D&D 5E (2024) WotC Invites You To Explore the World of Greyhawk

This week a new D&D Dungeon Master's Guide preview video was released. This one features the sample setting chapter in the book, which showcases the World of Greyhawk.

One of the earliest campaign settings, and created by D&D co-founder Gary Gygax, Greyhawk dates back to the early 1970s in Gygax's home games, receiving a short official setting book in 1980. Gyeyhawk was selected as the example setting because it is able to hit all the key notes of D&D while being concise and short. The setting has been largely absent from D&D--aside from a few shorter adventures--since 2008. Some key points from the video--

• Greyhawk deliberately leaves a lot for the DM to fill in, with a 30-page chapter.
• Greyhawk created many of the tropes of D&D, and feels very 'straight down the fairway' D&D.
• This is the world where many iconic D&D magic items, NPCs, etc. came from--Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tasha, Otiluke and so on.
• The DMG starts with the City of Greyhawk and its surroundings in some detail, and gets more vague as you get farther away.
• The city is an example of a 'campaign hub'.
• The sample adventures in Chapter 4 of the DMG are set there or nearby.
• The map is an updated version, mainly faithful to the original with some tweaks.
• The map has some added locations key to D&D's history--such as White Plume Mountain, the Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Ghost Tower of Inverness.
• There's a map of the city, descriptions of places characters might visit--magic item shop, library, 3 taverns, temples, etc.
• The setting takes 'a few liberties while remaining faithful to the spirit of the setting'--it has been contemporized to make it resonate in all D&D campaigns with a balance of NPCs who showcase the diversity of D&D worlds.
• The backgrounds in the Player's Handbook map to locations in the city.
• Most areas in the setting have a name and brief description.
• They focus on three 'iconic' D&D/Greyhawk conflicts such as the Elemental Evil, a classic faceless adversary; Iuz the evil cambion demigod; and dragons.
• There's a list of gods, rulers, and 'big bads'.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In my own game I say how cosmology has to be, and if want, there is a mirror plane, with some touchs of creepypaste and backrooms mythologies. If other suggest other transitive planes and I like her ideas, then these will be added to my own homemade cosmology.

 

[Stormonu]

Frankly, tieflings (and aasimar) were created when TSR was just edging into putting demons and devils back into D&D through 2E Planescape and were a way to give player options for plane-touched characters without allowing more powerful cambions or half-angels. There's many areas they fit perfectly well into on Greyhawk. If tieflings had been around back when Gygax was at TSR, I'm quite sure he'd have put them in Greyhawk, if not the PHB (or hidden as an option in the DMG, more likely).

 

[Yaarel]

Frankly, tieflings (and aasimar) were created when TSR was just edging into putting demons and devils back into D&D through 2E Planescape and were a way to give player options for plane-touched characters without allowing more powerful cambions or half-angels. There's many areas they fit perfectly well into on Greyhawk. If tieflings had been around back when Gygax was at TSR, I'm quite sure he'd have put them in Greyhawk, if not the PHB (or hidden as an option in the DMG, more likely).

Yeah, the presence of various Fiends and Celestials is intrinsically appropriate for the themes of Greyhawk setting.

Actually more awkward, is how Fey and Shadow will fit in.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, the presence of various Fiends and Celestials is intrinsically appropriate for the themes of Greyhawk setting.

Actually more awkward, is how Fey and Shadow will fit in.

Hardly awkward:

EX1 Dungeonland (1e) - Wizards of the Coast | AD&D 1st Ed. | Adventures | AD&D 1st Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild

EX1 Dungeonland (1e) - As adventurers, you may think you have seen everything: certainly your skills have brought you through unimaginable dang

www.dmsguild.com

EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (1e) - Wizards of the Coast | AD&D 1st Ed. | Adventures | AD&D 1st Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild

EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (1e) - Your adventures have taken you to strange places before, but in the eyes of your experienced party, few of these places

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Yaarel]

Hardly awkward:

For example, High Elf communities will typically associate with a Fey Crossing.

