D&D General For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk

[wingsandsword]

For someone interested in learning more about Greyhawk, and seeing that a lot of the old books are pretty dang expensive, are the 3e era Gazetteers (The D&D Gazetteer and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer) an adequate introduction to the setting?

 

[pemerton]

For someone interested in learning more about Greyhawk, and seeing that a lot of the old books are pretty dang expensive, are the 3e era Gazetteers (The D&D Gazetteer and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer) an adequate introduction to the setting?

Yes.

Although just looking at DM's Guild, the Boxed Set (<World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1e) - Wizards of the Coast | AD&D 1st Ed. | Greyhawk | AD&D 1st Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild>) is cheaper than the LGG.

 

[wingsandsword]

Yes.

Although just looking at DM's Guild, the Boxed Set (<World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1e) - Wizards of the Coast | AD&D 1st Ed. | Greyhawk | AD&D 1st Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild>) is cheaper than the LGG.

Yes, but I was wanting a physical book, not a PDF. I was talking about for a cost-effective introduction involving an actual, physical book, not a PDF.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Scarlet Brotherhood is one of the boogeymen of the Greyhawk setting. Led by the Father of Obedience, it is a cabal of monks, assassins, and thieves.

Okay, the Scarlet Brotherhood was a meh name at best I kept thinking.

But the Father of Obedience is some top tier naming. I might steal that.

The Scarlet Sign, as the are also known, have placed spies, assassins, and sleeper agents throughout the continent to manipulate and destabilize other countries with the goal of subjugating all other peoples to their land. However, they're not just D&D's equivalent of Cobra with a dash of the Crusade-era Ḥashīshiyyīn thrown in for flavor. What really makes them interesting is that the are racial supremacists (the Suel human ethnicity) that place no value on the lives of non-Suel humans, demi-humans, humanoids, or any other sapient species and barely any for non-pure-blooded Suel to such an extent that they not only keep non-Suel as slaves, they freely perform (typically magical) experients upon non-Suel slaves and prisoners and breed and cross-breed them (often with the aid of magic) to create servitor species. The Derro (featured in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes) are, in Greyhawk at least, one of such servitor species that the Suel created (though that happened in the distant past). Oh, and there's also supposed to be a secret sect within the Scarlet brotherhood that worships Tharizdun (Greyhawk's cosmic horror, name-checked in the warlock class' Great Old One patron entry), so there's also that angle. It's very easy to explore that inherent darkness of the Scarlet Brotherhood and bring it out to the foreground.

Oh yeah, those are some good bones for making a really dark campaign.

Having them be the source of some of the stuff like the Duergar is interesting too.

 

[Umbran]

I dunno, that reads like saying the “Saw” series is dark when it’s titillating gore turned to 11.

Gore comes from pain. The pain and torture of characters is what makes it dark.

 

[Voadam]

Yes, but I was wanting a physical book, not a PDF. I was talking about for a cost-effective introduction involving an actual, physical book, not a PDF.

The 1980 1e 32 page World of Greyhawk Folio has a POD option for a physical book. It is a light high level overview mostly of the countries with lots of room to fill in and place your own stuff. It does not provide any gods other than Iuz. It is the only Greyhawk setting book I see on there currently as POD.

The LGG is much better if you want descriptions of the gods.

 

[Azzy]

For someone interested in learning more about Greyhawk, and seeing that a lot of the old books are pretty dang expensive, are the 3e era Gazetteers (The D&D Gazetteer and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer) an adequate introduction to the setting?

The D&D Gazetteer is very light and a good introduction that doesn't go into large amounts of detail. The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, on the other hand, is dense and almost comprehensive in its scope of detailing the lands of the Flanaess. It is set at a later date the original boxed set and folio as well as 2e's From the Ashes boxed set, if that matters to you. Both of them have almost no game mechanic information (it gives the 3e cleric domains of each of the gods—I think that that the extent of it, though), so there's nothing that you'll have to convert at all (you will likely have to assign 5e cleric domains to the deities that aren't listed in the PHB, but that should be fairly straightforward).

 

[TGryph]

Howdy!

Just my two cents worth, as Greyhawk is one of my favorite settings..in fact, the only one I have ever used for a D&D style game other than my homebrew world. It was also the inspiration for my homebrew world when I first bought the 1983 Folio new when it first came out (yes, I am old). Still, this folio along with a lot of input from all th eold school classic fantasy literature found it's way into that homebrew (yes I have read many, many of the classic fantasy novels so I feel I can speak to that end of the discussion if anyone is interested in a Grognard opinion .

Regarding the feel of Greyhawk, I feel it is more of a Heroic Fantasy world with Sword & Sorcery themed characters. The very presence of Fantasy Race nations almost eliminates it from being classified as "Sword & Sorcery" in my eyes.

Anyway, the main thing that attracted me to Greyhawk being the first official published D&D setting, was the rather incompleteness of it. There was just enough information, in my younger eyes, to inspire me to make it my own...to make my own version of it and use it as I saw fit for my own campaigns. This very adapatability of the setting means, gaain IMHO that a revision or updating is not really necessary. I sat down with my 5E books and my folio and was very quickley able to adapt Greyhawk for use with 5E, if I ever saw fit to do so. Tieflings? Perfectly adapatable to the elite of the Horned Society or even the Rhennee lake folk. Dargonborn? I threw them in the Hepmonaland as a sort of farctures Aztec society, although imigrants across the Bright desert wold work as well. That being said, I find 5E, due to its higher-power PC-High Fantasy feel to be a poor fit for Greyhawk, but as an exercise it was easily done.

So as and Old Gamer..no, I really do not want or need to see Greyhawk adapted or updated...I have enough years under my belt to do it myself. Happy Gaming!

 

[haakon1]

For someone interested in learning more about Greyhawk, and seeing that a lot of the old books are pretty dang expensive, are the 3e era Gazetteers (The D&D Gazetteer and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer) an adequate introduction to the setting?

I personally think Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is enough for a great campaign, and to understand a ton about Greyhawk - though there’s always more to learn, especially with fans creating new materials.

I get you want it on paper, but I would consider also getting the PDF from DriveThruRPG. I treasure my hard copy, but the PDF is great for searching and cross reference checks.

Is there a similar comprehensive source for Forgotten Realms? I don’t care about edition, just looking to learn about FR, some day.

 

[schneeland]

Is there a similar comprehensive source for Forgotten Realms? I don’t care about edition, just looking to learn about FR, some day.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 3e would be a solid choice (still my goto book for a good overview of the Realms).