Search found 160 matches

Good stuff. Keep it coming! Cool

Check the 2E splatbook The Scarlet Brotherhood; if it's anywhere it'll be there.

Sadly, my copy is still in storage...

I would argue chasing a party of powerful adventurers out of Greyhawk, the single most detailed city (and arguably most important city) in the setting, is a terrible basis for a one-shot adventure. Th ...

This works best if they've annoyed someone with influence in Greyhawk. Despite the plethora of ridiculous laws (for example, 'fondling' - i.e. carrying - a waterfowl on the Processional) the City is ...

Change the names of the NPCs along with the name of the town and 'Saltmarsh' becomes... say, 'Mistmarsh' or some such. Then Saltmarsh in Keoland remains Saltmarsh, and you've expanded your world.

O ...

Change the name, put it on the Wild Coast, move the Temple east, and there you go.

Very cool. Cool

Waiting with eager anticipation!

Wasn't there a 'sinking island' somewhere in the Azure Sea mentioned in the Greyhawk hardcover?

Both half-orcs and half-elves are in Lord of the Rings. Which makes sense, since LOTR orcs are the descendants of elves corrupted by Morgoth. If elves can breed with humans, then so could their corrup ...

Are we talking about 'looting', as in taking stuff from defeated enemy soldiers?
Or 'looting', as in foraging for food and anything of value that soldiers might find as they gather food from local pe ...

IIRC from the gold box section on rivers, the rivers depicted on the large-scale maps were specifically those clear of cataracts and thus were navigable their full depicted length by at least river ba ...

I don't have the modules in front of me, but as I understand it the G/D/Q series did take place several years before the T series in canon.

Doesn't have to be that way in your game, of course.

I don't think so.

In Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins, it mentions that where the Millstream exits the city, occasionally gems, coins, and the random bone wash out. Given where it flows underground ...

Not without precedent in Greyhawk. At one point, the Beggarmaster tried to overthrow the Thieves' Guild before he disappeared. Unless your players have read the Gord the Rogue novels and already know ...

Historically speaking, guilds are town based. Presuming there are at least two separate businesses following a trade, there is likely a guild for it in that town. So each town of any size will have a ...

Well... that depends in at least some part what St. Cuthbert thinks about it.

Remember, D&D religions are not like real-world religions. In D&D the gods talk back to the clergy. They give g ...

If they've both been assigned on a quest together, I'd presume they'd at least value success in the quest enough to work together effectively.

Remember, Paladins have fairly high WIS requirements a ...

(Quickly double-checks the City of Greyhawk box...)

Oh, yeah. They don't. Back when I first got the box, I thought it was such a flagrant omission I added one into my version of the City... and it' ...

I'm guessing your world combines bounty hunters and assassins into the same guild?

Assassins generally specialize in... well, assassination. To be blunt about it, murdering people for pay. Bounty h ...

EttRoG is a streamlined version of Greyhawk Ruins. Several plots have been written into it, and areas not relating to those plots have largely been blocked off.

It also shows clear signs other part ...

It's been a while since I dug through the City of Greyhawk, but I don't recall any specific citizenship qualifications.

Given the nature of the City, I would imagine there's some sort of fee or tax ...

Who's got the best motive for a long game?

Simply making a connection to the kids, and making them more susceptible to temptation, may well be the the immediate goal. These sort of toys are not for ...

All sorts of options are available. I'm not aware of any canon on the issue that would limit whatever path (or paths) you want to explore.

This is a case where you can do both. It's quite possible ...

All excellent points! I haven't read my 'City of Greyhawk' material in a while, so I had forgotten all about the 'unlicensed monster' fine!

If you're going to adventure in the City, I do recommend ...

Greyhawk is quite cosmopolitan, and has a generally cordial relationship with adventurers overall. Generally, familiars and animal companions are reasonably welcome, so long as said critters are reaso ...

