Covers Preview for Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook and Princes of the Apocalypse!

So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms. No fantasy world was described in more detail than the Forgotten Realms, and they still manage to produce not one, but two storylines in a row with themes and antagonists that have nothing to do with the Realms. Good job, Wizards.

 

[SirAntoine]

Yeah, had these not been set in the Realms, they would have been an almost sure-fire sell to me.

In the Realms? No interest.

For Christ's sake, the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Elder Elemental Eye and the whole elemental evil cult thing are all huge fixtures of Greyhawk. Sigh.

I tried to say as much, but was told Greyhawk was a proven bad business decision.

 

[the Jester]

I tried to say as much, but was told Greyhawk was a proven bad business decision.

Yeah... I agree with you, and I don't really buy that argument.

See, the thing is, I don't think there has really been an honest attempt to sell GH material since 1e. The 2e stuff was a combination of a middle finger to Gygax (Castle Greyhawk megamodule, ugh) and a bunch of okay stuff that tried to make sweeping changes in the world (Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes, et. al.).

Neither one of these, IMHO, had the same kind of appeal to a GH fan as material that would further develop it would have. (The City of Greyhawk boxed set was probably this kind of material, but I never had a chance to get my hands on it, though I've seen the map of the city from it.) Big "Realms-Shaking Event" material is always, always, always the stuff that riles up the fanbase (of whatever setting, but especially the FR), so GW, FtA and that kind of thing was bound to alienate some of GH's fans.

As for CG, it really was a "F You!" to Gygax and everyone who had wanted a real Castle Greyhawk adventure for years or decades.

3e had GH as the 'default setting' but didn't do anything with it, or release any decent material for it outside of the Living Greyhawk stuff and, possibly, the EtCG adventure- but I looked at it, and it looked... partial at best. In fairness, IIRC it was one of the first 'delve format' adventures, and in retrospect, I think the delve format was terrible. But I don't recall seeing any overall area maps or anything, so I didn't end up picking it up.

4e didn't even touch GH.

Compare this to the way FR was developed for the most part, especially in 1e and 2e: supplement after supplement expanding and developing the world, either regions or religion or whatever the topic was at a given moment. LOTS of stuff aimed at expanding the world, not rewriting it. (I recognize that there are always RSEs going on, too, but there are lots of non-RSE FR books pre-4e.) Or the material that developed Eberron in 3e: expanding our understanding of the setting, NOT constantly trying to overwrite what came before.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Yeah... I agree with you, and I don't really buy that argument.

See, the thing is, I don't think there has really been an honest attempt to sell GH material since 1e. The 2e stuff was a combination of a middle finger to Gygax (Castle Greyhawk megamodule, ugh) and a bunch of okay stuff that tried to make sweeping changes in the world (Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes, et. al.).

Neither one of these, IMHO, had the same kind of appeal to a GH fan as material that would further develop it would have. (The City of Greyhawk boxed set was probably this kind of material, but I never had a chance to get my hands on it, though I've seen the map of the city from it.) Big "Realms-Shaking Event" material is always, always, always the stuff that riles up the fanbase (of whatever setting, but especially the FR), so GW, FtA and that kind of thing was bound to alienate some of GH's fans.

As for CG, it really was a "F You!" to Gygax and everyone who had wanted a real Castle Greyhawk adventure for years or decades.

3e had GH as the 'default setting' but didn't do anything with it, or release any decent material for it outside of the Living Greyhawk stuff and, possibly, the EtCG adventure- but I looked at it, and it looked... partial at best. In fairness, IIRC it was one of the first 'delve format' adventures, and in retrospect, I think the delve format was terrible. But I don't recall seeing any overall area maps or anything, so I didn't end up picking it up.

4e didn't even touch GH.

Compare this to the way FR was developed for the most part, especially in 1e and 2e: supplement after supplement expanding and developing the world, either regions or religion or whatever the topic was at a given moment. LOTS of stuff aimed at expanding the world, not rewriting it. (I recognize that there are always RSEs going on, too, but there are lots of non-RSE FR books pre-4e.) Or the material that developed Eberron in 3e: expanding our understanding of the setting, NOT constantly trying to overwrite what came before.

I agree with you.

Greyhawk was ripe for the taking and Wizards dropped the ball. You had a fully fledged world that was generic enough to allow almost anything to be added. It had it's known parts and yet it had tons of parts that were unknown and ready for lore to be created.

I'm not really sure why Wizards thinks it's a good idea to continuously shake up the Realms fans to the point where a lot of them leave. Do they think there is some wide untapped group of fans that will pick up where the old fans left off?

They did a great job on the rules but outside of that, they have really been disappointing.

