Greyhawk
Encyclopedia
Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting
for the Dungeons & Dragons
fantasy
roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for Dungeons & Dragons—Dave Arneson
's Blackmoor
campaign predates it by a few months—the world of Greyhawk was the setting most closely identified with the development of the game from 1972 until 2008. The world itself started as a simple dungeon under a castle designed by Gary Gygax
for the amusement of his children and friends, but it rapidly expanded to include not only a complex multi-layered dungeon environment, but also the nearby city of Greyhawk, and eventually an entire world. In addition to the campaign world, which was published in several editions over twenty years, Greyhawk was also used as the setting for many adventures published in support of the game, as well as for RPGA
's massively shared Living Greyhawk
campaign from 2000–2008.
, a military history
buff and pulp
fantasy
fan, started to add elements of fantasy into traditional tabletop medieval miniatures wargames
at his games club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He sometimes replaced typical medieval weapons with magical spells, or used dragons and other fantastical monsters in place of soldiers. In 1971, as part of a rule set for tabletop battles called Chainmail
that he was co-writing, he created supplementary rules for magical spells and monsters as well as one-on-one combat.
Around the same time, in Minneapolis–St. Paul, another tabletop wargamer, Dave Arneson
, was also developing a new type of game. Arneson had been impressed by the Napoleonic tabletop "Braunstein" campaigns of fellow wargamer David Wesely
that incorporated elements of what is now called role-playing
, such as using a neutral referee or judge and having conversations between the players and imaginary characters to resolve diplomatic issues. However, Arneson soon grew tired of the Napoleonic setting, and one night when the gaming group assembled, he presented a plastic model of a castle in place of the usual battlefield, and told the players that instead of controlling regiments that night, they would each take one individual character into the castle of the Barony of Blackmoor to explore its dangerous dungeons. For combat resolution, he started by using rock-paper-scissors
, but quickly moved to a combination of rules that combined Chainmail and a nautical wargame he had co-written with Gary Gygax and Mike Carr called Don't Give Up the Ship!
What set Arneson's game apart from Wesely's tabletop wargaming was that the players could keep the same characters from session to session, and that the characters advanced by developing better abilities or powers over time.
Arneson's Minneapolis-St. Paul Napoleonic gaming group was in touch with Gygax's Lake Geneva group, and Arneson mentioned the dungeons of his Blackmoor game that the group was playing on alternate weekends. Gygax was interested, so during a visit to Lake Geneva in 1972, Arneson demonstrated his Blackmoor dungeons to Gygax. Gygax was immediately intrigued by the concept of individual characters exploring a dungeon setting, and believed that this was a game that could be marketed and sold. He and Arneson agreed to co-develop a set of rules based on Chainmail. In order to provide a playtest
ing environment in which to develop these rules, Gygax designed his own castle, Castle Greyhawk, and prepared the first level of a dungeon that lay beneath it. Two of his children, Ernie and Elise, were the first players, and during their first session, they fought and destroyed the first monsters of the Greyhawk dungeon; Gygax recalled them as being either giant centipedes or a nest of scorpions. During the same session, Ernie and Elise also found the first treasure, a chest of 3,000 copper coins which was too heavy to carry, much to the children's chagrin. After his children had gone to bed, Gygax immediately began working on a second level for the dungeon. At the next play session, Ernie and Elise were joined by Gygax's friends: Don Kaye
, Rob Kuntz
, and Terry Kuntz
.
About a month after his first session, Gygax created the nearby city of Greyhawk, where the players' characters could sell their treasure and find a place to rest.
, Gygax continued to design and present the dungeons and environs of Castle Greyhawk to his circle of friends and family, using them as playtesters for new rules and concepts. As the players began to explore more of the world outside of the castle and city, Gygax developed other regions and cities for them. With play sessions occurring seven or more times a week, Gygax didn't have the time or inclination to create the map for a whole new world; he simply drew his world over a map of North America, adding new cities and regions as his world slowly grew through ongoing adventures. The city and castle of Greyhawk were placed near the real-world position of Chicago, his birthplace; various other places were clustered around it. For instance, the rival city of Dyvers
he placed in the area of real-world Milwaukee.
Gygax also continued to develop the dungeons underneath the castle. By the time he was finished, the complex labyrinth encompassed thirteen levels filled with devious traps, secret passageways, hungry monsters, and glittering treasure. Although details of these original Greyhawk dungeons have never been published in detail, Gygax gave some glimpses of them in an article he wrote for the European fanzine Europa in 1975:
Anyone who made it to the bottom level alive met Zagyg, the insane architect of the dungeons. (Zagyg is a reverse homophone
of Gygax, and it was Gygax's inside joke that the person who had designed the dungeon—himself—must be insane.) Only three players ever made it to the bottom level and met Zagyg, all of them during solo adventures: Rob Kuntz
(playing Robilar
), Gygax's son Ernie (playing Tenser
), and Rob's brother Terry
(playing Terik). Their reward was to be instantly transported to the far side of the world, where they each faced a long solo trek back to the city of Greyhawk. Terik and Tenser managed to catch up to Robilar along the way, and the three journeyed back to Greyhawk together.
By this time, over twenty players crowded Gygax's basement almost every night, and the effort needed to plan their adventures took up much of Gygax's spare time. He had been very impressed with Rob Kuntz's imaginative play as a player, and appointed Rob to be co-Dungeon Master
of Greyhawk. This freed up Gygax to work on other projects, and also gave him an opportunity to participate as a player, creating characters like Yrag and Mordenkainen
.
In order to make room for Rob Kuntz's dungeons, Gygax scrapped his bottom level and integrated Rob's work into the Greyhawk dungeons. Gygax and Kuntz continued to develop new levels for their players, and by the time the Greyhawk home campaign drew to a close in 1985, the castle dungeons encompassed more than fifty levels.
being a character created by his son Luke. Some of the characters who became synonymous with Greyhawk at that time included:
published in June 1976, Gygax prefaced Chapter 1 of his serialized novella The Gnome Cache with a note that the story's setting, Oerth
, was very similar to Earth in terms of geography.
or Zeus
, or even Conan's
Crom in times of dire need. However, some of the players wanted Gygax to create and customize a specific deity so that cleric characters could receive their powers from someone less ambiguous than the gods. Gygax jokingly created two gods: Saint Cuthbert
—who brought non-believers around to his point of view with whacks of his cudgel —and Pholtus
, whose fanatical followers refused to believe that any other gods existed. Because both of these deities represented aspects of Good, Gygax eventually created a few evil deities to provide some villainy.
In Chapter 2 of The Gnome Cache, which appeared in the second issue of The Dragon, a shrine to St. Cuthbert (spelled St. Cuthburt) was mentioned, which was the first published reference to a Greyhawk deity.
to play Dungeons & Dragons
in his Greyhawk world. Norton subsequently wrote Quag Keep, which involved a group of gamers who travel from the real world to Greyhawk. It was the first novel to be set, at least partially, in the Greyhawk setting, and according to Alternative Worlds, the first to be based on D&D. Quag Keep was excerpted in Issue 12 of The Dragon (February 1978) just prior to the book's release.
In addition, Lawrence Schick set his 1979 TSR adventure S2 White Plume Mountain
in Greyhawk.
In 1975, Gygax and Kuntz published a booklet called Supplement I: Greyhawk
, an expansion of the rules for Dungeons & Dragons based on their play experiences in the Greyhawk campaign. Although it detailed new spells and character classes that had been developed in the dungeons of Greyhawk, it did not contain any details of their Greyhawk campaign world. The only two references to Greyhawk were an illustration of a large stone head in a dungeon corridor titled The Great Stone Face, Enigma of Greyhawk and mention of a fountain on the second level of the dungeons that continuously issued an endless number of snakes.
The 2004 publication 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons
suggested that details of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign were published in this booklet, but Gygax had no plans in 1975 to publish details of the Greyhawk world, since he believed that new players of Dungeons & Dragons would rather create their own worlds than use someone else's. In addition, he didn't want to publish all the material he had created for his players; he thought he would be unlikely to recoup a fair investment for the thousands of hours he had spent on it; and since his secrets would be revealed to his players, he would be forced to recreate a new world for them afterward.
With the release of the AD&D Players Handbook in 1978, many players were intrigued by the connection of Greyhawk characters to magical spells such as Tenser's floating disc, Bigby's crushing hand, and Mordenkainen's disjunction. The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, released the following year, also made references to the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk. Players' curiosity was further piqued by the ten Dungeons & Dragons modules set in Greyhawk that were published between 1976–1979. Several of Gygax's regular columns in Dragon magazine also mentioned details of his home campaign and characters that inhabited his world. Gygax was surprised when he found out that players wanted to use Greyhawk as their campaign world.
Gygax gave only the most basic descriptions of each state; he expected that DMs would customize the setting in order to make it an integral part of their own individual campaigns. In order to give the campaign setting as much flexibility as possible in terms of geographic settings, his map included arctic wastes, desert, temperate forests, tropical jungles, mountainous cordillera, seas and oceans, rivers, archipelagos and volcanoes. He placed the city and castle of Greyhawk roughly in the centre of the map, in an area that would have about the same temperate climate as his home in Lake Geneva. For the other regions that had surrounded the city of Greyhawk on his old map, some were left relatively close to the city of Greyhawk; for instance, the rivalry between the cities of Dyvers, Hardby, and Greyhawk was a feature of Gygax's campaign, so the three cities were placed in close proximity to each other. However, most other regions were moved further away, scattered across the new map. Gygax also added many more new regions, countries and cities, bringing the number of political states to sixty.
Needing original names for all of the geographical and political places on his map, Gygax sometimes resorted to wordplay based on the names of friends and acquaintances. For instance, Perrenland was named after Jeff Perren, who co-wrote the rules for Chainmail with Gygax; Urnst was a homophone of Ernst (his son Ernie); and Sunndi was a near-homophone of Cindy, another of Gygax's children. From Gygax's prototype map, Darlene Pekul
, a freelance artist in Lake Geneva, developed a full color map on a hex grid. Gygax was so pleased with the end result that he quickly switched his home Greyhawk campaign over to the new world he had created.
buff, he was very familiar with the concept of waves of cultural invasion
s, such the Pict
s of Great Britain
being invaded by the Celt
s, who were in turn invaded by the Romans
. In creating a similar pattern of history for his world, Gygax decided that a thousand years before his campaign began, the northeast corner of the continent had been occupied by a peaceful but primitive people called the Flannae, whose name was the root for the name of that part of Oerik, the Flanaess
. At that time, far to the west of the Flanaess, two peoples were at war, the Bakluni and the Suloise. The war reached its climax when both sides used powerful magic to obliterate each other, in an event called the Twin Cataclysms. Refugees of these disasters were forced out of their lands, and the Suloise invaded the Flanaess, forcing the Flannae to flee to the outer edges of the continent. Several centuries later, a new invader appeared, the Oeridians, and they in turn forced the Suloise southward. One tribe of the Oeridians, the Aerdi, began to set up an empire. Several centuries later, the Aerdi's Great Kingdom ruled most of the Flanaess. The Aerdi overkings marked the beginning of what they believed would be perpetual peace with Year 1 of a new calendar, the Common Year (CY) Reckoning. However, several centuries later, the Empire became decadent, with their rulers losing their sanity, turning to evil, and enslaving their people. When the overking Ivid V came to the throne, the oppressed peoples rebelled.
It was at this point, in the year 576 CY, that Gygax set the world of Greyhawk. As Gygax wrote in his World of Greyhawk folio, "The current state of affairs in the Flanaess is confused indeed. Humankind is fragmented into isolationist realms, indifferent nations, evil lands, and states striving for good." Gygax did not issue monthly or yearly updates to the state of affairs as presented in the folio since he saw 576CY as a common starting point for every home campaign; because each would be moving forward at its own pace, there would be no practical way to issue updates that would be relevant to every Dungeon Master.
Gygax was also aware that different players would be using his world for different reasons. When he was the Dungeon Master of his home campaign, he found that his players were more interested in dungeon-delving than politics; but when he switched roles and became a player, often going one-on-one with Rob Kuntz as Dungeon Master, Gygax immersed his own characters in politics and large-scale battles. Knowing that there would be some players looking for a town in which to base their campaign, and others interested in politics or warfare, Gygax tried to include as much detail as possible about each region, including a short description of the region and its people, the title of its ruler, the racial makeup of its people, its resources and major cities, and its allies and enemies.
For the same reason that he had created a variety of geographical, political and racial settings, he also strove to create a world with some good, some evil, and some undecided areas. He felt that some players would be happiest playing in a mainly good country and fighting the evil that arose to threaten it; others might want to be a part of an evil country; and still others might take a neutral stance and simply try to collect gold and treasure from both sides.
.
In the May 1980 issue, Gygax gave a quick overview of the development of his new The World of Greyhawk folio. For players who planned to use large scale army tactics, he gave details of the private armies that were commanded by some prominent Greyhawk characters from his original home game: Bigby
, Mordenkainen
, Robilar
, Tenser
and Erac's Cousin
. Gygax also mentioned some of the planned Greyhawk publications he was overseeing: a large-scale map of the city of Greyhawk; some adventure modules set in Greyhawk; a supplementary map of lands outside the Flanaess; all fifty levels of Castle Greyhawk's dungeon; and miniatures army combat rules. None of these projects, other than a few of the adventure modules, were published by TSR.
Although Gygax originally intended to immediately publish more details of Greyhawk in Dragon on a regular basis, other projects intervened, and it was not until the August 1981 issue of Dragon that Len Lakofka, in his column "Leomund's Tiny Hut", outlined methods for determining a character's place of birth and languages spoken. Gygax added an addendum concerning the physical appearances of the main Greyhawk races. In the November 1981 issue, Gygax gave further details of racial characteristics and modes of dress.
In the December 1982 issue, David Axler contributed a system for determining weather in the world of Greyhawk. Gygax later said he thought a system of fourteen charts for determining the weather was too cumbersome, and he personally didn't use it in his home campaign.
Shortly after the release of the folio edition, TSR released the adventure module C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, designed to familiarize players with the Olman
race of the Amedio Jungle. Largely based on Aztec
and Incan cultures, this adventure introduced the first published deities of the Greyhawk campaign: Mictlantecuhtli
, god of death, darkness, murder and the underworld; Tezcatlipoca
, god of sun, moon, night, scheming, betrayals and lightning; and Quetzalcoatl
, god of air, birds and snakes. However, this area of the Flanaess was not explored further in any subsequent TSR adventures or source material, and these three gods would remain isolated from the main pantheon for almost twenty years.
and Keoghtom
—had been created by Gygax as non-player character
s (NPCs). The third, Murlynd
, was a character that had been created by Gygax's childhood friend Don Kaye
before Kaye's untimely death in 1975. The fourth, a hero-deity named Kelanen
, was developed to illustrate the "principle of advancement of power".
encouraged many new writers to set their adventures in Greyhawk. This, combined with the fact that Gygax was increasingly involved in other areas of the company, meant that of the seventeen Greyhawk adventures published in the two years after the folio edition, only four were written or co-written by Gygax:
In 1981, TSR also published the super-modules D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth
and G1-2-3 Against the Giants
, both being compilations of previously published modules from the Drow series and the Giant series respectively.
Numerous projects were planned to add more depth and detail to the setting after the publication of the initial folio, but many of these projects never appeared for various reasons.
In 1983, TSR published an expanded boxed set of the campaign world, World of Greyhawk, which is usually called the Greyhawk boxed set to differentiate it from other editions. According to game designer Jim Bambra, "The second edition was much larger than the first and addressed itself to making the World of Greyhawk setting a more detailed and vibrant place." This edition quadrupled the number of pages from the original edition to 128, adding significantly greater detail. One major addition was a pantheon of deities: in addition to the nineteen deities outlined by Gygax in his Dragon article, another thirty one new deities were added, though only three received full write-ups of their abilities and worshipers. This brought the number of Greyhawk deities to an even fifty. For the next eight years, Greyhawk would be primarily defined by the information in this publication.
