Saturday, December 28, 2019

Inspirational Additions - LeiberHawk or Ill Met in Greyhawk



I recently received a copy of Goodman Games Lankhmar set and their approach to the city has been my approach for the last 20 or so years so their city setting book is perfect. While I am a confirned Gygaxian I also mix my Greyhawk with a great deal of Lovecraftian Mythos and my City of Greyhawk with my interests as a Leibertologist (Perhaps Lankhmarologist would be a better term as I am primarily interested in that large sub-set of Leiber's work). When I think of the City of Greyhawk I think of Lankhmar (and I suspect Gygax was thinking along those lines as well).

A recent topic on the GreyhawkOnline Discord general chat was about the cosmology of the Greyhawk campaign. Ive never particularly cared for what has been presented so one look at the cosomolgy created by Leiber for Nehwon and I was in. The DCC Lankhmar boxed set with its 44page booklet is a great starting place for the City of Greyhawk and that is what I will be expanding upon as well as resurrecting from my old campaigns with hopefully more detail, direction and consistent updates. I like projects so this will be my LeiberHawk project.

Years ago I started working with Gygax's City of Hawks map and realized it was unbelievably vast and at the time I thought of trimming it down, but now I realize I want unrealism in my City of Greyhawk. Its stated population 53,000 (I believe) is too small. The City is as big as I need it to be, but certainly at least ten times that size (and the fields and villages that surround the city to feed this massive population are numberless). The City of Greyhawk is a campaign world unto itself (and dear Lankhmar, is the campaign known as Nehwon? It is Lankhmar that first draws the imagination and mugs it in some darkened alley).

Now my plans are to delve back into Leiber and the new DCC material and the old TSR super-sized book on the city. I haven\t forgotten Gygax and the Leiber or Lankhmarization of the City is part of my hope to recapture and enhance what Gygax presented in Saga of Old City and City of Hawks rather than alter it to fit Leiber's writing. Fafhrd and Mouser will not be appearing, at least not yet.

2 comments:

  1. Looking forward to this! Your vision of the City seems to line up directly with my own.

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  2. I'm looking forward to checking out the various Goodman Lankhmar products at GaryCon, and have long eyed Nehwon's jewel as a source to be pillaged for Greyhawk (along with Sanctuary, and Haven).

    Allan.

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