I ran out of time after responding to Helldritch's post. So, I will try to continue later.
Demi-humans are slowly disapearing as humans take all the place in the worlds. The eleven solution has been either reclusion and isolationism (Celene) or inclusion and alliance (Vesve) and few other of inbetween. The humanocentrism should be a thing. The decline of the demi-humans should be played out and shown with a good emphasis.
Okay, see this is interesting, but it almost makes me want to say that while the world is humanocentric the setting shouldn't be.
I could find it very interesting and compelling to have a world where you are dying out and struggling to survive, not because the world is a blasted wasteland, but because humanity is out-competing you. That sounds more interesting than focusing on human's building castles and making kingdoms like humans always do.
To answer this would require a lot. Greyhawk grew because the Old Great Kingdom was in decline. It used to be an empire spanning almost the entire eastern continent but fell in decadence and lost many of its peripheral provinces. Like Furyondy, Nyrond and others. Greyhawk was such a starting province when the Great Kindom let it loose. It took Zaggig Yragren and his imperialistic views to bring Greyhawk into what it is now. Naturally, Zaggig didn't care one iota about the city or the citizen and they were "free" to do as they pleased as long as he had a steady source of income to further is ascencion into godhood (which he did succeede to attain). The Freedom accorded by Zaggig to his citizen was unheard of in a pseudo medieval society and Greyhawk was the first of such cities. Thus the name Free City stuck. Remember than in a foedal state, peasant, serfs and almost anyone else belong to the nobility which can almost do anything with their "property". Thus the idea of free men, emanating from Greyhawk spread to other lands and prompted a more "civilized" to what could and should not be done to people.
Woof, are we talking a few hundred years ago or is Greyhawk literally one of the few places in the region where being a yeoman (if I have my terms correct) is a thing?
Because if the vast majority of the population of the setting are "land slaves" that is kind of dark and hard to work around.
I don't know that Anime. Don't even care to watch or read it. Could you make me an entire resumé of the serie with detailed information so that I can make my mind? It would really help me to understand why you love that anime.
See? What you say can be turned around. If you have never read Conan, Games of Throne, Elric or any other fantasy book, you might have seen some relevant movies? Conan? Lords of the rings? This circular logic isn't going anywhere and it is almost bad faith.
So I shouldn't even try?
The only one of those I have read and seen is LoTR, and even I can tell that setting is nothing like Greyhawk in tone. Not the Greyhawk people are describing anyways.
And, if I can't be brought into the setting enough to understand it, without reading two or three different authors or doing a bunch of research... then the hooks are buried too deep. I can't hook someone with "Go do the research, you will love it."
Greyhawk can be resumed this way: It is a blend of sword and sorcery where magic is rare but not unheard of. Powerful magic users and priests do exist but they are rare to the extreme. It is a world where some gods litteraly walk the earth and either kill or help the mortals according to their whims. The world was ravaged by many world shaking event and it is now recuperating from such an event barely. Humans forms the vast majority of the world's population and demi-humans are on the brink of extinction because of man's folly and their own too. Yet, some countries are bright examples of order and goodness but they have suffered from the war too. You can have the LG knight in shining armor fight demons one day only to see him besieged in his castle by his LG neighbor the next because of dispute in territory.
I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and be accused of lionfishing and discussing and bad faith, because I don't get how any of this is different from FR, or a dozen other fantasy worlds I could find.
Is "Powerful magic users and priests" meant to refer to level 5? Level 10? Level 15? Is that the difference because when you say "powerful priests" you mean that finding a level 5 cleric is hard? That is low magic compared to most settings, but level 10... it is hard to find a level 10 priest in most settings.
Gods walk the earth in a dozen different settings. World Shaking events? Got em in spades. Humans form the majority of the world? Always. Good people fighting Good people? Every good setting has that.
The only thing I have rarely seen are the demi-humans on the brink of extinction. The only other time I can think of seeing that is LoTR, where magic is dying. And that doesn't seem to be an aspect most people want to focus on for the setting.
Go ahead and let the accusations fly I guess, because I'm lost. You could be describing anything to me with that. Heck, isn't Theros most of that? Other than demi-humans almost being extinct you have world-shaking events, human majority, powerful (level 10 and up) casters are rare. I guess magic is fairly common for the PCs, but they are the heroes of legends. The common man doesn't have any of that wonder that the chosen of the gods have.
The world is just recuperating from a major war. People were on their way to find the truths of the past but the war put a major set back on these discoveries. Contrary to other settings. Your players when they reach high level, are a force to be reckoned with. They can be the world changers. They are not minor players, they are the major league. Even in mid level, they get more respect from the people in charge than in any other setting. When the lord that hires you is barely above your level (if he has any). He is not going to talk to you as if you owed him. He will expect respect, but he will give you respect too. If you can kill the dragon plaguing is land and he can't; he's better be nice with you.
Where does this idea come from that in other settings level 15 and up players are minor forces? I've never experienced this in any setting.
Heck, at mid-levels, the party is fairly confident that they can kill any force the local lord sends after us, except another party of adventurers.
This idea that Greyhawk is somehow unique in the fact that lords have to respect powerful warriors, and that high level players are major forces in the world is boggling to me. I guess, maybe in FR people are used to being told they are big fish in thimble sized ponds, but the only difference between a level 15 mage and whoever the leader of Thay is (to my knowledge) is that one of them has an army of mages to send after the other.
And yeah, building an organization takes time and effort, which is why it makes people stronger.
Exactly. There is a lot of room to expand kingdoms or even to create your own.
That could be a hook for a setting. But I think everyone old to the setting would hate carte blanche to divide the map and and make their own.
