Lordship of the Isles (Greyhawk)

For the Gaelic rulers of the west coast and islands of Scotland, see Lord of the Isles. For the series of fantasy novels by David Drake, see Lord of the Isles (David Drake).

In the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, The Lordship of the Isles is an archipelago of seven islands off of the eastern coast of the Flanaess well known for its naval power, tropical forests, rare woods and trade in exotic animals. Various editions of material published about this region between 1980 and 2000 enable dungeon masters to set their games within a milieu of tropical volcanic islands redolent with themes of piracy, political intrigue, a popular resistance movement against an invader, nautical adventure, vulcanism and spelunking, exotic jungles, and tropical storms. From 2001-2008, the Lordship of the Isles was also a region of the Living Greyhawk campaign linked to play in Spain.

In the 1970s, while helping to co-develop Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax created a campaign setting which eventually became known as the World of Greyhawk. In 1980's The World of Greyhawk folio (TSR 9025), Gygax set the campaign in 576 CY, and included a brief paragraph about the Lordship of the Isles. The population was listed as 80,000+, the ruler was identified simply as the Prince of Duxchan, and the country’s natural resources were mainly transit fees charged to merchant ships plying their waters.

An almost identical paragraph appeared in Gygax’s World of Greyhawk boxed set in 1983 (TSR 1015); however, the ruler was now identified by name as Prince Latmac Ranold of Duxchan, and the country’s population was specifically given as 80,000.

TSR and Gygax parted company in 1985, and TSR took the Greyhawk storyline in a new direction via a boxed set called From the Ashes (TSR 1064). The storyline was advanced nine years to 585 CY; much of Gygax’s world was now splintered and in disorder due to a continent-wide war that had taken place 582-584 CY. However, how this affected the Lordship of the Isles was not clear since developments in regions surrounding the Aerdy Sea were not included in this edition. In any case, the overall departure of the Greyhawk campaign from Gygax's original setting to this darker vision of post-war Flanaess was not well received by the public, and TSR stopped publishing Greyhawk material in 1993.

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