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'.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Oooh yeah, that makes sense. I like that.

Its not perfect, for example it doesnt work unless you consider that Dragons dont have a soul nor does the half-dragon.

I'm working on the idea that non-humanoid have Essence (aka matter of the Creation) while the humanoids have a Soul (the Aether of the Creation).

 

[Yaarel]

My head canon for these kind of things is that the Soul is what makes a difference. Tieflings and Dhampir still have a soul or their own, while their non-playable equivalent dont have one or aren't in possession of it.

Yeah. Having a "soul", including consciousness and free will, seems the main requirement of a "Humanoid".

Also the soul is cool because it has levels:
• bodily aura (Material: Elemental)
• spirit (Ethereal: Fey, Shadow)
• mind (Astral: Celestial, Infernal)

The soul is a microcosm of the multiverse. Humanoids are somehow part of everything.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Yeah. Having a "soul", including consciousness and free will, seems the main requirement of a "Humanoid".

Also the soul is cool because it has levels:
• bodily aura (Material: Elemental)
• spirit (Ethereal: Fey, Shadow)
• mind (Astral: Celestial, Infernal)

The soul is a microcosm of the multiverse. Humanoids are somehow part of everything.

The Shadowfell and Feywild are part of the material being its reflections.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Plot twist: Snarf is secretly a bard.

Hardly.

It's not that my heart is naturally filled with hate. Rather, I cultivate it in my heart, like a rose. Carefully tending to the flames and fires of antipathy, such that even the blackest cockles of that vestigial organ are naught more than a vessel to allow the darkest impulses of my being full flight, unmediated by the guardrails of empathy, sympathy, or any pathies that might be confused with compassion.

It's not that I necessarily abhor the companionship of my fellow person, it's more that when I encounter someone, I always think to myself, "Self, maybe I should buy them a toaster for their bathtub." And that feeling is unmitigated when it comes to the perfidy of bards.

Saying I hate bards does a true disservice to the deep well of loathing I have cultivated toward those miscreants.

My hatred of Bards is the fuel that warms the cold, dark cockles of my heart as the sun grows ever dimmer during each Winter. I hate Bards like a young child loves Christmas morning; with unreserved enthusiasm.

Some might say I drink too much, but I only drink to separate my knowledge of the existence of Bards from my consciousness.

 

[Yaarel]

The Shadowfell and Feywild are part of the material being its reflections.

I view the multiverse as follows.

Shadowfell and Feywild are "reflections" of matter. They are not matter in itself. Similarly, a mirror supplies a reflection of a person, but isnt the person oneself.

There is only one Material Plane. The Feywild and the Shadowfell are perceiving and interacting with the same Material Plane, albeit different distortions of it. The Feywild is distorted by Positive Energy, while the Shadowfell is distorted by Negative Void.

Fey and Shadow are immaterial, but overlap the Material Plane and are part of the Material Plane, analogous to gravity which is physical but immaterial.

The Ethereal Plane, including Positive Fey and Negative Shadow, is the spirit world of ghosts and nature spirits.

 

[pemerton]

Shadowfell and Feywild are "reflections" of matter. They are not matter in itself. Similarly, a mirror supplies a reflection of a person, but isnt the person oneself.

I'm having trouble following this analogy.

A mirror creates a "visual space" that is governed by physical law. The space is illusory, in the sense that no one can enter it - its "inhabitants" are mere illusions of real beings in real space.

But the Feywild and Shadowfell are real spaces. Real beings can travel there, and perform physical activity there. So while they are metaphorically described as "reflections", they are not actually reflections. They are (imperfect) copies. And a copy of a material thing is itself a material thing.

The Feywild and the Shadowfell are perceiving and interacting with the same Material Plane, albeit different distortions of it. The Feywild is distorted by Positive Energy, while the Shadowfell is distorted by Negative Void.

These distortions are what cause the imperfection in the copying of the Material Plane. But they don't render the Feywild or Shadowfell non-material.

Fey and Shadow are immaterial, but overlap the Material Plane and are part of the Material Plane, analogous to gravity which is physical but immaterial.

I don't follow this analogy either.

Gravity may be immaterial (if it is a field). If it is carried by a particle, then there's an argument that it is material. Likewise if gravity is really just the shape of space about massive bodies, then it is as material as spatial orderings are.

The Feywild and Shadowfell are not forces, nor fields, nor spatial orderings of the material plane. They are copies, that can be visited by travellers, that can be affected materially and that have material effects.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I view the multiverse as follows.

Ok but that does not matter outside of your home games. I am talking about the actual way the game objectively talks about them, not any details you made up.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Gravity may be immaterial (if it is a field). If it is carried by a particle, then there's an argument that it is material.

It's both - a "field" is really just a region of spacetime where virtual vector bosons can potentially exist. If you are getting into real world particle physics, there really isn't any difference between material and immaterial.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I see it as an act of balance.

The Shadowell is a faded, stagnant picture of the world.

The Feywild is a raw and emotional, sickeningly vivid dream of the world.

Both of them aren't positive places to be as mortal.

 

[Yaarel]

I'm having trouble following this analogy.

A mirror creates a "visual space" that is governed by physical law. The space is illusory, in the sense that no one can enter it - its "inhabitants" are mere illusions of real beings in real space.

But the Feywild and Shadowfell are real spaces. Real beings can travel there, and perform physical activity there. So while they are metaphorically described as "reflections", they are not actually reflections. They are (imperfect) copies. And a copy of a material thing is itself a material thing.

The Feywild and Shadowfell overlap the Material Plane. The "real space" in the Fey and Shadow, is actually the real space of the Material Plane. Where there is a mountain in the Material Plane, this same mountain is viewed by the Fey as if majestic and vibrant, but viewed by the Shadow as if gloomy and muted.

The distortion is like viewing an object in the air in daytime, versus viewing the same object deep underwater.

This distortion also affects time, and the way Fey and Shadow interact with the features of the Material Plane.

Where there is a Hamodryad in the Feywild, it is the spirit of a specific tree in the Material Plane. But this Material tree can appear differently in the Feywild − and the spirit of the tree can project outwardly away from it in the form of the nymph.

These distortions are what cause the imperfection in the copying of the Material Plane. But they don't render the Feywild or Shadowfell non-material. I don't follow this analogy either.

The Feywild and the Shadowfell and their activities are immaterial. Similar to the way a body has the bodily aura, ki, nature has an emanating spiritual influence. This influence is subtle and typically unseen by most Humanoids in the Material Plane, however the Ethereal Fey and Shadow can perceive those in the Material Plane, albeit distortedly.

Gravity may be immaterial (if it is a field). If it is carried by a particle, then there's an argument that it is material. Likewise if gravity is really just the shape of space about massive bodies, then it is as material as spatial orderings are.

The reallife physics is what it is. But the analogy applies. A Material object, such as trees of a forest, or a mountain or a river, animistically emanates a spiritual force. At the same time, there can be spirits that are independent of matter.

The Feywild and Shadowfell are not forces, nor fields, nor spatial orderings of the material plane. They are copies, that can be visited by travellers, that can be affected materially and that have material effects.

The Feywild and Shadowfell are precisely "forces", magical energy. The Fey and Shadow perfuse the Material Plane and are particularly intense and influential in certain locales. Namely, the Fey Crossings and the Shadow Crossings are the Positive Material and Negative Material, where the respective energies heighten paranormal activities.

Note, even when a spirit is projecting away from its body or corpse, it maintains a virtual body. The "objects" of the Fey and the Shadow can behave similar to matter.