Many Greyhawk species will actually be Fey and locate in the Feywild.

There is no "Shadow Plane", and together the Feywild and Shadowfell replace it.

Fey and Shadow overlap the Material Plane, unlike the illusory "Shadow Plane".

There needs to be some sorting out between the "Hades" and the "Shadowfell", as both names refer to the realm of the dead.

 

[Parmandur]

For example, High Elf communities will typically associate with a Fey Crossing.

Many Greyhawk species will actually be Fey and locate in the Feywild.

There is no "Shadow Plane", and together the Feywild and Shadowfell replace it.

Fey and Shadow overlap the Material Plane, unlike the illusory "Shadow Plane".

There needs to be some sorting out between the "Hades" and the "Shadowfell", as both names refer to the realm of the dead.

There was a plane of Shadow tied to Greyhawk, that's where Shades come from. Literally one of the loat products Gygax was working on at the time of his ouster was about that:

"WG7 Shadowlands. From the Summer 1986 Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog: "A high-level module set in the World of Greyhawk. Journey to the perilous Plane of Shadow to rescue Princess Esterilla and confront the master of the plane... where you find yourself an unexpected guest at a wedding where the guests include a lizardman, a catlord, and a mistress of illusion!". Assigned TSR stock #9184. Gary Gygax and Skip Williams were collaborating on the project, but it was shelved due to Gygax's lawsuit with TSR. Gygax has since stated that while Wizards of the Coast has given permission to have the module published, the fact that it will be produced "on spec" (no contract nor advance payment), makes it unlikely that he or Skip will be undertaking the project anytime soon. The original mention of it is in Dragon Magazine #37, page 10, where it's called "Shadowland"."

Research

 

[Yaarel]

There was a plane of Shadow tied to Greyhawk, that's where Shades come from. Literally one of the loat products Gygax was working on at the time of his ouster was about that:

"WG7 Shadowlands. From the Summer 1986 Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog: "A high-level module set in the World of Greyhawk. Journey to the perilous Plane of Shadow to rescue Princess Esterilla and confront the master of the plane... where you find yourself an unexpected guest at a wedding where the guests include a lizardman, a catlord, and a mistress of illusion!". Assigned TSR stock #9184. Gary Gygax and Skip Williams were collaborating on the project, but it was shelved due to Gygax's lawsuit with TSR. Gygax has since stated that while Wizards of the Coast has given permission to have the module published, the fact that it will be produced "on spec" (no contract nor advance payment), makes it unlikely that he or Skip will be undertaking the project anytime soon. The original mention of it is in Dragon Magazine #37, page 10, where it's called "Shadowland"."

Research

Yeah.

4e recombined both Shadow and Ethereal together to instead form both Feywild and Shadowfell. (Both Fey and Shadow strongly associate with illusion magic.) 4e lacks the Ethereal plane.

5e keeps the 4e remix, but then adds Ethereal as a separate area.

In this way, 1e Shadow evolved into both 5e Fey and Shadow.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah.

4e remixed both Shadow and Ethereal together to instead form Feywild and Shadowfell. (Both Fey and Shadow strongly associate with illusion magic.) 4e lacks a material plane.

5e keeps the 4e remix, but then adds Ethereal as a separate area.

In this way, 1e Shadow evolved into both 5e Fey and Shadow.

But the new DMG will describe the Shadowfell, so that version of Hreyhawk will have it.

 

[Yaarel]

But the new DMG will describe the Shadowfell, so that version of Hreyhawk will have it.

Yeah, the 5e Greyhawk will use the 5e multiverse. Thus there is no "Shadow Plane", but the 5e Fey and Shadow can stand in for it.

 

[Michael Blackett]

Am planning on integrating elements of Princes of the Apocalypse and several other elements of the 2014 5e line into the Greyhawk setting when I get my hands on the DMG. Makes a lot more sense than in the Forgotten Realms.

Also, seeing as I have the meaty Level Up 5s book, think it would be better to use the building rules in their, let alone the zero HP/death rules which are better than rolling death saves.