Forked Thread: What is so special about Greyhawk?

[B4cchus]

Forked from: What is so special about Greyhawk?

I think Nitescreed defined the nuts & bolts of the setting best

Hi All,

I've been interrested in ramping up a long term Greyhawk campaign (several, actually), making it my default campaign world. Reading the above forked thread spiced up my enthousiasm for this once again.
What material do you advice for starting out in Greyhawk? I know that there are several boxes and books that have bene published throughout the various (a)d&d editions.

Without stocking every single GH book that was ever published, which book(s) is the best one for running a campaign by?
What I am looking for is mostly a good description of it's lands, people (and half-fiends,(demi-)gods, etc), politics and organisations. Stats are less imnportant, since I can make those up myself (making older edition material not a problem although I play 3.5).

Offcourse I will be adding more material later on, but I want a good point to start from (and one with which I can start directly).

Thanks!

 

[billd91]

My favorite source is known as the Greyhawk Folio. It's title is actually World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting and its copyright date is 1983. If you can find a copy of that, I think you'll enjoy it.

I also use the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, copyright 2000.

Either, or even better since they cover slightly different time frames (pre and post war), both are good sources for running a campaign.

I would also check out Greyhawk resources on the web. Canonfire! World of Greyhawk on the Web had some very nice maps that someone drafted up of parts of Greyhawk. Big files, but beautifully done.

 

[timbannock]

After a ton of research into this very topic, I ultimately was ready to buy the PDF of Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins (for the City of Greyhawk info) and the Players Guide to Greyhawk (for the info on races, especially the history of the different human "tribes").

The Living Greyhawk Gazeteer was pretty much like the Encyclopedia of Greyhawk, if you're more interested in the various places and some of the deities.

Of course, with WOTC taking down the PDFs, these plans were dashed.

The original Greyhawk boxed set was well loved, though I believe there were some inconsistencies. Also, the books I cited above all have a potential flaw: they took into account the Greyhawk Wars, which some fans think were a bunch of crap. So you may want to decide on timeline first (Wars or no Wars?) and purchase based on that. But the books I've cited seem to be the most "complete" in terms of general Greyhawk info.

 

[jaerdaph]

I like these:

Greyhawk Grognard

Dragonsfoot.org's Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk Forum

The grodog's Greyhawk Adventures

 

[aboyd]

There are tons of eBay auctions for Greyhawk books -- 69 as I write this. You could pick up a Gazetteer for a few bucks. That's all you really need to start, assuming it comes with a map.

greyhawk -jayco, Books, Toys Hobbies items on eBay.com

 

[grodog]

Without stocking every single GH book that was ever published, which book(s) is the best one for running a campaign by?
What I am looking for is mostly a good description of it's lands, people (and half-fiends,(demi-)gods, etc), politics and organisations. Stats are less imnportant, since I can make those up myself (making older edition material not a problem although I play 3.5).

The best GH products are essentially editionless: the 1980 folio outlines the major national and geographic features of the setting; the 1983 boxed set expands on this by adding detail about GH's human races and their gods (you'll still want the Dragon Archive for the Suel gods, which were published after this set was published); the 2000 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer further expands the number of gods detailed, as well as the amount of content about them. It's also, by far, the most easily-found and least-expensive GH setting resource.

For maps, the 1980/1983 Darlene maps are best, followed by the Paizo GH Maps from Dungeon Magazine. The map in LGG is OK, but not great.

If you're planning to leverage the City of Greyhawk, the 1989 GH: The Adventure Begins is a good update to the 1989 City of GH boxed set (never made available on .pdf), as is Maldin's Living Greyhawk Journal #2 map of the city. Otherwise you don't really need that if you've picked up the 1980s resources or the LGG.

If you have other questions or areas you want to focus on, I'm sure we can provide additional product pointers!

 

[timbannock]

Holy crap, that site with the map of Greyhawk City is awesome!

 

[grodog]

Holy crap, that site with the map of Greyhawk City is awesome!

That's the actual map that was published in LGJ#2, and Denis created a sewers map too: his site in general is chock-full of good GH content, and is well-worth checking out.

My favorite GH sites appear @ grodog's Favorite Greyhawk Links

 

[Lidgar]

The Oerth Journal is pretty sweet. Also several issues of Dungeon have highlighted many areas of Greyhawk. But the Gazetteer and the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk are great starting places.

 

[alleynbard]

That's the actual map that was published in LGJ#2, and Denis created a sewers map too: his site in general is chock-full of good GH content, and is well-worth checking out.

My favorite GH sites appear @ grodog's Favorite Greyhawk Links

I owe Denis a great deal of thanks. His site helped mold my idea of the Codex of Infinite Planes. In fact, the Codex was the crux of my campaign in Ptolus. It propelled the story forward and helped end it in style.