D&D General Greyhawk: Snarf's Guide to Ready-Made Campaign Themes!

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist
Supporter
Well, if you were dreading another post by me, you can blame @trappedslider ... that's right. I remember you calling me out.

GREYHAWK! I mean, I've written (checks) approximately 594 essays on it, and worked hard to make fetch #JUSTICE4BARGLE #GREYHAWKCONFIRMED happen, so I should be happy, right? And I am! Look, I think Greyhawk is an amazing setting, and after a great deal of reflection, I think that the strengths of the Greyhawk that I fell in love with are what they are showcasing by putting it in the new DMG for 5e! Part Deux- Dumb and Dumberer .

So what do I mean by that? Well, what I loved most about Greyhawk was that unlike later settings, it wasn't a setting that heavy on lore... it was a setting that sketched out a place, but mostly was "hooks," - little nuggets that a table could develop in all sorts of ways. I loved Greyhawk because it gave me basic scaffolding, but otherwise was a place of mysteries that were left open for every table to answer in their own way. My Greyhawk was mine, and it was different than yours. And that made it great. Greyhawk let you have it your way.

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But given that openness, I thought I'd put together a few thoughts and ideas that might let newer DMs and players see some of the themes and ideas that they could develop (or not!) however they might choose. So, with all of that throat clearing out of the way ... here are some of the Greyhawk concepts and ideas that you hear about, along with my take if applicable.


Necessary Disclaimer About Time and Lore- One thing that pops up when discussing some campaign settings is "canon" or "lore." I don't want to get into the weeds here, but there are essentially two camps (I know, there are more, but I am simplifying) regarding "Greyhawk"- the 1983/576 camp and the 3e/591 camp. The 1983/576 camp is basically, "Greyhawk is what was in the Boxed Set, and the Darlene Map, and 576 CY is the year for Greyhawk." The 3e camp adds the later 2e/3e lore and advances the timeline to 591 CY. The various later offerings (the wars, the post-war ashes material, the "Living Greyhawk" material and shared world from the 3e era) certainly brought in additional fans that enjoyed the setting, and there are some real gems (such as the boxed set City of Greyhawk or the Moore/Reynolds attempts to reset the setting to something close to the Gygaxian roots). For the most part, fans tend to gravitate toward either the 576 CY timeline (Gygax) or the 591 CY timeline (Moore/Reynolds/Living), as the intervening War and Ashes tends to downplay the strengths of the setting.

I am only going to deal with the 576 CY timeline, both because it's my preference, and because that appears to be what the map in the DMG is depicting. This is not meant to slight in any way the fans of the later material, who have valid points and their own distinct preferences. Nor will I be incorporating Canonfire material, which is a wonderful fan website devoted to Greyhawk. These ideas are treating Greyhawk as essentially open to interpretation, with only sketches of ideas as seen in the '83 material.

Second Necessary Disclaimer About Anthropocentrism- Given the threads and the heat on this issue, I will only state that Greyhawk is "humanocentric" only to the limited extent that humans are the primary political forces in the Flanaess. Greyhawk has always had new races introduced into it, and you can do anything with the vast areas of Oerth that aren't on the map. There is no difference between a dragonborn today and a half-ogre or duergar in the past. Good?

Whew! Okay, some ideas! These are a few themes and concepts you can weave into your campaign, if you choose to do so.


A. Greyhawk as Fantasy Mad Max
Greyhawk is, many ways, almost a post-apocalyptic, with scattered civilizations holding out against the dying of the light. The Flanaess was once a place of great civilizations. Empires of unimaginable power and magic ruled the land, until they crumbled into dust, victims of their own hubris- the Suel and Bakluns will never have the power again of the Rain of Colorless Fire and Invoked Devastation. Today, the great powers are corrupted from within (the Great Kingdom) or teetering on the edge; a few proud city-states, such as Onnwal, Greyhawk, and Dyvers welcoming traders from far and wide, but much of the land is empty and desolate, with villages and hommlets scraping by meager existences, and the presence of raiding parties a constant threat.

The greatest powers lie within tombs, hidden away in forgotten ruins and within wrecked cities covered by jungle, long forgotten, waiting for discovery, or, worse, waiting to be awakened.

Part and parcel of this is the idea that Greyhawk is desolate. I don't want to get into the population debate, but as originally published, the Flanaess is huge, and the population? Not so much. The places on the map between cities and towns are truly empty, filled with marauders, raiders, or those just clinging on.


