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​

 

[Mark Craddock]

Yeah, the 5.5 DMG took out pretty much ALL the optional rules presented in the 5e DMG.

For me, it didn't really register, since if I want to implement an optional rule, source doesn't generally matter - as long as it works for, and is cool with, the current table playing.

Maybe they will present the rules as setting specific going forward? I wouldn't mind that.

 

[mamba]

Maybe they will present the rules as setting specific going forward? I wouldn't mind that.

I’d rather have the optional rules in one place. To me that is more table / style specific than setting specific. There is no reason why I can use (let alone should use…) gritty resting in Greyhawk but not in FR or Krynn or what have you

If they want to add other setting specific things like subclasses, factions, bastions, etc. they can do that. They can even add additional optional rules if they think they make sense for a setting (fear / insanity for Ravenloft, dragon riding & air combat for Dragonlance), but some generally applicable rules to make a game more or less gritty should be general, not limited to a setting book

 

[Mort]

Maybe they will present the rules as setting specific going forward? I wouldn't mind that.

Certainly possible.

But, IMO, the 2024 DMG decision was likely more because they really wanted the book to be more intro/beginner friendly (it was an oft stated design goal), and that's the side they picked.

Plus gives them the option to market an additional DMs Toolbox supplement for more revenue down the line.

I actually hope the supplement DOES not focus on rules/spells/ magic items too much as they tend to take over any supplement (certainly the page count).

I'm much more interested in Luke Gugax's take on the material and his presentation of the fluff of the world - that's not something you can get from just anyone, even another GH superfan or scholar.

 

[pnewman]

I am running a grittier Greyhawk campaign right now. To make it grittier all monsters have an extra +1 to hit; all their saves are +1 DC; and a Long Rest does not restore Hit Points, it restores half of your Hit Dice (as in 2014) and then you spend those dice to recover Hit Points.

 

[Lord_Gosumba]

Certainly possible.

But, IMO, the 2024 DMG decision was likely more because they really wanted the book to be more intro/beginner friendly (it was an oft stated design goal), and that's the side they picked.

Plus gives them the option to market an additional DMs Toolbox supplement for more revenue down the line.

I actually hope the supplement DOES not focus on rules/spells/ magic items too much as they tend to take over any supplement (certainly the page count).

I'm much more interested in Luke Gugax's take on the material and his presentation of the fluff of the world - that's not something you can get from just anyone, even another GH superfan or scholar.

You have hit it with some of your suppositions regarding the content in this book. It will not focus too much on the things you mentioned, but will have some of that within, including some sub-classes that will pertain to the area. There will be an adventure within, area background, deep-cut lore, side treks, decisions to make, interactions with Melf, and just some wonderful, classic era Greyhawk content.

As far as Luke, I know he has stated to us multiple times, to consider all of this from "Melf's" perspective, if that makes sense. This is the truth according to Melf by his experiences.

With me DMing my Greyhawk Campaign since the beginning when released in 1980, I know one overlooked thing. While there were many series of great Adventures out then (A1-4, G1-3, D1-3, U1-3, T1-4, N1, etc.) most of Greyhawk is empty. You did not get to know anything else about the setting until at first Gary and Rob Kuntz's Events of the Eastern & Southern Flanaess articles in Dragon Magazine. Then it was a wait until Greyhawk Adventures in 1988 and the Free City of Greyhawk Boxed Set in 1989.

Before that, Greyhawk was very empty as far as published source lore. There is plenty of room to tell those stories from the 570s era. This first book will be a telling of this area from Melf's perspective. All of us involved in this consider it a true honor to bring our Greyhawk Community, and hopefully some new fans of the setting we cherish, this new (old) content.

Here is a very recent specific Live Stream that pertain to the project: Legends & Lore #335 - Current Melf Lore in Greyhawk (most of the Luke team makes appearances) Great info by Andrew Scott Perry roughly at 27 minutes.

 

[Mort]

You have hit it with some of your suppositions regarding the content in this book. It will not focus too much on the things you mentioned, but will have some of that within, including some sub-classes that will pertain to the area. There will be an adventure within, area background, deep-cut lore, side treks, decisions to make, interactions with Melf, and just some wonderful, classic era Greyhawk content.

As far as Luke, I know he has stated to us multiple times, to consider all of this from "Melf's" perspective, if that makes sense. This is the truth according to Melf by his experiences.

With me DMing my Greyhawk Campaign since the beginning when released in 1980, I know one overlooked thing. While there were many series of great Adventures out then (A1-4, G1-3, D1-3, U1-3, T1-4, N1, etc.) most of Greyhawk is empty. You did not get to know anything else about the setting until at first Gary and Rob Kuntz's Events of the Eastern & Southern Flanaess articles in Dragon Magazine. Then it was a wait until Greyhawk Adventures in 1988 and the Free City of Greyhawk Boxed Set in 1989.

Before that, Greyhawk was very empty as far as published source lore. There is plenty of room to tell those stories from the 570s era. This first book will be a telling of this area from Melf's perspective. All of us involved in this consider it a true honor to bring our Greyhawk Community, and hopefully some new fans of the setting we cherish, this new (old) content.

Here is a very recent specific Live Stream that pertain to the project: Legends & Lore #335 - Current Melf Lore in Greyhawk (most of the Luke team makes appearances) Great info by Andrew Scott Perry roughly at 27 minutes.

Well there goes a large portion of my evening thanks a lot!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

They've been explicit throughout the 5E era that this edition has its own canon/parallel timeline and while some stuff will match up, they feel free to jettison stuff if they think it makes for a better story.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

With me DMing my Greyhawk Campaign since the beginning when released in 1980, I know one overlooked thing. While there were many series of great Adventures out then (A1-4, G1-3, D1-3, U1-3, T1-4, N1, etc.) most of Greyhawk is empty. You did not get to know anything else about the setting until at first Gary and Rob Kuntz's Events of the Eastern & Southern Flanaess articles in Dragon Magazine. Then it was a wait until Greyhawk Adventures in 1988 and the Free City of Greyhawk Boxed Set in 1989.

Yeah, I DMed Greyhawk pre-Greyhawk Adventures and it definitely felt very wide open to me back then. It always strikes me as odd when someone nowadays gets very particular about canon and such, when the truth is with most of the map all we know is "here's some light green hexes as painted by Darlene; go nuts, DMs."

And, frankly, I view that as a strength. If I want to set a campaign on the Wild Coast (which I still think of as a close to ideal classic D&D starting area), I don't want someone waving a bunch of canon at me about who lives there and what's going on in an explicitly tumultuous frontier area.

 

[Mort]

They've been explicit throughout the 5E era that this edition has its own canon/parallel timeline and while some stuff will match up, they feel free to jettison stuff if they think it makes for a better story.

They've certainly felt free to make some changes in the 2024 DMG Greyhawk history.

One big difference: in the DMG the Baklunish hit first (with the Rain of colorless fire) and the Suel retaliated (with the Invoked Devastation) - as opposed to pretty much every prior source I've seen, where the Suel were the initiators/aggressors.

Doubt that will make a difference in your average campaign, but it certainly sets a different tone. I wonder why they decided to change this - or if it was just a mistake that they didn't bother fixing.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

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.

Real-world medievalists don't like the term "dark age", saying it's a fiction invented by renaissance historians.

So lean into it. Greyhawk is dark age fiction; it's not "medieval fantasy", it's "dark age fantasy." I've personally been doing some research on the Bronze Age Collapse and Greek Dark Ages and despite the presence of steel, Greyhawk sociopolitically resembles the world around the 12th century BCE as much if not more than the 12th century CE.