, Creative Consultant at TSR at the time, wrote four RPGA
tournament adventures taken from his home campaign setting of Acquaria (published by TSR as the first four of the R-series modules: R1 To the Aid of Falx
, R2 The Investigation of Hydell
, R3 The Egg of the Phoenix
, and R4 Doc's Island
). Mentzer envisioned them as the first part of a new Aqua-Oeridian campaign set somewhere on Oerth outside of the Flanaess.
However, by this time, Gygax was in Hollywood on a semi-permanent basis, approving scripts for the Saturday morning Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series and trying to land a deal for a D&D movie. Not only was Gygax's own output of Greyhawk-related materials greatly reduced, but the company began to shift its focus and resources away from Greyhawk to a new campaign setting called Dragonlance
.
The success of the Dragonlance series of modules and books pushed aside the World of Greyhawk setting, as TSR concentrated on expanding and defining the world of Krynn. One of the factors that contributed to the success of the Dragonlance setting when it was published in 1984 was a series of concurrent novels by Tracy Hickman
and Margaret Weis
. Gygax realized that novels set in Greyhawk could have a similar benefit for his campaign world and wrote Saga of Old City, the first in a series of novels that would be published under the banner Greyhawk Adventures. The protagonist was Gord the Rogue
, and this first novel told of his rise from the Slum Quarters of the city of Greyhawk to become a world traveler and thief extraordinaire. The novel was designed to promote sales of the boxed set by providing colorful details about the social customs and peoples of various cities and countries around the Flanaess.
Before Saga of Old City was released in November 1985, Gygax wrote a sequel, Artifact of Evil. He also wrote a short story, "At Moonset Blackcat Comes", that appeared in the special 100th issue of Dragon in August 1985. This introduced Gord the Rogue to gamers just before Saga of Old City was scheduled to be released.
Both of the EX adventures, although nominally set in Greyhawk, transported characters through a planar gate into an alternate reality.
Other than those articles, Greyhawk was only mentioned in passing in three other issues until Gygax's "Gord the Rogue" short story in the August 1985 issue Dragon. Gygax then provided some errata for the boxed set in the September 1985 issue, which was the last mention of the Greyhawk world in Dragon for almost two years.
By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all Dungeons & Dragons characters whose names were anagrams or versions of his own name, such as Yrag and Zagyg. However, he lost the rights to all his other work, including the world of Greyhawk and the names of all the other characters he had ever used in TSR material.
In 1986, in the months following Gygax's ousting, TSR turned away from development of Greyhawk and focused its energies on a new campaign setting called Forgotten Realms
. In 1986 and 1987, only three Greyhawk modules were released, A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords
, S1-4 Realms of Horror and GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders
, all being collections of previously published modules rather than new material.
to continue the series, albeit without Gord the Rogue, to whom Gygax had retained all rights. From 1987–1989, Estes produced five more novels under the Greyhawk Adventures banner: Master Wolf, The Price of Power, The Demon Hand, The Name of the Game, and The Eyes Have It. A sixth book, Dragon in Amber, appeared in 1990 book catalogs, but was never written, and the series was discontinued.
. However, this adventure was canceled after Gygax left TSR, and the catalog number WG7 was reassigned to a new adventure, Castle Greyhawk, released in 1988. It was the first new Greyhawk adventure in three years, but it had nothing to do with Gygax's original Castle Greyhawk. Instead, it was a compilation of twelve humorous dungeons levels, each one written by a freelance author. The puns and jokes often referenced modern culture—the Amazing Driderman
, King Burger
, Bugsbear Bunny
, and the crew of Star Trek
—and the module also included an appearance by Gygax's Mordenkainen in a movie studio.
appeared shortly afterward as a response to requests from Greyhawk fans. The book's title was borrowed from Rose Estes' Greyhawk Adventures line of novels and used the same front-cover banner design. It was the thirteenth and final hardcover book published for the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules.
The contents were designed to give Dungeon Master
s ideas and play opportunities unique to the Greyhawk world, including new monsters, magical spells and items, a variety of geographical features, profiles of prominent citizens, and the avatars
of deities. In the time since Gygax had left TSR, no original Greyhawk material had been published, and many letter writers had requested ideas for new adventures. Ward responded by including six plot outlines that could be inserted into a Greyhawk campaign.
boxed set in 1989 under the Greyhawk Adventures banner. Written by Carl Sargent
and Rik Rose, this was not the city created by Gygax and Kuntz, but a new plan built from references made in previously published material.
This release remolded Gary Gygax's old Circle of Eight into a new plot device. Instead of a group of eight companions based in the Obsidian Citadel who left periodically to fight evil, the Circle became eight wizards led by a ninth wizard, Gygax's former character Mordenkainen
. In addition to Mordenkainen, seven of the wizards were previously existing characters from Gygax's original home game: Bigby, Otiluke, Drawmij, Tenser, Nystul, Otto, and Rary. The eighth was new: the female wizard Jallarzi Sallavarian
. The Circle's mandate was to act as neutral referees between Good and Evil, never letting one side or the other gain the upper hand for long. In addition, Sargent & Rose took Gygax's original Obsidian Citadel, re-purposed it as Mordenkainen's castle, and placed it in an unspecified location in the Yatil Mountains
.
The following year, in conjunction with this boxed set, TSR published a trilogy of World of Greyhawk Adventure (WGA) modules by Richard & Anne Brown—WGA1 Falcon's Revenge
, WGA2 Falconmaster
and WGA3 Flames of the Falcon—set in the city and centered around a mysterious villain called The Falcon. A fourth WGA module, WGA4 Vecna Lives!
by David Cook, was published the same year, and featured the first appearance by Vecna
, formerly a mythic lich in Dungeons & Dragons lore, now promoted to demigod status.
In 1990, TSR also published WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins
, a module and source book about Castle Greyhawk by TSR writers Blake Mobley and Timothy Brown
. Although this was not the Castle Greyhawk of Gygax and Kuntz, it was the first serious attempt to publish details of the castle.
to develop new lands, the decision was made to stay within the Flanaess and move the campaign time line forward a decade, from 576 CY to 586 CY, in order to provide the setting for a new storyline. The main story vehicle was a war fomented by Iuz that would involve the entire Flanaess, which would allow TSR to radically alter the pattern of regions, alliances, and rulers from Gygax's original setting.
by Carl Sargent
and WGS2 Howl from the North
by Dale Henson, were released in 1991. These described events leading up to the war.
The third module was reworked into Greyhawk Wars
, a strategy war game
that led players through the events, strategies, and alliances of the actual war. A booklet included with the game, Greyhawk Wars Adventurer's Book, described the event of the war. In 582 CY (six years after Gygax's original setting of 576 CY), a regional conflict started by Iuz gradually widened until it was a war that affected almost every nation in the Flanaess. A peace treaty was signed in the city of Greyhawk two years later, which is why the conflict became known as the Greyhawk Wars. On the day of the treaty-signing, Rary—once a minor spellcaster created and then discarded by Brian Blume, but now elevated by TSR to the Circle of Eight—attacked his fellow Circle members, aided and abetted by Robilar. After the attack, Tenser and Otiluke
were dead, while Robilar and Rary fled to the deserts of the Bright Lands. Rob Kuntz, original creator of Robilar, objected to this storyline, since he believed that Robilar would never attack his old adventuring companion Mordenkainen. Although Kuntz did not own the creative rights to Robilar and no longer worked at TSR, he unofficially suggested an alternate storyline that Robilar had been visiting another plane and in his absence, a clone or evil twin of Robilar was responsible for the attack.
, a boxed set primarily written by Carl Sargent
that described the Flanaess
in the aftermath of the Greyhawk Wars. It contained a large 4-color hex map of the area around the city of Greyhawk, a number of quick adventure cards, and two 96-page books.
The first book, Atlas of the Flanaess, was a replacement for Gygax's original World of Greyhawk boxed set, with some changes. Many human gods from previous editions were not included, although one new demigod, Mayaheine, was added. This had the net effect of reducing the total number of human deities from fifty to twenty eight. Deities of other races were increased from twenty four to thirty eight, but unlike the full descriptions that were given to the human gods, these were simply listed by name. Like Gygax's original boxed set, each region was given a two to three hundred word description, although some details included in the older edition, such as trade goods, total population and racial mixes, were not included in this edition. A number of regions—Ahlissa, Almor, Medegia and South Province—no longer existed after the Wars or had been folded into other regions. Two new regions—the Plains of the Paynims and the Olman Islands—were added. This had the net effect of reducing the total number of regions from sixty to fifty eight. Darlene Pekul's large 4-color 2-piece fold-out map of the Flanaess included in Gygax's setting was reduced to a small black & white map printed on the inside cover of the Atlas.
The second book, the Campaign Book, was designed to supplement, rather than replace, the four year old City of Greyhawk boxed set. It included updates to the city and its environs, and gave details of some new non-player characters and possible adventure hooks.
In Gygax's setting, the major conflict had been between the Great Kingdom and the lands that were trying to free themselves from the evil overking. In Sargent's world, the Great Kingdom storyline was largely replaced by the major new conflict between the land of Iuz and the regions that surrounded it. Southern lands outside of Iuz's were threatened by the Scarlet Brotherhood, while other countries had been invaded by monsters or taken over by agents of evil. Overall, the vision was of a darker world where good folk were being swamped by a tide of evil.
Sargent tried to generate interest for this grimmer vision of the Flanaess by following up with an article in Dragons March 1993 issue, writing, "...the powers of evil have waxed strong. The hand of Iuz, the Old One, extends across the central Flanaess, and the cruel Scarlet Brotherhood extends its power and influence around the southern lands bordering the Azure Sea. The World of Greyhawk setting has become a truly exciting world again..."
The boxed set was supported by the publication of two new source books in 1993, also written by Sargent. WGR4 The Marklands
provided information about the good realms of Furyondy, Highfolk, and Nyrond that opposed Iuz, while WGR5 Iuz the Evil
detailed information about the lands of Iuz, and emphasized the prominent new role that Iuz now played in the world order.
In addition, a number of adventures were also published, as much to provide more source material as for adventure: Patriots of Ulek
was the first module published after From the Ashes, and advanced the storyline in Ulek
, threatened by invasion from Turrosh Mak of the Pomarj
. WGR2 Treasures of Greyhawk
, by Jack Barker, Roy Rowe, Louis Prosperi, and Tom Prusa, was a loosely connected series of mini-adventures—for instance, exploring Bigby's home, travelling to the demiplane called The Great Maze of Zagyg, and trading riddles with a sphinx
. Each mini-adventure focussed on a unique treasure in the Flanaess. WGR3 Rary the Traitor
by Anthony Pryor
was both an adventure module as well as a source book about the Bright Lands, the new home of Rary and Robilar following their murder of Tenser and Otiluke. WGR6 The City of Skulls, by Carl Sargent, and WGM1 Border Watch
, by Paul T. Riegel, were modules highlighting the struggle between Furyondy
and the lands of Iuz.
As Gygax had done ten years before, Sargent also used the pages of Dragon to promote his new world. He was working on a new source book, Ivid the Undying, and excerpted parts of it in the April, June and August 1994 issues.
By the end of 1996, TSR found itself heavily in debt and unable to pay its printers. Just as bankruptcy in 1997 seemed inevitable, Wizards of the Coast
stepped in and, fueled by income from its collectible card game
Magic: The Gathering
, bought TSR and all its properties.
, was a fan of both Dungeons & Dragons and Greyhawk, and two major initiatives were created: a revival of Greyhawk, and a new third edition of D&D rules. A team of people was put together to revive the moribund Greyhawk setting by pulling together all the previously published information about it. Once that was done, the decision was made to update Carl Sargent's storyline, using similar prequel adventures to pave the way for the updated campaign setting.
First, Roger E. Moore
created Return of the Eight
in 1998. In the adventure, set in 586 CY, the same year as the From the Ashes boxed set, the players meet the surviving members of the Circle of Eight, which is called the Circle of Five because it is missing Tenser, Otiluke and Rary. If the players successfully finish the adventure, Tenser is rescued from death, though he refuses to rejoin the Circle, and the Circle is reconstituted as Eight with the addition of three new wizards: Alhamazad the Wise, Theodain Eriason and Warnes Starcoat.
Next, the Greyhawk Player's Guide
, by Anne Brown, was released. This 64-page booklet moved the storyline ahead six years to 591 CY, and it mostly condensed and reiterated material that had been released in Gygax's and Sargent's boxed sets. New material included important non-player characters, a guide to roleplaying in the Flanaess, and some new sights. The list of deities was both shrunk and expanded; the thirty eight non-human deities in the From the Ashes boxed set were eliminated and non-human concerns assigned to a handful of human deities, but the list of human deities was expanded from twenty four to fifty four.
With the groundwork for a new storyline prepared, TSR/WotC released the new campaign setting as a 128-page source book, The Adventure Begins, by Roger E. Moore
. Taking its lead from the Greyhawk Player's Guide, the new campaign world was set in 591 CY. Unlike the darker feel of From the Ashes, where the Flanaess was overrun by evil, Moore returned to Gygax's world of adventure.
The Lost Tombs trilogy of modules—The Star Cairns and Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad
, by Sean K. Reynolds
, and The Doomgrinder
, by Steve Miller
—were the first to be published in the new setting.
25th anniversary of D&D The year 1999 marked twenty five years since the publication of the original Dungeons & Dragons rules, and WotC sought to lure older gamers back to Greyhawk by producing a series of nostalgia-tinged Return to... adventures that evoked the best-known Greyhawk modules from 20 years before, under the banner 25th Anniversary of D&D:
, by Bruce R. Cordell, reprinted Gary Gygax's S1 Tomb of Horrors
, and added a substantial expansion. Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, by John D. Rateliff
, took Gary Gygax's 1979 module, B2 Keep on the Borderlands and restocked it with fresh monsters, as if the twenty years that had passed since the original module's publication also equaled twenty years of game time. Although the original had been in a generic setting, the new adventure set the Keep in Greyhawk. Return to White Plume Mountain
, by Bruce R. Cordell, likewise updated Lawrence Schick's twenty year old adventure, White Plume Mountain
, by advancing the storyline twenty years. Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, by Sean K. Reynolds, included the full text of Gygax's three original 1979 Giant modules and details of eighteen new adventure sites in Geoff
, linked together as an integrated campaign. Slavers
by Sean K. Reynolds and Chris Pramas, was a sequel to the original A1-4 Scourge of the Slavelords series, set ten years after the original adventures. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
, by Monte Cook, returned the players to Gygax's infamous temple, which Rob Kuntz (as Robilar) had originally trashed. It was published in 2001, using the 3rd edition rules.
In conjunction with the publication of the Return to adventures, WotC also produced a series of companion novels known as the Greyhawk Classics series: Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Keep on the Borderlands,
and The Tomb of Horrors.
In an attempt to attract players of other D&D settings, WotC released Die, Vecna, Die!, by Bruce R. Cordell and Steve Miller, a three part adventure tying Greyhawk to the Ravenloft
and Planescape
campaign settings. Published in 2000, it was the last adventure to be written for D&Ds 2nd edition rules.
published by TSR, the setting of the game had not been specifically defined—Dungeon Master
s were expected to either create a new world, or purchase a commercial campaign setting such as Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms
. In 2000, after two years of work and playtest
ing, WotC released the 3rd edition of D&D, and defined a default setting for the game for the first time. Under third edition rules, unless a Dungeon Master specifically chose to use a different campaign setting, his or her D&D game would be set in the world of Greyhawk.
