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In Dungeon #130, a number of artifacts from other Dungeon adventures are mentioned by Tenser (Manzorian). Three of these adventures, The Tomb of Aknar Ratalla (119), The Obsidian Eye (120), & The Quicksilver Hourglass (123), were considered "generic" at the time of publication, while the other adventures are set in Greyhawk. Where in Greyhawk do these adventures take place?
In Dungeon #130, a number of artifacts from other Dungeon adventures are mentioned by Tenser (Manzorian). Three of these adventures, The Tomb of Aknar Ratalla (119), The Obsidian Eye (120), & The Quicksilver Hourglass (123), were considered "generic" at the time of publication, while the other adventures are set in Greyhawk. Where in Greyhawk do these adventures take place?
They take place anywhere in Greyhawk you want, since their setting is left intentionally vague. They could even take place in different parts of the world, or even on other planes (such as the case with Quicksilver Hourglass).
In Dungeon #130, a number of artifacts from other Dungeon adventures are mentioned by Tenser (Manzorian). Three of these adventures, The Tomb of Aknar Ratalla (119), The Obsidian Eye (120), & The Quicksilver Hourglass (123), were considered "generic" at the time of publication, while the other adventures are set in Greyhawk. Where in Greyhawk do these adventures take place?They take place anywhere in Greyhawk you want, since their setting is left intentionally vague. They could even take place in different parts of the world, or even on other planes (such as the case with Quicksilver Hourglass).
Imagine that. Well, what do you think is a good spot?
In Dungeon #130, a number of artifacts from other Dungeon adventures are mentioned by Tenser (Manzorian). Three of these adventures, The Tomb of Aknar Ratalla (119), The Obsidian Eye (120), & The Quicksilver Hourglass (123), were considered "generic" at the time of publication, while the other adventures are set in Greyhawk. Where in Greyhawk do these adventures take place?
"The Obsidian Eye" has a strong Ancient Egyptian character, so the best place to put it in a "canonical" Greyhawk campaign would probably be in the "Erypt" area from the map printed in Dragon Annual #1. This is a great distance from the Flanaess, of course, so some justification would have to be made for how Tenser came upon this information. Clearly, an archmage with business on outer planes would have much wider knowledge of his own world than the common adventurer, so it is not beyond reason that Tenser might track affairs in such a distant land. In fact, in the only first edition illustration of the archmage (in "Isle of the Ape") he is depicted as wearing a traditional Egyptian headdress, so perhaps there is some precedent for this idea!
"Erypt" is not assumed to be the name of this place, of course, and is meant as a cultural "place holder" for what is essentially a completely blank slate. You'll have to do a great deal of footwork to incorporate this realm into a Greyhawk campaign, but at the same time perhaps you have a great deal less work to do, since it is so distant that it need not fit into the established continuity of the setting. You can do what you want with it.
"Tomb of Aknar Ratalla" references an extremely ancient culture that is lost to history. The setting is a woodland, which removes candidates like the ancient Suel, and there is nothing in the adventure to suggest an Olman origin. I might consider the ancient Oeridians, who (like Aknar Ratalla's people) organized themselves into tribes and who set up lots of little kingdoms (like those of Lum the Mad, Tuerney, and the Aerdi themselves). That would place it somewhere in the realm once commanded by the Great Kingdom of Aerdy, at a suitably distant amount of time in the past to account for the somewhat more "mythic" element in the adventure's backstory. Putting it in the northern reaches of the Bone March might be fun, and would account for the presence of powerful savage humanoids in the adventure.
The Quicksilver Hourglass exists in the timevoid, a self-contained dimension with an unspecified relationship to the Great Wheel (but able to target it and thus presumably part of it). The gods associated with the adventure are not implied to be historical Greyhawk gods, or the pantheon of any cosmology familiar to the (epic) player characters. Its geographical placement within the context of the Flanaess is therefore moot.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon