On the Ratik That Was, Wasn’t, Then Was Again

"Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight,

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
― Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

A rumination on Ratik:

Ratik

Ratik is a small but prosperous nation located in the northeastern corner of the Flanaess. It is seated in a cultural crossroads between the otherwise civilized south of the former Aerdi Great Kingdom and the barbaric north of the Suel on the Thillonrian Peninsula. Ratik stretches between the Rakers and the Solnor Coast, where the modest city of Marner, the capital, is its only major port. Its southern border is marked by the fortified hills separating Ratik from Bone March. These extend east all the way out to the Loftwood, where the hearty woodsmen are allied with the archbarony. Ratik's northern border divides the Timberway between itself and the Frost Barbarians, a long-standing informal boundary that has been respected by both sides for centuries and only recently was acknowledged by formal treaty. While these barriers have profoundly isolated Ratik from the rest of the Flanaess, they also have served to protect it from invaders for centuries. [LGG - 89]

The last “civilized” land, clinging to a narrow patch of land between towering mountains and an “endless,” mysterious, deep blue sea? Barbarians to the north, hordes of orcs and gnolls to the south? What’s not to like?

The Keep on the Borderlands

As to the Timberway being split between the Fruztii and Ratik, I pushed the border north, to the widest river in the region, the likely most defensible border. Canon? No, but the border seemed far more natural there, and it fit in with what I had planned in my campaign.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I do that. To begin, then. What was my introduction to Ratik? Not with the Folio. The World of Greyhawk boxed set. ’82? Thereabouts. That’s not right, either. My introduction was with B1, B2, and B3. B2, Keep on the Borderlands, specifically. Not Greyhawk, you say? Not Ratik? I beg to differ. There was a time that modules were not tailored to specific sites. They were meant to be slipped into your own campaign, as you saw fit. And as to whether B1 and B2 were ever meant to be placed in Ratik, I give you exhibit B1, from B1:

Anyway, those were the modules we began with, and B1 suggested that Ratik was one of the places it could be set. My DM had mentioned as much, and added a town to the keep, and a campaign began.

Then, after a time, and a few modules, he and we parted ways. Henri wanted to run modules. We wanted more narrative. I became the DM.

It was only after we had parted ways that I discovered how difficult DM’ing could be. Henri did a great job, in my opinion. The time spent in his game was fun, thrilling, magical. We were also winging it. We began playing with an incomplete set, with the Players handbook, the original Red Box, and B2. Henri made up a lot of rules on the fly, and we were none the wiser, seeing that none of us had any books at the time. We were all learning. And forgiving, then, too, at the beginning. Less so when we parted company.

Our town had not been named. So, I named it: Riverport. I nicknamed it Malice, after a song by the Jam (not terribly imaginative, but the name set the tone for the campaign to come). I look back now and have to laugh at how naively it began. What to name things? I stole from everywhere: books, songs, movies, myth, wherever. I had no maps, no source material at the start, so I concocted a greater empire, and named it Pengarde, an obvious rip-off of Arthur’s surname.

Needless to say, it was messy. These days we refer to Greyhawk as a messy setting; but Greyhawk was a streamlined wonder compared to Pengarde. A word to the wise. Do not, and I mean never, use fantasy fiction as an inspiration for world creation. I most certainly did in those early years. The maps within those tomes are ridiculous for the most part, so too the names given to forests and rivers and deserts. I blame Tolkien and his Mount Doom for kicking off the trend. I was inspired by such earnest and evocative names, and seeded them throughout, only realizing afterward that no forest would ever be named Limitations, and by then I was stuck with them.

But I also see a level of sophistication developing. It was built upon, layer by layer, likely how most campaigns begin, if one is not playing modules. Modules were expensive, and we did not have a game store yet that sold such things at the time. And when we did, there were LPs to buy. And novels. Etc. And I only made $3.30/hour at the time. So many priorities.

Someone finally did open up a comic/gaming shop. I picked up the Gold Box, and read what there was to be had about Greyhawk. It was then that I came upon Ratik for the first time in print:

The North Coast

When the Bone March was created by the Overking, a further outpost was desired and the Aerdi banners pushed northward as far as the Timberway. A military commander was appointed to see to the establishment of a secure territory and lumbering was gotten underway, as the great pines of the area were highly desirable in shipbuilding. The active commander soon sent such a stream of riches southward (he was a just man, friendly with the Dwerfolk, and an able tactician, too) - accompanying them with detailed reports of successful actions against the last of the Frost Barbarians in the area - that the Overking took notice. After a raiding fleet was roundly beaten, the Overking elevated this general to the nobility, creating him Baron Ratik. Thereafter a succession of his descendants have ruled the fief, bravely combatting raiders so as to gain their respect and even friendship from some, while humans and demihumans alike prospered. 'When the hordes of humanoids began attacking, Ratik had ample warning from the dwarves dwelling in the mountains. Companies of men and gnomes hurried west to aid their countrymen against the invaders, while couriers were sent south (and north) to alert the people there. Resistance was so fierce that the area was bypassed, and· the attackers fell instead upon the Bone March. The isolated barony has since been ruled as a fief palatine. [WoGA - 32]

That’s not much to go on, but it was enough to spark the imagination. I stole from that boxed set. Suloise, Oeridians, Flan. Cultural affectations. Gary’s encounter charts. This and that. The names within were far better than the Forest of Limitations, that’s for certain. Would that I had picked up the “Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Herodotus, and Roman, Celtic myth. Beowulf, Gilgamesh. Cuchulainn. No matter, I picked up that boxed set and fell in love with that map.