With the release of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons
, RPGA
—the organized play division of WotC—announced a new massively shared living campaign, Living Greyhawk
, modeled on a 2nd edition campaign called Living City. Although Living City was relatively successful, RPGA wanted to expand the scope of their new campaign—instead of one city as a setting, the new campaign would involve thirty different regions of Greyhawk, each specifically keyed to a particular country, state, or province of the real world. Each region would produce its own adventures, and in addition to these, RPGA would provide worldwide Core adventures. To provide the level of detail needed for such a venture, WotC published the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer
, the most in-depth examination of the world of Greyhawk ever produced, and the official starting point for not only the campaign, but also for all home campaigns from that point forward.
Concurrent with the release of the 3rd edition Player's Handbook
, Living Greyhawk debuted at Gen Con
2000 with three Core adventures: COR1-1 Dragon Scales at Morningtide, by Sean K. Reynolds
; COR1-2 The Reckoning, by Sean Flaherty and John Richardson; and COR1-3 River Of Blood, by Erik Mona
. Unlike previous campaign settings, in which the calendar was frozen at a point chosen by the author, the Living Greyhawk calendar did advance one year in game time for every calendar year in real time: the campaign started in 591 CY (2001) and ended in 598 CY (2008), at which point over a thousand adventures had been produced for an audience of over ten thousand players. During this time, the campaign administrators incorporated most of WotC's new rules into the Greyhawk world, only excising material they felt would unbalance the campaign, by either providing too much power to the players or to the adventure writers. In 2005, the administrators incorporated every deity ever mentioned in official Greyhawk material previous to the D&D 3rd edition, as well as all deities mentioned in the new 3rd edition source books. This tripled the number of deities in the campaign from about seventy to almost two hundred.
Despite the massive amount of world and storyline development, none of the Living Greyhawk storylines or changes to the setting were considered official, since the regional adventure modules were produced by volunteers, and only received a cursory vetting by the campaign administrators of RPGA, and no review by WotC personnel.
. The Standing Stone, written by John D. Rateliff
and released in 2001, did have several minor references to the Greyhawk setting, and Red Hand of Doom
, written by James Jacob and released in 2006, contained instructions for where to set the adventure within the world of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms
, and Eberron
. Otherwise, Wizards of the Coast left the development of the Greyhawk world to RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign and concentrated on producing new source books of expansion material for the core rules of D&D.
2007, WotC announced that the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons would be released the following spring, and Greyhawk would no longer be the default campaign setting under the new rules system. For this reason, Living Greyhawk was not converted to the new rules system; instead, it was brought to a conclusion at Origins 2008.
In 2009, WotC released The Village of Hommlet, by Andy Collins, which updated Gary Gygax's original 1st edition Village of Hommlet to the 4th edition rules . It was not available for purchase, but was sent as a reward for those who joined the RPGA.
and Rob Kuntz
, still had most of their original notes regarding the fifty levels of dungeons under Castle Greyhawk. Gygax also had his old maps of the city of Greyhawk, and still owned the rights to Gord the Rogue
.
After Gygax left TSR in 1985, he continued to write a few more Gord the Rogue novels, which were published by New Infinities Productions: Sea of Death (1987), City of Hawks (1987), and Come Endless Darkness (1988). However, by this time, Gygax was furious with the new direction in which TSR was taking "his" world. In a literary declaration that his old world of Oerth was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, Dance of Demons. For the next fifteen years, he worked to develop other game systems.
But there was still the matter of the unpublished dungeons under Castle Greyhawk. Although Gygax had given glimpses into the dungeons in his magazine columns and articles, the dungeons themselves had never been released to the public. Likewise, Gygax's version of the city of Greyhawk had never been published, although Frank Mentzer
believed the reason for that was because "the City of Greyhawk was a later development, originally being but a location (albeit a capital). As such it was never fleshed out all that thoroughly... notes on certain locations and notorious personnel, a sketch map of great brevity, and otherwise quite loose. That is doubtless why Gary didn't publish it; it had never been completed."
However, in 2003, Gygax announced that he was working with Rob Kuntz to publish the original castle and city in six volumes, although the project would use the rules for Castles and Crusades rather than Dungeons & Dragons. Since WotC still owned the rights to the name Greyhawk, Gygax changed the name of the castle to Castle Zagyg—the reverse homophone of his own name originally ascribed to the mad architect of his original thirteen level dungeon. Gygax also changed the name of the nearby city to "Yggsburgh", a play on his initials E.G.G.
This project proved to be much more work than Gygax and Kuntz had envisioned. By the time Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on the original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed fifty levels of maze-like passages and thousands of rooms and traps. This, plus plans for the city of Yggsburgh and encounter areas outside the castle and city, were found to be too much to fit into the proposed six volumes. Gygax decided he would recreate something like his original thirteen level dungeon, amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes. However, neither Gygax nor Kuntz had kept careful or comprehensive plans. Because they had often made up details of play sessions as they went, they usually just drew a quick map as they played, with cursory notes about monsters, treasures, and traps. These sketchy maps contained just enough detail so that the two could combine their independent efforts, after determining the merits of each piece. Recreating the city was also a challenge; although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while maintaining the look and feel of his original.
The slow and laborious process came to a complete halt in April 2004, when Gygax suffered a serious stroke
. Although he returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output was reduced from fourteen hour work days to only one or two hours per day. Kuntz had to withdraw due to other projects, although he continued to work on an adventure module that would be published at the same time as the first book. Under these circumstances, work on the Castle Zagyg project continued even more slowly, although Jeffrey Talanian stepped in to help Gygax. In 2005, Troll Lord Games
published Volume I, Castle Zagyg: Yggsburgh. This 256-page hardcover book contained details of Gygax's original city, its personalities and politics, as well as over thirty encounters outside the city. The two part fold out map of the area was rendered by Darlene Pekul, the same artist who had produced the original map for the folio edition of World of Greyhawk. Later that year, Troll Lord Games also published Castle Zagyg: Dark Chateau, an adventure module written for the Yggsburgh setting by Rob Kuntz.
Book catalogs published in 2005 indicated several more volumes in the series would follow shortly, but it wasn't until 2008 that the second volume, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, appeared. The Upper Works described details of the castle above ground, acting as a teaser for the volumes concerning the actual dungeons that would follow. However, Gygax died in March 2008 before any further books were published. After his death, Gygax Games, under the control of Gary's widow Gail, took over the project, but no more volumes of the Castle Zagyg project have been published.
Rob Kuntz also published some of his creative work from the Castle Greyhawk dungeons. In 2008, he released the adventure modules The Living Room, about a whimsical but dangerous room that housed enormous furniture, and Bottle City, about a bottle found on the second level of the dungeon that contained an entire city. 2009 saw Kuntz release Daemonic & Arcane, a collection of Greyhawk and Kalibruhn magic items, and The Stalk, a wilderness adventure. In October 2010, Black Blade Publishing announced that they would be publishing several of Kuntz's original Greyhawk levels, including the Machine Level, the Boreal Level, the Giants' Pool Hall, and the Garden of the Plantmaster.
Campaign setting
A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...
for the Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for Dungeons & Dragons—Dave Arneson
Dave Arneson
David Lance "Dave" Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game , Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s...
's Blackmoor
Blackmoor
Blackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...
campaign predates it by a few months—the world of Greyhawk was the setting most closely identified with the development of the game from 1972 until 2008. The world itself started as a simple dungeon under a castle designed by Gary Gygax
Gary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
for the amusement of his children and friends, but it rapidly expanded to include not only a complex multi-layered dungeon environment, but also the nearby city of Greyhawk, and eventually an entire world. In addition to the campaign world, which was published in several editions over twenty years, Greyhawk was also used as the setting for many adventures published in support of the game, as well as for RPGA
RPGA
The RPGA , is part of the organized play arm of Wizards of the Coast that organizes and sanctions role-playing games worldwide, principally under the d20 system...
's massively shared Living Greyhawk
Living Greyhawk
Living Greyhawk was a massively shared Dungeons and Dragons living campaign administered by RPGA that ran from 2000 to 2008. The campaign setting and storyline were based on Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk setting, and used the Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition rules...
campaign from 2000–2008.
Early development
In the late 1960s, Gary GygaxGary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
, a military history
Military history
Military history is a humanities discipline within the scope of general historical recording of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, their cultures, economies and changing intra and international relationships....
buff and pulp
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
fan, started to add elements of fantasy into traditional tabletop medieval miniatures wargames
Wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...
at his games club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He sometimes replaced typical medieval weapons with magical spells, or used dragons and other fantastical monsters in place of soldiers. In 1971, as part of a rule set for tabletop battles called Chainmail
Chainmail (game)
Chainmail is a medieval miniatures wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Gygax developed the game with fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association member Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly, and the game was first published in 1971...
that he was co-writing, he created supplementary rules for magical spells and monsters as well as one-on-one combat.
Around the same time, in Minneapolis–St. Paul, another tabletop wargamer, Dave Arneson
Dave Arneson
David Lance "Dave" Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game , Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s...
, was also developing a new type of game. Arneson had been impressed by the Napoleonic tabletop "Braunstein" campaigns of fellow wargamer David Wesely
David Wesely
David Wesely is a wargamer, board game designer, and video game developer. Dave Arneson credited him with coming up with the idea of the role-playing game....
that incorporated elements of what is now called role-playing
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
, such as using a neutral referee or judge and having conversations between the players and imaginary characters to resolve diplomatic issues. However, Arneson soon grew tired of the Napoleonic setting, and one night when the gaming group assembled, he presented a plastic model of a castle in place of the usual battlefield, and told the players that instead of controlling regiments that night, they would each take one individual character into the castle of the Barony of Blackmoor to explore its dangerous dungeons. For combat resolution, he started by using rock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people. The game is also known as roshambo, or another ordering of the three items ....
, but quickly moved to a combination of rules that combined Chainmail and a nautical wargame he had co-written with Gary Gygax and Mike Carr called Don't Give Up the Ship!
Don't Give Up The Ship!
Don't Give Up the Ship! is a set of rules for conducting Napoleonic era naval wargames. The game was published by Guidon Games in 1972 and republished by TSR, Inc. in 1975. It was the first collaboration between Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons...
What set Arneson's game apart from Wesely's tabletop wargaming was that the players could keep the same characters from session to session, and that the characters advanced by developing better abilities or powers over time.
Arneson's Minneapolis-St. Paul Napoleonic gaming group was in touch with Gygax's Lake Geneva group, and Arneson mentioned the dungeons of his Blackmoor game that the group was playing on alternate weekends. Gygax was interested, so during a visit to Lake Geneva in 1972, Arneson demonstrated his Blackmoor dungeons to Gygax. Gygax was immediately intrigued by the concept of individual characters exploring a dungeon setting, and believed that this was a game that could be marketed and sold. He and Arneson agreed to co-develop a set of rules based on Chainmail. In order to provide a playtest
Playtest
A playtest is the process by which a game designer tests a new game for bugs and flaws before bringing it to market. Playtests can be run "open", "closed", "beta", or otherwise....
ing environment in which to develop these rules, Gygax designed his own castle, Castle Greyhawk, and prepared the first level of a dungeon that lay beneath it. Two of his children, Ernie and Elise, were the first players, and during their first session, they fought and destroyed the first monsters of the Greyhawk dungeon; Gygax recalled them as being either giant centipedes or a nest of scorpions. During the same session, Ernie and Elise also found the first treasure, a chest of 3,000 copper coins which was too heavy to carry, much to the children's chagrin. After his children had gone to bed, Gygax immediately began working on a second level for the dungeon. At the next play session, Ernie and Elise were joined by Gygax's friends: Don Kaye
Don Kaye
Donald R. Kaye , co-founder of TSR, Inc., was the childhood friend of Gary Gygax, and shared an interest in war games and tabletop miniatures with him during their youth...
, Rob Kuntz
Robert J. Kuntz
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is most famous for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.-Works:...
, and Terry Kuntz
Terry Kuntz
Terry Kuntz is a game designer who was an early associate of Gary Gygax and employee of TSR.-Biography:...
.
About a month after his first session, Gygax created the nearby city of Greyhawk, where the players' characters could sell their treasure and find a place to rest.
Home campaign (1972–1979)
As Gygax and Arneson worked to develop and publish the rules for Dungeons & Dragons through TSRTSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
, Gygax continued to design and present the dungeons and environs of Castle Greyhawk to his circle of friends and family, using them as playtesters for new rules and concepts. As the players began to explore more of the world outside of the castle and city, Gygax developed other regions and cities for them. With play sessions occurring seven or more times a week, Gygax didn't have the time or inclination to create the map for a whole new world; he simply drew his world over a map of North America, adding new cities and regions as his world slowly grew through ongoing adventures. The city and castle of Greyhawk were placed near the real-world position of Chicago, his birthplace; various other places were clustered around it. For instance, the rival city of Dyvers
Dyvers
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Dyvers, the "City of Sails," is a free city and political state in the central Flanaess...
he placed in the area of real-world Milwaukee.
Gygax also continued to develop the dungeons underneath the castle. By the time he was finished, the complex labyrinth encompassed thirteen levels filled with devious traps, secret passageways, hungry monsters, and glittering treasure. Although details of these original Greyhawk dungeons have never been published in detail, Gygax gave some glimpses of them in an article he wrote for the European fanzine Europa in 1975:
Before the rules for D&D were published, "Old Greyhawk Castle" was 13 levels deep. The first level was a simple maze of rooms and corridors, for none of the "participants" had ever played such a game before. The second level had two unusual items, a Nixie pool and a fountain of snakes. The third featured a torture chamber and small cells and prison rooms. The fourth was a level of crypts and undead. The fifth was centered around a strange font of black fire and gargoyles. The sixth was a repeating maze with dozens of wild hogs... in inconvenient spots, naturally backed up by appropriate numbers of Wereboars. The seventh was centered around a circular labyrinth and a street of masses of ogres. The eighth through tenth levels were caves and caverns featuring Trolls, giant insects and a transporter nexus with an evil Wizard (with a number of tough associates) guarding it. The eleventh level was the home of the most powerful wizard in the castle: He had Balrogs as servants. The remainder of the level was populated by Martian White Apes, except the sub-passage system underneath the corridors which was full of poisonous critters with no treasure. Level twelve was filled with Dragons.
The bottom level, number thirteen, contained an inescapable slide which took the players clear through 'to China', from whence they had to return via "Outdoor Adventure". It was quite possible to journey downward by an insidious series of slanting passages which began on the second level, but the likelihood of following such a route unknowingly didn't become too great until the seventh or eighth level...
Side levels included a barracks with Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls continually warring with each other, a museum, a huge arena, an underground lake, a Giant's home, and a garden of fungi.
Anyone who made it to the bottom level alive met Zagyg, the insane architect of the dungeons. (Zagyg is a reverse homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
of Gygax, and it was Gygax's inside joke that the person who had designed the dungeon—himself—must be insane.) Only three players ever made it to the bottom level and met Zagyg, all of them during solo adventures: Rob Kuntz
Robert J. Kuntz
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is most famous for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.-Works:...
(playing Robilar
Robilar
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Robilar is a powerful warrior who serves as commander of Rary's forces in the Empire of the Bright Lands...
), Gygax's son Ernie (playing Tenser
Tenser
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Tenser is an archmage who actively seeks to rid the Flanaess of evil...
), and Rob's brother Terry
Terry Kuntz
Terry Kuntz is a game designer who was an early associate of Gary Gygax and employee of TSR.-Biography:...
