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'.