 

[MerricB]

See, the thing is, I don't think there has really been an honest attempt to sell GH material since 1e. The 2e stuff was a combination of a middle finger to Gygax (Castle Greyhawk megamodule, ugh) and a bunch of okay stuff that tried to make sweeping changes in the world (Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes, et. al.).

You're missing an era of Greyhawk releases there.

The first era of Greyhawk releases is 1978-1985 (or thereabouts) when Gygax was at TSR. This is when the world is developed primarily through adventures. Giant/Drow, Slavers, Hommlet, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors. While this rather defines Greyhawk, a lot of this is accidental. There's not really a big plan here. The idea of the adventures actually changing the world hasn't arrived yet. Yes, a lot of them *could*, but the idea of the world changing at TSR instead of just in gamer's homes isn't evident. Not only that, but a lot of the adventures aren't really Greyhawk adventures at all. They're just placed there because it's TSR's house setting.

Following 1985, the only releases for the next couple of years are the supermodule compilations. These are sort of significant in linking the adventures more to Greyhawk, but they do have their own problems.

From 1988-1990, we hit the real problematic age of Greyhawk releases. You've got a faction in TSR who want to treat the setting well, and you've got a faction who want to destroy it. From the first faction, you get the Greyhawk Adventures hardcover, Greyhawk Ruins, and the WGA adventures. From the second faction you get Castle Greyhawk, Puppets, Gargoyle and Vale of the Mage. In, in the middle, you have the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which I'm probably being unfair to. The boxed set really is part of the same strand of releases that leads to the Greyhawk Wars (the WGA adventures), but I have some problems with how its put together, most notably with its naming schemes. However, it could also be the best city release for D&D until Neverwinter came along a couple of years ago. (Sharn might be in there, but I've major, major problems with the various Waterdeep releases).

Ignoring the joke modules from RPGA and anything written by Jean Rabe, this era is the first serious attempt to properly present Greyhawk as a living world. It's not helped by the serious adventures not being very good (this is true of almost every adventure post 1985), but for the first time you get the impression that the designers are attempting something here. It also represents a massive shift from the first era of Greyhawk products. When we look back at the glory days of Greyhawk, we think of that first era. There's just one problem: It's an unsustainable era. The original Greyhawk releases assume Greyhawk is in stasis. Wizards would later do this to Eberron. And while showing just a snapshot of a world works, and works really well, at some point you've detailed everything. The timeline has to move, and the original Greyhawk releases aren't connected enough to the world to allow that.

To their credit, the TSR designers realised that, and they gave the world to Carl Sargent to get moving. And he did. By blowing it up.

I have massive problems with the Greyhawk Wars (beginning with their name, which makes no sense in-world) and From the Ashes, but the one thing they did absolutely right was change Greyhawk from a setting you could place adventures in into a setting that inspired adventures. This isn't to say that there wasn't some inspiration in the original Greyhawk sets, but From the Ashes makes the setting into something that appears much more dynamic.

And so from 1991-93 you have an era where TSR explores this new world, producing a number of sourcebooks for the setting (and very few adventures).

And then Greyhawk dies. Ivid the Undying is (ironically) cancelled and only released as an electronic document a couple of years later. The shake up of the world has failed. It's actually hard to tell from the outside whether this is more due to internal politics or bad sales, but I do know there were a lot of people unhappy with the From the Ashes world. It's changed the feel of Greyhawk too much. From telling stories of adventure, we've moved to telling stories of struggling to survive in the new world order. (This isn't entirely accurate, but anyway...)

It's 1998 when Greyhawk is next visited. Roger E Moore is in charge of Greyhawk now, and Wizards own TSR. From 1998-2000, we have Wizards attempting to fix Greyhawk. The year is advanced to 591 CY, and a bunch of clean-up work is done to make the feel of the world much more like that of the original boxed set, whilst retaining the idea that the setting generates adventures. Unfortunately, the actual adventures published are lacklustre. Return to the Tomb of Horrors isn't that bad, but the Star Cairns series are extremely forgettable. And after about 12 products, we're done. The culmination of this era is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, which is one of the true gems of Greyhawk products.

After that, it's the 3E era, and although the first eight 3E adventures are, in theory, set in Greyhawk, they aren't really, and there's a lot of Living Greyhawk material which is mostly invisible to the larger D&D population. And there's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which has its own, major problems.

Throughout all of this, you have Dungeon magazine occasionally producing content for Greyhawk. Most of it is forgettable. A lot of it I've never seen. (Most of my experience of Dungeon magazine happened in the 3E era). About the only significant release is the Age of Worms AP. (Neither Shackled City nor Savage Tide really play into the core Greyhawk world - they're too far off the edge of the map). But Dungeon magazine should be noted.

So, the eras of Greyhawk publishing - to me at least - feel like 1978-85, 1988-90, 1991-93 and finally 1998-2000.

All of which feed into why it's really, really hard to bring back Greyhawk.

