D&D (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'.

 

[Zeromaru X]

What about Hero Deities?

They don't exist in 5e.

Has anyone actually had a player who wanted to play a Dragonborn? I’m not joking, as I’ve never seen one in a game since I started 5E in 2017.

There is a reason dragonborn are among the top 5 of the "most played races" of D&D, according to the D&D Beyond surveys.

But as I said in another post, I just use dragonborn as an example of a modern race (and because, for some reason, old school DMs seem to hate them the most from the 5e pool of playable races). You can change it for tiefling, tabaxi or warforged, and my point still stands.

 

[MGibster]

Has anyone actually had a player who wanted to play a Dragonborn? I’m not joking, as I’ve never seen one in a game since I started 5E in 2017.

I've seen 'em, but not often. But then my group is weird in that we almost always have a gnome.

 

[JEB]

Has anyone actually had a player who wanted to play a Dragonborn? I’m not joking, as I’ve never seen one in a game since I started 5E in 2017.

One of the first characters in our 2014 5e campaign was a dragonborn ancients paladin. Two of our brand-new-to-D&D players that joined later also made dragonborn (another ancients paladin, and an eldritch knight, respectively).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Is it just me, or are Dragonborn Paladins a popular combination?

 

[Scribe]

There is a reason dragonborn are among the top 5 of the "most played races" of D&D, according to the D&D Beyond surveys.

Other PHB races at the time had nearly no mechanical depth to speak of once floating ASI kicked in?

 

[Azzy]

Has anyone actually had a player who wanted to play a Dragonborn? I’m not joking, as I’ve never seen one in a game since I started 5E in 2017.

Yes, I've seen two or three in the seven or eight 5e campaigns that I've participated in since 2014. I haven't played one yet, myself, but I'll eventually get around to it.

 

[Azzy]

Is it just me, or are Dragonborn Paladins a popular combination?

Don't know, but I've seen one in a Curse of Strahd campaign I was in.

 

[Mort]

Has anyone actually had a player who wanted to play a Dragonborn? I’m not joking, as I’ve never seen one in a game since I started 5E in 2017.

Seen several since 5e started.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Is it just me, or are Dragonborn Paladins a popular combination?

They were designed with that combination in mind, yes (or at least, that's their 4e origins, that is from where the 5e dragonborn come).

Other PHB races at the time had nearly no mechanical depth to speak of once floating ASI kicked in?

Well, I'm talking of recent surveys, they are still among the top 5. But yes, even after Tasha's they remained in the top 5, despite most of the flavor being gone after ability modifiers became customizable.

 

[pemerton]

They don't exist in 5e.

So what has happened to Kelanen, the Prince of Swords? According to the GH Boxed Set's Glossography (p 36) Kelanen "is one of the very powerful individuals who might, or might not, be a true deity. Thus he is known as a 'Hero-Deity'".

I'm not 100% sure of the relationship between Hero-Deity and Quasi-Deity, though neither is to be confused with a Hero. As p 33 of the Glossography explains:

Throughout the world of Greyhawk are quite a number of characters that have risen above the status of heroes, but who are not quite demi-gods. These personages are 'quasi-deities'.​

The quasi-deities listed are "Daern, Heward, Johydee, Kelanen, Keoghtom, Murlynd, Nolzur, Quall and Tuerny". Whereas "Other well-known personages, such as Bucknard, Mordenkainen, Otiluke, and Tenser, are not as powerful and broadly endowed as are the quasi-deities."

So this implies that a Hero-Deity (like Kelanen) is also a Quasi-Deity, although it leaves the converse implication an open question. (This material from the Glossography is also found in Dragon #71.)

The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer describes Daern as "hero-goddess of defenses and fortifications" (p 169) but doesn't clarify how this relates to Daern's Quasi-Deity status.

Anyway, I gather that 5e has moved on to a new metaphysics of deity-hood.