(playing Terik). Their reward was to be instantly transported to the far side of the world, where they each faced a long solo trek back to the city of Greyhawk. Terik and Tenser managed to catch up to Robilar along the way, and the three journeyed back to Greyhawk together.
By this time, over twenty players crowded Gygax's basement almost every night, and the effort needed to plan their adventures took up much of Gygax's spare time. He had been very impressed with Rob Kuntz's imaginative play as a player, and appointed Rob to be co-Dungeon Master
Dungeon Master
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master is the game organizer and participant in charge of creating the details and challenges of a given adventure, while maintaining a realistic continuity of events...
of Greyhawk. This freed up Gygax to work on other projects, and also gave him an opportunity to participate as a player, creating characters like Yrag and Mordenkainen
Mordenkainen
Mordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character and is one of the oldest characters in roleplaying fiction...
.
In order to make room for Rob Kuntz's dungeons, Gygax scrapped his bottom level and integrated Rob's work into the Greyhawk dungeons. Gygax and Kuntz continued to develop new levels for their players, and by the time the Greyhawk home campaign drew to a close in 1985, the castle dungeons encompassed more than fifty levels.
Significant player characters of the home campaign
While many players participating in the Gygax and Kuntz home campaign were occasional players, sometimes not even naming their characters, others played far more frequently, and several of their characters became well-known to the general gaming world before publication of the Greyhawk campaign setting. Some of these characters became known when Gygax mentioned them in his various columns, interviews, and publications. In other cases, when Gygax created a new magical spell for the game, he would sometimes use the name of a wizard character from his home campaign to add verisimilitude to the spell name, such as Melf's acid arrow, MelfMelf
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Melf, also known as Prince Brightflame, is a grey elven archmage, and was originally a player character of Lucion Paul Gygax in Gary Gygax's home campaign...
being a character created by his son Luke. Some of the characters who became synonymous with Greyhawk at that time included:
- MurlyndMurlyndIn the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Murlynd is a minor deity. He began as a player character created by Gary Gygax's closest friend Don Kaye in 1972 for the second-ever session of the game that would become D&D...
: Gary Gygax's friend Don KayeDon KayeDonald R. Kaye , co-founder of TSR, Inc., was the childhood friend of Gary Gygax, and shared an interest in war games and tabletop miniatures with him during their youth...
created Murlynd for the second-ever session of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign in 1972. Gygax later recalled that Murlynd was the first attempt by a player to make a creative name for a character; in the early days, most players—including Gygax himself—simply used their own name as a basis for their character's name, e.g. Gary was Yrag, etc. Cross-pollination with other fictional universes was common in the early days, and in one of these sessions, Murlynd was transported to America's Wild West, a setting that Kaye enjoyed. When Murlynd eventually returned to the world of Greyhawk, he brought his six-shooters back with him. Although Gygax did not allow the use of gunpowder in his Greyhawk setting, he made a loophole for Don Kaye by ruling that Murlynd actually carried two magical wands that made loud noises and delivered small but deadly missiles. His name is used for the Unearthed ArcanaUnearthed ArcanaUnearthed Arcana is the title shared by two hardback books published for different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game...
item, Murlynd's Spoon. - RobilarRobilarIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Robilar is a powerful warrior who serves as commander of Rary's forces in the Empire of the Bright Lands...
: Robilar was a fighter belonging to Rob Kuntz. Like Murlynd, Robilar was also created for the second-ever session beneath Castle Greyhawk in 1972, rolled up on Gygax's kitchen table. Gygax suggested to Kuntz the name of Robilar, after a minor character in Gygax's novella The Gnome Cache. Because Kuntz was a constant player, Robilar rapidly gained power and possessions. As the city of Greyhawk was developed, he also became the secret owner of the Green Dragon Inn in the city of Greyhawk, where he kept tabs on happenings in the city. Kuntz quickly grew impatient with play when it involved more than a couple of players, and often played solo adventures one-on-one with Gygax. Robilar was not only the first to reach the 13th and bottom level of Gygax's Greyhawk dungeons, but on the way, he was also responsible for freeing nine demi-gods (whom Gygax revived a decade later as some of the first deities of Greyhawk: IuzIuzIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Iuz is the chaotic evil demigod of Deceit, Evil, Oppression, Pain, and Wickedness. Iuz is variously called "The Old One" and "Old Wicked," among other titles. Unlike most Greyhawk deities, Iuz makes his home on...
, RalishazRalishazIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Ralishaz is the god of Chance, Ill Luck, Misfortune, and Insanity...
, TrithereonTrithereonIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Trithereon is the god of Individuality, Liberty, Retribution, and Self-Defense...
, ErythnulErythnulIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the default pantheon of deities for the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Erythnul is the Oeridian god of hate, envy, malice, panic, ugliness, and slaughter. He is known as the Many, and is worshipped by many gnoll,...
, OlidammaraOlidammaraIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the default pantheon of deities for the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Olidammara is the god of Music, Revels, Wine, Rogues, Humor, and Tricks. He is often called the Laughing Rogue.Olidammara is one of the more...
, HeironeousHeironeousIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the default pantheon of deities for the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Heironeous is the Oeridian god of Chivalry, Justice, Honor, War, Daring, and Valor. His holy symbol is a silver lightning bolt, often clutched in a...
, CelestianCelestianIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Celestian is the god of Stars, Space and Wanderers. His symbol is a black circle set with seven stars. His color is black....
, HextorHextorIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the default pantheon of deities for the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Hextor is the Oeridian god of war, discord, massacres, conflict, fitness, and tyranny....
, and Obad-HaiObad-HaiIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the default pantheon of deities for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Obad-Hai is the god of Nature, Woodlands, Hunting, and Beasts, one of the most ancient known. He is often called the Shalm....
). Robilar was also the first to enter Gygax's Temple of Elemental Evil, and conquered it completely. Robilar also freed the demoness ZuggtmoyZuggtmoyIn the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Zuggtmoy is the Demon Queen of Fungi. Her symbol is a jawless human skull with fungi blooming from within, though some of her false cults use other symbols...
from her prison at the centre of the Temple. Kuntz later related that Gygax was very dismayed that his masterpiece dungeon had been destroyed by a single adventurer, and as punishment, Gygax had an army pursue Robilar back to his castle, which he had to abandon. Robilar also lost possession of the Green Dragon Inn. - TenserTenserIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Tenser is an archmage who actively seeks to rid the Flanaess of evil...
: Tenser was a wizard played by Gygax's son Ernie. In the earliest days of Greyhawk, Ernie often gamed with Rob Kuntz (Robilar) and Terry Kuntz (Terik). At one point, using their combined forces of loyal henchmen, the three controlled access to the first level of the Greyhawk dungeons while they ransacked the lower levels. Tenser became the second character to reach the thirteenth (and bottom, at the time) level of the Greyhawk dungeons, when he noticed that Robilar was missing and went in search of him. Gary Gygax included the name Tenser in the names of two spells, Tenser's floating disc and Tenser's transformation. - Terik: Terik (or Teric) was a character created by Terry Kuntz. Terik often adventured with Tenser and Robilar in the days when the three controlled the first level of the dungeons of Greyhawk. Terik became the third and last character to reach the bottom level of Gygax's original Greyhawk dungeon when he noticed Robilar and Tenser were missing and went in search of them.
- Erac's CousinErac's CousinIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the man known as Erac's Cousin is a mysterious figure who has not revealed his real name. He is also called simply the Unnamed.-Creative origins:...
: Gary Gygax's son Ernie originally had a character he called Erac. Later, he created a wizard who, due to a personal issue as part of his backstory, refused to reveal his name, simply referring to himself as Erac's Cousin. Gary Gygax knew that Ernie liked the BarsoomBarsoomBarsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote close to 100 action adventure stories in various genres in the first half of the 20th century, and is now best known as the creator of the character Tarzan...
stories of Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
, and at one point, transported Erac's Cousin to a Barsoom-like Mars, where the inhabitants refused to let the wizard use magic. Erac's Cousin was forced to become a fighter instead, and learned to fight proficiently with two weapons simultaneously. Eventually he was able to teleport back to Oerth, but when he acquired two vorpalVorpalVorpal sword is a phrase used by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem "Jabberwocky".- Context and definition :Carroll published Through the Looking-Glass in 1871. Near the beginning, Alice discovers and reads "Jabberwocky"...
blades, Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax decided he had become too powerful, and lured him into a demon's clutches. The demon took him to an alternative plane that drained the magic from the vorpal blades, destroying them. - Yrag: After Gygax made Kuntz a co-DM, this fighter was Gygax's first character, and Gygax often referred to Yrag's various adventures in columns and interviews. Yrag is simply Gary spelled backwards.
- MordenkainenMordenkainenMordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character and is one of the oldest characters in roleplaying fiction...
: This was perhaps Gygax's most famous character, and also his favorite. Mordenkainen was created in early 1973, and his name was drawn from Finnish mythology. Due to constant play, often with Rob Kuntz as DM, Gygax advanced Mordenkainen into a powerful character. Gygax never revealed exactly how powerful Mordenkainen was, simply stating that the wizard had "twenty-something levels".) Even years after he last played Mordenkainen, he would not disclose any of Mordenkainen's powers or possessions. Various spells from first edition bear his name, such as Mordenkainen's faithful hound, Mordenkainen's lucubration, and Mordenkainen's sword. - BigbyBigby (Greyhawk)Bigby is an archmage in the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. Before the Greyhawk Wars, Bigby made his home in Scant, capital of Onnwal. Nowadays, he can often be found in Mitrik, Veluna...
: Bigby started life as an evil low-level wizard non-player character in Rob Kuntz's dungeons of Greyhawk. Gary Gygax, playing Mordenkainen, managed to subdue him, and forced Bigby to become his servant. After a long time and several adventures, Mordenkainen managed to convince Bigby to leave his evil ways behind, and Kuntz ruled that Bigby had changed from an enemy to a loyal henchman, and therefore Gygax could take over Bigby as a player character. Thereafter, Gygax developed Bigby into a powerful wizard second only to Mordenkainen, and used his name to describe a series of hand spells, e.g. Bigby's crushing hand and Bigby's grasping hand. For a time after this, Rob Kuntz ruled that all the names of Mordenkainen's future henchmen had to rhyme with Bigby. This resulted in Zigby the dwarf; Rigby the cleric; Sigby Griggbyson the fighter; Bigby's apprentice, Nigby; and Digby, Mordenkainen's new apprentice who replaced Bigby. - MelfMelfIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Melf, also known as Prince Brightflame, is a grey elven archmage, and was originally a player character of Lucion Paul Gygax in Gary Gygax's home campaign...
: Melf was an elven character created by Gary Gygax's son Luke. After Luke had rolled up his elf's abilities and filled out the rest of his character sheet, he couldn't think of a name for his new character, and simply used what was written across the top of the character sheet: M Elf (that is, male elf). Gary Gygax borrowed Melf's name for the spell Melf's acid arrow. - RaryRaryIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Rary of Ket is a powerful archmage and ruler of the Bright Lands, also known as Rary the Traitor....
: Rary was a wizard created by Brian BlumeBrian BlumeBrian J. Blume is noted for being a business partner of Gary Gygax in TSR, Inc., producers of the fantasy role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons.-Biography:...
and played only until he reached the 3rd level, at which point Blume retired him, having reached his objective, which was to be able to call his character "Medium Rary". Gygax borrowed the name for the spells Rary's mnemonic enhancer and Rary's telepathic bond. - Otto: Otto, like Bigby, started life as an evil non-player character wizard in the dungeons of Greyhawk. Tenser and Robilar defeated him in combat, and when given a choice of which master to serve, Otto chose to serve Robilar, thereby becoming a character controlled by Robilar's creator, Rob Kuntz. Thereafter, Otto accompanied Robilar on many adventures, including Robilar's destruction of the Temple of Elemental Evil. Gary Gygax borrowed Otto's name for the spell Otto's irresistible dance.
- DrawmijDrawmijIn the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Drawmij is an archmage. A founding member of the sorcerous conclave known as the Circle of Eight, Drawmij is reputed to live in an underwater fortress beneath the Azure Sea...
: Drawmij was a wizard created by Jim WardJim Ward (game designer)James M. Ward , is an American game designer and fantasy author. He is most famous for his game development and writing work for TSR, Inc., where he worked for more than 20 years. In 1989 he was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Hall of Fame...
—Drawmij is simply his name spelled backwards. Gygax borrowed Drawmij's name for the magical spell Drawmij's instant summons. - The Circle of Eight: At the point where Gygax's own characters in the Greyhawk home campaign had collectively accumulated both enough wealth that they couldn't easily spend it, and a standing army that rivalled most nations' forces, he gathered all eight of the characters—Mordenkainen (wizard), Yrag (fighter), Bigby (wizard), Rigby (cleric), Zigby (dwarf), Felnorith (elf), Vram (elf) & Vin (elf)—together as the Circle of Eight. Pooling their resources, Gygax had the Eight construct a stronghold in the middle of an evil land so they would not have to travel far to find adventure. After three years of game time, the result was the Obsidian Citadel, an octagonal castle which housed the Circle of Eight and their armies.
The first mention of Oerth
In the first issue of The DragonDragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
published in June 1976, Gygax prefaced Chapter 1 of his serialized novella The Gnome Cache with a note that the story's setting, Oerth
Oerth
In the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Oerth, pronounced as "Orth" or "oyth", is the name of the fictional planet on which one of the earliest campaign settings, the World of Greyhawk, is located...
, was very similar to Earth in terms of geography.
The first deities of Greyhawk
One facet of culture that Gygax did not address during the first few years of his home campaign was organized religion. Since his campaign was largely built around the needs of lower-level characters, he didn't think specific deities were necessary, since direct interaction between a god and a low-level character was very unlikely. Some of his players took matters into their own hands, calling upon Norse or Greek gods such as OdinOdin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
or Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, or even Conan's
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...
Crom in times of dire need. However, some of the players wanted Gygax to create and customize a specific deity so that cleric characters could receive their powers from someone less ambiguous than the gods. Gygax jokingly created two gods: Saint Cuthbert
Saint Cuthbert (Dungeons & Dragons)
In some versions of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, Saint Cuthbert of the Cudgel is the combative deity of Wisdom, Dedication, and Zeal...
—who brought non-believers around to his point of view with whacks of his cudgel —and Pholtus
Pholtus
In the fictional campaign setting of Greyhawk used for the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Pholtus was one of the first gods created by Gary Gygax as he and Dave Arneson developed the game of Dungeons & Dragons...
, whose fanatical followers refused to believe that any other gods existed. Because both of these deities represented aspects of Good, Gygax eventually created a few evil deities to provide some villainy.
In Chapter 2 of The Gnome Cache, which appeared in the second issue of The Dragon, a shrine to St. Cuthbert (spelled St. Cuthburt) was mentioned, which was the first published reference to a Greyhawk deity.
The first Greyhawk novel
In 1976, Gygax invited the science fiction/fantasy writer Andre NortonAndre Norton
Andre Alice Norton, née Alice Mary Norton was an American science fiction and fantasy author under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston...
to play Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
in his Greyhawk world. Norton subsequently wrote Quag Keep, which involved a group of gamers who travel from the real world to Greyhawk. It was the first novel to be set, at least partially, in the Greyhawk setting, and according to Alternative Worlds, the first to be based on D&D. Quag Keep was excerpted in Issue 12 of The Dragon (February 1978) just prior to the book's release.
The first Greyhawk adventures published by TSR
From 1976–1979, Gygax also shared some glimpses of his home campaign with other gamers when he set several TSR Dungeons & Dragons adventures in the world of Greyhawk:- Lost Caverns of Tsojconth (1976), republished in 1982 as S4 Lost Caverns of TsojcanthLost Caverns of TsojcanthThe Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The 64-page adventure bears the code "S4" and is set in the World of...
