Greyhawk: Favorite regions for campaigns.

What's your favorite region in the Flanaess?

  • Domain of Greyhawk and environs - Greyhawk City, Hardby, Wild Coast, Bright Lands, Abbor-Alz, Cairn

    Votes: 34 21.5%
  • Western Nyr Dyv ("Old Ferrond") - Furyondy, Veluna, Highfolk, Celene, Dyvers, Verbobonc, reclaimed p

    Votes: 33 20.9%
  • The Sheldomar Valley ("Old Keoland") - Keoland, Ulek states, Pomarj, Gran March, Bissell, Vale of th

    Votes: 46 29.1%
  • The Baklunish West (former Baklunish empire) - Ekbir, Zeif, Tusmit, Ull, Plains of the Paynims, Dry

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • The Bitter North ("Old Blackmoor") - Wolf and Tiger Nomads, Blackmoor, Perrenland, Land of Black Ice

    Votes: 6 3.8%
  • The Empire of Iuz - Iuz, Horned Society, conquered part of the Shield Lands, Bandit Lands, Rovers of

    Votes: 5 3.2%
  • Thillonrian Peninsula ("Barbarian North") - Stonehold, Ice Barbarians (Cruski), Frost Barbarians (Fr

    Votes: 1 0.6%
  • Old Aerdy West ("Old Nyrond") - Nyrond, Urnst States, Theocracy of the Pale, parts of Tenh

    Votes: 6 3.8%
  • Old Aerdy East (former Great Kingdom) - Great Kingdom of Northern Aerdy, Ratik, Bone March, United K

    Votes: 10 6.3%
  • Isolated Realms - Tilvanot Peninsula (Scarlet Brotherood), Lordship of the Isles, Sea Barons, Spindr

    Votes: 8 5.1%
  • Beyond the Flanaess - lands off the map, either from the expanded continental map, Chainmail, or of

    Votes: 7 4.4%


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Southern Nyrond and the area near the Bright Desert was my very first campaign. Nyrond got modified to be "Roman" in style and was still fighting the Great Kingdom, with a Vietnam DMZ style area between them.

Then I ripped the fabric of reality and transported my major city and the surrounding duchy to my homebrew.
 

The Lendore Isles....the real ones, from before they were taken over by elves by the time of Out of the Ashes (I have no idea why that was done, perfectly good little corner of the world away from the madding crowd....did someone have something against Lenard Lakofka?). Secret of Bone Hill/Assassin's Knot/Deep Dwarven Delve are an excellent basis for a campaign.

Either that, or Blackmoor. Frederick Weining's writeup of the place in Oerth Journal, transplanted to the Gazetteer, is pure quality. It's also an ancient and mysterious place, what with black ice on the doorstep, the old magic infusing the land which keeps Iuz at bay, and quirky bits and pieces from Arneson's Blackmoor, such as the Egg of Coot.
 

I had to throw my vote in for Sheldomar Valley mainly because I have played Living Greyhawk for a few years and my home region is Bissel, therefore it is the region I am most familiar with.

A few years ago I ran the old adventure set The Sentinel and The Gauntlet. I forget exactly where that takes place (I think it was in the southwest part of the map). That was a fun couple of adventures. I don't have the modules handy and I can't recall the region.
 

I said Western Nyr Dyv, but that's because I'm currently playing in my first ever Greyhawk game, and it's good, but I don't have any experience outside of this part of the Flaness.
 

Olive said:
I said Western Nyr Dyv, but that's because I'm currently playing in my first ever Greyhawk game, and it's good, but I don't have any experience outside of this part of the Flaness.

Stay where you are, Olive. It's scary away from there. :D

Cheers!
 

the last GH game I DMd (back before the Greyhawk wars that so screwed everything up) was set in Sunndi... set between the Kingdom of Aerdy and the Vast Swamp, it is a pretty interesting place to live....
 

The funny thing about all the regions of the Flanaess is that they all seem the *same*. In other words, no deep cultural distinctions have ever been made in published material (with the exception of the Western Bakluni lands which are clearly "Arabian").

Now, I'm not having a go at Greyhawk for this. I've run the GH setting for 15+ years now and I love the world. I've just found that it depends on my *own* creativity to make the region unique rather than anything that is published. This serves GH well, though. You don't want a campaign setting to choke you to death with information and *force* you to do it the *official* way (Forgotten Realms?). [This isn't Realms bashing here. The Realms is great. This is more of a "project management" gripe I have with FR.] GH is great because it's a fairly basic template that the GM can use as a springboard for ideas.

I'm currently running a campaign in Geoff and it's going great. I've followed the Giant War story arc and the Drow plotting, etc. etc. I'm very keen to see the Dungeon issue with Istivin in it. :)
 

Yeah, dead, you've hit the nail on the head. People like Greyhawk because it's just fleshed out enough that you can run any generic adventure anywhere you want, without having to conform to the endless detailed canon material of other settings. Yet it's original enough that it doesn't seem like some cheap Tolkien knockoff. Greyhawk is the perfect base world, ready to be customized by creative DMs.

Personally, I like the Gnarley Forest and Cairn Hills the most, followed by the Pomarj, Geoff and the Valley of the Mage. Probably because that's what I read about during my introduction to D&D.
 

All hail Perrenland! OK, so I'm in Australia, and its the region we got assigned for Living Greyhawk, but its a great region. Enough politics to keep hardcore role-players happy, and with Iuz over to the east, and the legacy of Iggwilv in the west, there's plenty of opportunities to bust skulls!
 

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