Talk:Queen Ehlissa's Marvelous Nightingale

Is The Book of Artifacts Canon or is it Apocrypha?

Rip & Rob,

I have been reseaching Queen Ehlissa, the euphonious artifact, Xagy, and the foundations of the Kingdom of Ahlissa. In the course of my readings I find one thing that bothers me about the entry for the Marvelous Nightingale in the Book of Artifacts... The entry seems generic (like most of its entries). It also commits the double sin of contradicting previous canon without mentioning its Greyhawk origins at all.

Further confusion is brought into the picture with the entry from the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer where it states: "The ancient kingdom of Ahlissa, ruled by the Flan and easily conquered by Aerdy, is known today only for its founding wizard-queen, Ehlissa the Enchantress, and a magical nightingale she made." (LGG, pg. 13) While it says she created it, it says she founded the Kingdom Ahlissa where the BoA says she was already Queen. With both the DMG1 and LGG contradicting the background in the BoA, I find its assertions doubtful of use for Greyhawk canon.

Also, I get the impression from the DMG1 that no one really knows who, when or why it was created, except for the assertion from Mordy that Xagy and Joramy made it 1,700 years ago (11th Century BCY). There is no mention that Ehlissa was alive at the time of its creation The only thing we are sure of Ehlissa used it to command her subjects and rule her kingdom for "several hundred years." For all we know, Ehlissa found the artifact after its creation and used it to create her kingdom.

The reason I believe that the Marvelous Nightingale was found some time after its creation is that by calculating back 1,700 years from 576CY it would have been founded c -1,100 CY. The Kingdom of Ehlissa/Ahlissa was conquered by the Aerdy in the 5th Century OR (which is between -145 CY and -44 CY), (See LGG, pg. 80). That means the Kingdom of Ahlissa lasted nearly a 1,000 years before being absorbed into the Great Kingdom. This seems awfully long for a Kingdom that had been founded upon the charms of an artifact that obviously was not present when the Suel of House Zelrad arrived and where absorbed into the kingdom after fleeing the lands that became Keoland (LGJ#4, pg. 17)

Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying, I believe that the BoA is Apocrypha and great care should be used with its entries and this wiki. Further I think we need to reexamine the assumptions about the creation of the Marvelous Nightingale and the founding of the Kingdom of Ahlissa. Thank you for your time. -- Saracenus 22:47, 23 December 2007 (EST)