Griffin Mountain had a very Gloranthan flavour, with the land of Balazar well integrated with the rest of Dragon Pass/Prax. There was a fair amount of tie-ins with other places, especially with the histories and geographies.
The settings of Elkoi, Trilus and Dykene are similar enough to the citadels of Ockless, Surlt and Nidik, mosty of the scenarios are similar too.
However, there are several points of difference -
1. The Lunar Empire (Hooray!) have become Orcs (Boo!) 2. The cults of Yelmaio and Orlanth have become Aeolus and Hilme. 3. There is no description of Giantland and Gonn Orta in Griffin Island. 4. Halcyon var Encorth has become a ful sorcerer. 5. Slarges were non-existent in Griffin Mountain (in fact Slarges are purelyPamaltelan creatures)
Several things were improved in the Griffin Island pack - 1. NPC stats are far more realistic (I can believe Blueface in GI). 2. The religions have been expanded (even though the cults are renamed, it is easy to convert back to the Gloranthan cults).
3. The Balazaring clans and social structure have been detailed. 4. Local cultural magic items and medicine bundles are detailed. 5. Granny Keeneye was introduced.
Several bad things were introduced in GI -
1. Slarges 2. Orcs 3. The Redeye cult
Overall, I would say that Griffin Mountain is better than Griffin Island from a Gloranthan setting, if only because it sets up the land of Balazar and putsit in a setting accessible from other nearby lands. I use the Griffin Mountain pack in my campaign, but use the NPC stats and expanded cult descriptions from Griffin Island, since they are far more believable and robust.
If you do not have Griffin Mountain, you will not know about the land of Balazar (A Blank Land now) and this is a bad thing.
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