Read about the interest in a Greyhawk Encyclopedia on the now closed thread and wanted to comment.
I've been working on just such a project for a number of years. The result is the a framework for a much, much greater undertaking, what I call the 'Encyclopedia Greyhawkania'.
Beside my desk I have three bookshelves filled with Greyhawk material. A comprehensive encyclopedia would take more room, not less. But online or on disk, a Greyhawk Encyclopedia will one day be completed. Not just the text references, but the maps, the illustrations, everything that is known from published sources. That day seems very far off.
Last year I began work on a Greyhawk NPC project that will provide complete text references to all NPCs mentioned in published material. I'd barely begun work on it when my old computer blew up.
This past year I have been sidetracked from my Greyhawk projects while working on a Knights of the Dinner Table master index and reference work, but I could not stay away from the setting of settings for long. Recently an old friend recreated his Greyhawk fan site, Harvesters Heroes, and that was enough to start me working on Greyhawk again.
His site now hosts my salvaged version of the Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index, ready for download, as well as fan created material and a Temple of Elemental Evil Play-By-Post (1st Edition Rule, looking for players).
I am restarting the Greyhawk NPC Encyclopedia project and am actively looking for help as well as peer review of the material. Anyone interested please let me know.
Thanks
Jason Zavoda
I have almost every Greyhawk product produced except for 2 of the Sagaard the Barbarian books.
Halber
Originally posted by Halberkill
I would love to be a peer reviewer. I used to reveiw some things Erik Mona worked on...whether he wanted it or not...
I have almost every Greyhawk product produced except for 2 of the Sagaard the Barbarian books.
Halber
Cool, send me an email and I will send you the small amount of work done so far. Hopefully it will start growing bit by bit, the first step to getting the work completed.
Which Sagard books do you need? I have an extra beat-up copy or two around that I could send you.
Email: [email]jasonzavoda@aol.com[/email] (put Greyhawk Project in the subject line)
Thanks
Jason
I'm flying out to NJ in about eight hours, so I'll ring you from there once I'm in, settled, and have time to visit :D
Nice to see you back to work on a worthy Greyhawk project. We all appreciate what you do. I personally cant wait to see what you produce.
Good Gaming
Originally posted by Gnarley_Woodsman
Jason-
Nice to see you back to work on a worthy Greyhawk project. We all appreciate what you do. I personally cant wait to see what you produce.
Good Gaming
Thanks!
The first step in the larger Encyclopedia project is to detail the characters and NPCs. Each entry includes all their game statistics, where available, and quoted sections that describe or at least mention the character. I've decided to use direct quotations from the source material rather than summarize the information. Some characters are very different from source book to source book, and, more importantly, I want to present the characters exactly how they are written not how I interpret them to be.
A few entries have been completed at this point. Some of the more famous characters will take many pages to cover, while others are no more than a part of a sentence. Just this NPC section of the Encyclopedia will be a vast amount of work, but it will grow into what I hope will be a valuable resource for the Greyhawk community.
Originally posted by Gnarley_Woodsman
We all appreciate what you do.
Speak for yourself.
Secret fan projects that aren't available to the general public and exist only to make their author feel important do not interest me in the least.
Originally posted by Greyhack
Speak for yourself.
Secret fan projects that aren't available to the general public and exist only to make their author feel important do not interest me in the least.
God you can be a #!($ sometimes. The first friggin' post in this thread is for the damn project. There is no secret. You *really* need to get over this obsession with JZ.
Even though he had a hissy fit about the way the editorship of Oerth Journal was handled, pulled all his material offline, stormed out of the greyhawk community and now makes his "epic work" available only by private email, we should all line up, get down on our knees and start kissing ass.
How petty of me to forget that.
But hey, wizards.com is the official d&d and greyhawk site, by JZ's own standards, his index should be posted here and nowhere else, or does that standard only apply when some jackass like me dares to post a link to a site you haven't given your personal stamp of approval to?
And don't bother disciplining or banning me, I'm done here. This crowd is about nothing other than worshipping Mona, Holian and now Zavoda, I've got better things to do with my time.
Originally posted by Greyhack
No, you're right, what was I thinking?
I truly have no idea what goes through your head even at the best of times.
Originally posted by Greyhack
Even though he had a hissy fit about the way the editorship of Oerth Journal was handled, pulled all his material offline, stormed out of the greyhawk community and now makes his "epic work" available only by private email, we should all line up, get down on our knees and start kissing ass.
Gee, sounds like something familiar. Oh wait, *I* did that after I was kicked out of Canonfire for doing NOTHING wrong. One accusation about a personal conversation and y'all took his word over mine, not because his word was more valid, but because he financially contributed to CF whereas I just busted my arse to help it.
Quite frankly, I'm not surprised JZ ran for the hills the way you treat people. He's contributing a valuable resource to the community and all you can do is dump on it because of some personal grudge over something that happened YEARS ago. I mean, really, get over it.
Originally posted by Greyhack
And don't bother disciplining or banning me, I'm done here. This crowd is about nothing other than worshipping Mona, Holian and now Zavoda, I've got better things to do with my time.
