Hochoch and Hocholve

[Scott]

Sounds like a good session.
Sounds like a good old fashioned doppelgänger at the end. A great old school monster.

[GRWelsh]

The last adventure was also set in the town of Hochoch. Balul the dwarf met up with his old friend the elf fighter/thief Tadathil (Ray's secondary character). They heard that at the Oak & Shield Tavern some people were asking questions about a party matching the description of the player characters. They went to the tavern, bought some drinks, and asked the bartender who these people were, and he replied: "There they are now." Three men entered the tavern and were seated at one of the tables. [More to come later, I have a conference call I must join]

[Scott]

Every time I read the name of this thread I think it sounds like a barbarian exclamation, "Hochoch, Hocholve, Valka, and Hotath!"

[GRWelsh]

I've fallen behind on my campaign write ups but we are still playing. The past two sessions were in the town of Hochoch. The player characters had heard that an NPC was asking about a party matching their description, and they suspected he was up to no good but they weren't sure. The NPC was named Ubbel the Hoad, and had two fighters with him named Nall and Carvus. The party spied on Ubbel and his compatriots, then followed him back to his inn, and when he was downstairs the thieves in the party picked locks to get into his locked room upstairs while the others stayed on guard or were ready to cause a distraction in the hallway. It was like the game had changed into Ocean's Eleven. The thieves found a chest in Ubbel's room and opened its lock, which set off a magic mouth spell ("Thief! You dirty thief! Get your dirty hands off of my possessions! Help, I'm being robbed!"). Thinking quickly, Balul took the book out of the chest and dropped it out the window to Tory who was waiting below. She caught the book and ran. Balul then broke out the window and jumped down sustaining minor injuries, and he ran away as well. Dain, the lawful good cleric of Pelor, caused a distraction as Ubbel ran up the steps to his room, since all at the inn could hear the magic mouth's outcry!

[GRWelsh]

I found the solution to the Hochoch/Hocholve question. At GARY CON XVI I attended a Greyhawk map seminar and Anna Meyer brought some maps drawn by EGG and Len Lakofka in the late 1970's. I took a photo of the map by EGG and will share it later. It is fascinating and a very close match to what Darlene drew, so the assumption is that it was used by her when she drew the colorful hex map we all know and love. Anyway, on the map drawn by EGG is clearly spelled "Hochoelv" but it is easy to see how Darlene may have thought the e was a c and the lv was an h. My assumption is that EGG was playing around with different ways to spell 'elf' or 'elves' before settling on 'olve' as the Flan word for them. EGG had written 'HIGH ELVES' over the region of the western Dim Forest, so I think it is now clear that EGG intended for this to be another town and realm of the Olvenfolk. I'm already committed to Hochoch being a human town and separate from Hocholve since I've already described them to my players, but it is nice to finally find out what EGG's intentions were for this town.

There are other cool details on the map, such as the names of towns that don't seem to be included by Darlene, as well as what appear to be pencil marks by EGG showing what demi-humans are located in each region.

[geneweigel]

While that is very cool its also very sad considering he didn't have access to piles and piles of stuff after the so-called "legal" takeover of his office. I would ask him questions about how heavy was the detail of certain areas and he would get steamed then apologize saying how frustrating it was not having his stuff*.

*Heh, there should be a "fan's memorial of D&D outrage" in Lake Geneva of how infiltrators coiled up a widely beloved past time and turned it into a marginalized mess. Maybe a bronze statue of Lorraine Williams pooping in the middle of a game session...

[GRWelsh]

My entire current campaign is based on a typo! Hochoelv > Hochoch! LOL! And my intent was to run a World of Greyhawk campaign hewing as close as possible to EGG's original vision of the published setting. Oh, well... You can't win them all. It seems that I should have known based on EGG's comments in module S3 that the correct name -- at least at the time of writing S3 -- was Hocholve, and that the conception was of a minor high elf realm perhaps similar to the Duchy of Ulek, with a Lord of High of Olvendom who was vassal of, or ally of, the Grand Duke of Geoff. But, since I'm already committed to Hochoch being a human town located on the Realstream River where the main characters all started, I can't change that now. I still have Hocholve located in the western Dim Forest and along or near the Javan River, with the Lord of High Olvendom intact. So, I'll console myself that I have maintained some of of EGG's original intent in having a high elf lord and realm in the originally intended region. Hochoch can be viewed as my version of the Keep on the Borderlands for this campaign, although now grown up to a prosperous town on the edge of the wilderness. Perhaps, since olve is the Flan word for elf, the word Hocholve is a Flan word for high elven or high elven hold and Hochoch is a debased shortening of Hoch Hoch which may simply be High High or High Hold if it has a dual meaning (high can mean upper status or also tactically high as in a defensible higher ground). It is even possible the human Hochoch was named after, or has a name relationship, to Hocholve. Of course, "For it is the doom of men that they forget..."

[grodog]

Mar 25, 2024 14:11:09 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

I found the solution to the Hochoch/Hocholve question. At GARY CON XVI I attended a Greyhawk map seminar and Anna Meyer brought some maps drawn by EGG and Len Lakofka in the late 1970's. I took a photo of the map by EGG and will share it later. It is fascinating and a very close match to what Darlene drew, so the assumption is that it was used by her when she drew the colorful hex map we all know and love.

Yes, this is a map Lenard shared with us prior to his death, and which I alluded to in my discussion of the missing forest from Darlene’s maps (it does appear on the first draft map): grodog.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-strange-case-of-the-forgotten-folio-forest.html

Allan.

[geneweigel]

Wait, the capital city Chendl's proximity might have caused deforestation...

No, I got it, it was that damn Willip squadron on the Nyr Dyv that needed the oaks for lumber, for plank repairs from all the violence of the difficult lakemen, so now its not even considered a resource in abundance for export...

[GRWelsh]

The mystery forest is on the EGG-drawn map. I liked Paul Stormberg's idea to make this a forest of Faerie that is both there and not there, perhaps concealed by elvish enchantment or partly in another dimension.

[GRWelsh]

In German hoch means high, so it is likely EGG was playing around with words: hoch = high, oelv = elves.

German might be a better fit with Oeridian considering their use of Germanic titles such as herzog. With that in mind, hoch might be Old High Oeridian and since we know olve is Flan, Hocholve may be a hybrid word (Oeridian/Flan).