Pathfinder 1E Golarion = Greyhawk

I recently started reading the Pahtfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. I'm only about 74 pages in, I just finished Cheliax last night.

I'm being continually struck at the Greyhawk parralellisms. This didn't strike me before when I was only playing in the APs and I thought references about Golarion being like Greyhawk were about the tone and feel of setting elements only but reading the CS straight through and knowing Erik Mona's GH past it jumps out at me now.

Play Golarion or Greyhawk:

Cosmopolitan city at the geographic center of the setting with lots of trade and organized thieves' guild activity. Absalom or Greyhawk? (Gyr Gixx and Avid Arnsen in Absalom set me off on this line of thought).

Major empire with noble past taken over by fiend associated nobles and reduced by renegade break away states. Cheliax or Great Kingdom?

Secret society of red clad monks and assassins from southern tropical area. Red Mantis or Scarlet Brotherhood?

Fortune telling gypsies of no fixed abode. Varisians or Rhenee?

Darker skinned middle eastern type peoples with multiple nation states. Keleshites or Bakluni?

White skinned powerful magically accomplished ancient empire human people that apocalyptically fell with descendants represented throughout the world now. Azlanti or Suel?

Viking Barbarian types. Ulfen Linnorm Kings or Snow barbarians, Frost Barbarians, Hold of Stonefist?

Lots of little fiefdoms of lawlessness and bandit forces. River Kingdoms or Bandit Kingdoms?

Sure. My impression was always that Golarion was intended to be a place where you could transplant Greyhawk or Eberron scenarios, a place that covered as much D&D as it could, even FR and Mystara in corners.

It's no secret that the Paizo crew are huge fans of Greyhawk.

Starman said:

It's no secret that the Paizo crew are huge fans of Greyhawk.

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While that is certainly true, to me, a kitchen-sink is a kitchen-sink. In order to create a kitchen-sink setting, borrowing heavily from Eurasian tropes makes the job easier. Its what G.E.G. built in Greyhawk, its what Green built in F.R., and to the same extant is what Erik and James did for Golarian.

You'd have to make a completely unique, non-European flavored setting not to include all that. While I 'think' I could build something more original, my idea would probably not be best for a kitchen-sink.

So my best answer is Golarian is supposed to be a kitchen-sink setting, how could it look any different?

GP

I think Voadam brings up a good point and it goes beyond mere kitchensinkism. Most kitchen sink settings take real world analogs as their primary influences; Golarion seems to take Greyhawk as its primary influence, which is a step removed. This reminds me a bit of post-1977 epic fantasy (1977 was the year Sword of Shannara and Lord Foul's Bane were published, setting off a new era of epic fantasy): the primary influence, or at least referential godfather for the vast majority of post-1977 epic fantasy is Tolkien. Later versions of elves were not, by and large, taken from European mythology but from Tolkien, who derived them from European mythology.

I wouldn't say that Greyhawk has the same place in fantasy rpg settings as The Lord of the Rings has in epic fantasy, but it was the first big fantasy setting. Sure, there were contemporaries but none of them were as played and as influential for what came later on. The Forgotten Realms are probably the most popular and played in fantasy RPG setting of all time, but they were published about a decade after Greyhawk and thus have that many years less of influence.

I would also say that the other big kitchen sink D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms, does not seem to draw from Greyhawk nearly as directly as Golarion does. It even seems that the FR is a parallel development to Greyhawk; this would match what I know of its history, that it was created beginning in Ed Greenwood's youth and thus a creative contemporary to Greyhawk, if published later on. Actually, based upon Wikipedia the FR were probably begun a few years earlier, in 1967 compared to 1972 for Greyhawk, but they were published seven years later (1987 to 1980).

While I completely agree about "kitchen sink", it still hold true that certain brands and styles stick out in certain points.

To me Absalom seems quite a bit like City of Greyhawk and The Pathfinders are the Circle of Eight slammed into the FR Harpers, all dressed up in Indiana Jones costumes.

gamerprinter said:

While that is certainly true, to me, a kitchen-sink is a kitchen-sink. In order to create a kitchen-sink setting, borrowing heavily from Eurasian tropes makes the job easier. Its what G.E.G. built in Greyhawk, its what Green built in F.R., and to the same extant is what Erik and James did for Golarian.

You'd have to make a completely unique, non-European flavored setting not to include all that. While I 'think' I could build something more original, my idea would probably not be best for a kitchen-sink.

So my best answer is Golarian is supposed to be a kitchen-sink setting, how could it look any different?