Yeah, like I haven't heard that before. Count your posts here, dude, and put a checkmark besides which ones are constructive and helpful and how many are snide, resentful and nasty. At least *I* can claim to have a greater amount of positive posts than negative ones. Can you?
I assume to much when I say "WE ALL"...heh. It's all good. We are all entitled to our own opinions. To say the least Greyhack, I for one have come to value your insight into Greyhawk, and will continue to do so. I even value Delglath's sometimes acerbic responses.
In any case "I" as well as many others have and will continue to appreciate JZ contributions in the fan community aswell. For me I will wait patiently for a good Greyhawk product, weather official or fan based I could care less at this point.
Good Gaming All!
Originally posted by Halberkill
I have almost every Greyhawk product produced except for 2 of the Sagaard the Barbarian books.
Well FYI, Home of the Underdogs now hosts all 4 books of the Sagard series in .pdf format for free download:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/showbook.php?id=19
Hope to see that encyclopedia some day.
Back to lurking... ;)
But hey, wizards.com is the official d&d and greyhawk site, by JZ's own standards, his index should be posted here and nowhere else, or does that standard only apply when some jackass like me dares to post a link to a site you haven't given your personal stamp of approval to?
I'm looking forward to reading the encyclopedia project (and appreciate the efforts and talent of a writer like Jason), but I can't see why some people would bust on him for doing it the way he sees fit. I mean, let's be honest, sites like Canonfire are nice in their own little way, but they're not the end-all be-all of Greyhawk fandom. Seems silly to go around looking for submissions just to validate one's own website.
I say let Jason do it the way he feels it should be done. If he thinks it would reach a wider audience by posting it on a much larger board like Wizards, then respect the guy's feelings, don't whine about it because he didn't pay fealty to the holier-than-thou canonfire.
I can't see why some people would bust on him for doing it the way he sees fit. I mean, let's be honest, sites like Canonfire are nice in their own little way, but they're not the end-all be-all of Greyhawk fandom. Seems silly to go around looking for submissions just to validate one's own website.
Your first sentence is absolutely correct. You "can't see" because you lack critical knowledge about past events and relationships. Your second sentence comes across as snide. Compare "let's be honest" with "nice in their own little way." Your final sentence in this paragraph comes across as pure trolling. Canonfire! does not seek submissions to validate itself. The website exists because Wizards inadequately supports the Greyhawk setting.
In the face of another end to corporate sponsorship of the setting, fans continue to create many elaborations on and permutuations of the setting. Canonfire! is one place to find many of these creations, which otherwise might not be shared widely. In this function, Canonfire! follows the tradition established by now defunct organizations and websites such as the Council of Greyhawk, the Greyhawk Fan Club, and the Codex of Greyhawk, and the many personal fansites that once flourished online.
Your ignorance of crucial information about past events and relationships together with the tone of your post make it a clear attempt of trolling.
Stop it.
Hell, the only Greyhawk products I've read were FtA, LGG, and Ivid the Undying, and just because I happened to like FtA the best doesn't mean I'd kiss Sargeants ass if I met him. Nor does it mean I hate Mona and the rest who wrote the LGG.
Point is, the Greyhawk community has way to many issues over who likes which author blah blah blah, and its frickin' annoying. Get over the fact that it takes "different strokes for different folks" and move on, because if you don't, then it's just wierd to see someone get THAT angry over something.
And by the way, I do love Canonfire, its at the top of my bookmark list, but since when can we only have ONE place to get Greyhawk material online? Does it really matter if we have two sites, or three? or one site and a guy offering his stuff by e-mail? Maybe I'm just naive or something, but it doesn't seem like a problem to me.
Originally posted by Tizoc
[b]Your ignorance of crucial information about past events and relationships together with the tone of your post make it a clear attempt of trolling.
The post may have been rude however knowledge of past events and relationships is irrelevant.
But hey, let's get personal. Y'all should know that Tizoc here took over as editor of the Oerth Journal after Zavoda left/got kicked. He happens to take it all quite personally.
Personally, I would've preferred Zavoda to remain in charge. He at least has shown the ability to finish things...
Knowledge of the past is not irrelevant.
I see your bait, "but I'll do this."
I like the Oerth Journal, and it would be nice to see it more often, but it's no big deal. I'd also love to see a completed encyclopedia, but I know that would involve a lot of work, and I'm not going to get too concerned about how that's done, either.
Originally posted by Brom Blackforge
What we the fans are doing with Greyhawk is something we're doing in our spare time (i.e., when we're not at work or school or whatever), so we really shouldn't get too excited about how long it takes one (or more) of us to get something done.
I promise I'll get that Old Wintershiven module finished by next week.
Next week:
Oh, sorry, been busy, I promise I'll have it done by next week.
Rinse and repeat for over a year...
Originally posted by Brom Blackforge
I like the Oerth Journal, and it would be nice to see it more often, but it's no big deal. I'd also love to see a completed encyclopedia, but I know that would involve a lot of work, and I'm not going to get too concerned about how that's done, either.
Well, technically I would say it IS complete. Just not to the level I think Jason wants, ie. like a real encyclopedia replete with information and pictures. As an INDEX, however, it's pretty darn comprehensive and can be found at www.harvestersheroes.com as a txt file.