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.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Luke has said there will be variant rules to increase the lethality of 5.5

Well I am surprised. Wonder what they will be.

 

[...m...]

But I'd love to see Luke and WotC give it a try using Gary's original notes. While WotC owns Greyhawk, other companies have licenses for the Castle Greyhawk notes, so not sure how likely that is . . . but I think it could be super cool!

...this year's castle zagyg is probably the closest we'll ever get to the original castle greyhawk; it's not as slickly-produced as anything wizards of the coast might publish but the troll lords are rendering gary's intent faithfully, certainly far moreso than wizards of the coast might...

 

[Azzy]

Yay, Easley.... One of my least favorite TSR-era artists.

 

[Alzrius]

Yay, Easley.... One of my least favorite TSR-era artists.

I like his work, though I like Elmore's and Caldwell's more.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Not all of them were because of WotC even if one don't take into consideration how very few — possibly none! — that's there today were involved in the company decision process back in 3e. Ernie Gygax did a lot of rift makings with NuTSR.

I mean, you're right. Very few, if any, of the people that made 5th edition are still with Wizards of the Coast.

 

[billd91]

Not to knock Luke at all, but I find it kind of weird to hype a campaign setting product with a character whose depth of investment in the campaign setting starts out as just M Elf.

I mean, I know Gygax's early players were invested in playing the game - down to the point of not spending any time coming up with names other than changing a first letter (Bigby, Digby, Rigby, etc) or anagramming their own names. And while that may be a funny bit of history, it doesn't really scream invested in the setting lore or culture of the character being played.

I'm going to go into this with an open mind because I do enjoy the Greyhawk setting and Luke may be able to bring some good stuff from his experiences - but I'm increasingly not impressed with the obsession over celebrity products in the hobby.