B. The Evil is Real, and It's Spectacular
There are plenty of good and good-adjacent nations. But they tend to fight amongst themselves. Meanwhile, real evil walks the world and cooperates and coordinates in its plans. Iuz, an actual evil demigod, rules a kingdom bent on expansion. The Great Kingdom is rules by malevolence. And the Scarlet, um, Order... they are planning machinations within schemes. Evil gods, evil emperors, and Nazi monks. What's not to like?

Oh, there's also ... another thing. BUT WE DON'T SAY THE NAME, DO WE!


C. Muscular Neutrality Just Got Back from the Gym
In addition to all the evil, Greyhawk has a concept that isn't used much anymore- muscular neutrality. The idea that "neutral" characters were not simply staying out of things, but were actively helping both good and evil in order to maintain a balance between the two sides.

So there were powerful forces of neutrality (such as the "Circle of Eight") that would assist both good and evil in order to ensure that neither became dominant. If your table has a typical "good" group, they might find that the same NPCs who are allies at one time are playing for the other team another time in order to maintain that balance. More importantly, with this "balance" idea, it isn't always about defeating evil- because good, just like evil, must be kept in check.


D. Gonzo and Greyhawk? Both start with G!
The barriers to the multiverse are permeable in Greyhawk; there are rumors of a crashed metal vehicle in the Barrier Peaks, and of shimmering portals to many worlds within the ruins of Castle Greyhawk including one that you larger, and one that makes you small (but the ones that Gygax gives you... don't do anything at all...).

Look, I know that some people don't like science fiction and craziness in their fantasy- and if that is the case, you don't have to put in the weirdness. But "gonzo" has long antecedents in Greyhawk. Characters went to the "old west" and even came back with firearms (Murlynd)*, there were "machines" and robots as artifacts, characters ended up in Metamorphosis Alpha or Wonderland, and so on. And, of course, one of the canonical modules is on a crashed space ship. You can add in as much or as little gonzo as you want.

*There is a debate about whether or not gunpowder works in Greyhawk, or you need smoke powder, or whatever. Do what you want.


E. Politics - Less Nice than the West Wing Makes You Think
The nations of the Flanaess are in constant competition with each other. There are theocracies and bandit kingdoms, free cities and associations of free yeoman, territories ruled by demigods and crazed possessed emperors; but while alliances are easily made, they are more easily broken. Most nations, even the "good" ones, are looking to expand, and all of them are terrified of any new rising power.

The politics of Greyhawk are always shifting, and even the nominal "good" powers often find themselves at odds, or even at arms against each other. If you want to explore the dark arts of politics and diplomacy with a side of armies on the move, you can do it in Greyhawk.


F. Greyhawk as ... Lower Magic
I am NOT going to kick off a debate about low magic! So let me explain... Fundamentally, Greyhawk is a setting in which there is, and has been, powerful magic, but the most powerful magic occurred in the past. Whether it's the artifacts and relics (insanely powerful magic items from a bygone age) or the spells (the invoked devastation and rain of colorless fire), there is a recurrent theme of the power of the past compared to the present and the future. This also helps explain one theme in D&D- the reason adventurers can find all this loot (money and magic) buried and lost is precisely because the past was a foreign country of untold power.

Eberron can make more internal sense as a setting. If you have the ability to churn out "always on" light, then why wouldn't you have lighting to counteract the darkness being churned out? Greyhawk, on the other hand, has more of the idea of the "selfish spellcaster," .... there is no (or almost no) spellcasting for the general weal. Resurrection and healing are rare and expensive. Plagues are still ravaging the world, without abundant magical cures. That isolated villages still fear the night beyond their limited fires because there aren't magical lights everywhere.

And this has other impacts, as well. Greyhawk, as a setting, has battles. Big battles, with mundane troops. If spellcasting was common and endemic, those types of battles would be, at a minimum, much more difficult to pull off. So when thinking about this, if you choose to use this, then-
1. In Greyhawk, magic is not prevalent, not accounted for, or excused away due to reasons. There is disease, there are battles of regular troops.
2. Greyhawk will have fewer spellcasting NPCs. They exist, and they can be very powerful (Mordenkainen) or even get to god status (Zagyg), but they are interested in their own thing, not in the PCs. Wizards tend to stick to themselves and pursue their own agendas- not yours.
3. Magic items are not made or produced any more in any quantity, but powerful magic from prior eras are still around and can be found by those who venture to find it.

If you do choose to add this theme, it will mean that adventurers (such as the PCs in the party) will automatically be at least a bit special from the very beginning- because they gots the magicks!


