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'.

 

[Hussar]

D&D includes many traditions often happening in isolation from each other.

It is insufficient to simply refer to the 2024 DMs Guide. If a DM chooses to play in the Greyhawk setting, one also probably wants to reconcile and make sense of the very many stray references within the D&D traditions of earlier editions, that are often conflictive. Many things require clarification. Some things can conveniently both be true. Some things require modifications to fit together. Some things need to be left behind in the past because of todays priorities.

My "head canon" strives to reconcile many references about Greyhawk, as well as maintain the cultural sensitivity that today requires.

Why would you consider it "insufficient"? There's absolutely no need for anything outside of the Flanaess in order to play Greyhawk. There's more than enough space within the setting without bothering with the rest of the world - most of which is apocryphal at best. Earlier editions are just that - earlier editions. This is a reset of the setting. They've turned back the clock and invalidated most of the material. All that really cool Paizohawk stuff from 3e? That's gone. Cauldron no longer exists. Neither does Sasserine. And that's just INSIDE the main setting. Never minding all the outside stuff.

And good riddance.

 

[pemerton]

Why would you consider it "insufficient"? There's absolutely no need for anything outside of the Flanaess in order to play Greyhawk. There's more than enough space within the setting without bothering with the rest of the world - most of which is apocryphal at best. Earlier editions are just that - earlier editions. This is a reset of the setting. They've turned back the clock and invalidated most of the material. All that really cool Paizohawk stuff from 3e? That's gone. Cauldron no longer exists. Neither does Sasserine. And that's just INSIDE the main setting. Never minding all the outside stuff.

And good riddance.

What's Cauldron? And Sasserine?

EDIT: I'm not so lazy I couldn't do a little bit of my own Googling. Sasserine is part of the setting for a 3E AP, I gather.

I wouldn't regard that sort of thing as canonical in any meaningful sense. It's even more remote than the Living Greyhawk minutia that is all easily ignored.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

What's Cauldron? And Sasserine?

Two locations where Paizo set different adventure paths that were published in Dungeon Magazine.

 

[pemerton]

Two locations where Paizo set different adventure paths that were published in Dungeon Magazine.

That fits with what Google gave me about Sasserine!

As I just posted, I don't regard this as having any significant canonical weight.

 

[Yaarel]

Why would you consider it "insufficient"? There's absolutely no need for anything outside of the Flanaess in order to play Greyhawk. There's more than enough space within the setting without bothering with the rest of the world - most of which is apocryphal at best. Earlier editions are just that - earlier editions. This is a reset of the setting. They've turned back the clock and invalidated most of the material. All that really cool Paizohawk stuff from 3e? That's gone. Cauldron no longer exists. Neither does Sasserine. And that's just INSIDE the main setting. Never minding all the outside stuff.

And good riddance.

Every DM can create whatever settings they want. I hope that is clear.

Some of those who use the information about Greyhawk in the 2024 DMs Guide will also want to reference information about Greyhawk in earlier editions. This will especially be the case when players adventure away from the City of Greyhawk to other places across the planet Oerth. Even other regions of Flanaess are minimalist in the DMs Guide and require the DM to flesh them out, and many DMs will consult the earlier versions of the Greyhawk setting to do so. Meanwhile, they will likely update according to the 2024 conventions.

Flanaess is only one small part of an entire planet.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I agree one doesn't need to. But what does "sense" have to do with it? Do you mean internally cohesive? We (well, WotC) are making a fantasy world. It can have whatever internal cohesion it requires written into it.

A version of Greyhawk I did up I would go with Dragonborn being associated with the old Baklunish Empire and thus have any states they formed be much further north. Yeomanry as a dragonborn state wouldn't make for internal cohesion in my Greyhawk. Ket would though. But that's just me.



Again, in agreement.

Also, I did notice you used deus ex machina when mentioning Warforged.

Two things-

As you note, I am completely unable to have any post without an allusion. That is why my favorite 1e class was the allusionist.

Thank you! You can catch me next week in the Poconos!

Ahem.

The second thing is that I truly think that Greyhawk benefits from having that "humanocentric" (at least for the Flanaess) politics. It still allows for a diversity of other races, but also provides a more "Game of Thrones" feel at the top, and makes it easier for DMs to run and relate to.

That said, I would note that a continuing theme I have stated is that I want GH to be personal and customizable to every table. If some aspiring DM out there is like, "Kant tell me what to do, Snarf! Ima make ALL THE SEA PRINCES Dragonborn! ALL UR PIRATE BOOTY R BELONG TO DRAGONBORN!" .... well, more power to them!

In the end, I want Greyhawk to be what you want to play.

 

[Yaarel]

I consider the 2024 Flanaess to be the only canon. Even then it is a "you can use this if you want to". A DM can rework it in any way.

At the same time, there will be a community of DMs interested in updating the earlier versions of Greyhawk to the 2024 canon.


