Erypt

Greyhawk Realm

Erypt
Region:	Western Oerik
Ruler:	Priest Kings
Government:	Dynastic Theocracy
Races:	Predominantly Human
Religions:	Ra, and likely Egyptian pantheon.

Erypt lies far to the west of the Flanaess in Western Oerik.

Description

"Erypt as a nation is an arid land ruled by a dynasty of priest kings.""

Erypt is thought to be one of the oldest human civilizations on Oerth.

Geography

Erypt directly abuts the Gulf of Ra and is a peninsula extending between the Ocean of Storms and the Celestial Sea. Though it is situated close to Central Oerik, and its northern shores are on the same body of water, it is culturally included in Western Oerik because it is attached to that part of the continent and because of its creative origins.

People

Religion

Due to the presence of the Gulf of Ra directly adjacent to Erypt, it is presumed there is at least one deity—Ra—who is worshipped here from the pantheon which originally appeared in Deities & Demigods.

Since Ra or other Egyptian deities are not mentioned in other Greyhawk sources, it is speculated if one or more of the pantheon are present, they may be like Olman deities and may be "not native to Oerth, having been worshipped first by beings on another prime material plane. At some point years ago, these gods discovered Oerth and revealed themselves as supernatural beings to the primitive indigenous people".

Erypt in other Sources

Gary Gygax referred an the island off the northeast coast as the "Island of Mephreton" (seen also as "Methraton") in a thread on ENWorld, and said that it was explicitly located in (his version) of Oerth. The Isle of Methraton was part of the material written by Francois Froideval which he later used in his Black Moon Chronicles graphic novels. Some of Froideval's nation names were canonized on the map from Dragon Magazine Annual #1 (shown above), though it is unclear which of the three islands Gygax was referring to.

Erypt of Greyhawk published sources does differ from the Black Moon Chronicles in one fairly minor way - there are "priest kings" (the implication being pharaohs). However, in the Black Moon Chronicles the archmagi Methraton despises deities and does not worship them or permit their worship in his lands.

Reception

The name of the nation is oft denigrated by many fans as being a bit too on the nose for a fantasy setting and is sometimes belittled as being a lazy naming convention. However, its source specifically says, "doubtless the locals have their own names for many of the areas". So, it's most probable that Erypt isn't actually the true name of the place, and "Heward" (Dragon magazine authors) used it to make clear what was there and what the culture was similar to, much like using "here there be dragons" or "orcs rule here".

Further, Gygax had a long practice of naming nations as real-world historical analogs in his books and later material for the alternate-Oerth world of Ærth; places like Karribean (Cariibean), Æropa (Europe), Azir (Asia), Nippon (Japan), and Ægypt (Egypt). So, it is consistent with other historical fantasy genre names Gygax used.

References

Bibliography

• Reynolds, Sean K. The Scarlet Brotherhood. Renton, WA: TSR, 1999.
• Williams, Skip. "Beyond the Flanaess." Dragon Annual #1. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1996.

Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index

The Index is based on previous work of Jason Zavoda through '08, and his work as continued and updated by Eric Johnson, Richard DiIoia, Jason "PupickDad" Jacobson, a French fan group, and numerous other fans over the years. The wiki page for the EGI has a list of sources, full product names, abbreviations, and a link to the full, downloadable index.

Topic	Type	Description	Product	Page/Card/Image
Erypt	Kingdom		Dragon magazine #AN1	72, 73