- S1 Tomb of HorrorsTomb of HorrorsTomb of Horrors is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It was originally written for and used at the 1975 Origins 1 convention...
(1978) - G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (1978)
- G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (1978)
- G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King (1978)
- D1 Descent into the Depths of the EarthDescent into the Depths of the EarthDescent Into the Depths of the Earth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game coded D1–2. It was written by Gary Gygax, and combines two previously published modules from 1978, the original Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Shrine of the Kuo-Toa...
(1978) - D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (1978)
- D3 Vault of the Drow (1978)
- T1 The Village of Hommlet (1978)
In addition, Lawrence Schick set his 1979 TSR adventure S2 White Plume Mountain
White Plume Mountain
White Plume Mountain is an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, written by Lawrence Schick and published by TSR in 1979...
in Greyhawk.
The World of Greyhawk folio edition (1980)
Greyhawk (supplement)
Greyhawk is a supplementary rulebook written by Gary Gygax and Robert J. Kuntz for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game...
, an expansion of the rules for Dungeons & Dragons based on their play experiences in the Greyhawk campaign. Although it detailed new spells and character classes that had been developed in the dungeons of Greyhawk, it did not contain any details of their Greyhawk campaign world. The only two references to Greyhawk were an illustration of a large stone head in a dungeon corridor titled The Great Stone Face, Enigma of Greyhawk and mention of a fountain on the second level of the dungeons that continuously issued an endless number of snakes.
The 2004 publication 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons
30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons
30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons is a 2004 publisher's retrospective written by Harold Johnson, Steve Winter, Peter Adkison, Ed Stark, and Peter Archer...
suggested that details of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign were published in this booklet, but Gygax had no plans in 1975 to publish details of the Greyhawk world, since he believed that new players of Dungeons & Dragons would rather create their own worlds than use someone else's. In addition, he didn't want to publish all the material he had created for his players; he thought he would be unlikely to recoup a fair investment for the thousands of hours he had spent on it; and since his secrets would be revealed to his players, he would be forced to recreate a new world for them afterward.
With the release of the AD&D Players Handbook in 1978, many players were intrigued by the connection of Greyhawk characters to magical spells such as Tenser's floating disc, Bigby's crushing hand, and Mordenkainen's disjunction. The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, released the following year, also made references to the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk. Players' curiosity was further piqued by the ten Dungeons & Dragons modules set in Greyhawk that were published between 1976–1979. Several of Gygax's regular columns in Dragon magazine also mentioned details of his home campaign and characters that inhabited his world. Gygax was surprised when he found out that players wanted to use Greyhawk as their campaign world.
Development of geography
In response to this, Gygax changed his mind and decided he would publish his private campaign world, but with some important changes. Rather than using his own map, which was simply the real-world Earth overwritten with his cities, towns and regions, he decided to create a new world called Oerth. Gygax joked, "Say it as Oi-th as if you were from Brooklyn, and that's the way I pronounce it. That annoys all who take a fantasy world far too seriously." Once he had sketched out the entire planet, Gygax decided to concentrate his first efforts on one small corner of the world. One hemisphere of Oerth was dominated by a massive continent called Oerik. Gygax asked TSR's printing house about the maximum size of paper they could handle; the answer was 34" x 22" (86 cm x 56 cm). He found that, using the scale he desired, he could only fit the northeast corner of the continent of Oerik on two of the sheets. He therefore concentrated on providing details for less than a quarter of the landmass of Oerth, concentrating on the eastern part of the continent of Oerik that would be illustrated by his map.Gygax gave only the most basic descriptions of each state; he expected that DMs would customize the setting in order to make it an integral part of their own individual campaigns. In order to give the campaign setting as much flexibility as possible in terms of geographic settings, his map included arctic wastes, desert, temperate forests, tropical jungles, mountainous cordillera, seas and oceans, rivers, archipelagos and volcanoes. He placed the city and castle of Greyhawk roughly in the centre of the map, in an area that would have about the same temperate climate as his home in Lake Geneva. For the other regions that had surrounded the city of Greyhawk on his old map, some were left relatively close to the city of Greyhawk; for instance, the rivalry between the cities of Dyvers, Hardby, and Greyhawk was a feature of Gygax's campaign, so the three cities were placed in close proximity to each other. However, most other regions were moved further away, scattered across the new map. Gygax also added many more new regions, countries and cities, bringing the number of political states to sixty.
Needing original names for all of the geographical and political places on his map, Gygax sometimes resorted to wordplay based on the names of friends and acquaintances. For instance, Perrenland was named after Jeff Perren, who co-wrote the rules for Chainmail with Gygax; Urnst was a homophone of Ernst (his son Ernie); and Sunndi was a near-homophone of Cindy, another of Gygax's children. From Gygax's prototype map, Darlene Pekul
Darlene Pekul
-Biography:Pekul graduated from Beloit College in 1976.After college Pekul dated Mike Carr, who was working as an editor at TSR Inc., the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. As a result of this connection Pekul started to do freelance work for TSR...
, a freelance artist in Lake Geneva, developed a full color map on a hex grid. Gygax was so pleased with the end result that he quickly switched his home Greyhawk campaign over to the new world he had created.
Development of history and politics
Gygax set out to create a fractious place where chaos and evil were in the ascendant and courageous champions would be needed. In order to explain how his world had arrived at this state, he wrote an outline of a thousand years of history. As a military historyMilitary history
Military history is a humanities discipline within the scope of general historical recording of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, their cultures, economies and changing intra and international relationships....
buff, he was very familiar with the concept of waves of cultural invasion
Invasion
An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a...
s, such the Pict
PICT
PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...
s of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
being invaded by the Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
s, who were in turn invaded by the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
. In creating a similar pattern of history for his world, Gygax decided that a thousand years before his campaign began, the northeast corner of the continent had been occupied by a peaceful but primitive people called the Flannae, whose name was the root for the name of that part of Oerik, the Flanaess
Flanaess
The Flanaess is the eastern part of the continent of Oerik, one of the four continents of the fictional world of Oerth in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The Flanaess has been the setting of dozens of adventures published between the 1970s...
. At that time, far to the west of the Flanaess, two peoples were at war, the Bakluni and the Suloise. The war reached its climax when both sides used powerful magic to obliterate each other, in an event called the Twin Cataclysms. Refugees of these disasters were forced out of their lands, and the Suloise invaded the Flanaess, forcing the Flannae to flee to the outer edges of the continent. Several centuries later, a new invader appeared, the Oeridians, and they in turn forced the Suloise southward. One tribe of the Oeridians, the Aerdi, began to set up an empire. Several centuries later, the Aerdi's Great Kingdom ruled most of the Flanaess. The Aerdi overkings marked the beginning of what they believed would be perpetual peace with Year 1 of a new calendar, the Common Year (CY) Reckoning. However, several centuries later, the Empire became decadent, with their rulers losing their sanity, turning to evil, and enslaving their people. When the overking Ivid V came to the throne, the oppressed peoples rebelled.
It was at this point, in the year 576 CY, that Gygax set the world of Greyhawk. As Gygax wrote in his World of Greyhawk folio, "The current state of affairs in the Flanaess is confused indeed. Humankind is fragmented into isolationist realms, indifferent nations, evil lands, and states striving for good." Gygax did not issue monthly or yearly updates to the state of affairs as presented in the folio since he saw 576CY as a common starting point for every home campaign; because each would be moving forward at its own pace, there would be no practical way to issue updates that would be relevant to every Dungeon Master.
Gygax was also aware that different players would be using his world for different reasons. When he was the Dungeon Master of his home campaign, he found that his players were more interested in dungeon-delving than politics; but when he switched roles and became a player, often going one-on-one with Rob Kuntz as Dungeon Master, Gygax immersed his own characters in politics and large-scale battles. Knowing that there would be some players looking for a town in which to base their campaign, and others interested in politics or warfare, Gygax tried to include as much detail as possible about each region, including a short description of the region and its people, the title of its ruler, the racial makeup of its people, its resources and major cities, and its allies and enemies.
For the same reason that he had created a variety of geographical, political and racial settings, he also strove to create a world with some good, some evil, and some undecided areas. He felt that some players would be happiest playing in a mainly good country and fighting the evil that arose to threaten it; others might want to be a part of an evil country; and still others might take a neutral stance and simply try to collect gold and treasure from both sides.
Publication
TSR originally intended to publish The World of Greyhawk (TSR 9025) early in 1979, but it was not released until August 1980. The World of Greyhawk consisted of a 32-page folio (the first edition is often called the World of Greyhawk folio to distinguish it from later editions) and a 34" x 44" (86 cm x 112 cm) two-piece color map of the Flanaess. Reviewers were generally impressed, but some remarked on the lack of a pantheon of Greyhawk-specific deities, as well as the lack of any mention of the infamous dungeons of Castle Greyhawk.Between editions (1980–1983)
Before the folio edition was released, Gygax planned to publish supplementary information, using his column "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" that appeared on a semi-regular basis in TSR's Dragon MagazineDragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
.
In the May 1980 issue, Gygax gave a quick overview of the development of his new The World of Greyhawk folio. For players who planned to use large scale army tactics, he gave details of the private armies that were commanded by some prominent Greyhawk characters from his original home game: Bigby
Bigby (Greyhawk)
Bigby is an archmage in the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. Before the Greyhawk Wars, Bigby made his home in Scant, capital of Onnwal. Nowadays, he can often be found in Mitrik, Veluna...
, Mordenkainen
Mordenkainen
Mordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character and is one of the oldest characters in roleplaying fiction...
, Robilar
Robilar
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Robilar is a powerful warrior who serves as commander of Rary's forces in the Empire of the Bright Lands...
, Tenser
Tenser
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Tenser is an archmage who actively seeks to rid the Flanaess of evil...
and Erac's Cousin
Erac's Cousin
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the man known as Erac's Cousin is a mysterious figure who has not revealed his real name. He is also called simply the Unnamed.-Creative origins:...
. Gygax also mentioned some of the planned Greyhawk publications he was overseeing: a large-scale map of the city of Greyhawk; some adventure modules set in Greyhawk; a supplementary map of lands outside the Flanaess; all fifty levels of Castle Greyhawk's dungeon; and miniatures army combat rules. None of these projects, other than a few of the adventure modules, were published by TSR.
Although Gygax originally intended to immediately publish more details of Greyhawk in Dragon on a regular basis, other projects intervened, and it was not until the August 1981 issue of Dragon that Len Lakofka, in his column "Leomund's Tiny Hut", outlined methods for determining a character's place of birth and languages spoken. Gygax added an addendum concerning the physical appearances of the main Greyhawk races. In the November 1981 issue, Gygax gave further details of racial characteristics and modes of dress.
In the December 1982 issue, David Axler contributed a system for determining weather in the world of Greyhawk. Gygax later said he thought a system of fourteen charts for determining the weather was too cumbersome, and he personally didn't use it in his home campaign.
More information about every political region
The folio edition had thirty two pages, and information about each region was condensed into a short paragraph or two. Gygax realized that some players needed more in-depth information about the motivations and aspirations of each region, and the history of interactions with surrounding regions. With this in mind, Gygax decided to publish a much longer description of each region in Dragon. The first two articles, covering seventeen regions, appeared in the December 1981 and January 1982 issues. Due to his involvement in many other TSR projects, Gygax handed responsibility for completion of this project to Rob Kuntz, who covered the remaining forty three regions in the March 1982, July 1982 and September 1982 issues.Deities of Greyhawk
In the August 1982 issue of Dragon, Gygax gave advice on how to adapt deities from the previously published Deities and Demigods for worship by non-human races in the Greyhawk world. A few months later, he published a five part series of articles in the November 1982 through March 1983 issues of Dragon that outlined a pantheon of deities custom-made for humans in the world of Greyhawk. In addition to his original Greyhawk deities, St. Cuthbert and Pholtus, Gygax added seventeen more deities. Although later versions of the campaign setting would assign most of these deities to worship by specific races of humans, at this time they were generally worshiped by all humans of the Flanaess.Shortly after the release of the folio edition, TSR released the adventure module C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, designed to familiarize players with the Olman
Olman
The Olman are a fictional race of humans in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. They inhabit the southern fringes of the Flanaess and are primarily a tribal people, though in the past they commanded a great empire...
race of the Amedio Jungle. Largely based on Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
and Incan cultures, this adventure introduced the first published deities of the Greyhawk campaign: Mictlantecuhtli
Mictlantecuhtli
Mictlantecuhtli , in Aztec mythology, was a god of the dead and the king of Mictlan , the lowest and northernmost section of the underworld. He was one of the principal gods of the Aztecs and was the most prominent of several gods and goddesses of death and the underworld...
, god of death, darkness, murder and the underworld; Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca was a central deity in Aztec religion. One of the four sons of Ometeotl, he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty,...
, god of sun, moon, night, scheming, betrayals and lightning; and Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
, god of air, birds and snakes. However, this area of the Flanaess was not explored further in any subsequent TSR adventures or source material, and these three gods would remain isolated from the main pantheon for almost twenty years.
Non-player characters of Greyhawk
Also included in the March 1983 issue of Dragon was an article detailing four unique Greyhawk characters. The first two quasi-deities—HewardHeward
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Heward is the god of Bards and Musicians. Heward is notable not only for his musical prowess, but also for his technological skills....
and Keoghtom
Keoghtom
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Keoghtom is the hero-god of Secret Pursuits, Natural Alchemy, and Extraplanar Exploration. His symbol is a round disk, bisected by an upward-pointing arrow....
—had been created by Gygax as non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s (NPCs). The third, Murlynd
Murlynd
In the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Murlynd is a minor deity. He began as a player character created by Gary Gygax's closest friend Don Kaye in 1972 for the second-ever session of the game that would become D&D...
, was a character that had been created by Gygax's childhood friend Don Kaye
Don Kaye
Donald R. Kaye , co-founder of TSR, Inc., was the childhood friend of Gary Gygax, and shared an interest in war games and tabletop miniatures with him during their youth...
before Kaye's untimely death in 1975. The fourth, a hero-deity named Kelanen
Kelanen
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Kelanen is the hero-deity of Swords, Sword Skills, and Balance...
, was developed to illustrate the "principle of advancement of power".
TSR Greyhawk adventures published after the folio edition
Of the ten adventures set in Greyhawk published by TSR before the folio edition, all but one had been written by Gygax. However, the new availability of information about Gygax's campaign world and TSR's desire to make it central to Dungeons & DragonsDungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
encouraged many new writers to set their adventures in Greyhawk. This, combined with the fact that Gygax was increasingly involved in other areas of the company, meant that of the seventeen Greyhawk adventures published in the two years after the folio edition, only four were written or co-written by Gygax:
- S3 Expedition to the Barrier PeaksExpedition to the Barrier PeaksExpedition to the Barrier Peaks is a 1980 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game written by Gary Gygax. While Dungeons & Dragons is typically a fantasy game, the adventure includes elements of science fiction, and thus belongs to the science fantasy genre...
(Gary Gygax, 1980) - A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity (David Cook, 1980)
- A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade ( Harold Johnson & Tom Moldvay, 1981)
- A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords (Allen Hammack, 1981 )
- A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords (Lawrence Schick, 1981)
- Q1 Queen of the Demonweb PitsQueen of the Demonweb PitsQueen of the Demonweb Pits is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game written by David Sutherland. The "Q" in the module code represents the first letter in the word "queen." This module is a sequel to the D series of modules...
(David C. Sutherland III & Gary Gygax, 1980) - C1 The Hidden Shrine of TamoachanThe Hidden Shrine of TamoachanThe Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for use with the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules...
