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'.

 

[Remathilis]

The longer this planar argument has gone on, the more I feel WotC is justified in ignoring canon and only using the stuff they want.

Why do tieflings exist in Greyhawk? Because WotC put them there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The longer this planar argument has gone on, the more I feel WotC is justified in ignoring canon and only using the stuff they want.

Why do tieflings exist in Greyhawk? Because WotC put them there.

 

[darjr]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1834-greyhawk-returns-in-the-2024-dungeon-masters-guide

 

[Parmandur]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1834-greyhawk-returns-in-the-2024-dungeon-masters-guide

Smart marketing here:

"The setting’s influence is widespread. Critical Role's gods, the Dawn Father, the Spider Queen, The Storm Lord, and the Chained Oblivion, first appeared in Oerth’s pantheon and are covered in detail in chapter 5 of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide."

 

[Zeromaru X]

What about the Platinum Dragon and The Scaled Tyrant? Bahamut and Tiamat are the most Greyhawk gods you can find, being there in the original sourcebook (IIRC).

 

[Parmandur]

What about the Platinum Dragon and The Scaled Tyrant? Bahamut and Tiamat are the most Greyhawk gods you can find, being there in the original sourcebook (IIRC).

The Folio in 1980 had no deities! They were in the OD&D books and later the MM, though.

 

[Voadam]

What about the Platinum Dragon and The Scaled Tyrant? Bahamut and Tiamat are the most Greyhawk gods you can find, being there in the original sourcebook (IIRC).

The OD&D Greyhawk supplement I had the dragons but no real Greyhawk material. Same with supplement II Blackmoor having the Temple of the Frog adventure but no real Blackmoor setting material.

 

[Parmandur]

What about the Platinum Dragon and The Scaled Tyrant? Bahamut and Tiamat are the most Greyhawk gods you can find, being there in the original sourcebook (IIRC).

Although they are also forgetting the OG Matron of Ravens, Wee Jas, the Suel goddess repurposed and renamed for the Nentir Vale (per James Wyatt).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Although they are also forgetting the OG Matron of Ravens, Wee Jas, the Suel goddess repurposed and renamed for the Nentir Vale (per James Wyatt).

Ioun, Melora, and Torog were explicitly the only Dawn War Gods made from Scratch.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Heh. I'm thinking that Sea of Nippon and Nippon Dominion is perhaps not going to fly.

I always assumed it was just Japan, with no other parts of Asia implied.

In my home game I moved it to be closer to the Celestial Empire. I just see the Japan/China cultural connections as too important to remove from any expies, and still have them be expies.

As is the Great Kingdom (where Ivid rules from the Fiend-Seeing Throne and House Naelax is known to cavort with devils).

They've been cavorting with fiends since at least V Ivids ago. That's a lot of cavorting.

But seriously, I have never understood those (in my experience few) people who have trouble seeing tieflings in Greyhawk. Iuz; he's right there. The Horned Society! The already mentioned Great Kingdom. And that doesn't even consider ancient civilisations, famously the Suel, who one can easily see having truck with the Lower Planes.