Greyhawk Returns in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide

2024 has been a big year for Dungeons & Dragons so far, marking both the game's 50th anniversary and an extensive revamp of the game's core rulebooks. Even with all the new elements being added to the game, it’s the return of an old one that most excites my Gen X soul. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide includes a fully customizable Greyhawk setting guide, complete with a double-sided poster map of the continent of Oerik and the City of Greyhawk itself.

Greyhawk isn’t just one of the first campaign settings ever published for the game; it’s based on the home campaign of Gary Gygax, the game’s co-creator, so let's dive in to see what you can expect from a return to this legendary setting!

Getting into Greyhawk

Artist: Bruce BrenneiseAn imposing castle is lit by torches in the dark.

I caught my first glimpse of the World of Greyhawk box set—which the campaign setting in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is largely based on—in my grade school friend Danny’s basement, and it was the poster map that hooked me then as well. It looked like it had actually been drawn by a cartographer in a medieval fantasy world. I remembered examining the full-color heraldic crests of its many nations, imagining what sort of lands they were. Despite my begging, however, Danny wouldn’t let me borrow the box set, and the gates of Oerth were shut for seven years.

Then, in a Chicago bookstore in 1993, I spotted a Greyhawk supplement called Iuz the Evil. At first skim, Iuz seemed like a standard-variety dark lord, ruling a cold, harsh section of a planet called Oerth with his army of demons.

Where most fantasy tyrants pursue their war of conquest to the end with fanatical self-destructive zeal, the more sensible Iuz had conquered a manageable amount of territory, signed a peace treaty with the “good guys,” and was attempting to build a functional nation.

It was a practical-minded take on the “land of darkness” trope that also managed to be, despite the PG-13 guidelines of 90s D&D, truly horrific.

Author Carl Sargent was a master at implying terrifying things with a few carefully chosen words that suggested more than they described. I knew right then that this was the game world for me.

Among D&D settings, Greyhawk is a unique blend of dark, shadowy sword and sorcery, wide-screen high fantasy, and historical realism. It was the birthplace and first testing grounds of most of the game’s concepts, which gives it a timeless allure.

Legends in the Making

Indeed, D&D’s iconic Wizard and book-cover regular Mordenkainen began life as a player character in the original Greyhawk sessions. He was rolled up at level 1, like any other D&D adventurer, by none other than Gary Gygax, who created Dungeons & Dragons together with Dave Arneson.

Infamous Monsters and Legendary Adventurers

Gygax’s early 70s Lake Geneva, Wisconsin campaign was where the game we know took shape. The first people to ever check for secret doors or fire off Magic Missiles did so in his basement as they explored Oerth.

Most of the unique D&D monsters, like the Owlbear, Bulette, Mind Flayer, Mimic, and Beholder inflicted their first damage in the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk, controlled by Gygax and alternate Dungeon Master Rob Kuntz.

Otto’s Irresistible Dance, Bigby’s Hand, and Tenser’s Floating Disk were custom spells written by Gygax’s players.

Influence Across the Ages

The setting’s influence is widespread. Critical Role's gods, the Dawn Father, the Spider Queen, The Storm Lord, and the Chained Oblivion, first appeared in Oerth’s pantheon and are covered in detail in chapter 5 of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.

Demon Lord Fraz Urb'luu was imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk, and Zuggtmoy was first defeated in Gygax’s Temple of Elemental Evil. Iconic magic items like the Eye and Hand of Vecna got their start there as well.

Life During Wartime

Artist: Mark BehmA statue made of jade with a gaping maw lurks in an subterranean lair.

Greyhawk embodies D&D's historical wargaming origins.

Indeed, Greyhawk’s saga starts with war—with masses of refugees fleeing the Rain of Colorless Fire and Invoked Devastation that destroyed their homelands. Unlike similar events in other settings caused by the gods or cosmic forces, these disasters were caused by weapons of warring human civilizations. Rather than absorb the obvious lesson and change their destructive ways, humanity’s survivors brought their resentments with them to Oerik, kicking off centuries of violence.

A Battle-Ready World

Befitting the interests of its war-gamer creators, Greyhawk is a setting optimized to produce battles. Everywhere. The Greyhawk campaign setting in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide presents the DM with various mass conflicts, allowing DMs to invoke the feeling of a world reaching the boiling point.

You'll find descriptions of Oerth’s nations in the chapter's Greyhawk Gazetteer, along with their history of conflict and what strife they're currently facing. As Gygax would have wanted, DM’s should know that it’s only a matter of time before the cavalry charges start.