(Harold Johnson & Jeff R. Leason, 1980) - C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness (Allen Hammack, 1980)
- I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden CityDwellers of the Forbidden CityDwellers of the Forbidden City is an adventure module, or pre-packaged adventure booklet, ready for use by Dungeon Masters in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game...
(David Cook, 1981) - L1 The Secret of Bone HillThe Secret of Bone HillThe Secret of Bone Hill is an adventure module written by Lenard Lakofka for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and published by TSR in 1981. It is designed for novice and intermediate players with characters of levels 2-4...
(Lenard Lakofka, 1981) - U1 Sinister Secret of SaltmarshSinister Secret of SaltmarshThe Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is a module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, written by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull. The module details a mysterious abandoned mansion at the edge of a town called Saltmarsh, and the secrets contained therein. The adventure is set in the...
(Dave Browne & Don Turnbull, 1981)] - U2 Danger at DunwaterDanger at DunwaterDanger at Dunwater is an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, written by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull The module was first published by TSR, Inc...
(Dave Browne & Don Turnbull, 1982) - N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile GodAgainst the Cult of the Reptile GodAgainst the Cult of the Reptile God is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot:...
(Douglas Niles, 1982) - WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (Gary Gygax, 1982)
- S4 Lost Caverns of TsojcanthLost Caverns of TsojcanthThe Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The 64-page adventure bears the code "S4" and is set in the World of...
(Gary Gygax, 1982) Originally published as Lost Caverns of Tsojconth in 1976 - U3 The Final EnemyThe Final EnemyThe Final Enemy is an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game written by Dave Browne with Don Turnbull set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
(Dave Browne & Don Turnbull, 1983) - L2 The Assassin's KnotThe Assassin's KnotThe Assassin's Knot is an adventure module written by Lenard Lakofka for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and published by TSR in 1983. It is designed for novice and intermediate players with characters of levels 2-4....
(Lenard Lakofka, 1983)
In 1981, TSR also published the super-modules D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth
Descent into the Depths of the Earth
Descent Into the Depths of the Earth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game coded D1–2. It was written by Gary Gygax, and combines two previously published modules from 1978, the original Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Shrine of the Kuo-Toa...
and G1-2-3 Against the Giants
Against the Giants
Against the Giants is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1981 for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. It combines the G series of modules previously published in 1978: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and Hall of...
, both being compilations of previously published modules from the Drow series and the Giant series respectively.
Numerous projects were planned to add more depth and detail to the setting after the publication of the initial folio, but many of these projects never appeared for various reasons.
World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983)
After publication of the boxed set (1984–1985)
Publication of the World of Greyhawk was the first step in Gygax's vision for Oerth. Over the next few years, he planned to unveil other areas of the continent of Oerik, giving each new area the same in-depth treatment of history, geography, and politics as had been accorded the Flanaess. Gygax had also mapped out the other hemisphere of Oerth in his personal notes. Part of this would be Gygax's work, but Len Lakofka and Francois Froideval had also created material that Gygax wanted to place on Oerth. Frank MentzerFrank Mentzer
Jacob Franklin "Frank" Mentzer III , is an American fantasy author and game designer best known for his work on early materials for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. He was a performing folk musician from 1968 to 1975, and played one concert at the White House during the...
, Creative Consultant at TSR at the time, wrote four RPGA
RPGA
The RPGA , is part of the organized play arm of Wizards of the Coast that organizes and sanctions role-playing games worldwide, principally under the d20 system...
tournament adventures taken from his home campaign setting of Acquaria (published by TSR as the first four of the R-series modules: R1 To the Aid of Falx
To the Aid of Falx
To the Aid of Falx is an adventure module published in 1982 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:...
, R2 The Investigation of Hydell
The Investigation of Hydell
The Investigation of Hydell is an adventure module published in 1982 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:In The Investigation of Hydell, the player characters investigate an organization that sells slaves....
, R3 The Egg of the Phoenix
The Egg of the Phoenix
The Egg of the Phoenix is an adventure module published in 1982 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:...
, and R4 Doc's Island
Doc's Island
Doc's Island is an adventure module published in 1983 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:In Doc's Island, the player characters must deliver the Egg of the Phoenix to the mysterious Doc's Island....
). Mentzer envisioned them as the first part of a new Aqua-Oeridian campaign set somewhere on Oerth outside of the Flanaess.
However, by this time, Gygax was in Hollywood on a semi-permanent basis, approving scripts for the Saturday morning Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series and trying to land a deal for a D&D movie. Not only was Gygax's own output of Greyhawk-related materials greatly reduced, but the company began to shift its focus and resources away from Greyhawk to a new campaign setting called Dragonlance
Dragonlance
Dragonlance is a shared universe created by Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of popular fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived Dragonlance while driving in their car on the way to TSR for a job application...
.
Tracy Hickman
Tracy Raye Hickman is a best-selling fantasy author, best known for his work on Dragonlance as a game designer and co-author with Margaret Weis, while he worked for TSR...
and Margaret Weis
Margaret Weis
Margaret Edith Weis is a fantasy novelist who, along with Tracy Hickman, is one of the original creators of the Dragonlance game world and has written numerous novels and short stories set in fantastic worlds.-Early life:Margaret Weis was born in 1948 in Independence, Missouri, and later attended...
. Gygax realized that novels set in Greyhawk could have a similar benefit for his campaign world and wrote Saga of Old City, the first in a series of novels that would be published under the banner Greyhawk Adventures. The protagonist was Gord the Rogue
Gord the Rogue
Gord the Rogue is the protagonist in a series of fantasy novels and short stories written by Gary Gygax. Gygax originally wrote the novels and short stories to promote his World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. After he left TSR, Gygax continued to write...
, and this first novel told of his rise from the Slum Quarters of the city of Greyhawk to become a world traveler and thief extraordinaire. The novel was designed to promote sales of the boxed set by providing colorful details about the social customs and peoples of various cities and countries around the Flanaess.
Before Saga of Old City was released in November 1985, Gygax wrote a sequel, Artifact of Evil. He also wrote a short story, "At Moonset Blackcat Comes", that appeared in the special 100th issue of Dragon in August 1985. This introduced Gord the Rogue to gamers just before Saga of Old City was scheduled to be released.
Greyhawk modules
In the two years after the Greyhawk boxed set appeared, TSR published eight adventures set in Greyhawk. Five were written or co-written by Gygax, and the other three were from TSR's United Kingdom division:- EX1 DungeonlandDungeonlandDungeonland is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, written by Gary Gygax for use with the First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules...
(Gary Gygax, 1983) - EX2 Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (Gary Gygax, 1983)
Both of the EX adventures, although nominally set in Greyhawk, transported characters through a planar gate into an alternate reality.
- UK1 Beyond the Crystal CaveBeyond the Crystal CaveBeyond the Crystal Cave is a Dungeons & Dragons module set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It is unusual among Dungeons & Dragons modules in that it encourages a non-violent approach to achieving the module's goals...
(Dave Brown, Tom Kirby & Graeme MorrisGraeme Morris (game designer)-Career:Graeme Morris was working for TSR UK. He has designed for Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara, generic AD&D, and Star Frontiers...
, 1983) - UK2 The SentinelThe Sentinel (module)The Sentinel is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
(Graeme Morris, 1983) - UK3 The GauntletThe Gauntlet (module)The Gauntlet is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
(Graeme Morris, 1984) - WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic AdventureMordenkainen's Fantastic AdventureMordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure by Robert J. Kuntz and Gary Gygax is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, published by TSR, Inc. in 1984. It originally bore the code "WG5" and was intended for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules...
(Robert Kuntz & Gary Gygax, 1984) - WG6 Isle of the ApeIsle of the ApeIn the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game World of Greyhawk campaign setting, the Isle of the Ape is a magical demiplane created by the mad archmage Zagyg Yragerne.-Plot overview:...
(Gary Gygax, 1985) - T1–4 The Temple of Elemental EvilThe Temple of Elemental EvilThe Temple of Elemental Evil is an adventure module for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module was published by TSR, Inc. in 1985 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules...
(Gary Gygax & Frank Mentzer, 1985)
Dragon articles
From 1983–1985, the only notable supplement for the Greyhawk world was a five part article by Len Lakofka in the June–October and December 1984 issues of Dragon that detailed the Suel gods who had been briefly mentioned in the boxed set. In the December 1984 issue, Gygax mentioned clerics of non-human races and indicated that the twenty four demihuman and humanoid deities that had been published in the February–June 1982 issues of Dragon were now permitted in Greyhawk; this increased the number of Greyhawk deities from fifty to seventy four.Other than those articles, Greyhawk was only mentioned in passing in three other issues until Gygax's "Gord the Rogue" short story in the August 1985 issue Dragon. Gygax then provided some errata for the boxed set in the September 1985 issue, which was the last mention of the Greyhawk world in Dragon for almost two years.
Gygax departs
Shortly after the release of the boxed set, Gygax discovered that while he had been in Hollywood, TSR had run into serious financial difficulties. Returning to Lake Geneva, Gygax managed to get TSR back on firm financial footing. However, different visions of TSR's future caused a power struggle within the company, and Gygax was forced out of TSR on December 31, 1985.By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all Dungeons & Dragons characters whose names were anagrams or versions of his own name, such as Yrag and Zagyg. However, he lost the rights to all his other work, including the world of Greyhawk and the names of all the other characters he had ever used in TSR material.
Greyhawk without Gygax (1986–1987)
After Gygax left TSR, the continued development of Greyhawk became the work of many writers and creative minds. Rather than continuing forward with Gygax's plan for an entire planet, the setting was never expanded beyond the Flanaess, nor would other authors' work be linked to unexplored areas of the continent Oerik. According to Gygax, TSR's stewardship turned Greyhawk into something very different from what he had envisioned.In 1986, in the months following Gygax's ousting, TSR turned away from development of Greyhawk and focused its energies on a new campaign setting called Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms
The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...
. In 1986 and 1987, only three Greyhawk modules were released, A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords
Scourge of the Slave Lords
Scourge of the Slave Lords is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published by TSR, Inc. in 1986...
, S1-4 Realms of Horror and GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders
Queen of the Spiders
Queen of the Spiders is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc. in 1986 and is a compilation of seven previous related modules, often referred to as a "supermodule." Together, the seven adventures form an integrated campaign that...
, all being collections of previously published modules rather than new material.
Greyhawk novels continue without Gord the Rogue
Gygax's novel Saga of Old City, released in November 1985, and Artifact of Evil, released two months after Gygax's departure from TSR, proved to be popular titles, and in 1987, TSR hired Rose EstesRose Estes
Rose Estes is the author of many fantasy and science fiction books, including full length novels and multiple choice gamebooks.-Career:After contributing extensively to TSR, Inc.'s Dungeons and Dragons Endless Quest series , she wrote her first full length novel, Children of the Dragon...
to continue the series, albeit without Gord the Rogue, to whom Gygax had retained all rights. From 1987–1989, Estes produced five more novels under the Greyhawk Adventures banner: Master Wolf, The Price of Power, The Demon Hand, The Name of the Game, and The Eyes Have It. A sixth book, Dragon in Amber, appeared in 1990 book catalogs, but was never written, and the series was discontinued.
The dungeons of Greyhawk revealed
In its 1986 Summer Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog, TSR had listed a new Greyhawk adventure called WG7 Shadowlords, a high-level adventure to be written by Gary Gygax and Skip WilliamsSkip Williams
Ralph Williams, almost always referred to as Skip Williams, is an American game designer. He is married to Penny Williams, who is also involved with the games industry...
. However, this adventure was canceled after Gygax left TSR, and the catalog number WG7 was reassigned to a new adventure, Castle Greyhawk, released in 1988. It was the first new Greyhawk adventure in three years, but it had nothing to do with Gygax's original Castle Greyhawk. Instead, it was a compilation of twelve humorous dungeons levels, each one written by a freelance author. The puns and jokes often referenced modern culture—the Amazing Driderman
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
, King Burger
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, Bugsbear Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...
, and the crew of Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
—and the module also included an appearance by Gygax's Mordenkainen in a movie studio.
Greyhawk revived (1988–1990)
By 1988, with the first series of Dragonlance adventures drawing to a close, and Forgotten Realms doing very well, TSR turned back to Greyhawk. In the January 1988 issue of Dragon, Jim Ward—one of the original players in the dungeons of Greyhawk, creator of the wizard Drawmij, and now working for TSR in the post-Gygax era—requested player input about what should be included in a hardcover source book for Greyhawk. He received over five hundred letters in response. In the August 1988 issue of Dragon, he outlined the ideas from readers that been included, and Greyhawk AdventuresGreyhawk Adventures
Greyhawk Adventures is an accessory for the Dungeons & Dragons World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Contents:Greyhawk Adventures contains information about Greyhawk deities and clerics, major non-player characters, monsters, geography, spells of the setting's famous magic-users , magic items of the...
appeared shortly afterward as a response to requests from Greyhawk fans. The book's title was borrowed from Rose Estes' Greyhawk Adventures line of novels and used the same front-cover banner design. It was the thirteenth and final hardcover book published for the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules.
The contents were designed to give Dungeon Master
Dungeon Master
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master is the game organizer and participant in charge of creating the details and challenges of a given adventure, while maintaining a realistic continuity of events...
s ideas and play opportunities unique to the Greyhawk world, including new monsters, magical spells and items, a variety of geographical features, profiles of prominent citizens, and the avatars
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
of deities. In the time since Gygax had left TSR, no original Greyhawk material had been published, and many letter writers had requested ideas for new adventures. Ward responded by including six plot outlines that could be inserted into a Greyhawk campaign.
The City of Greyhawk boxed set
The publication of Greyhawk Adventures came just as TSR released the 2nd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. TSR released The City of GreyhawkThe City of Greyhawk
The City of Greyhawk is an boxed set accessory published in 1989 for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Contents:...
boxed set in 1989 under the Greyhawk Adventures banner. Written by Carl Sargent
Carl Sargent
Carl L. Sargent is a British author of several roleplaying game-based products and novels.-Early career:...
and Rik Rose, this was not the city created by Gygax and Kuntz, but a new plan built from references made in previously published material.
This release remolded Gary Gygax's old Circle of Eight into a new plot device. Instead of a group of eight companions based in the Obsidian Citadel who left periodically to fight evil, the Circle became eight wizards led by a ninth wizard, Gygax's former character Mordenkainen
Mordenkainen
Mordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character and is one of the oldest characters in roleplaying fiction...
. In addition to Mordenkainen, seven of the wizards were previously existing characters from Gygax's original home game: Bigby, Otiluke, Drawmij, Tenser, Nystul, Otto, and Rary. The eighth was new: the female wizard Jallarzi Sallavarian
Jallarzi Sallavarian
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Jallarzi Sallavarian is a powerful human wizard of Greyhawk City and the only female member of the Circle of Eight. She is nearly always accompanied by her familiar, a red pseudodragon named Edwina...
. The Circle's mandate was to act as neutral referees between Good and Evil, never letting one side or the other gain the upper hand for long. In addition, Sargent & Rose took Gygax's original Obsidian Citadel, re-purposed it as Mordenkainen's castle, and placed it in an unspecified location in the Yatil Mountains
Yatil Mountains
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Yatil Mountains are a mountain chain located in the western part of the Flanaess.-Ecology:...
.
The following year, in conjunction with this boxed set, TSR published a trilogy of World of Greyhawk Adventure (WGA) modules by Richard & Anne Brown—WGA1 Falcon's Revenge
Falcon's Revenge
Falcon's Revenge is an adventure module published in 1990 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:...
, WGA2 Falconmaster
Falconmaster
Falconmaster is an adventure module published in 1990 for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:...
and WGA3 Flames of the Falcon—set in the city and centered around a mysterious villain called The Falcon. A fourth WGA module, WGA4 Vecna Lives!