It's also worth noting that, given the extremely long lifespan of grey elves, it's entirely possible there have only been a half-dozen to a dozen monarchs of Celene. It's highly likely that Yolande's ...

How could I have forgotten?

Oerth Journal 22! There's a whole adventure there on the Adri Forest, Bitterness, and Hunger! I ran that adventure for my group some years back. Embarassed

I forget if the Mage's guild in Greyhawk has a seat on the city council. The thieves guild has at least two open representatives (the guildmaster and the major), at leat one of the three merchant's gu ...

I'd imagine most large cities would have a Wizard's guild. Now whether the smaller towns would have a full fledged guild is another question.

Were I doing it, I'd go with Dyvers. Dyvers is a fairly ...

A shipment of sugar cane, no doubt! Wink

Even more fun is to rip off the 'dead father, missing kids' plotline from the movie to really motivate the PCs!

I had forgotten about that in the original box set. Embarassed

A bit of online search turned up this thread at Dragonfoot:https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=68489

and Greyhawk Wiki ...

Nice summary. A clear threat, a good summary of the immediate players, and - most impressively of all - a clear plan for what happens if the PCs don't succeed or even fail to act at all. Easy for a DM ...

It's your game, do what you want... but IIRC the Suel Imperium didn't reach out anywhere NEAR that far in Canon. It might barely be possible in the Sea Princes, especially down along that thin strip ...

I can see them, as lawful, wanting to obey the law to a reasonable degree. But when taxation gets so high it starts interfering with business, THEN I can see them refusing to pay... or more likely, ju ...

Yeah, I imagine Rolibar got his title for becoming extremely rich and powerful.

If I remember my Greyhawk history right, the local area was once part of Furyondy, and before that part of the Great ...

On the Anna map, there's a small unnamed valley due east of Diamond Lake on the road to Wavenair and Blackwall Keep. Might be a good spot to drop your petty noble in.

Placed there, Tostoff Keep and ...

Well, a landed knight gets income from his lands. If nothing else, selling surplus food and other agricultural products to cities. Other products of the lands might include wood, furs, and leather. No ...

There is precedent. Murlynd carried a pair of pistols. Expedition to Barrier Peaks had sci-fi weapons. And even the AD&D DMG had rules for crossing over to Boot Hill games.

I would expect the three western powers kept each other pretty fully occupied. If any of them started pushing east, the other two would have taken advantage 'back home' in the west. It wasn't until th ...

On Earth, the prevailing winds change direction every 30 degrees N. or S. longitude. The prevailing winds across the USA and Europe travel west to east between 30* N. longitude and 60* N. longitude. ...

Given it's surrounded by nominally subordinate states, it reminds me a bit of the Holy Roman Empire. So... vaguely Germanic, but without the pressure of being surrounded by more powerful and potential ...

I had a group that liked to investigate the edibility of various monsters eventually including dragons and kraken. No humanoids though; apparently it wasn't sapience but shape that drew the line. Even ...

It's always worth remembering that even in the real world, differing areas developed technologies at different rates to suit their needs. A fantasy world should be no different.

For example, Dwarve ...

Going back to the original (pre-war) box set...

Some 8,000 sylvan elves live in the Dreadwood and patrol parts of it on behalf of the King of Keoland. There's apparently an ongoing state of war bet ...

My mistake.

Isn't saltpeter a material component for the Fireball spell?

The adventurers much more so than the general population.

You might - MIGHT - be able to get 25% of the general population under arms, if you've got 20,000 sets of arms and armor laying around. Ot ...

If you go out of the Flanaess, there are lands clearly resembling Egypt, China, and Japan; their mythology is the easy way to go there.

Yes, the Meso-American mythos heavily influences the official ...

Another thing to bear in mind is that medieval armies have a rather unfortunate tendency to fall apart after taking roughly 20% casualties...

Sure he could, if that's the type of campaign the DM wants to run.

