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.

 

[Reynard]

Neither Keith Baker's nor Ed Greenwood's DMGuild products need any WotC involvement other than what's already in the Guild and a promise they won't contradict what's in the WotC published setting books. Other than that, they can do what they want. Luke's book seems to be a more official version of that.

I think the fact that it is the Gygax family and the healing of rifts and all that would warrant the press regardless. But given that GH was in the DMG, I would not be surprised if it was not an official book (produced outside). But if it is to be the cornerstone of a business for Gygax, one would think a license is better.

 

[mamba]

A laudable sentiment on Ayoub's part; here's hoping WotC continues with this particular direction.

I don’t care about the rift, but getting the old creators involved in new products and expanding on them with additional stuff during seasons is something I would like to see more of.

Ed can do that for FR, Weis/Hickman for DL, etc. I assume we are getting the latter next year

 

[sevenbastard]

Not my favorite Jeff Easely piece but great to see him back on a D&D product.

 

[DEFCON 1]

When Ed and Keith make DMs Guild products for Faerun and Eberron, they can do whatever they want with them and write and design them to their own desires. When Penny Arcade moved their Acq Inc. product and Critical Role moved their two Exandria products over to be published by WotC... they most likely had to accept a bit of company oversight in what they did or did not include.

That's probably the question all these designers have to answer for themselves... if WotC becomes excited enough by their product to want to publish it under their branding and trade dress... do those designers take the potential wider release and extra advertising dollars that come with it even if it means they do have to potentially relinquish some editorial control?

I'm sure Luke Gygax has been asking himself that very same question.

 

[dave2008]

Not my favorite Jeff Easely piece but great to see him back on a D&D product.

Personally, I would rather see Larry or Keith on a cover. This cover reminds me why Jeff went from top of the pack to bottom of the pack for me.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not the most inspiring cover by any means, but that's definitely a male elf.

Yeah, that was my reaction. Like, not knocking the quality of the piece, but the subject doesn’t really scream “Greyhawk source book” to me

 

[dave2008]

I can't participate in the other thread so maybe this has been answered already, but: Is this a special license where Gygax will publish it under his own company, or is this a official D&D product produced by a 3rd party (like Exandria)?

I don't think that has been exactly clarified yet.

 

[CF07]

I'm not sure I'll use this product but I'll definitely check it out. I'm thinking of doing my next D&D campaign in Greyhawk so some new material would be nice.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So ... Uh ... Melf's a drow?

Nah, he's just very very Elric-inspired.

 

[nyvinter]

It's going to be really hard to get a new Keith cover. And considering everything else, I don't think that would be a smart use of a miracle even if that would have been amazing.

For some art Jeff is way better than Larry for me, but sometimes he's not. And in this case, it's a little boring but also the art is photographed at an angle which distorts it a bit.