Vecna Lives!
Vecna Lives! is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
by David Cook, was published the same year, and featured the first appearance by Vecna
Vecna
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Vecna was a powerful wizard who became a lich. He was eventually destroyed, and his left hand and left eye were the only parts of his body to survive...
, formerly a mythic lich in Dungeons & Dragons lore, now promoted to demigod status.
Modules released under the Greyhawk Adventures banner
TSR also released five new World of Greyhawk (WG) adventures which used the Greyhawk Adventures banner:- WG8 Fate of IstusFate of IstusFate of Istusis a multipart adventure for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, taking place in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module is designed for characters of any class or level, and was published as an in-game vehicle to explain the transition from the game's first to second...
(Various authors, 1989) - WG9 GargoyleGargoyle (module)Gargoyle is an adventure module for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module has the code WG9 and was published by TSR, Inc...
(Dave Collins & Skip Williams, 1989) - WG10 Child's PlayChild's Play (module)Child's Play is an adventure module published in 1989 for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:Child's Play is an introductory scenario to the 2nd edition rules, for beginning player characters.-Publication history:...
(Jean Rabe & Skip Williams, 1989) - WG11 PuppetsPuppets (module)Puppets is an adventure module published in 1989 for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:In part one of this scenario, the player characters battle an evil leprechaun in the Gnarley Wood; in part two, which is set in the Free City of Dyvers, the characters must solve the...
(Vince Garcia & Bruce Rabe, 1989) - WG12 Vale of the MageVale of the MageVale of the Mage is an adventure module published in 1989 for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Plot summary:In this scenario, renegade wizards have fled to the Vale of the Mage, and the player characters are sent across the Barrier Peaks after them; if the character make it to the...
(Jean Rabe, 1989)
In 1990, TSR also published WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins
Greyhawk Ruins
Greyhawk Ruins is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published in 1990 by TSR, Inc...
, a module and source book about Castle Greyhawk by TSR writers Blake Mobley and Timothy Brown
Timothy Brown (game designer)
A game industry veteran of twenty years, Timothy B. Brown has been a designer at Games Designers' Workshop, an editor at Challenge magazine, and the director of product development at TSR, Inc....
. Although this was not the Castle Greyhawk of Gygax and Kuntz, it was the first serious attempt to publish details of the castle.
A new vision of the Flanaess (1991–1997)
In 1990, TSR decided that the decade-old world of Greyhawk needed to be refreshed. Rather than expand beyond the boundaries of the FlanaessFlanaess
The Flanaess is the eastern part of the continent of Oerik, one of the four continents of the fictional world of Oerth in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The Flanaess has been the setting of dozens of adventures published between the 1970s...
to develop new lands, the decision was made to stay within the Flanaess and move the campaign time line forward a decade, from 576 CY to 586 CY, in order to provide the setting for a new storyline. The main story vehicle was a war fomented by Iuz that would involve the entire Flanaess, which would allow TSR to radically alter the pattern of regions, alliances, and rulers from Gygax's original setting.
The Greyhawk Wars
In order to move players from Gygax's familiar World of Greyhawk to their new vision, TSR planned a trilogy of modules that would familiarize players with events and conditions leading up to the coming war, and then take them through the war itself. Once players completed the war via the three modules, a new boxed set would be published to introduce the new storyline and the new Flanaess. Two World of Greyhawk Swords modules, WGS1 Five Shall Be OneFive Shall Be One
Five Shall Be One is an adventure module for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module bears the code WGS1 and was published by TSR, Inc...
by Carl Sargent
Carl Sargent
Carl L. Sargent is a British author of several roleplaying game-based products and novels.-Early career:...
and WGS2 Howl from the North
Howl from the North
Howl from the North is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module bears the code WGS2 and was published by TSR, Inc...
by Dale Henson, were released in 1991. These described events leading up to the war.
The third module was reworked into Greyhawk Wars
Greyhawk Wars (game)
Greyhawk Wars is a fantasy board wargame published by TSR, Inc. in 1991. The game was designed by David Cook as a strategic simulation of the eponymous Greyhawk Wars on the fictional world of Oerth, the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.-Components:The...
, a strategy war game
War Game
War Game or War Games refer normally to: wargaming, a recreational game that simulates a military operation. It can also be a:* Military exercise* Military simulation, live or computer warfare simulations to develop real-world military strategies...
that led players through the events, strategies, and alliances of the actual war. A booklet included with the game, Greyhawk Wars Adventurer's Book, described the event of the war. In 582 CY (six years after Gygax's original setting of 576 CY), a regional conflict started by Iuz gradually widened until it was a war that affected almost every nation in the Flanaess. A peace treaty was signed in the city of Greyhawk two years later, which is why the conflict became known as the Greyhawk Wars. On the day of the treaty-signing, Rary—once a minor spellcaster created and then discarded by Brian Blume, but now elevated by TSR to the Circle of Eight—attacked his fellow Circle members, aided and abetted by Robilar. After the attack, Tenser and Otiluke
Otiluke
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Otiluke was an archmage. He was slain by Rary in Harvester 584 CY, at the close of the Greyhawk Wars.-Publication history:...
were dead, while Robilar and Rary fled to the deserts of the Bright Lands. Rob Kuntz, original creator of Robilar, objected to this storyline, since he believed that Robilar would never attack his old adventuring companion Mordenkainen. Although Kuntz did not own the creative rights to Robilar and no longer worked at TSR, he unofficially suggested an alternate storyline that Robilar had been visiting another plane and in his absence, a clone or evil twin of Robilar was responsible for the attack.
From the Ashes
In 1992, after the two World of Greyhawk Swords prequel modules and the Greyhawk Wars game had been on the market for some months, TSR released the new Greyhawk setting, From the AshesFrom the Ashes (Dungeons & Dragons)
From the Ashes is a supplement for Dungeons & Dragonss World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It was published in 1992 by TSR as a boxed set of materials...
, a boxed set primarily written by Carl Sargent
Carl Sargent
Carl L. Sargent is a British author of several roleplaying game-based products and novels.-Early career:...
that described the Flanaess
Flanaess
The Flanaess is the eastern part of the continent of Oerik, one of the four continents of the fictional world of Oerth in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The Flanaess has been the setting of dozens of adventures published between the 1970s...
in the aftermath of the Greyhawk Wars. It contained a large 4-color hex map of the area around the city of Greyhawk, a number of quick adventure cards, and two 96-page books.
The first book, Atlas of the Flanaess, was a replacement for Gygax's original World of Greyhawk boxed set, with some changes. Many human gods from previous editions were not included, although one new demigod, Mayaheine, was added. This had the net effect of reducing the total number of human deities from fifty to twenty eight. Deities of other races were increased from twenty four to thirty eight, but unlike the full descriptions that were given to the human gods, these were simply listed by name. Like Gygax's original boxed set, each region was given a two to three hundred word description, although some details included in the older edition, such as trade goods, total population and racial mixes, were not included in this edition. A number of regions—Ahlissa, Almor, Medegia and South Province—no longer existed after the Wars or had been folded into other regions. Two new regions—the Plains of the Paynims and the Olman Islands—were added. This had the net effect of reducing the total number of regions from sixty to fifty eight. Darlene Pekul's large 4-color 2-piece fold-out map of the Flanaess included in Gygax's setting was reduced to a small black & white map printed on the inside cover of the Atlas.
The second book, the Campaign Book, was designed to supplement, rather than replace, the four year old City of Greyhawk boxed set. It included updates to the city and its environs, and gave details of some new non-player characters and possible adventure hooks.
In Gygax's setting, the major conflict had been between the Great Kingdom and the lands that were trying to free themselves from the evil overking. In Sargent's world, the Great Kingdom storyline was largely replaced by the major new conflict between the land of Iuz and the regions that surrounded it. Southern lands outside of Iuz's were threatened by the Scarlet Brotherhood, while other countries had been invaded by monsters or taken over by agents of evil. Overall, the vision was of a darker world where good folk were being swamped by a tide of evil.
Sargent tried to generate interest for this grimmer vision of the Flanaess by following up with an article in Dragons March 1993 issue, writing, "...the powers of evil have waxed strong. The hand of Iuz, the Old One, extends across the central Flanaess, and the cruel Scarlet Brotherhood extends its power and influence around the southern lands bordering the Azure Sea. The World of Greyhawk setting has become a truly exciting world again..."
The boxed set was supported by the publication of two new source books in 1993, also written by Sargent. WGR4 The Marklands
The Marklands
The Marklands is a sourcebook for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game that describes the realms of Furyondy, Highfolk, Nyrond in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting...
provided information about the good realms of Furyondy, Highfolk, and Nyrond that opposed Iuz, while WGR5 Iuz the Evil
Iuz the Evil
Iuz the Evil is a sourcebook for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game that describes the realms of the evil demi-god Iuz in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting...
detailed information about the lands of Iuz, and emphasized the prominent new role that Iuz now played in the world order.
In addition, a number of adventures were also published, as much to provide more source material as for adventure: Patriots of Ulek
Patriots of Ulek
Patriots of Ulek is an adventure module for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:The adventure takes place in the Principality of Ulek in the southwestern Flanaess....
was the first module published after From the Ashes, and advanced the storyline in Ulek
Ulek States
In the Dungeons and Dragons World of Greyhawk campaign setting, the Ulek States refers to the three easternmost nations of the Sheldomar Valley...
, threatened by invasion from Turrosh Mak of the Pomarj
Pomarj
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, the Pomarj can refer either to a large peninsula located in the central Flanaess, or to the Orcish Empire of the Pomarj, located in the same region....
.
Treasures of Greyhawk
Treasures of Greyhawk is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
, by Jack Barker, Roy Rowe, Louis Prosperi, and Tom Prusa, was a loosely connected series of mini-adventures—for instance, exploring Bigby's home, travelling to the demiplane called The Great Maze of Zagyg, and trading riddles with a sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
. Each mini-adventure focussed on a unique treasure in the Flanaess.
Rary the Traitor
Rary the Traitor is a Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook and module for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:The work details the empire of the renegade archmage Rary, known as the Empire of the Bright Lands. Historical background of the Bright Desert is also covered, and introduced the...
by Anthony Pryor
Anthony Pryor
-Career:Anthony Pryor has worked as a game designer for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His professional RPG credits include the 1992 Greyhawk setting modules Patriots of Ulek and Rary the Traitor, the 1992 books Dune Trader and Asticlian Gambit for Dark Sun, Creative Campaigning in 1992, the 1993...
was both an adventure module as well as a source book about the Bright Lands, the new home of Rary and Robilar following their murder of Tenser and Otiluke.
Border Watch
Border Watch is an adventure module for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
, by Paul T. Riegel, were modules highlighting the struggle between Furyondy
Furyondy
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Furyondy, properly known as the Kingdom of Furyondy, is a feudal kingdom of the Flanaess, and a successor state of Ferrond.-History:...
and the lands of Iuz.
As Gygax had done ten years before, Sargent also used the pages of Dragon to promote his new world. He was working on a new source book, Ivid the Undying, and excerpted parts of it in the April, June and August 1994 issues.
TSR drops Greyhawk
In late 1994, TSR canceled Sargent's new book just as it was being readied for publication, and stopped work on all other Greyhawk projects. Nothing more about Greyhawk was ever published by TSR, with one exception: in May 1995, a Dragon column devoted to industry gossip noted that the manuscript of Ivid the Undying had been released by TSR as a computer text file. Using this file, several people have reconstructed the book as it might have appeared in published form.By the end of 1996, TSR found itself heavily in debt and unable to pay its printers. Just as bankruptcy in 1997 seemed inevitable, Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
stepped in and, fueled by income from its collectible card game
Collectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
, bought TSR and all its properties.
Wizards of the Coast (1998–2008)
After Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and TSR merged, the determination was made that TSR had created too many settings for the Dungeons & Dragons game, and several of them were eliminated. However, WotC's CEO, Peter AdkisonPeter Adkison
Peter D. Adkison is the founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast , as well as a hobby game professional.During Adkison's tenure, Wizards of the Coast rose to the status of a major publisher in the hobby game industry. Wizards achieved runaway success with its creation of "Magic: the...
, was a fan of both Dungeons & Dragons and Greyhawk, and two major initiatives were created: a revival of Greyhawk, and a new third edition of D&D rules. A team of people was put together to revive the moribund Greyhawk setting by pulling together all the previously published information about it. Once that was done, the decision was made to update Carl Sargent's storyline, using similar prequel adventures to pave the way for the updated campaign setting.
First, Roger E. Moore
Roger E. Moore
Roger E. Moore is a designer of role-playing games. He is best known for his long-running tenure as editor of Dragon magazine, and was the founding editor of Dungeon magazine.-Early life:...
created Return of the Eight
Return of the Eight
Return of the Eight is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module was published by Wizards of the Coast in 1998 under its recently acquired "TSR" imprint for the second edition Advanced Dungeons &...
in 1998. In the adventure, set in 586 CY, the same year as the From the Ashes boxed set, the players meet the surviving members of the Circle of Eight, which is called the Circle of Five because it is missing Tenser, Otiluke and Rary. If the players successfully finish the adventure, Tenser is rescued from death, though he refuses to rejoin the Circle, and the Circle is reconstituted as Eight with the addition of three new wizards: Alhamazad the Wise, Theodain Eriason and Warnes Starcoat.
Next, the Greyhawk Player's Guide
Greyhawk Player's Guide
The Player's Guide, also known as the Greyhawk Player's Guide or the Player's Guide to Greyhawk, is a sourcebook for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. Written by Anne Brown, the work was published by Wizards of the Coast under its TSR imprint in 1998.-Contents:The Player's Guide contains...
, by Anne Brown, was released. This 64-page booklet moved the storyline ahead six years to 591 CY, and it mostly condensed and reiterated material that had been released in Gygax's and Sargent's boxed sets. New material included important non-player characters, a guide to roleplaying in the Flanaess, and some new sights. The list of deities was both shrunk and expanded; the thirty eight non-human deities in the From the Ashes boxed set were eliminated and non-human concerns assigned to a handful of human deities, but the list of human deities was expanded from twenty four to fifty four.
With the groundwork for a new storyline prepared, TSR/WotC released the new campaign setting as a 128-page source book, The Adventure Begins, by Roger E. Moore
Roger E. Moore
Roger E. Moore is a designer of role-playing games. He is best known for his long-running tenure as editor of Dragon magazine, and was the founding editor of Dungeon magazine.-Early life:...
. Taking its lead from the Greyhawk Player's Guide, the new campaign world was set in 591 CY. Unlike the darker feel of From the Ashes, where the Flanaess was overrun by evil, Moore returned to Gygax's world of adventure.
The Lost Tombs trilogy of modules—The Star Cairns and Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad
Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad
Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Plot summary:...
, by Sean K. Reynolds
Sean K. Reynolds
Sean K Reynolds is a professional game designer who has worked on and co-written a number of D&D supplements for Wizards of the Coast, as well as material for other companies. He does not put a period after his middle initial.-Background:...
, and The Doomgrinder
The Doomgrinder
The Doomgrinder is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Publication history:...
, by Steve Miller
Steve Miller (game designer)
Steve Miller is a game designer and editor who has worked on a number of products for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game from Wizards of the Coast, and other role-playing games.-Early life and education:...
—were the first to be published in the new setting.
25th anniversary of D&D The year 1999 marked twenty five years since the publication of the original Dungeons & Dragons rules, and WotC sought to lure older gamers back to Greyhawk by producing a series of nostalgia-tinged Return to... adventures that evoked the best-known Greyhawk modules from 20 years before, under the banner 25th Anniversary of D&D:
Return to the Tomb of Horrors
Return to the Tomb of Horrors is a boxed set adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game released in 1998 by TSR, Inc.. It is set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and is a sequel to Gary Gygax's 1978 module Tomb of Horrors...
