At GaryCon this week, Luke Gygax and WotC's Dan Ayoub announced that Gygax was working on a book called Melf's Guide to Greyhawk. No other information is known at this time, other than that Gygax is also working on adventures.
Luke is the son of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax. The character Melf--of Melf's acid arrow fame--was his player character back in Gygax's home game in the 1970s.
Dan Ayoub: I think probably the thing that I'm excited about many things that we're going to be doing, one of the biggest things I'm most excited about is Luke coming back into the franchise and we're going to be doing some stuff together. You want to talk a little bit about uh what we're going to be doing?
Luke Gygax: Yeah, absolutely. So, obviously I grew up playing in Greyhawk and so that was something special to me and it has, you know, meaning and if you look at the names, that beautiful map that Darlene did and Darlene was here at Gary Con if you to talk to her. That beautiful map that she created, the names on there are a lot named after not only my family, but a lot of friends and relatives, so it's a place where I did all those adventures as Otis the Ranger and Hommlet and you know Steading the Hill Giant Chief and the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and sent into the the Underdark, to the depths.
All those places are seminal memories for me and so getting a chance to put my stamp or my input or return to Greyhawk and kind of keep the Gygax of Greyhawk really. I said "Yes let's do this", he said "Is there any chance...?" I was like "Yes, yes, yes there is there's a big chance let's do this thing!" and so that's going to be great and and you know I was working on with some because Greyhawk was was not supported for a long time officially, but there's a huge community that loves Greyhawk. And so I was getting together with some of those folks, you know, Anna Meyer, who does all the maps and that sort of stuff, and J Scott and a few others, and I was talking about doing a, you know, unofficial, Melf's Guide, and putting in there. And so, we're working on that, and we're looking to put that out officially through Wizards of the Coast, which would be awesome. I love that idea.
And there's a few other things where I'm going to be writing some adventures primarily in Greyhawk because that's my first love was adventuring in Greyhawk and the cast of Greyhawk, whether it was as Otis or Melf....
Luke Gygax: Yeah, absolutely. So, obviously I grew up playing in Greyhawk and so that was something special to me and it has, you know, meaning and if you look at the names, that beautiful map that Darlene did and Darlene was here at Gary Con if you to talk to her. That beautiful map that she created, the names on there are a lot named after not only my family, but a lot of friends and relatives, so it's a place where I did all those adventures as Otis the Ranger and Hommlet and you know Steading the Hill Giant Chief and the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and sent into the the Underdark, to the depths.
All those places are seminal memories for me and so getting a chance to put my stamp or my input or return to Greyhawk and kind of keep the Gygax of Greyhawk really. I said "Yes let's do this", he said "Is there any chance...?" I was like "Yes, yes, yes there is there's a big chance let's do this thing!" and so that's going to be great and and you know I was working on with some because Greyhawk was was not supported for a long time officially, but there's a huge community that loves Greyhawk. And so I was getting together with some of those folks, you know, Anna Meyer, who does all the maps and that sort of stuff, and J Scott and a few others, and I was talking about doing a, you know, unofficial, Melf's Guide, and putting in there. And so, we're working on that, and we're looking to put that out officially through Wizards of the Coast, which would be awesome. I love that idea.
And there's a few other things where I'm going to be writing some adventures primarily in Greyhawk because that's my first love was adventuring in Greyhawk and the cast of Greyhawk, whether it was as Otis or Melf....
At present, we know of two upcoming D&D 'seasons': the Season of Horror, which includes Ravenloft: The Horrors Within in June, and the Season of Magic which includes Arcana Unleashed in September. There's a third season after that, the Season of Champions, which will presumably be detailed at Gen Con in August.
At the same panel they announced that WotC will be making future Dungeons & Dragons product and season announcements at Gen Con (which is July 30 – August 2 this year). Ayoub also touched on past disagreements between the Gygax family and WotC, saying "We have to mend whatever rift happened between the family and the franchise". Finally, it was announced that WotC is a sponsor of Free Comic Book Day.
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