I was buying modules then. Those I could get my hands on, anyway. Those that were not too expensive, that is. G1-3, D1-3, S1-4, N1, I1,6-8, A1-4. Enough to stoke the imagination, though not as many as I wished to and wanted. LPs, novels, cinema tickets, the arcade, pop and chips. You remember.

In time, we left for school (as did I), and then to begin lives and careers elsewhere. These things happen.

I found myself without a group for a time. What to do to fill the void? I took the time to adapt my campaign to Ratik, which was obviously the inspiration for the original.

B3 Duchess and Candella

I wanted the newly adapted campaign to have a frontier feel. Easier to handle, I believed. Towns were scaled down. What used to be concentrated in Riverport was spread about, giving the characters the need to travel. And ultimately renamed The James Bay Frontier (the bit above the North Bay), to differentiate it from the more settled, and presumably stable south (full disclosure, I live in the James Bay Frontier; maybe doing so was less than imaginative, but I thought the moniker was pretty cool, and it was far better than the Forest of Limitations). There was wildcat mining in the north. Stone circles and ‘henges. A felled Flan civilization underfoot. Bandits. The mystery of Rogahn and Zelligar. And eldritch horrors of eons past. And giants in them thar hills.

Duchess and Candella

Candella and Duchess homage

I found those old modules invaluable, especially B1-3, N1, G1-3. Duchess and Candella became staples in it. Allies. Love interests. Foils. And remained so even unto G1-3.

G3 Duchess

A new campaign arose from the ashes of the old, with some old players, with some new.

And in time, that too faded away as the lives of players overwhelmed them and they moved away.

Enter 25 year hiatus. Did I buy more RPG material? You bet I did. Did I read much of it? No. I leafed through some, not all, and rarely completely.

Sadly, I purged a lot of that original material, years later. That means dumpster. Not my D&D stuff. I was never going to dumpster that. As to the rest, much of it was never used: Boxed sets for Star Trek RPG, Doctor Who, Traveller 2300, Space 1889, I cannot remember what else. And reams of my old campaign notes. I regret that. But it was just unused paper in my mind at the time of the purge, the flotsam of childhood become jetsam; but I felt the wrench of small death as I chucked it, watching a precious portion of my youth discarded with it.

Time passed, the aforementioned 25 years before I was approached, lured back into nostalgia. I pulled out my old books even as I was buying the 5e stuff, and was thrilled to discover my old notes, originals as it were. Two thoughts collided as I leafed through the sacred pages, their naiveté, and my spark of imagination.

Do I remember that old material that was purged? Not all. But I remember enough. Not a lot of the town names. Those are lost to time.

So, here is a recreation, updated as it is upon referring to Anna Meyer’s map of the region. I even added Len Lakofka’s Layakeel to it.

Are they to scale? No. Not really.

Are they rough? Yes. Decidedly. Considerably. Consider them a scratchy pad rumination.

Has my penmanship improved? Not a bit. If anything, it has failed in pace with my eyesight.

I bid you be kind as I rewind.

My players loved my campaign. To this day, those I still know say that mine was the best they’d ever played in. And in the end, isn’t whether your players enjoyed your campaign all that matters?

One must always give credit where credit is due. This History is made possible primarily by the Imaginings of Gary Gygax and his Old Guard, Lenard Lakofka among them, and the new old guards, Carl Sargant, James Ward, Roger E. Moore. And Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Sean Reynolds, Frederick Weining. The list is interminable. Thanks to Steven Wilson for his GREYCHRONDEX and to Keith Horsfield for his “Chronological History of Eastern Oerik.”

Special thanks to Jason Zavoda for his compiled index, “Greyhawkania,” an invaluable research tool.

The Art:

Ratik-Map by drofdemonology

B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, Cover, by Jim Roslof, 1980

Viking-Repose by sebmckinnon

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, Duchess and Candella, by Jim Roslof, 1981

Duchess-and-Candella-scene-01 by nezart

Candella-and-Duchess-homage by nezart

G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, Female Thief, by David A Trampier, 1978

Sources:

1015 World of Greyhawk Boxed Set, 1983

1068 Greyhawk Wars Boxed Set, 1991

2011A Dungeon Masters Guide, 1st Ed., 1979

9025 World of Greyhawk Folio, 1980

9023 B1 In Search of the Unknown, 1979

9034 B2 Keep on the Borderlands, 1980

9044 B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, 1981

9058 G1-3 Against the Giants, 1981

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