D&D (2024) WotC Invites You To Explore the World of Greyhawk

This week a new D&D Dungeon Master's Guide preview video was released. This one features the sample setting chapter in the book, which showcases the World of Greyhawk.

One of the earliest campaign settings, and created by D&D co-founder Gary Gygax, Greyhawk dates back to the early 1970s in Gygax's home games, receiving a short official setting book in 1980. Gyeyhawk was selected as the example setting because it is able to hit all the key notes of D&D while being concise and short. The setting has been largely absent from D&D--aside from a few shorter adventures--since 2008. Some key points from the video--

• Greyhawk deliberately leaves a lot for the DM to fill in, with a 30-page chapter.
• Greyhawk created many of the tropes of D&D, and feels very 'straight down the fairway' D&D.
• This is the world where many iconic D&D magic items, NPCs, etc. came from--Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tasha, Otiluke and so on.
• The DMG starts with the City of Greyhawk and its surroundings in some detail, and gets more vague as you get farther away.
• The city is an example of a 'campaign hub'.
• The sample adventures in Chapter 4 of the DMG are set there or nearby.
• The map is an updated version, mainly faithful to the original with some tweaks.
• The map has some added locations key to D&D's history--such as White Plume Mountain, the Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Ghost Tower of Inverness.
• There's a map of the city, descriptions of places characters might visit--magic item shop, library, 3 taverns, temples, etc.
• The setting takes 'a few liberties while remaining faithful to the spirit of the setting'--it has been contemporized to make it resonate in all D&D campaigns with a balance of NPCs who showcase the diversity of D&D worlds.
• The backgrounds in the Player's Handbook map to locations in the city.
• Most areas in the setting have a name and brief description.
• They focus on three 'iconic' D&D/Greyhawk conflicts such as the Elemental Evil, a classic faceless adversary; Iuz the evil cambion demigod; and dragons.
• There's a list of gods, rulers, and 'big bads'.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Umm, no. That's just an extremely bad idea. Rolling all Asian cultures under the umbrella of one country's culture is a VERY bad idea. See, they can get away with the Norse stuff because, well, they're not pretending that all of Europe can be boiled down to a single culture. So, we have Faux Scandinavia, Faux Britain, Faux France, and so on. And that works.

I like the idea of an Asian themed land. But, wow, let's not emphasize a single culture.

Greyhawk does have fantasy China (The Celestial Imperium) and India (I forget its name, but it's just past the Sea of Dust and parts can be seen on Anna Meyer's maps) equivalents as well.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

It wasn't even  half that number!

At 160 its exactly half.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Greyhawk does have fantasy China (The Celestial Imperium) and India (I forget its name, but it's just past the Sea of Dust and parts can be seen on Anna Meyer's maps) equivalents as well.

Did they ever have dedicated products exploring those parts?

 

[Parmandur]

Did they ever have dedicated products exploring those parts?

Nope! Most of the Flannaes never got dedicated products: in fact, there were no Setting products beyond the Folio & Box set until after Gary Gygax was gone for quite a while, so there is pretty tenuous connection for any dedicated product for the Setting.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I love OG Greyhawk ... great to see it back in the game! The Greyhawk hate in 4E was very disappointing.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I looked it up, I found 1 use of the word Bharyar in regards to FR, in a post in the Candlekeep Forums. So that is some obscure lore.

Yes. Most of the little known FR lore is from sources like Ed Greenwood's Twitter, or his Discord channel. And in the old days, it was from Candlekeep forums.

Anyways, he confirmed the name his Discord channel (compiled in the FR wiki).

 

[Zeromaru X]

Oerth is a more cosmopolitan setting than many,

I don't know why people makes it feel like it was the other way around, with old school DMs banning unconventional playable species and stuff.

Anyways, thanks for the answer.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know why people makes it feel like it was the other way around, with old school DMs banning unconventional playable species and stuff.

Anyways, thanks for the answer.

That speaks more to certain individuals Grognards and their idiosyncratic sensibilities, not the original text. Greyhawk is very clearly wide open originally, with lots of room for...anything.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, culturally, yeah there is a heavy dose of Native American for the Flan (and some Celtic, such as druidism), and all sorta of Middle Eastern and Central Asian ideas for the Baklunish. However, juat going by the descriptions, rather than which real cultures are implied by different nations:

• "The Flan race have a bronze-colored complexion. This varies from a lighter, almost copper shade to a very dark shade which is deepest brown. Eye color is commonly dark brown, black, brown or amber (in declining order of occurrence). Hair coloration is black, brown-black, dark brown, or brown. Also, Flannae tend to have wavy or curly hair".
• "The Baklunish people have golden-hued skin tones. Eye color is commonly grey-green or green, with grey uncommon and hazel rare. Hair color ranges from Blue-black to dark brown."

Having said all that, it is worth noting that the 1980 Folio didn't have any specific ethnographic details, and I doubt the new DMG will, either.

 

[Hussar]

. Greyhawk is very clearly wife open originally, with lots of room for...anything.

Definitely a swinging product then.