Of course, the world of Oerth does not exist in a vacuum. It is connected to countless other worlds, including our own. I expect Oerth would have a lot of anachronisms in comparison to our own history ...

It's a bit of a reach, but in Hong Kong Action Theater one of the character abilities was 'theme song'. The player decided at what point in the 'film' the character's theme song would play and then th ...

If it's not in the City box, odds are it doesn't exist anywhere outside Gary's grave. Feel free to make up your own.

Another thing to bear in mind. Any formal and organized game is more likely to have significant equipment requirements, while a pick-up game is more likely to improvise gear.

Take baseball for an e ...

If you're talking about something formally organized by the army itself, then you're most likely talking about full-bore skirmishes in armor but using wooden training weapons, or maybe individual fenc ...

Might be as simple as pantheon-rivalry, or even competition for the same followers.

As I recall, Beory is Flan, and Obad-Hai is Baklunish. I don't remember offhand; wasn't Ehlonna not part of any o ...

“As the Morlin’s hammer descends on the Grimalkin, the statuette appears to shimmer or flinch as its doom approaches. There is a hiss as of an alley cat preparing for a fight and then the crunch/clang ...

I can only imagine the destruction of the Dreadforge being pretty spectacular. A massive "CRACK", splinters of it fly off, and then the whole thing melts down in an inferno of brimstone taking much of ...

In Rauxes, or somewhere else in The Great Kingdom? Makes a huge difference what kind of stuff is going on, and what sort of rumors are going around about it.

For example, it's probably an open secr ...

Given the Suel's attitude toward magic in warfare, it's quite possible they wouldn't have a god of war at all in the traditional sense, but perhaps a god of war magic...

With the advent of the internet and internet weather reporting, it should be possible to choose a similar location in the real world and use the weather it was experiencing at a similar point in the y ...

If they're just piddling around in the city, you can take almost any urban adventure or adventure seed and throw it in there with a few changes. A fun one is to take the standard 'bad guys infiltrate ...

In my games the people generally worship a pantheon, not an individual god. They may favor one whose aspects are more important in their lives, but still venerate all the deities of the pantheon. Sort ...

As someone who's always been interested in seafaring games, I've made a point of reading a lot of related threads on various forums. It seems to be a general agreement that those two books - Of Ships ...

There may not be canon currencies for those nations.

Historically, it was only pretty recently that every nation minted unique currency. Lots of nations just used the currency of whatever powerful ...

Unless you have ghost PCs, the DM will suit the level of absurdity (or lack thereof) to suit his game. That's as true for ghosts as it is for anything else.

Sure. Noncorporeal undead can do anything along those lines the DM wants them to.

Indeed, one could argue that due to their low physical density they could compact themselves into a much smaller sp ...

Doh!

Yeah, I was thinking of the Suss Forest, not the Welkwood.

Of course, if it's a fey playground, not too many people aside from elves are going to find it an enjoyable place to be.

The Welkwood is a very primordieal forest, and generally not a healthy place to linger. Even elves don't like to spend a lot of time there. It's a formidable natural barrier that defends the Fey Kingd ...

How hard it is to stay on the right path depends heavily on the nature of the pass. Some passes are pretty obvious, while others meander around and branch off numerous dead ends. In the latter case, f ...

Closed generally means "We're not shoveling it out over and over again so you can get through, go around please."

Getting a horse or wagon through will be impossible. On foot may also be impossible ...

Someone once said the English language was created as invading Norman knights worked on seducing Saxon barmaids, and there's no small amount of truth to it. As a result English is a Germanic language ...

I remember a map of the Suel Empire that had what is now the Forgotten City as a port town at the northernmost extension of a large bay or smallish sea. (Unfortunately I can't remember the source of t ...

I notice lots of multiclassed illusionists. Clear evidence illusionists generally need something to fall back on if the illusions are disbelieved...

Illusionists who become famous as illusionists generally don't last long; you're basically proclaiming yourself to be soft, squishy, and with little offensive or defensive magics. Especially at low le ...