For reference, here is what the rest of the planet looks like according to the earlier versions. Flanaess is the top-right corner of this map.

Notes.
• Dragons Island is a convenient location for the origin of Dragonborn.
• Orcreich is a convenient location for the origin of Orcs.
• Within Flanaess itself (not labeled here), Iuz and Horned Society are locations for prominent Tiefling communities.

Among the Human cultures:
• Tarquish Empire corresponds the classical Roman Empire, and includes Spain, Greece and coastal parts of Turkey, relating to Constantinople, plus other Mediterranean regions. (Note image of the Greek ship trieres.) The name Tarquish and its cultures originate from the French comic series that takes place in West Oerik with TSR permission, where its Lynn corresponds France and Germany of the Holy Roman Empire, and its Erypt is Egypt and Arabia and eslewhere nearby.
• The Jotnumheim Sea with Gigantea and the Elven Lands correspond the Nordic Lands. The name is actually Norse and means the "home" for the "jǫtnar", and refers to the Norse jǫtunn nature being. The Elven Lands allude to historical Alfheimr region, on the border of Norway and Sweden, where traditions mention a prominent family who descend from Elves.
• The Mare Mysticum coastlands correspond the British Islands ("Thalos"), Belgium, and Netherlands.

Re the connections between the Flanaess ethnicities and the rest of the planet:
It seems the Oeridians of Flanaess are a colony from the Tarquish Empire, more specifically from its Spainesque area. The Suel of Flanaess are a colony from Thalos of the Mare Mysticum area. The Norsesque "Cruski, Schnai, and Fruzti" cultures make more sense as colonies directly from the coastlands of the Jotnumheim Sea, especially Gigantea. But the Sueloise who spread across the continent of Flanaess would eventually make contact with them and share some affinity with them form West Oerik. Regarding Hepmonaland which corresponds South America, it makes more sense to say some Sueloise married into some of the Indigenous of Hepmonaland (rather than became its Indigenous as 1980 would have it). The Indigenous of Flanaess are Flan, corresponding Indigenous Americans. Fortunately Gygax describes the Flan respectfully, and I am not aware of any culturally sensitive issues with regard to Flan. The Indigenous of Hepmonaland and Amedio would be related to Flan, but develop their own cultures.

The above is a way to accommodate all of the D&D traditions concerning Greyhawk. Obviously, each DM can do whatever one wants.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I consider the 2024 Flanaess to be the only canon. Even then it is a "you can use this if you want to". A DM can rework it in any way.

At the same time, there will be a community of DMs interested in updating the earlier versions of Greyhawk to the 2024 canon.


For reference, here is what the rest of the planet looks like according to the earlier versions. Flanaess is the top-right corner of this map.

Yaarel,

I think you have done a great job with some of the disparate sources (including the French comics) to come up with the greater vision of Oerth, but I would be very hesitant to attribute this as canon.

I think it is best to view it as a possible, but not definitive, imagining of the world outside of the Flanaess. IIRC, all of the various sources that have put forth ideas for the world outside of the Flanaess have either been from unreliable narrators or semi-official sourcing or provided with an allowance to do so, but not in any kind of "this is a TSR publication" way or official vetting.

 

[Yaarel]

Yaarel,

I think you have done a great job with some of the disparate sources (including the French comics) to come up with the greater vision of Oerth, but I would be very hesitant to attribute this as canon.

I think it is best to view it as a possible, but not definitive, imagining of the world outside of the Flanaess. IIRC, all of the various sources that have put forth ideas for the world outside of the Flanaess have either been from unreliable narrators or semi-official sourcing or provided with an allowance to do so, but not in any kind of "this is a TSR publication" way or official vetting.

I do consider Oerth "canon". The Dragon Annual map of planet Oerth itself is a confirmation of the French comic, Black Moon Chronicles (Chroniques de la Lune Noire). Then the Living Greyhawk Gazette, which is 3e canonical Greyhawk, confirms the Dragon Annual map.

That said.

DMs creating their own settings is the 1e way. Now 2024 returns to this notion and makes it easier to do. DMs can and should make Greyhawk ones own. At the same time, this includes DMs who seek a "completist" approach to the Greyhawk traditions.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Yaarel,

I think you have done a great job with some of the disparate sources (including the French comics) to come up with the greater vision of Oerth, but I would be very hesitant to attribute this as canon.

I think it is best to view it as a possible, but not definitive, imagining of the world outside of the Flanaess. IIRC, all of the various sources that have put forth ideas for the world outside of the Flanaess have either been from unreliable narrators or semi-official sourcing or provided with an allowance to do so, but not in any kind of "this is a TSR publication" way or official vetting.

While I agree, we have also to take into consideration that this map is so old that many people consider it true. A great majority of the people who are going to explore beyond the Flanaess are going to use that map (or the one in Chainmail) as their template.