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Following on from my intro to Greyhawk, I present encouragement for people to play and run the setting, no matter how new they are.

“I want to play Greyhawk, but I don’t know it well enough.”

...

TUNLUK

TUNLUK is a mini starting campaign composed of L1-2, N1, T1, U1-3, and UK2-3. With some minor work, this group of adventures becomes a campaign for characters to level 4, possibly up to le ...

It is very evocative art. ;)

Perhaps this will inspire people to check both out.

Nice.
One of the things I always want to ask when some asks that question is if they can narrow down what they want to know a bit. That is why I tried to cover "everything". Now maybe if they pick an ...

It's here!

48 pages of fun to add to your Greyhawk campaign.

https://thegreygrimoire1.wordpress.com/2024/03/27/issue-2/

Something that comes up fairly regularly is a newcomer asking people for a description of the setting. This is something I consider rather difficult. There is a LOT to Greyhawk, and what exactly to hi ...

There are no Greyhawk specific metrics for the demographics of high-level characters. There are some edition specific guidelines for such on the basis of individual settlements, and others for specifi ...

Start with declaring that the Greyhawk Wars did in fact start in 577 CY with the various mobilizations and skirmishes noted in those articles. Just because there were no major conquests and a bit of a ...

I ultimately decided that everyone went Iron Age. The reason the Flan fell so easily during the Migrations is that their own nations had collapsed for one reason or another.
The Isles of Woe (Heraan) ...

As the intro below says, this is a follow up to my old Canonfire article on the population of the Flanaess. That article is here:
http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=News&file=article&am ...

Am I correct that this work doesn't treat the standard demi-human pantheons as canonical?

It treats them as what they are - standard, and thus not applicable to Oerth.
Oerth has its own powers wit ...

It was a reference to the weird heresies in Pontlyver and the far, far, far west where they assert that Alia is the mother of Haironeous as well as Hextorc, and some other weird guy called Stratego or ...

That was the origin of my mad musings - we were discussing the origins of Alia and who the fathers of Heironeous and Hextor were.
Summarizing:

Alia first appears in C2 Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. ...

I wrote the story up this morning.
And decided Hextor's mother was Johydee's half-orc sister, Alia.
But your version looks good too.

While discussing Heironeous tonight, a thought occurred to me.

At birth, Heironeous was bathed in Meersalm which made his skin invulnerable.

So you might say that Meersalm is the original . . . ...

The New Canon begins!

The first full section covers the Peoples and Cultures of the Flanaess. Not just Humans and Demihumans. Not just Humanoids and Giants (reprinted from VOG). But everyone I coul ...

I decided to resolves the Lendore Isle "question" by having Leomund become a Quasipower serving Lendor. He returned to the island from a mission a short time after the elven takeover and expressed his ...

As I mentioned in my recent responses to Docjacques, I've enjoyed when we, Greyhawk fans, have posted about the prehistory of the Flanaess, including how its gods and races warred and established the ...

I love how neat this is and that it raises questions about the relationship between gods, dragons, titans, aboleths, and other primordial beings. Similar to how your clarification about Procan being a ...

-IRL, we don't charge people based on their level, we charge based on who's doing the teaching and the skill being taught. If you're offering a college course, we don't charge an experienced, 3rd leve ...

The NPC is limiting himself to what he knows.
As noted previously in regards to how the NPC picks a target, he is a professional grifter. His job is picking marks and deciding how much he can con the ...

How does the salesman know what level they are

He does not. The DM does, and he uses that guideline to decide how much the NPC asks for.

Or did EGG say that the DM does not know the levels of th ...

First, regarding "Giants of the Flanaess," Samwise, regarding Procan possibly being the sole creator of the Titans,

As it goes, Procan is not the sole creator of the Titan. He is merely the creator ...

A variant of the above for Gary.

Random Greyhawk Campaign Table

Greyhawk campaigns can be with a brazen homebrewers or haughty Gygaxian purists, thus making it difficult for the party to disting ...

A brand new one requested by Gary Holian.

Gary requested this

Wandering Greyhawker Table

Greyhawk encounters can be with a brazen OSRers or haughty grognards, thus making it difficult for the ...

