D&D General Greyhawk book is NOT 'Shield Lands' but 'Borderlands of Iuz' according to team member

Iuz, courtesy of greyhawk.fandom.com​

Last week, Luke Gygax referred to the upcoming Greyhawk book for Dungeons & Dragons as Melf's Guide to Greyhawk: The Shield Lands. However, it turns out that that might not be the actual title.

According to Jay Scott, who is on the writing team, the book is actually called 'Melf's Guide to Greyhawk: The Borderlands of Iuz'.

I came on to clarify as I believe Luke was mistaken when he was excitedly talking about the project and the Easley artwork of Melf. My real name is Jay Scott: I was directly mentioned in the press conference with Luke and Dan Ayoub .... We have a project meeting with Luke and the entire team this evening, and the project is on point to make all date goals. I will specifically ask Luke about his comments on the title. To my knowledge, Book 1 is still titled: Melf's Guide to Greyhawk: The Borderlands of Iuz. If a change has been made, I would be happy to let you know here.

Possibly more importantly, Scott also refers to the book as 'Book 1'--hinting that a series of books is on the table. Additionally, he refers to "the old, gritty Greyhawk while being written in current 5.5 2024 ruleset". Finally, he notes that no WotC personnel are involved with the project, although the book is 'Official Greyhawk D&D WotC.

Scott also mentioned that the team was small, including Stephen Radney-Macfarland and Les "Oblivion Seeker" Reno.

The title Borderlands of Iuz refers to an evil demigod in the Greyhawk setting. He lives on Oerth itself (the world of Greyhawk) ruling an empire, and is the son of Graz'zt, one of the demon lords of the Abyss, and Iggwilv, a human witch. The Shield Lands, by contrast, refer to a number of provinces, many of which are ruled by Iuz, with the exception of the 'New Shield Lands', which seeks to reclaim the areas lost to Iuz.

Shield Lands by Greyhawk cartographer Anna B Meyer​

 

[Gambit42]

Why Scott chose to comment BEFORE his meeting with Luke and the design team, later that day, to get clarification on the title . . . it just adds unnecessary confusion.

If no WotC folks are involved at all . . . this is likely to appear on the DM's Guild.

More likely, no one from WotC gets writing or design credits. But if WotC is publishing the book, their folks are involved.

Or I suppose it could be published by a third party under license, but would still likely need somebody from WotC to give approval before publication.

I'm still curious how "gritty" this will be, as I never really saw the original Greyhawk material as any more or less "gritty" than other settings. YMMV.

Something akin to the 3E Dragonlance Campaign Setting book is entirely possible, which was created by Sovereign Stone/Margaret Weis Publishing and published by WotC.

Regarding the gritty comment, my immediate guess is that this is going to be a very classical/old school D&D style rendition in all regards, so almost everyone is at least a little xenophobic, 99% of orcs and drow are evil, etc.

 

[Saracenus]

@Morrus can I point out the irony of using the 576 CY (pre-Greyhawk Wars) Shield Lands map by Anna Meyer and talking about the Shield Lands from the 591 CY+ post Greyhawk War years?

BTW Anna Meyer is one of Luke's team and besides her amazing topographical maps of Greyhawk she runs a home Greyhawk campaign set in the Shield Lands circa 599 CY. In my conversations with her (she and I are friends) she is heavily invested in that region of Greyhawk and it makes sense that she would be involved in this project.

As to when the book is set in the Greyhawk timeline I wouldn't hazard to guess because there are arguments for either pre and post Greyhawk Wars. The Greyhawk reset to 576 CY by WotC and the era that Luke played in as Melf prior to that. On the other hand there is nothing stopping Luke and his team from using the advanced timeline.

I sincerely doubt there will be Living Greyhawk content as unless it was from a Core module because WotC does not own the rights to the works set in Regions or Meta-Regions*, it would be held by the author of the work.

* Yes I know that Year 1 and 2 Modules set in Regions were owned by WotC but everything from year 3 to the end of the campaign were not.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As to when the book is set in the Greyhawk timeline I wouldn't hazard to guess because there are arguments for either pre and post Greyhawk Wars.

It would be odd for WotC to set an official "present" in the DMG and then pick another date. I guess it's possible, but it's not the way I would bet.

 

[Saracenus]

It would be odd for WotC to set an official "present" in the DMG and then pick another date. I guess it's possible, but it's not the way I would bet.

Yeah, it would be my personal preference that they expand upon the 5.5e DMG Greyhawk as an example of one person's campaign. But, I have no direct connection to the project and even if I did I would not be able to talk about it.

On that note, Luke, hire a PR person to help with your team's messaging. It is confusing when you all are not on the same page.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm kind of like:

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

And, if Forgotten Realms is anything to judge by, the last few WotC forays into setting lore have been a bit ... fuzzy about timelines and such.

I'd hazard a guess, and this is my 100% uninformed gut guess, is that they'll pick a date, present a snapshot of the world of that date and if that happens to contradict previously published lore, well... too bad. Look at Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Again, they're pretty loosey goosey about the date with some stuff being pulled from before the Greyhawk wars and some from after.

I mean, GoS had a trade mission from Iuz in Saltmarsh. I think it's pretty safe to say that strict adherence to canon is not going to be a major priority for this.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

Didn’t Perkins say, back when he was still with WotC, that in 5e (and by extension I guess 5.5e) only things that are published as 5e products are considered canon? So, at the moment there are no Greyhawk Wars.

 

[Echohawk]

Didn’t Perkins say, back when he was still with WotC, that in 5e (and by extension I guess 5.5e) only things that are published as 5e products are considered canon? So, at the moment there are no Greyhawk Wars.

More precisely, the 2021 position was that only the lore in the most recent printings of the three core rulebooks was considered canonical. From the context, that policy seemed to be aimed mostly at partners producing D&D-related material.

 

[Morrus]

Didn’t Perkins say, back when he was still with WotC, that in 5e (and by extension I guess 5.5e) only things that are published as 5e products are considered canon? So, at the moment there are no Greyhawk Wars.

Ah, the Star Wars approach!

 

[Jeffzilla]

I'm still curious how "gritty" this will be, as I never really saw the original Greyhawk material as any more or less "gritty" than other settings.

While I wouldn't have used the word 'gritty,' myself, I tend to think of Greyhawk as a fantasy world more inspired by the Middle Ages, and less inspired by the Renaissance-- more low fantasy, or maybe lower high fantasy, than other settings.

But that's also admittedly just how I think of things. 1e was a less forgiving system, and the ethos of the game in those days was more indifferent to character survival than some D&D players are used to, which could easily be coloring my memories of the setting itself.