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'.

 

[Yaarel]

What's interesting is that there are no alignments listed on the table (although those could usually be inferred from the home plane listed). I do wonder if this is an out for using real-life pantheons like the Greek, Norse, or Egyptian, since alignment was definitely one of the big sticking points of such lists recently (like listing Hecate as an evil god in Spelljammer, which caused something of a ruckus). Listing just home plane, worshipers, and symbols is far less of a minefield.

For a Norse setting, the æsir should become Archfey in the Feywild, as the Eladrin also did.

This is a "Border Feywild", akin to the Border Ethereal that observes what is going on in the Material Plane, with special attention to the features of nature and their animistic influences.

Notably, alignment matters less in a Norse context. It is mainly about the aspects of nature that are helpful Humanoid communities, versus aspects that are dangerous. Albeit, everything is at least a little bit of both.

Norway, Denmark, and Sweden view the figures differently. Óðinn is irrelevant even untrustworthy in Norway (albeit skalds in Þróndheimr view him as a muse). He is central in Denmark. In Sweden, he seems somewhere in between, important but Freyr and Freyja are more important. In Norway, the most important nature beings are Þórr, Freyr, Njǫrðr, and Ullr, in that order, and they correspond to different terrain: cliff, farmland, coastland, and wilderness, respectively.

From a Norwegian perspective, the respective alignments would probably be: Þórr (Lawful Neutral), Óðinn (Neutral), and Loki (Chaotic Neutral). Arguably Þórr has tendencies toward Good, and Loki toward Evil. Óðinn is treacherous, but not Evil per se. Essentially, Óðinn is the agricultural calender and its cycle of seasons, perhaps a bit like Greek Khronos who turns the zodiac. But the Norse beings are more animistic, aspects of the world, rather than beings who control the world.


Anyway, 2024 makes it easier than ever to represent the diversity of Human(oid) sacred traditions. They can now be very different from each other. What matters to a culture depends on the culture.

 

[Voadam]

Agree with all of that. I just tend to think that the NAMELESS ONE is too removed to grant spells to Clerics. Heck, what happens on a successful divine intervention ... an opening in the prison?

But that's a table decision- as I always say, I am not King of the World. Yet.

It also depends on how your cosmology runs, whether the gods or their agents specifically give out individual spells 1e style or whether you have 3e Eberron style divine magic works but whether the gods even exist is an open question. This will vary from game to game as well.

For my games it is closer to the Eberron setup so clerics of him are not an issue.

The Cthulhu mythos were full on gods in 1e Deities and Demigods so the same divine intervention issue comes up if a 5e cleric of Azathoth invokes intervention from the Blind Idiot God of Primordial Chaos.

In my games there are just multiple spellcasting traditions tappping different powers for things like Great Old One cults, some are divine casting traditions like clerical and druid casters and some use arcane magic spellcasting traditions such as the warlock class.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Well, now we know why no one will read the DMG this time around.

BECAUSE ANYONE WHO DOES WILL HAVE THE NAMELESS ONES APPELLATION FOREVER TATOOED ON THEIR EYEBALLS, LEADING TO A SLOW AND GRUESOME DEATH!

I have the urge, like in a certain Blackadder episode concerning saying Macbeth, to keep saying a certain deity's name a lot, just to see whatever ritual Snarf does to ward off its influence over and over again.

 

[billd91]

I don’t think limiting species really makes sense in Greyhawk given that it is the generic.

And it doesn't have to make sense... to you. It just has to make sense to the people at the table. For example, I do NOT particularly like drow or any other underdark species in a surface campaign. And if I was planning on running the GDQ series of modules, I wouldn't allow a drow PC. They're too tied to primary antagonists to the point I don't want a PC to have a relationship with the drow at all, even as an exile.
Similarly, if I ever run a Dragonlance campaign, I'm not allowing dragonborn, period. The draconians and the nature of their genesis are far too important and core to the setting to dilute that with other races that are so dragon-related.

The reasons just have to make to me and my players for the campaign in question. And for other campaigns, the choices might be different.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have the urge, like in a certain Blackadder episode concerning saying Macbeth, to keep saying a certain deity's name a lot, just to see whatever ritual Snarf does to ward off its influence over and over again.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

For a Norse setting, the æsir should become Archfey in the Feywild, as the Eladrin also did.

This is a "Border Feywild", akin to the Border Ethereal that observes what is going on in the Material Plane, with special attention to the features of nature and their animistic influences.

Notably, alignment matters less in a Norse context. It is mainly about the aspects of nature that are helpful Humanoid communities, versus aspects that are dangerous. Albeit, everything is at least a little bit of both.

Norway, Denmark, and Sweden view the figures differently. Óðinn is irrelevant even untrustworthy in Norway (albeit skalds in Þróndheimr view him as a muse). He is central in Denmark. In Sweden, he seems somewhere in between, important but Freyr and Freyja are more important. In Norway, the most important nature beings are Þórr, Freyr, Njǫrðr, and Ullr, in that order, and they correspond to different terrain: cliff, farmland, coastland, and wilderness, respectively.

From a Norwegian perspective, the respective alignments would probably be: Þórr (Lawful Neutral), Óðinn (Neutral), and Loki (Chaotic Neutral). Arguably Þórr has tendencies toward Good, and Loki toward Evil. Óðinn is treacherous, but not Evil per se. Essentially, Óðinn is the agricultural calender and its cycle of seasons, perhaps a bit like Greek Khronos who turns the zodiac. But the Norse beings are more animistic, aspects of the world, rather than beings who control the world.


Anyway, 2024 makes it easier than ever to represent the diversity of Human(oid) sacred traditions. They can now be very different from each other. What matters to a culture depends on the culture.

Why would they not remain in Ysgard, the plane based on their domain.

 

[Yaarel]

Why would they not remain in Ysgard, the plane based on their domain.

Because I am Norwegian and Ysgard feels wrong.

The æsir arent "somewhere else". When you look at a thundercloud, it is the person Þórr itself. Nature is persons, and humans have personal relationships with nature.

 

[Parmandur]

Because I am Norwegian and Ysgard feels wrong.

The æsir arent "somewhere else". When you look at a thundercloud, it is the person Þórr itself. Nature is persons, and humans have personal relationships with nature.

I think this is a pretty example of why WotC is moving hard away from messing with real world religous figures.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think this is a pretty example of why WotC is moving hard away from messing with real world religous figures.

The MCU religion? Gotta get my Thor on!

He's a Stan Lee creation, right?

 

[Parmandur]

The MCU religion? Gotta get my Thor on!

He's a Stan Lee creation, right?

See, they can do thwt wirh Kord, and really whi cares?

Literally the last time they put real world deities in a product was Spelljammer, and that was part pd the controversy that led to a strict two sensitivity readers with veto power policy WotC has now.