For everyone who signs up with random DMs at conventions.

Wandering DM Table

DM encounters can be with a brazen min-maxer or a haughty rules lawyer, thus making it difficult for the party to dis ...

A special pair for Curtis.

Wandering White Claw Table

Strange women distributing alcoholic beverage encounters can be with brazen stoli seller or haughty hard cider hustler, thus making it diffi ...

Again for Curtis.

Perambulating Plague Table

Disease encounters can be with a brazen boil bearer or a haughty herpes shower thus making it difficult for the party to distinguish each encounter f ...

Requested by Curtis.

Wandering Spy Table

Spy encounters can be with brazen information brokers or haughty hit men, thus making it difficult for the party to distinguish each encounter for what i ...

This one is Woesinger's fault.

Random Invasion Table

Invastion forces can be with brazen hordes or haughty conqueror, thus making it difficult for the party to distinguish what counter measures ...

How exactly did the Thieves' Guild even pull this off, especially by getting the Watch to confiscate their weapons, and spellcasters from the Wizards' Guild? You'd think the rest of the Directing Olig ...

On the Sages of Greyhawk Facebook group, someone asked for a one shot in the City of Greyhawk for 4-5 PCs around 11th level for 3.5 rules. As it goes, this should work for characters of any level in a ...

An alternative view on the politics of the Uleks.

The Ulek Triumvirate

The three Ulek states, County, Duchy, and Principality, cover the southern Lortmil Mountains, west to the Sheldomar River, ...

It has arrived!

Visions of Greyhawk Volume II

58 pages of articles on the Flanaess.
Multiple systems and editions.
The first adventure to appear in Visions.

And the team is hard at work on ...

Another one inspired by a random comment during a discussion on the Discord.
h/t to Woesinger for the end paragraph and the entries derived from it.

Castle encounters can be with brazen outposts o ...

Sooooon.

As in, ''If the Red Plague does not strike us down, before the end of the week. Istus knows our fate."

Final version is done. We are waiting on finalizing the technical stuff and having ...

Visions of Greyhawk Volume II

Following the success of our first Visions of Greyhawk release, we are happy to announce our second issue! The fan response was tremendous, so we have expanded the sec ...

These came from random comments and my general madness on the Discord.
The first of them is based on the presentation in "Den of Thieves", where the oldest profession was bowlderized as "dancing girl ...

The "demi" of their status could be in the classical sense and they are all part-mortal.

Also, "intermediate" ranking was added later on in 2nd ed, so it is perhaps not appropriate to critique the ...

For instance, is it possible surface elves are matriachal in some way? Celene is ruled by a Queen after all.

Do surface elves have fighting societies?

What about political rivalries?

Elites l ...

I treat the human, demi-human, and humanoid races as a species complex, all capable of interbreeding, but doing so or not based on various cultural restrictions.
I consider Gnomes to be a Dwarf-Elf m ...

Due to the generally egalitarian nature of the game, inheritance seems presumed to be a general primogeniture.

Functionally, I expect it is more "to the strongest", with inheritance going to whoeve ...

Night Below is a solid product. The flaws I noted were:

1. It may be too big. My players enjoyed it but started burning out by the end of the second part. We finished with new PCs for the third par ...

Anton Palmirian is thoroughly corrupt, and is a rather overbearing influence on Lawyers' (and Scribes' and Accountants') Guild, so any faction of them supporting Eritai will be small.

Of course, so ...

A couple initial comments:

The examples in Samwise's Appendix N: Kingdom Rules are hilarious. (I still can't decide if I best like his depictions of Thrommel or Tenser.)

Also, I greatly enjoyed ...

For Drelnza, I figured if I was going to blow up the world I might as well blow up Iuz as well as he is getting rather old.
Not to mention that if you are going to be dominated it is much more fun to ...

I am not working on the project, but I am contributing.

I would not, and never will, do anything under the FCP, and for a specific reason above and beyond what Norker mentioned.

Further, anyone ...

One thing to note with historical references is that there are several "types" of loot.

