Greyhawk Movies

[Falconer]

I've been a Greyhawk fan for quite a few years, now, and I've rarely heard anyone discussing Greyhawk movies; whereas it's standard fare for nearly every other fantasy series to exhaust the topic. So, why not? Let's have a little fun.

The first things that spring to mind are The Temple of Elemental Evil and the Giants/Drow/Queen series. However, being good modules, they don't really have much "story". For stories, my mind turns to the novels.

Artifact of Evil could make a great movie, and is very representative of Greyhawk. There are a lot of peripheral storylines and characters in it that could be cut to make a tighter and less confusing story. For example, the whole boar hunt business at the end could be easily cut. Otherwise, it's a pretty tight story.

At the beginning, you have three groups to follow, here simplified--i.e. marginal characters would be cut:

1. Greenleaf, Gellor, and Gord. (Agents of the Hierophants)
2. Melf, Biff, and Chert. (Agents of Mordenkainen)
3. Obmi and Keak with followers. (Agents of Iuz)

Eventually Greenleaf, Melf, and Biff leave the story (Melf appears for a cameo towards the end), while Gellor, Gord, and Chert continue their quest together.

In addition to this, it must be shown how there are many factions vying for the artifact. The scenes with Iuz are awesome; certainly his parleying with Eclavdra (as Graz'zt's messenger) should stay. Mordenkainen is mentioned a lot, but abstractly, and I think that works well. I'd love to see the subject of the Temple of Elemental Evil handled in more detail; perhaps Robilar's role there could be restored.

As sequels, I could see a movie of Sea of Death (probably one of the best and certainly the most unproblematic of the novels), and possibly a sort of combined and reworked Come Endless Darkness/Dance of Demons to complete the trilogy. What do you think? Regards.

[geneweigel]

Imagine a film about the original party going through Castle Greyhawk?

Who the hell was the original party anyway?

From the descriptions in the rules it sounded like Gary's parties were huge.

[GRWelsh]

The original party was Robilar (Rob Kuntz), Terrik (Terry Kuntz), Murlynd (Don Kaye), Tenser (Ernie Gygax) and and a cleric EGG couldn't remember the name of (Elise Gygax).

I think a good Greyhawk script would be best to focus on what everybody likes so much about the game, rather than try to do another epic storyline like LOTR. I would love to see a script that focuses on how the characters are mainly out for treasure, or are motivated by curiosity, and even fight amongst each other.

"A last bit of advice... Don't forget to loot the bodies!"

[Merkholz]

A good Greyhawk movie would be hard to separate from a good movie period. The things that make Greyhawk great might not obviously stand out in a movie. If I could have my choice of a movie I'd like to see the rise and fall of Iggwilv's empire, complete with Graz'zt, Iuz and Drelnza. If successful a sequel could be made from S4.

M