52:12	I have a DM who's running a Greyhawk game that precedes the cactaclysms by about a year or so. He got this idea after watching Terminator 3, so we can't imagine how he came up with the idea. Anyway, it has been a lot of fun up to now; that is, watching the build up on both sides, seeing political machinations and the like, but since we're all low level, I doubt we'll be able to stop the disaster from occuring (meta-gaming notwithstanding). Kinda of an H.G. Wells thing.
#5 extempus Feb 06, 2006 2:10:02	My players never had a chance to find out what would happen, since they discovered they had been sent back through time to take part in the events leading up to the Twin Cataclysms to ensure that everything occurred the way it was supposed to; this was part of an agreement between Lendor and other time-related deities. They discovered that Kevelli Mauk's survival was of paramount importance, since without him, the Scarlet Brotherhood would not exist (as they are an integral part of the history of the Flanaess, they were obliged to ensure his survival as they had no way of knowing the consequences for their own time if they killed him). Slerotin, who I had originally intended to die in the Rain of Colorless Fire, decided to escape with them back to the future through the Null (From the Ashes boxed set, Atlas of the Flanaess, p. 63) in a last minute twist as the Rain began to fall...
#6 max_writer Feb 06, 2006 11:16:07	Interesting. In my own campaign, my PCs went back to the mid 4th century CY and dealt with the Pirate King Jonton Hobbes. They were told by the chronomancer that took them back in time that they could not change history. He pointed out that history couldn't be changed (i.e. - it wasn't an option) as everything they would do while in the past had already happened.
#7 grodog Feb 06, 2006 22:54:53	In comparison to the GH98 revival and beyond, I've run many historical campaigns ;) but of the two that were significantly back into the established timelines, one was set in 175 CY (that never really got off the ground a lot, but for which I did a fair amount of prep work), the other during the times just before/during/after Iggwilv's reign in Perrenland. I've never dealt with the TC other than as myths and legends.
#8 extempus Feb 07, 2006 4:23:32	The only time anything major happened in the way of alternate history was when a time-travelling druid and his cronies used the power of the Stone Ring just outside of Greyhawk to tamper with time; he was unhappy with how his experimental influencing of civilization over the centuries had gone and so decided to start over again from scratch. Since the adventurers were in the Stone Ring also (wondering what they were up to; the druids were not doing anything overly suspicious), they were protected from the change as history was undone; there were suddenly no civilizations that existed other than the Rhennee, since they came from another world through a gate ca. 150 CY and were missed by the druids as their first target was much farther back in time. The only thing that existed in the alternate history were small fishing villages scattered about the Nyr Dyv; otherwise, the Flanaess (actually, all of Oerik) was devoid of human habitation. Since the druids were going back farther and farther in time correcting mistakes, the adventurers just had to stop their first attempt instead of undoing each one of them. That turned out to be 1,700 years ago in Hepmonaland (ca. -1100 CY), the night the yuan ti were born (The Scarlet Brotherhood, p. 47); he originally thought the change from human to monster would make them superior, but was wrong and so sought to stop it. In order to preserve history, the characters had to stop the druids and allow the priests of Alocotla and Xapatlapo to make their pact with Tlaloc...
#9 OleOneEye Feb 07, 2006 12:18:50	I view the Baklune and Suel empires as being rife with corruption, decadence, and scandal with eroded tax bases and rulers who spend even more opulently than their predecessors even though their peasantry could not support it. The Baklunish empire would eventually become prey to the large numbers of nomads that surrounded it whenever a great nomad warrior could arise. Nomadic rulership of a settled empire would cause one of two probabilities. The Baklune empire would be destroyed and a thing of the past. Or more likely, the nomads would reinvigorate the decaying empire. The Suel empire had formidable natural defenses, and likely would have weathered the nomadic incursions. Without a change in rulership, the Suel would have further eroded. A reinvigorated Baklune empire would again look to conquest, and likely conquer the Suel. The stream of Suel that were trickling into the Flanneass before the twin cataclysms would never have ended. The Sheldomar border land would have been even more populated by Suel, perhaps such that Keoland would not have been a union of Suel and Oeridians, but fully dominated by the Suel. Oeridians would have still embarked on their manifest destiny of spreading to the Solnor. The fledgling Kingdom of Aerdi would have had a far harder time conquering the Suel dominated lands of South Province, possibly never rising to become the Great Kingdom, but rather, simply being a regional power. Without the dominance of the Great Kingdom, Flan would have had more control over certain localities in the central Flanneass, and there would be more Flan states. The two great kingdoms of Furyondy and Nyrond would likely not have formed. Rather, the Oeridians of the central Flanneass would be fractured into many opposing groups. This perhaps catapults Urnst to be the dominant central power. Without the Oeridian moderating faction of Keoland, the more eggregious Suel would never forge relationships with the many demi-humans of the area. Continuous small wars with demi-human tribes (allied with the remaining Flan) would dominate the early history of that land. The Baklune Empire, with the addition of the Suel basin, would exhaust itself attempting to organize the Suel province. It would again fall into degeneracy. Baklunes looking to escape the corruption would settle the "traditional" Baklunish west. The Baklune people would exert more pressure through the Fals Gap. They would spill into the northern Sheldomar and western Furyondy/Veluna. In short, without the twin cataclysms, the Flanneass would have a far stronger Baklune presence, multiple Oeridian states, stronger Suel states, and more Flan states. The Great Kingdom would never have arisen, and so, the Flanneass would never have had a unifying culture imposed on it. It would be a much more diverse land.