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.

 

[TheHand]

Melf's face does look like Luke though. Looks like a Grey Elf with pale grey skin. hair with a silver hue, and eyes like amber.

Ok, I can see it! I’m used to Luke with a beard.

 

[Distracted DM]

I don't know if we ever publicly hears about any specific rift, but a large number of folks like Magianello or Luke Gygax were in with the WotC D&D team for a spell fairly recently, and that fell off hard somewhere along the line. Don't know the exact tea, but it has been years since Luke Gygax did a Thing with WotC, and they were active at GaryCon and then...were less so?

It seemed like executive leadership changes.
Leadership was open to doing stuff with Mangianello (the dragonlance show). Then Hasbro did some shuffling, changed leadership, new leadership didn't want to do it. Now leadership has changed again.. and it seems like they're keen on working with these folk.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It’s nice to Easley return, but like many have said, it’s not his best work and it doesn’t scream Greyhawk to me.

I know from experience that it's hard to paint in same style that one used 40 years ago (okay, more like 20 in my case, I'm not quite as old). Easley does a good job in reconnecting with the feel of 1980s D&D artwork. (NB: which rarely featured much blood).

I was expecting this book’s cover art to depict the eponymous city of the infamous castle ruins.

I don't think there is a canon appearance of said city and ruins, so any attempt to depict it risks pissing off some grog who has a different mental image. In any case, Easley's art has always focused on characters rather than landscapes - as D&D art tends to.

 

[beta-ray]

Yeah, there might not have been anything more dramatic than personnel changes at WotC meant nobody had Gygax in their rolodeck anymore (how's thst for proving my 80s baby streetcar?), but there was at least some sort of drift fairly recently even if it wasn't melodramatic or calamitous.

Rolodex?

 

[beta-ray]

Obscure retro clone practically nobody has heard of? Are you high?

I'm not sure what audience he was referring to. On this board, yeah for sure it is not obscure. For the general public, good chance no one has heard of it.

 

[Parmandur]

Rolodex?

Listen, I'm old enough to remember my mom having one, but young enough to have no idea how it was spelt.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm not sure what audience he was referring to. On this board, yeah for sure it is not obscure. For the general public, good chance no one has heard of it.

I mean, Shadowdark is perfectly successful for what they are trying to do. Niche, sure, but there is nothing wrong with that, not everything needs to be Daggerheart.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm not sure what audience he was referring to. On this board, yeah for sure it is not obscure. For the general public, good chance no one has heard of it.

That is what I'm referring to. Outside of the devoted fan bubble, 90% of the games we discuss have zero traction. That bubble is large, but the bubble of people who only interact with the big dogs (D&D, PF) and nothing else is larger. My LGS is pretty big and I'm sure if I asked everyone who went into it one day what Shadow dark is, 95% would never have heard of it and the 5% that did wouldn't all have seen it, let alone played it.

 

[Remathilis]

I mean, Shadowdark is perfectly successful for what they are trying to do. Niche, sure, but there is nothing wrong with that, not everything needs to be Daggerheart.

This. I was just referring to the joke (apparently, didn't realize it when it was made) that WotC should support SD because Greyhawk is somehow a better fit for it than 5.5. a notion that I disagree with on all counts..

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Watching the interview with Luke Gygax describing the meeting with WOTC sure makes it sound like a legit release…

I am intrigued especially by comments about making it more challenging.