1. Personal Effects
Everything from armor and weapons to a stash of coins in a purse to the purse itself, pl ...

Check the Reviews.
I reviewed a bunch of AQ stuff back in the day: the AQ Land of Fate book, the AQ Arabian Adventures boxed set, the City of Delights boxed set, The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook, and t ...

Yes, let's nip something in the bud. There is no one, fan or otherwise, that has any right to demand anything of the owners and administrators of this site.

We are all greatful for what they do ...

However, there may have certainly been settlements ain Dimre before its theocracy was founded, and its possible the Paladin-King had settled in that area a few decades before 420. Perhaps the Paladin- ...

Having one of my article invoked, I will provide some answers to long time Greyhawkers:

As Rip notes and surmises, I did have the BoA. As he also notes, there are contradictions between that and ot ...

Samwise; I don't want to get into a flame war but I thought I was very respectful rather than rude within my post. I am somewhat confused that you feel any criticism of the developments within the plo ...

I am not attacking the writers ability and am willing to see where this ends but I have too agree with Cebrion on a point. Enough with the leadership slaughter; I realize their are those that want rad ...

Because a lot of this was my madness, I will back up Eric and explain things a bit more thoroughly.

Why would Turin throw away 20+ years of friendship?
Well, first of all, it was 20+ years of a po ...

I don't think I actually read the first two and after this, I thought it was just as funny as Order of the Stick. I surely hope that Salume Sewis is able to continue writing these - even it is for us ...

I don't think WotC is "evil." But making a good game is an art, and art is not concerned with profit. And unfortunately, the D&D brand is owned by an entity whose primary reason for being is profi ...

As Vormaerin said.
If you think that is the history of TSR you simply don't have a clue. The only reason they didn't "bet the farm" at the beginning is because they didn't have a farm to bet. The mom ...

<rant>

Ayup. I didn't want to elaborate that much, but there you have it.

I have a concern trying to de-Islamify the Baklunish, they have always appeared culturally middle-eastern and the religion/political system of the mix is obviously Islamic circa Ottoman Empire. Even t ...

Well, replacing Islamification with "Mongolian Golden Horde-ification" is not exactly the best solution, but I will grant you that it is at least better.

I didn't replace them with the Golden Horde ...

Now, if we can just retcon that whole horrible Islamification thing...

<Cebrion ties a piece of raw meat to the topic and sets Sam loose on it>

I already did. Why do you think I wrote the ...

Wow.
Now that's some hardcore heresy.
And the analysis is tight. Looking at it spelled out, it seems so obvious.
Great work!
Now to do something horrible with it. >: )

What's wrong with the hobloggers?

Hoblogger = Hobniz (halfling) + logger

I'll still go with my version of Cuthbert in OJ 20.
Happy

Over mesa grande?

I'll never get over mesa grande . . .

But I'm more interested in who will be giving out oerthblood magic items to people.

I'm still flashing over that mesa.

But what about the Oerthblood rules?

So has anyone else bothered reading about the official version of Oerthblood yet or what?

1) Not that I can think of.

2) I don't believe a full canon list of Aerdi Overkings exists.

3) They are plot macguffins. They let you ignore travel times whenever it suits your purposes.

4) N ...

They've added heritage options for sorcerers with celestial, fiendish, and fey bloodlines. They are nowhere near as developed as those for dragons as of yet.

Warlocks in no way replace sorcerers. T ...

FC I is awesome.
FC II is nearly as good.

Why is that a problem?
Are these 1st level NPC commoners with magic items? Or are they medium level NPCs with various trinkets? What is the overall value of what these NPCs have that makes knowing th ...

Piffle.

Break out your copy of Temple of Elemental Evil and check the amount of magic in that. It has not one, not two, but three rods of smiting. I've run it three times, and each time there has b ...

Those aren't my aphorisms, they are from T1 The Village of Hommlett.
And yes, Cuthbert needed some background history.
Actually, my two articles are linked. It was thinking about the differences bet ...

Thanks.
I've never really been satisfied with the excessive "tree-hugger" portrayal of druids and nature faiths, and wanted to present an alternative to them. I also wanted to delve a bit into the ef ...

