Editing Greyhawk (section)

====Development of history and politics====
Gygax set out to create a fractious place where chaos and evil were in the ascendant and courageous champions would be needed. In order to explain how his world had arrived at this state, he wrote an outline of a thousand years of history. As a [[military history]] buff, he was very familiar with the concept of waves of cultural invasions, such the [[Pict]]s of [[Great Britain]] being invaded by the [[Celt]]s, who were in turn invaded by the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]]. In creating a similar pattern of history for his world, Gygax decided that a thousand years before his campaign began, the northeast corner of the continent had been occupied by a peaceful but primitive people called the Flannae, whose name was the root for the name of that part of Oerik, the ''[[Flanaess]]''. At that time, far to the west of the Flanaess, two peoples were at war, the Bakluni and the Suloise. The war reached its climax when both sides used powerful magic to obliterate each other, in an event called the Twin Cataclysms. Refugees of these disasters were forced out of their lands, and the Suloise invaded the Flanaess, forcing the Flannae to flee to the outer edges of the continent. Several centuries later, a new invader appeared, the Oeridians, and they in turn forced the Suloise southward. One tribe of the Oeridians, the Aerdi, began to set up an empire. Several centuries later, the Aerdi's Great Kingdom ruled most of the Flanaess. The Aerdi overkings marked the beginning of what they believed would be perpetual peace with Year 1 of a new calendar, the [[Common Year (Greyhawk)|Common Year (CY) Reckoning]]. However, several centuries later, the Empire became decadent, with their rulers losing their sanity, turning to evil, and enslaving their people. When the overking Ivid V came to the throne, the oppressed peoples rebelled.<ref name=lgg2000 />

It was at this point, in the year 576 CY, that Gygax set the world of Greyhawk. As Gygax wrote in his ''World of Greyhawk'' folio: "The current state of affairs in the Flanaess is confused indeed. Humankind is fragmented into isolationist realms, indifferent nations, evil lands, and states striving for good".<ref name=wog1980 /> Gygax did not issue monthly or yearly updates to the state of affairs as presented in the folio since he saw 576 CY as a common starting point for every home campaign; because each would be moving forward at its own pace, there would be no practical way to issue updates that would be relevant to every Dungeon Master.<ref>Gygax: "In regards to the timeline for the WoG setting, I had no immediate plan for advancing it as the world was meant to be used by all DMs so desirous, each making it conform to his own campaign needs". {{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part XIII, Page 9) | publisher = EN World | date = 2007-04-25 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/193204-gary-gygax-q-part-xiii-9.html | access-date = 2009-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121005021114/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/193204-gary-gygax-q-part-xiii-9.html | archive-date = 2012-10-05 | url-status = dead}}</ref>

Gygax was also aware that different players would be using his world for different reasons. When he was the Dungeon Master of his home campaign, he found that his players were more interested in dungeon-delving than politics, but when he switched roles and became a player, often going one-on-one with Rob Kuntz as Dungeon Master, Gygax immersed his own characters in politics and large-scale battles.<ref>Gygax: "In general the player groups in my campaign were not much interested in politics and warfare. When I played my PCs, I was always meddling in politics and had a large army, so some warfare was played out with Rob as the DM". {{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part V, Page 5) | publisher = EN World | date = 2004-01-26 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/71486-gary-gygax-q-part-v-5.html | access-date = 2009-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121005021145/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/71486-gary-gygax-q-part-v-5.html | archive-date = 2012-10-05 | url-status = dead}}</ref> Knowing that there would be some players looking for a town in which to base their campaign, and others interested in politics or warfare,<ref>Gygax: "Greyhawk was set up to enable both political play and large-scale warfare..."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part V, Page 5) | publisher = EN World | date = 2004-01-26 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/71486-gary-gygax-q-part-v-5.html | access-date = 2009-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121005021145/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/71486-gary-gygax-q-part-v-5.html | archive-date = 2012-10-05 | url-status = dead}}</ref> Gygax tried to include as much detail as possible about each region, including a short description of the region and its people, the title of its ruler, the racial makeup of its people, its resources and major cities, and its allies and enemies.

For the same reason that he had created a variety of geographical, political and racial settings, he also strove to create a world with some good, some evil, and some undecided areas. He felt that some players would be happiest playing in a mainly good country and fighting the evil that arose to threaten it; others might want to be a part of an evil country; and still others might take a neutral stance and simply try to collect gold and treasure from both sides.<ref>Gygax: "The relatively low level of NPCs, and the balance between alignments was done on purpose so as facilitate the use of the world setting by all DMs. With a basically neutral environment, the direction of the individual campaign was squarely in the hands of the DM running it... That was done because to my way of thinking dominance by one alignment group tends to restrict the potential for adventuring". {{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IV, Page 11) | publisher = EN World | date = 2003-11-05 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-11.html | access-date = 2009-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110615024329/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-11.html | archive-date = 2011-06-15 | url-status = dead}}</ref>