GARY GYGAX (co-creator of D&D; compiled from the Dragonsfoot forums through Sep 4, 2006)
Q: I'm interested in the scheme of alternate Earths you laid out in Polyhedron #21, where Oerth, Aerth, Yarth, Uerth, and Earth are parallel worlds, listed in decreasing order of magicality. Okay here's my questions:
(snipped questions irrelevant to Mystara)
3) Did you or Frank Mentzer consider the world of Urt (the original name of the Known World of Mystara in the "gold box" oD&D Immortals Set) as fitting into this scheme?
A: *Eek* Only Frank can answer question 3.
Q: What part did you play in the development of the Basic-Expert-Companion-Master-Immortal OD&D product line?
A:*Laughing* A very big part, as all of those works were derived from my own. I also reviewed and approved the final drafts. In the Holmes Basic Set I inserted all of the new character information found there that was not in OD&D.
Q: Have you ever DMed or played in the Known World of Mystara setting?
A: Not to the best of my recollection.
Q: Have you run any of the OD&D adventures (besides presumably B1, In Search of the Unknown and B2, The Keep on the Borderlands) as part of your home Greyhawk campaign?
A: Lots of them that I make up on the spot. I still run OD&D adventures now and then, albeit they are mainly dungeon crawls.
Q: Gary, would it be too much to ask if you remember which of these adventures you ran in your campaign, and where on your Oerth they are located?
B1: In Search of the Unknown
B2: The Keep on the Borderlands
B3: Palace of the Silver Princess
B4: The Lost City
B5: Horror on the Hill
B6: The Veiled Society
B7: Rahasia
B8: Journey to the Rock
B9: Castle Caldwell and Beyond
B10: Night's Dark Terror
B11: King's Harvest
B12: Queens' Festival
BSOLO: Ghost of Lion Castle
Here's a link to a page showing all the above-listed covers to jog your memory. *Smile*
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/modpages/b.html
A: Heh, As if I would recall that sort of trivia. I would put in an module's location wherever it suited the campaign at the time...mainly near where the PC party was. *Laughing*
Q: Aww nuts *Smile*. Though I know it's a venerable tradition in RPGs (especially Greyhawk) for DMs to make the setting their own, I was hoping to find out where these places are located in "Gygaxian Greyhawk". I think it's weird and neat to imagine Mystaran locales such as the inverted pyramid of the drug-crazed denizens of the Lost City of Cynidicea in "Gygaxian Oerth". I'll get over it though *Smile*, and I'm grateful for your (Gary's) sharing.
A: To be blunt, most of those places never existed in my campaign world *Wink*
There was no need for them as I had no problem creating new adventure material for those that played in my campaign.