, by Bruce R. Cordell, reprinted Gary Gygax's S1 Tomb of Horrors
Tomb of Horrors
Tomb of Horrors is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It was originally written for and used at the 1975 Origins 1 convention...
, and added a substantial expansion.
John D. Rateliff
John D. Rateliff is a published scholar of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He acquired his Ph.D. at Marquette University, where he researched Tolkien's works. His most recent publication is The History of The Hobbit.-Career:...
, took Gary Gygax's 1979 module, B2 Keep on the Borderlands and restocked it with fresh monsters, as if the twenty years that had passed since the original module's publication also equaled twenty years of game time. Although the original had been in a generic setting, the new adventure set the Keep in Greyhawk.
Return to White Plume Mountain
Return to White Plume Mountain is an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game released in 1999 by Wizards of the Coast under its then recently acquired "TSR" imprint. It is set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and is a sequel to Lawrence Schick's 1979 module...
, by Bruce R. Cordell, likewise updated Lawrence Schick's twenty year old adventure, White Plume Mountain
White Plume Mountain
White Plume Mountain is an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, written by Lawrence Schick and published by TSR in 1979...
, by advancing the storyline twenty years.
Geoff (Greyhawk)
Geoff is a fictional land that is part of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Geoff was first described in 1983 in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, where Geoff is properly known as the Grand Duchy of Geoff, and is a ducal political state of the fictional continent called the...
, linked together as an integrated campaign.
Slavers
Slavers is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.-Publication history:The 128-page book was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000 for second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules...
by Sean K. Reynolds and Chris Pramas, was a sequel to the original A1-4 Scourge of the Slavelords series, set ten years after the original adventures.
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is an adventure module for the 3rd edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Publication history:...
, by Monte Cook, returned the players to Gygax's infamous temple, which Rob Kuntz (as Robilar) had originally trashed. It was published in 2001, using the 3rd edition rules.
In conjunction with the publication of the Return to adventures, WotC also produced a series of companion novels known as the Greyhawk Classics series: Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Keep on the Borderlands,
and The Tomb of Horrors.
In an attempt to attract players of other D&D settings, WotC released Die, Vecna, Die!, by Bruce R. Cordell and Steve Miller, a three part adventure tying Greyhawk to the Ravenloft
Ravenloft
Ravenloft is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. It is an alternate time-space existence known as a pocket dimension called the Demiplane of Dread, which consists of a collection of land pieces called domains brought together by a mysterious force known only as "The Dark...
and Planescape
Planescape
Planescape is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, originally designed by Zeb Cook. The Planescape setting was published in 1994...
campaign settings. Published in 2000, it was the last adventure to be written for D&Ds 2nd edition rules.
Third edition
In the editions of Dungeons & DragonsDungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
published by TSR, the setting of the game had not been specifically defined—Dungeon Master
Dungeon Master
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master is the game organizer and participant in charge of creating the details and challenges of a given adventure, while maintaining a realistic continuity of events...
s were expected to either create a new world, or purchase a commercial campaign setting such as Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms
The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...
. In 2000, after two years of work and playtest
Playtest
A playtest is the process by which a game designer tests a new game for bugs and flaws before bringing it to market. Playtests can be run "open", "closed", "beta", or otherwise....
ing, WotC released the 3rd edition of D&D, and defined a default setting for the game for the first time. Under third edition rules, unless a Dungeon Master specifically chose to use a different campaign setting, his or her D&D game would be set in the world of Greyhawk.
Living Greyhawk
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
, RPGA
RPGA
The RPGA , is part of the organized play arm of Wizards of the Coast that organizes and sanctions role-playing games worldwide, principally under the d20 system...
—the organized play division of WotC—announced a new massively shared living campaign, Living Greyhawk
Living Greyhawk
Living Greyhawk was a massively shared Dungeons and Dragons living campaign administered by RPGA that ran from 2000 to 2008. The campaign setting and storyline were based on Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk setting, and used the Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition rules...
, modeled on a 2nd edition campaign called Living City. Although Living City was relatively successful, RPGA wanted to expand the scope of their new campaign—instead of one city as a setting, the new campaign would involve thirty different regions of Greyhawk, each specifically keyed to a particular country, state, or province of the real world. Each region would produce its own adventures, and in addition to these, RPGA would provide worldwide Core adventures. To provide the level of detail needed for such a venture, WotC published the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer
Living Greyhawk Gazetteer
The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is a sourcebook for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the 3rd edition of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. Despite the title, the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is not exclusive to the Living Greyhawk Campaign...
, the most in-depth examination of the world of Greyhawk ever produced, and the official starting point for not only the campaign, but also for all home campaigns from that point forward.
Concurrent with the release of the 3rd edition Player's Handbook
Player's Handbook
The Player's Handbook is a book of rules for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons . It does not contain the complete set of rules, but only those for use by players of the game...
, Living Greyhawk debuted at Gen Con
Gen Con
Gen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card-style games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, non-collectible...
2000 with three Core adventures: COR1-1 Dragon Scales at Morningtide, by Sean K. Reynolds
Sean K. Reynolds
Sean K Reynolds is a professional game designer who has worked on and co-written a number of D&D supplements for Wizards of the Coast, as well as material for other companies. He does not put a period after his middle initial.-Background:...
; COR1-2 The Reckoning, by Sean Flaherty and John Richardson; and COR1-3 River Of Blood, by Erik Mona
Erik Mona
-Career:Erik Mona served as the editor-in-chief of Dragon magazine since 2004 and Dungeon magazine from 2004 to 2006; at the time, both magazines were published by Paizo Publishing, until the license through Wizards of the Coast expired in September 2007...
. Unlike previous campaign settings, in which the calendar was frozen at a point chosen by the author, the Living Greyhawk calendar did advance one year in game time for every calendar year in real time: the campaign started in 591 CY (2001) and ended in 598 CY (2008), at which point over a thousand adventures had been produced for an audience of over ten thousand players. During this time, the campaign administrators incorporated most of WotC's new rules into the Greyhawk world, only excising material they felt would unbalance the campaign, by either providing too much power to the players or to the adventure writers. In 2005, the administrators incorporated every deity ever mentioned in official Greyhawk material previous to the D&D 3rd edition, as well as all deities mentioned in the new 3rd edition source books. This tripled the number of deities in the campaign from about seventy to almost two hundred.
Despite the massive amount of world and storyline development, none of the Living Greyhawk storylines or changes to the setting were considered official, since the regional adventure modules were produced by volunteers, and only received a cursory vetting by the campaign administrators of RPGA, and no review by WotC personnel.
Wizards of the Coast Greyhawk releases
Despite the popularity of the Living Greyhawk campaign, Wizards of the Coast did not produce much material for Greyhawk after the 25th anniversary Return to... series of adventures, other than the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer and The Fright at TristorThe Fright at Tristor
The Fright at Tristor is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The 32-page adventure was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2001 and distributed primarily through the company's Role-Playing Games Association...
. The Standing Stone, written by John D. Rateliff
John D. Rateliff
John D. Rateliff is a published scholar of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He acquired his Ph.D. at Marquette University, where he researched Tolkien's works. His most recent publication is The History of The Hobbit.-Career:...
and released in 2001, did have several minor references to the Greyhawk setting, and Red Hand of Doom
Red Hand of Doom
Red Hand of Doom is a 128-page adventure module for the 3.5 edition of Dungeons & Dragons . It is designed to be used as a generic D&D adventure, which can be dropped into any campaign world, including a personal one...
, written by James Jacob and released in 2006, contained instructions for where to set the adventure within the world of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms
The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...
, and Eberron
Eberron
Eberron is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, set in a period after a vast destructive war on the continent of Khorvaire...
. Otherwise, Wizards of the Coast left the development of the Greyhawk world to RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign and concentrated on producing new source books of expansion material for the core rules of D&D.
2008 to present
At Gen ConGen Con
Gen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card-style games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, non-collectible...
2007, WotC announced that the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons would be released the following spring, and Greyhawk would no longer be the default campaign setting under the new rules system. For this reason, Living Greyhawk was not converted to the new rules system; instead, it was brought to a conclusion at Origins 2008.
In 2009, WotC released The Village of Hommlet, by Andy Collins, which updated Gary Gygax's original 1st edition Village of Hommlet to the 4th edition rules . It was not available for purchase, but was sent as a reward for those who joined the RPGA.
Unofficial Greyhawk sources
Although TSR and WotC had each in turn owned the official rights to the World of Greyhawk since the first folio edition was published in 1980, the two people most responsible for its early development, Gary GygaxGary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
and Rob Kuntz
Robert J. Kuntz
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is most famous for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.-Works:...
, still had most of their original notes regarding the fifty levels of dungeons under Castle Greyhawk. Gygax also had his old maps of the city of Greyhawk, and still owned the rights to Gord the Rogue
Gord the Rogue
Gord the Rogue is the protagonist in a series of fantasy novels and short stories written by Gary Gygax. Gygax originally wrote the novels and short stories to promote his World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. After he left TSR, Gygax continued to write...
.
After Gygax left TSR in 1985, he continued to write a few more Gord the Rogue novels, which were published by New Infinities Productions: Sea of Death (1987), City of Hawks (1987), and Come Endless Darkness (1988). However, by this time, Gygax was furious with the new direction in which TSR was taking "his" world. In a literary declaration that his old world of Oerth was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, Dance of Demons. For the next fifteen years, he worked to develop other game systems.
But there was still the matter of the unpublished dungeons under Castle Greyhawk. Although Gygax had given glimpses into the dungeons in his magazine columns and articles, the dungeons themselves had never been released to the public. Likewise, Gygax's version of the city of Greyhawk had never been published, although Frank Mentzer
Frank Mentzer
Jacob Franklin "Frank" Mentzer III , is an American fantasy author and game designer best known for his work on early materials for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. He was a performing folk musician from 1968 to 1975, and played one concert at the White House during the...
believed the reason for that was because "the City of Greyhawk was a later development, originally being but a location (albeit a capital). As such it was never fleshed out all that thoroughly... notes on certain locations and notorious personnel, a sketch map of great brevity, and otherwise quite loose. That is doubtless why Gary didn't publish it; it had never been completed."
However, in 2003, Gygax announced that he was working with Rob Kuntz to publish the original castle and city in six volumes, although the project would use the rules for Castles and Crusades rather than Dungeons & Dragons. Since WotC still owned the rights to the name Greyhawk, Gygax changed the name of the castle to Castle Zagyg—the reverse homophone of his own name originally ascribed to the mad architect of his original thirteen level dungeon. Gygax also changed the name of the nearby city to "Yggsburgh", a play on his initials E.G.G.
This project proved to be much more work than Gygax and Kuntz had envisioned. By the time Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on the original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed fifty levels of maze-like passages and thousands of rooms and traps. This, plus plans for the city of Yggsburgh and encounter areas outside the castle and city, were found to be too much to fit into the proposed six volumes. Gygax decided he would recreate something like his original thirteen level dungeon, amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes. However, neither Gygax nor Kuntz had kept careful or comprehensive plans. Because they had often made up details of play sessions as they went, they usually just drew a quick map as they played, with cursory notes about monsters, treasures, and traps. These sketchy maps contained just enough detail so that the two could combine their independent efforts, after determining the merits of each piece. Recreating the city was also a challenge; although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while maintaining the look and feel of his original.
The slow and laborious process came to a complete halt in April 2004, when Gygax suffered a serious stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. Although he returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output was reduced from fourteen hour work days to only one or two hours per day. Kuntz had to withdraw due to other projects, although he continued to work on an adventure module that would be published at the same time as the first book. Under these circumstances, work on the Castle Zagyg project continued even more slowly, although Jeffrey Talanian stepped in to help Gygax. In 2005, Troll Lord Games
Troll Lord Games
Troll Lord Games is an American publisher of role-playing games , The Crusader magazine and other board/dice/card games....
published Volume I, Castle Zagyg: Yggsburgh. This 256-page hardcover book contained details of Gygax's original city, its personalities and politics, as well as over thirty encounters outside the city. The two part fold out map of the area was rendered by Darlene Pekul, the same artist who had produced the original map for the folio edition of World of Greyhawk. Later that year, Troll Lord Games also published Castle Zagyg: Dark Chateau, an adventure module written for the Yggsburgh setting by Rob Kuntz.
Book catalogs published in 2005 indicated several more volumes in the series would follow shortly, but it wasn't until 2008 that the second volume, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, appeared. The Upper Works described details of the castle above ground, acting as a teaser for the volumes concerning the actual dungeons that would follow. However, Gygax died in March 2008 before any further books were published. After his death, Gygax Games, under the control of Gary's widow Gail, took over the project, but no more volumes of the Castle Zagyg project have been published.
Rob Kuntz also published some of his creative work from the Castle Greyhawk dungeons. In 2008, he released the adventure modules The Living Room, about a whimsical but dangerous room that housed enormous furniture, and Bottle City, about a bottle found on the second level of the dungeon that contained an entire city. 2009 saw Kuntz release Daemonic & Arcane, a collection of Greyhawk and Kalibruhn magic items, and The Stalk, a wilderness adventure. In October 2010, Black Blade Publishing announced that they would be publishing several of Kuntz's original Greyhawk levels, including the Machine Level, the Boreal Level, the Giants' Pool Hall, and the Garden of the Plantmaster.
Further reading
- Gygax, GaryGary GygaxErnest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
and Robert KuntzRobert J. KuntzRobert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is most famous for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.-Works:...
. Supplement I: Greyhawk (TSR, 1975). - Gygax, Gary. The World of Greyhawk (folio edition)World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game SettingThe World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting and the World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting are two closely related publications from TSR, Inc. that detail the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game...
(TSR, 1980). - Gygax, Gary. World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game SettingWorld of Greyhawk Fantasy Game SettingThe World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting and the World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting are two closely related publications from TSR, Inc. that detail the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game...
(TSR, 1983). - Ward, James M. Greyhawk AdventuresGreyhawk AdventuresGreyhawk Adventures is an accessory for the Dungeons & Dragons World of Greyhawk campaign setting.-Contents:Greyhawk Adventures contains information about Greyhawk deities and clerics, major non-player characters, monsters, geography, spells of the setting's famous magic-users , magic items of the...
(TSR, 1988). - Sargent, CarlCarl SargentCarl L. Sargent is a British author of several roleplaying game-based products and novels.-Early career:...
. From the AshesFrom the Ashes (Dungeons & Dragons)From the Ashes is a supplement for Dungeons & Dragonss World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It was published in 1992 by TSR as a boxed set of materials...
(TSR, 1992). - Moore, Roger E. Greyhawk: The Adventure BeginsGreyhawk: The Adventure BeginsGreyhawk: The Adventure Begins is a 1998 sourcebook for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. The 128 page book was written by Roger E...
(TSR, 1998).
External links
- Canonfire!'s Greyhawk wiki.
- Canonfire! – Greyhawk reference materials and fan fiction (see Canonfire!Canonfire!Canonfire! is a fan Web site which acts as a repository for information about the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game...
). - Greyhawk Apocrypha – Unpublished and supplemental information from notable Greyhawk authors and editors.
- Greyhawk in the RPGnet Gaming Index.
- grodog's Greyhawk Allan Grohe's compendium of original research essays about the Greyhawk Campaign, Greyhawk Castle, and other topics
- Living Greyhawk /RPGA page on the Wizards of the Coast site.
- Wesley Phillips' Greyhawk Page It has some sources of information about Greyhawk from AD&D edition.