Melf's Guide to Greyhawk Cover by Jeff Easley Revealed at Gary Con

Luke Gygax revealed the cover to his upcoming collaboration with Wizards of the Coast at Gary Con over the weekend. During an annual auction at the convention, Gygax revealed a painting by Jeff Easley featuring his famed character Melf. According to GamingTrend, which posted the news on Saturday, the painting will be used as a cover for the upcoming Greyhawk compendium being developed by Gygax and Wizards of the Coast, which was unofficially called Melf's Guide to Greyhawk. The painting was won by actor Vince Vaughn, who paid $5,000. You can check out an image of the cover below, courtesy of GamingTrend. More photos of the artwork can be found on that site.

Gygax and D&D Head of Franchise Dan Ayoub announced their collaboration earlier at Gary Con, with Ayoub emphasizing a desire to "mend the rift" between the Gygax family and Dungeons & Dragons. No specifics have been revealed for what the book will entail, other than that it will be set within Greyhawk. Greyhawk is also featured in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, although at the time Wizards had no plans to further flesh out the setting beyond that book.

Wizards of the Coast also announced at Gary Gon that Gen Con would serve as an announcement hub for upcoming books starting this year, and that modules would be returning in some format tied to the new Seasons approach to promoting material.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In the grand river of D&D inspired gaming, it is. It's no where near Pathfinder, Tales of the Valiant or even Daggerheart in terms of headspace, let alone shelf space.

I don't think this is true.

It swept the big categories at the 2024 Ennies and is a two-time member of the million dollar Kickstarter club. It's also steadily gobbling up much of the OSR space while also expanding it.

There are 1,565 Shadowdark products on DriveThruRPG (only one of which is from Arcane Library, the free quickstart rules). That's almost seven times as many Tales of the Valiant Products and three times as many Daggerheart products available there. (Pathfinder, which has a big headstart on any of those, has more than 10 times as many products listed as Shadowdark.)

It may not be big with you or your group, but Shadowdark is enormous by all available metrics.

 

[Artamo]

In the grand river of D&D inspired gaming, it is. It's no where near Pathfinder, Tales of the Valiant or even Daggerheart in terms of headspace, let alone shelf space. I'm not saying it's a bad game (I have loved many a game with a niche audience) but I was responding to what I thought was a suggestion that this product was better suited for a game with a fraction of D&D's reach.

How does one really measure headspace amongst anyone other than WotC and Paizo?

According to the Gencon events for 2025, there were 45 game events for Tales of the Valiant, 77 for Daggerheart and 69 for Shadowdark (…nice).

But all of that is kind of moot. If there’s going to be an official Greyhawk product, it has to be done with WotC. Luke Gygax does do work in the Shadowdark system under Gaxx Worx so it’s not like he doesn’t or can’t have his toe in both waters, but the Shadowdark stuff is going to be original.

 

[Reynard]

But all of that is kind of moot. If there’s going to be an official Greyhawk product, it has to be done with WotC. Luke Gygax does do work in the Shadowdark system under Gaxx Worx so it’s not like he doesn’t or can’t have his toe in both waters, but the Shadowdark stuff is going to be original.

Again, it wasn't a serious suggestion. It was a comment on how ill suited 5E is to the theoretical playstyle in question.

 

[Artamo]

Again, it wasn't a serious suggestion. It was a comment on how ill suited 5E is to the theoretical playstyle in question.

And I think that’s a fair concern. I think there’s only so much that this product will be able to do depending on what one’s wanting from it. The designers have to work within the available sandbox.

 

[mamba]

The point here seems to be for WotC to bring that side oft he game back on board. They kept talking about "One Party" during the panel, seems to be their next big tent marketing push.

good luck with that, I don’t think a few tweaks to the game can go anywhere near far enough to do so, and I doubt WotC will create a second game that is closer to Shadowdark