Cheers!

 

[the Jester]

You're missing an era of Greyhawk releases there.

I am? Sorry- I'm not sure which one you're referring to, exactly; could you clarify this point for me?

If you mean the 'first wave', I didn't mention it because it's the only period when I feel like GH was given a fair chance, but I also don't count the adventures, with the exception of T1-4, as really "Greyhawk material" so much as "adventures that just happen to be set in Greyhawk".

When we look back at the glory days of Greyhawk, we think of that first era. There's just one problem: It's an unsustainable era. The original Greyhawk releases assume Greyhawk is in stasis. Wizards would later do this to Eberron. And while showing just a snapshot of a world works, and works really well, at some point you've detailed everything.

But GH not only never reached that point, it never even approached it. I mean, there are very few actual GH sourcebooks (unless you count adventures, which I'm not), and those are scattered across three editions and are VERY inconsistent in quality (to be generous).

Really, we never had a sourcebook to detail any major areas of the World of Greyhawk in any detail until, what, some lousy 2e softbound on the Scarlet Brotherhood with super-crappy art and no real passion to it? Unless, again, you count the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which I guess I should, but that came out when TSR was floundering and trying to support fifty lines of often crappy products at the same time- an approach which meant, at least at my FLGS at the time, they would get one copy of 1/5 the released material in and hope to God that someone would buy it, and half the time they ended up with Jakandor or something sitting on the shelf forever instead. The whole model that TSR was using by that time was counterproductive to actually building sales, IMHO. (See the famous Ryan Dancey article about warehouses full of material that never went anywhere.)

I don't think a static timeline is necessarily the best approach to a setting, but I think there was plenty to be fleshed out without advancing the timeline; and I further think that there was plenty of room to advance the timeline without burning huge elements of the setting down (GH Wars, I'm looking at you).

I mean, we could've had a Great Kingdom sourcebook; a Wild Coast sourcebook; a Lords of the Isles sourcebook; a (good) Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook; a Furyondy & Veluna & the Shield Lands sourcebook; a Bandit Kingdoms sourcebook; a Geoff & the lands of the southwest sourcebook; a Perrenland sourcebook; a Horned Society sourcebook; a Lands of Iuz sourcebook; a detailed religion sourcebook (c.f. Faiths and Avatars); etc. None of this stuff (other than the Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook) ever got made.

Compare to the dozens of "Detailing This Region in Excruciating Detail" sourcebooks of 1e and 2e FR material, and it seems like there was a huge disparity in effort, which I suspect had to do with the "Screw Gygax and the world he rode in on" attitude of some in TSR back at the time.

I have massive problems with the Greyhawk Wars (beginning with their name, which makes no sense in-world) and From the Ashes, but the one thing they did absolutely right was change Greyhawk from a setting you could place adventures in into a setting that inspired adventures.

Hmm. See, I found the original folio, and then the WoGH boxed set, to be very inspiring. But this is a matter of taste. I felt like every area had something going on in it that I wanted to explore. "Oh, you're going to Stonefist? Cool, barbarian wrestling match time!" But YMMV on this.

And then Greyhawk dies. Ivid the Undying is (ironically) cancelled and only released as an electronic document a couple of years later. The shake up of the world has failed. It's actually hard to tell from the outside whether this is more due to internal politics or bad sales...

I think there's room to argue that the internal politics/Gygax-hate created the bad sales.

It's 1998 when Greyhawk is next visited. Roger E Moore is in charge of Greyhawk now, and Wizards own TSR. From 1998-2000, we have Wizards attempting to fix Greyhawk. The year is advanced to 591 CY, and a bunch of clean-up work is done to make the feel of the world much more like that of the original boxed set, whilst retaining the idea that the setting generates adventures. Unfortunately, the actual adventures published are lacklustre. Return to the Tomb of Horrors isn't that bad, but the Star Cairns series are extremely forgettable.

But again, at least with RttToH, it isn't really a GH adventure so much as an adventure that just happens to be set in GH. There's really nothing in there that's tied to the world except for a few passing mentions of geography. Even the new Starter Set is tied more heavily to the FR than that, with factions and so forth.

I can't speak to the Star Cairn modules, as I never saw them. Maybe this is the era I missed, actually!

And after about 12 products, we're done. The culmination of this era is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, which is one of the true gems of Greyhawk products.

Now, I did see one copy of this on the shelf at my FLGS once, and it looked pretty good.

After that, it's the 3E era, and although the first eight 3E adventures are, in theory, set in Greyhawk, they aren't really, and there's a lot of Living Greyhawk material which is mostly invisible to the larger D&D population. And there's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which has its own, major problems.

All agreed here.