G. Gunnin' for Immortality
Greyhawk is a setting where gods do walk the earth (Iuz and Zagyg and Cuthbert and DEREK! after a few shots). Gods can be killed. And PCs can become gods themselves.

Certain personages (Murlynd, Keoghtom, Heward, Daern, Johydee, Nolzur, Quaal and Tuerny) are quasi-deities. In effect, they have reached the steeping stone to "demi-god" status when you get removed from play. Powerful adventurers in Greyhawk eventually can ascend to quasi-deity status and then, eventually, to godhood.

So Greyhawk is a place, not just where there was plenty of land to carve out your keep or citadel or mage's tower when you reached name level, but a place where the most intrepid and powerful adventurers could both kill deities and become ones themselves. Because the barrier between the divine and the mortal is porous.


These are some broad ideas, sketched out, that anyone can use or adapt to their Greyhawk Campaign. But do you know what makes Greyhawk so special? You can ignore all of these ideas completely and run Greyhawk however you want it. In the end, my only hope is that some number of people new to the setting find that their Greyhawk brings them as much joy as my Greyhawk brought to me.

Also? Bargle was totes framed.
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
but there are essentially two camps (I know, there are more, but I am simplifying) regarding "Greyhawk"- the 1983/576 camp and the 3e/591 camp. The 1983/576 camp is basically, "Greyhawk is what was in the Boxed Set, and the Darlene Map, and 576 CY is the year for Greyhawk."
I am the secret third thing: I prefer the 1E timeline, but nostalgia 3E vibes from my youth.
 




Warpiglet-7

Lord of the depths
I am a Greyhawk neophyte compared to many…

But I am just down with Greyhawk deities…

We just got done playing 5e in Greyhawk and Iuz was walking tall! We got him
Semi contained but died in a big exploration of magic…we are now in the 9 hells smd
Under a pact we did not want but the point…

Iuz is a bad bad guy and fun to hate!

I think for me some of these tidbits are one of the bigger achievements of Gygax. Everyone takes about the Jupiter to his Zeus but they are imitations!
 



Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist
Supporter
Alright, it sounds like basically the whole WoG Folio made it in, 30 pages worth

So a quick info drop for those who are curious.

I always say that my go-to is the 1983 boxed set (aka the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting). I think it is the perfect amount without being too much.

That said, the 1980 edition of Greyhawk (the Folio) is also great! So I will briefly discuss the differences, for those who are curious or might buy the .pdfs of them:

Between 1980 and 1983, there were a lot of Dragon Magazine articles that fleshed out a few things about GH, and the Boxed Set (hereafter the "Box") incorporates some of that. So the Box goes from the 32 pages of the Folio to 128 pages (two booklets, one with 40 pages and one with 80 pages). Some of the increased length (but only some!) is because TSR changed their graphic design- the Folio is CRAMPED and while the Box looks cramped to modern readers, the margins and font size are much better and easier to read than the Folio.

Major additions:
1. The Deities. The Box added 50 deities.
2. Country descriptions. The Box doesn't significantly change country descriptions (but the Box is better), but does add information (names of rulers) and changes details (populations).
3. Runes. Weirdly, the folio has more runes than the Box.
4. Added information- everything from social hierarchies to weather tables to encounters to more adventure seeds and hooks.

With all that said, the core information in the Folio is the same as the Box. However, if you're getting a pdf, I would recommend the Box.
 

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Awesome! I’ve never really messed around with Greyhawk, except in the incredibly vague sense that at some point I played 3.5e and didn’t mess around with its setting assumptions too much. I’m really interested to dive a bit deeper into it with 5.24. The way you pitch it sounds very familiar to exactly what appealed to me about my own favorite setting, Nentir Vale.

The one point here that is not so appealing to me is this idea of “muscular neutrality.” I’ve always found the whole “balance must be maintained, too much good could be just as bad as too much evil” thing a bit… I don’t know, silly? It’s one thing to have villains who represent traditionally “good” ideals pushed to an evil extreme, but actually having the ascendancy of good be some sort of existential threat due to “imbalance” just doesn’t work for me. Fortunately, it sounds like the setting is flexible enough that this theme can be safely ignored. Though in my understanding there are some fairly prominent “muscular neutral” characters in the setting, such as Mordenkainen. I wonder about maybe including them, but portraying them as misguided - having the need for balance being a belief they hold rather than truly being important for the wellbeing of the cosmos.
 

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