GP

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I believe FR is a kitchen sink setting without a current major empire with breakaway satellites whose nobles turned to fiend worship. At least I can't think of one like that off the top of my head though I know there was a small kingdom one in the timeline book at one point. I can't think of their red assassins secret society from the jungles. It does have vikings and arabs like Greyhawk but I didn't really get a Waterdeep = Greyhawk = Lankhmar vibe though that is a matter of taste and I could see people going either way.

Ravenloft is a kitchen sink setting. The mishmash of gothic horror trope lands and evil D&D settings didn't feel like Greyhawk to me.

Oathbound with its mashup of other fantasy D&D settings did not feel like Greyhawk.

Twin Crowns with its Age of Sails and Fantasy Earth Kitchen Sink did not feel like Greyhawk. It called to mind D&D fantasy real world countries, not Greyhawk. Similarly for Swashbuckling Adventures/7th Sea.

Hyboria, even with desert Kozaks and Aesir and Vanaheim and even fallen Atlanteans seemed a distinct kitchen sink.

I am less familiar with all the specifics of Eberron, does it have arabs and vikings, fiend ruled empire, red assassin organization, etc.? Is Sharn evocative of Greyhawk City but just with flying buildings?

Honestly, I did a little Greyhawk in my 1e days long ago, but not like my one setting in 1e either, in every edition, I've pretty much stuck with home-brews. I never played in Mystara. While I did some Menzobarrenzan in 2e, we never did the F.R. thing other than that. It was like Menzobarrenzan is the Drow Underdark, which we could fit in our setting, the topside was a place that didn't match, however. I did some Birthright in 2e, but only the main boxed set, I never got any supplements for that world.

Ravenloft, loved the place, but after Barovia, Harmonia, and the Lich's place, I forget, we mostly stuck with Islands of Terror, or making up our own islands of terror, rather than relying on the main Ravenloft campaign map.

While I am certainly a REH fan for the Conan series, I have never played in the world of the Hyborian Age, my players hate sword and sorcery - but really Hyborian Age is a pseudo Europe, so how could it look like anything else.

I've never heard of some of the settings you mention, but then if not obvious, most of my gaming over the last 30+ years have been in home brews. Finally Eberron, steam-punk-ish, yech - I wouldn't touch that place with a ten foot pole.

So only a bit of familiarity with Greyhawk, some of the societies and underdark of F.R. - I'm not expert on kitchen-sinks.

GP

PS: and though I am definitely a Pathfinder player/GM, I don't do Golarian

gamerprinter said:

While that is certainly true, to me, a kitchen-sink is a kitchen-sink. In order to create a kitchen-sink setting, borrowing heavily from Eurasian tropes makes the job easier. Its what G.E.G. built in Greyhawk, its what Green built in F.R., and to the same extant is what Erik and James did for Golarian.

You'd have to make a completely unique, non-European flavored setting not to include all that. While I 'think' I could build something more original, my idea would probably not be best for a kitchen-sink.

So my best answer is Golarian is supposed to be a kitchen-sink setting, how could it look any different?

GP

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Short answer? In the way Greyhawk looks completely, utterly different than Forgotten Realms. Let me go further and state that any wide-ranging, D&D type setting is, by definition, a kitchen-sink setting. It's like asking how a po'boy sandwich could be any different than a casserole, since they both have everything you can find thrown in.

Golarion is a certain flavor of setting, far from generic, that combines the Greyhawkian "jockeying states, surrounded by dark and unknown horror" with Mystaran, "let's find a place for everything" and Eberron's somewhat idiosyncratic brand of pulp-flavored gonzo fantasy. The result is very, very unlike FR, which is so orderly in a way in its big, epic magical forces and its bazillion intelligent races and its almost timeless sense of history, but also disorderly in its mindnumbing quantity of backstory, ruthless changes to theme and milieu, and somewhat thoughtless geography and cultural relationships.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Golarion might give someone a Greyhawk vibe... because as mentioned upthread, many of us at Paizo, particularly myself, Erik Mona, Jason Bulmahn, and Lisa Stevens, are HUGE Greyhawk fans.

But it kind of goes beyond that. While Greyhawk certainly was a source of inspiration for us when we built Golarion, the fact that many of the world's literary inspirations are the same as those that inspired Gygax when he created Greyhawk (writers like Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, etc.) means that the end result of Golarion was more or less destined to have similarities to Greyhawk.

So if someone says that there are similarities to Greyhawk in Golarion, I'm inclined to take that as an enormous compliment!