 

[SirAntoine]

There were some extra setting books, such as Iuz the Evil and The Marklands, which I was never able to pick up because their prices out-of-print were so high. They have done very little, generally speaking, to develop the setting, and the Greyhawk Wars to From the Ashes storyline is more than a little ridiculous. There are people who bought From the Ashes, and built entire campaigns out of it, but who never realized that it's so different from the original. It isn't that it's bad, just that the story for how the world got to that point is absurd. They reshaped the world very quickly, and totally changed its flavor. The cover of the boxed set tells it all: an undead knight riding a horse in front of a burning castle, with the color of flames everywhere. The Great Kingdom became an absolutely morbid place, more suited to a domain of Ravenloft, and Iuz emerged from captivity to conquer this huge empire, and the Scarlet Brotherhood somehow managed to conquer several powerful nations that had resisted all manner of infiltration and wars in the past, from within, by assassinations at the highest levels of government.

The setting is ripe for a new vision, perhaps best revisiting the World of Greyhawk boxed set just like the Forgotten Realms, for all their support, might be better off with a revisiting of the old grey box.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I actually really like Iuz the evil find it a great book to expand on Iuz's lands.

On 3.e era Greyhawk. I found Expedition to Castle Greyhawk to be pretty great. The cartographer for it Mike Schley even appears to be willing to give me player versions of the maps he made for Castle Greyhawk. I plan on ruing a 5e version of it and I think it will be mighty fun.

 

[MerricB]

I am? Sorry- I'm not sure which one you're referring to, exactly; could you clarify this point for me?

The 1998-2000 releases were the ones I was referring to, which tried to bring Greyhawk back a bit to the original setting.

But GH not only never reached that point, it never even approached it. I mean, there are very few actual GH sourcebooks (unless you count adventures, which I'm not), and those are scattered across three editions and are VERY inconsistent in quality (to be generous).

Agreed. (Actually, I'd almost say they're very consistent in quality, but it's not on the good end of quality).

Unless, again, you count the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which I guess I should,

You probably should. Fate of Istus also has some important source info, even though most of the product is just plain bad.

I don't think a static timeline is necessarily the best approach to a setting, but I think there was plenty to be fleshed out without advancing the timeline; and I further think that there was plenty of room to advance the timeline without burning huge elements of the setting down (GH Wars, I'm looking at you).

There was. The trouble was that, in 1990, you've got a setting that has been around for 10+ years and nothing's really been done with the setting. In retrospect, we can tell why the changes were a bad idea, but there are a lot of elements of the concept that *aren't* bad ideas. Heck, I really like the idea of Iuz trying to gain control of the Barbarians and accidentally provoking this major conflict. I just don't like where it went from there. "Five Shall Be One" is a pretty good adventure. "Howl from the North" is trash.

I mean, we could've had a Great Kingdom sourcebook; a Wild Coast sourcebook; a Lords of the Isles sourcebook; a (good) Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook; a Furyondy & Veluna & the Shield Lands sourcebook; a Bandit Kingdoms sourcebook; a Geoff & the lands of the southwest sourcebook; a Perrenland sourcebook; a Horned Society sourcebook; a Lands of Iuz sourcebook; a detailed religion sourcebook (c.f. Faiths and Avatars); etc. None of this stuff (other than the Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook) ever got made.

Well, they planned to do so. The From the Ashes era did a lot of those sourcebooks, but - unfortunately - it was the wrong setting.

Hmm. See, I found the original folio, and then the WoGH boxed set, to be very inspiring. But this is a matter of taste. I felt like every area had something going on in it that I wanted to explore. "Oh, you're going to Stonefist? Cool, barbarian wrestling match time!" But YMMV on this.

There's a lot of great stuff in the original boxed set (there's a reason its my baseline for my campaigns), but you need to compare it to the LGG to really see the difference.

But again, at least with RttToH, it isn't really a GH adventure so much as an adventure that just happens to be set in GH. There's really nothing in there that's tied to the world except for a few passing mentions of geography. Even the new Starter Set is tied more heavily to the FR than that, with factions and so forth.

Yep. Absolutely.

I can't speak to the Star Cairn modules, as I never saw them. Maybe this is the era I missed, actually!

That's the one!

Now, I did see one copy of this on the shelf at my FLGS once, and it looked pretty good.

It's really good. It's still flawed, but you should try to pick up a copy if you can.

Cheers!

 

[Parmandur]

I am personally excited to see what is in store for new setting support in 5E. And as far as Greyhawk is concerned, it is one of the four settings given priority in the PHB, and they go out of the way to call it out as different in the DMG, as well.

Time will tell...

 

[aramis erak]

I remember being underwhelmed by the entirety of the Greyhawk materials... which for me, basically means the 83 boxed set and the hardcover. I used the maps occasionally, mostly as wall decoration...

Almost anything they do is likely to be better than those two, IMO. But I'm still unlikely to use it.