The Bright Sands beckon

Rary the Archmage, Rary the Traitor. 

When my brother introduced me to AD&D, he lended me the campaign materials he had collected. These consisted of the old 2nd Edition Greyhawk Boxed sets, accompanied by Sargent-era sourcebooks. One of those was Rary the Traitor. 

At the time, I didn't "get" Rary. A powerful wizard who for no reason at all betrayed his friends and allies, even murdering two of them and setting up his own empire for the evulz? No. Sure, the World of Greyhawk is filled with megalomaniacal villains, but at least Iuz the Old and the Scarlet Brotherhood were interesting. Rary was just... lame, I guess.

Until I discovered the amount of lore produced for the Living Greyhawk storyline Blight On Bright Sands. Suddenly, Rary became a well-intentioned extremist. His nemeses misguided. The goal of the story arc, salvation for an ancient kingdom and thwarting the machinations of a dark god. 

Yesterday, I mentioned that my next campaign must be set in the Flanaess. Now, I have my master villain and my sandbox.

Coming Home

While creating the ARCANA setting, something clicked. I was looking for a way to justify all the spells and magic items named after major NPC's. Then I stumbled upon Greyhawk Grognard's version of Western Oerik (the lands beyond the Greyhawk setting) and then it dawned on me: what if, instead of developing an entire new world, I'd use the undeveloped lands west of the Flanaess as the setting for Aurora, Palladium and the magical races and places I designed? It would explain why Floating Disc is named after Tenser and the Iron Flask bears the name of Tuerny the Merciless.

In doing so, I started reading up on Greyhawk again, the first AD&D setting I DM'ed and I immediately fell in love all over again. Since then, I have reread the Greyhawk sourcebooks I own, researched online, joined Canonfire and perused the enormous catalogue of adventures developed for the Living Greyhawk campaign.

I will continue to develop the lands of Aurora and Palladium, this time in Western Oerik. But my next campaign has to be set in the Flanaess.

I made a thing!

The Trader Rogue Subclass has been altered and is now for sale on DM's Guild. It is my first officially published title on DM's Guild and I expect more to follow.

Get it here!