You think TSR didn't want to make money before it was "transformed"?
You really think they put out products with no thought as to the profit?
And are you suggesting that WotC did this solely because ...

However, what I like more is the use of a the mob template from DMG2. A horde of the nasty creatures, acting as one mindless unit really changes things up on the PCs : )

Don't do it.
The mob temp ...

I also don't believe they require a lot of 3rd edition knowledge for Rob's Maure levels and do the mechanics editing for him, so it really comes down to hubris.

Hubris?
Someone in any of this is a ...

And the LG arc isn't being "built around" the adventure, it is being built around the LG campaign and the location in general.

I really, REALLY doubt WotC is afraid of stepping on the toes of the Castle Zagyg project. They don't seem reverent enough.!

Reverent enough?
The dungeon under Greyhawk is some sort of divine loca ...

So does that mean that there isn't even much point in different states minting their own currencies?

No, it means there isn't much point to devoting dozens of hours to making pages of rules, and th ...

I also notted how moneychangers were available to adventurers and other travelers to trade some of their money in for the accepted currency-Furyondian merchants would not simply accept Greyhawk coins ...

Again, the "economic system" of D&D isn't one. It is just a scorekeeping tally. Varying prices beyond a very limited, very story-based, point primarily achieves messing up that scorekeeping method ...

Even if you use iron and brass and bronze the system is still not going to resemble anything like a functional economic system.
So why worry about it?
Besides, its a lot more fun to talk about havin ...

Also note that the economic system of the D&D is deliberately simplfied to the point of not even being worthy of being called an economic system. It is little more than a method of keeping score o ...

Wood elves function as both hunters and ordinary warriors for the greater elven nations. Their communities are typically laid out as well camoflaged military camps, with additional space for their dep ...

I remain wary of any attempt to publish this iconic dungeon that doesn't involve either Gygax or Kuntz and fear that it must become a work of compromise. Hopefully it will at least have some decent ma ...

Certainly not. I was just frustrated that people seemed to be judging various works based on how canonical or not they are.

Actually the major criticisms seem to be on the structure of the article ...

I've got Cityscape.
I find it to be a very weak product. Whatever was intended simply doesn't come through. I don't think it adds anything significant to city design or adventuring that hasn't been s ...

Isis - Ishtar - Inanna - Hecate - the Morrigan - Hel
Plus all the dozens of variations I'd have to go digging up to remember.
Magic and Death have been "girl" deity spheres if influence from the daw ...

There are several things.

First and foremost, you rely too much on paraphrasing of monster manual entries. That might be fine for a rule book, but it is very poor when presented as simple discourse ...

Yes, there is a disconnect with the relations to non-Suel deities, one that can be traced rather directly to SKR. I think that is part of a general disconnect with the racial composition of the Flanae ...

It had to be one of the early references, no later than VL!
Again, it was mostly a random thought, some way to work other elements of background I like into Vecna.

Wee Jas guards souls and really does frown on the raising of undead, unless the souls are non-Suel in which case raise all the undead you want to. She’s totally against theft of souls from her, but ev ...

The Drow weapons thing was retconned in the FR accessory Underdark, which also has a section on Faerzress.

They have a special weapon and armor enhancement called, conveniently enough, "Drowcraft." ...

Is there a link or info on what exactly Oerthblood is?

Not that I recall offhand.

Which product did it first appear in?

From the Ashes I think, with more in Ivid the Undying.

I was flickin ...

Oerthblood.

We've discussed it several times in the chat, and it most likely that Oerthblood should be treated the same as Faerzress. Indeed, if -zress is taken as -blood, then other than the world ...

A lesson I learned a very long time ago:
Don't mess with a player's character.

Don't take his stuff, particularly in the forced manner presented in A3/4.
Don't give him scars or remove body parts ...

Hmmm . . .

Wee Jas represents a different aspect of magic than Boccob - she uses magic rather than embodying an abstract concept of it.
Wee Jas represents a very different aspect of death than Ner ...

Yes, this article does start out with all the stuff GLH has been saying, some of which I've elaborated on, about Keoland, the Suel migrations, and the southern seas. In fact, since those comments on t ...