Historically speaking, guilds were strictly local organizations within towns. This is due to the simple lack of fast, reliable communication between towns; the wide variety of cultures and climates am ...

I'm going through it to see if I can use it in my current campaign (or maybe as the next one). So far it looks pretty good.

Very nicely laid out too. So many free adventures fall apart because the ...

The old box set lists St. Cuthbert as the god of wisdom, dedication, and zeal. As Rasgon points out, he's very much against chaos and considers waffling (i.e. being chaotic) to be just as bad if not ...

IIRC, a cleric used plane shift to get the PCs to Earth to get the Mace of St. Cuthbert, and the Mace itself would do the same to bring them back.

There's always the possibility of a contested line of succession, male or female. In general, how serious that possibility is depends heavily on how strong the successor is, and how strong their suppo ...

In a world where women can be every bit as powerful militarily (and therefore politically) as men, there isn't likely to be much opposition to a strong female heir.

If you're the DM, do what you want.

Rary killed off several of them when he formed the Empire of the Bright Desert. Just say he got all the rest of them and none of them came back.

Or maybe spre ...

Mercenaries rarely 'return to the farm'. Farmers HATE professional soldiers, mercenaries most of all. They're not going to be kind to a soldier caught alone, just as soldiers are rarely kind to farmer ...

I vaguely recall reading something about the Rhennee gathering in Midbay for the winter as well. This implies that even that far north the winter climate is not that severe.

Excelent job, I really liked it, he looks very fearsome to fight.
But...
I did not understand why his CR is 23 if he is 26 level character AND he's Shade. Did I miss something?

The whole point of ...

Well, starting from the northeast...

The Frost, Snow, and Ice barbarians probably have a good number of ships between them, but they're not likely to be terribly organized. Think Vikings and you wo ...

One should remember that the Brotherhood only considers full-blooded Sueloise 'citizens'... and then only to the extent by which they support the regime. Everyone else is 'mongrels' and 'subhuman', an ...

Heck, look to TV shows. I ran a similar council meeting for the Sea Princes loosely based on the early seasons of Babylon 5.

Two princes with a long history of hostility and violent border incident ...

Well, if there's a king and no queen it's about time he got one, right?

Have him fall in love with a female PC. That should make things interesting... Evil Grin

As far as the silliness of Castle Greyhawk goes...

Are you aware there are TWO separate Castle Greyhawk modules, one silly and one serious?

If silliness isn't your thing, use the other one.

While you are, of course, free to do as you wish with your game, I respectfully disagree on one point.

Yes, magic item are vanishingly scare among the general population. But among adventurers who ...

I've always considered the inland people to be a bit more Suel than Oreidian - not pure Suel, but distinctly fairer than the usual SO mix.

The port cities, having been pirate havens for so long, ar ...

Given the way Gary described Lady Deirdre in the book Artifact of Evil, I thought it was pretty clear that he considered the women of Hardby to be very Amazon-ish.

Lake Quag would be a bit higher than 30 feet above sea level, I expect. St. Louis is about 800 feet above sea level, after all.

One foot drop per mile of river would still put the Nyr Dyv about 100 ...

Ah, Han Solo. Arguments can be made for MANY alignments for Han Solo.

He shot Greeto down without conscience. Arguably CE.

He was a member of the Imperial Navy at one point. Arguably LE.

He w ...

Have the ruler of their old haunt be overthrown somehow. (Mayor Nerof Gasgul of Greyhawk could be 'simply outvoted' at election; the King of Keoland might have been assassinated and his son is too you ...

I can't imagine Greyhawk allowing any development of the far bank EXCEPT under their control... or at least under their TAXATION.

Having said that, one thing is historically clear. New development ...

Why would you be in trouble for having a 400-year-old castle in the territory of a 300-year-old nation? There's been people in the Flanaess for thousands of years; whoever was there BEFORE the nation ...

And the druids?