A Down to Oerth Setting

Unlike inhabitants of fantastical Eberron or even the Forgotten Realms, the common person of Oerth lives much like someone from our own late Middle Ages did. While individual Oerth mages rank among the most powerful in the multiverse, magical conveniences common in other settings rarely reach the common people here outside of bastions of civilization and knowledge, like the City of Greyhawk.

You aren't likely to see ships kept aloft by magic, hovering citadels made of gemstone, or enchanted street lamps—though you may encounter dragons, demons, and other monsters.

Oerth is a world where magic exists, but it is elusive, often locked behind ancient rituals or controlled by the elite. Everyday life is governed by the sword and plow, and when it comes time to raise the banners of war, armies meet each other in fields and lay siege to fortresses. The few magic items powerful enough to sway the tides are hidden away in forgotten dungeons that only the bravest dare enter, leaving kingdoms and nations to rely on steel and strategy to survive.

Keeping It Real

Applying his wargaming principles to the sword and sorcery tales he loved, Gygax worked to build a fantasy world that ran according to consistent, believable rules, and that's mirrored in the latest iteration of Greyhawk.

His settlement populations and locations followed real-world economic maxims. Gygax laid out not only the current nations of Oerik but also the historic migration patterns of the great human tribes that settled them. He provided each nation's imports and exports and the trade routes they used to transport them, providing resources for rulers to fight over and flashpoints where such fights were likely.

The Gazetteer included in the chapter provides Dungeon Masters with the tools to continue running games with this detail. It highlights dozens of locations across the Flanaess and provides an in-depth overview of the City of Greyhawk.

Grimdark Greyhawk

Artist: Chris RallisTiamat towering over a town as destructive fire rains down.

Another thing that sets Oerth apart is that evil is ever-present. If something isn't done by heroic adventurers, the free lands will fall under tyrannical rule.

No One To Save You

If your characters want to change any of that, they must do it themselves. What meager forces of good remain are stretched thin, trying to curtail the various conflicts that insidiously creep forward.

With Friends Like These

No benevolent Laeral Silverhand type governs the City of Greyhawk.

Instead, its leaders are a mobbed-up coalition of rich opportunists who literally call themselves the Directing Oligarchy, led by a lord mayor with a nefarious side hustle. You can appeal to the archmages of Mordenkainen’s Circle of Eight if you like, but they are concerned primarily with Balance, not justice. If they feel your goal is disruptive to world order, they may even oppose you.

Maximum Villainy

Evil’s ranks, by contrast, are full and active. A Greyhawk DM has more potential villains than a Batman writer, and all are equally as colorful, from the Cult of Elemental Evil to powerful, pragmatic Iuz in his icy castle in the north.

If braving immense resistance with little help makes you a hero, your players will find no greater opportunity than the fight to save Oerth.

Giving Greyhawk: DMing in Gygax’s World

Don’t let the setting’s history and age intimidate you. Take it from a lifetime Greyhawk DM: A few choice elements are enough to capture Oerth’s unique flavor without spending hours studying the past 50 years of lore.

Describe Oerthlings’ Hardships

First, in your descriptions to your players, emphasize that this is a world much like our own in the late Middle Ages. Remember, the lives of Oerth's civilians are generally as difficult as the lives of those from our history. Make sure some of the NPCs the characters meet have appropriately hard-scrabble stories. In Gygax tradition, a good number of them should also be less than trustworthy and open to betraying the characters if the moment presents itself.

Don’t Be Afraid to Challenge the Party

Patrol encounters are a great way to emphasize Greyhawk's wartime nature, and side quests in which the characters must protect unfortunate NPCs against stiff odds can give a taste of how robust the forces of darkness are.

When placing dungeon and wilderness encounters on Oerth, not every opponent needs to have a CR the players can handle. Greyhawk adventures written by Gygax, like Against the Giants, sometimes feature monsters the characters are meant to avoid, and knowing when not to fight is considered an essential player skill.

Get Tactical

Help your players acclimate to this reality by strongly hinting in your descriptions that an alternate plan of action might be advisable until they adjust. Greyhawk’s focus on realism can be emphasized by picking a moment or two in a session when environmental rules like darkness, Difficult Terrain, Carrying Capacity, and cover make a meaningful difference to character survival or mission success.

Overcoming truly challenging obstacles was one of the main joys of Gygax’s campaign and of old-school wargamers in general. When DMing other settings, you might occasionally fudge dice rolls or have monsters ignore Unconscious characters to give your players a break. If you want your Greyhawk adventures to invoke the spirit of that Lake Geneva basement in 1974, however, I strongly encourage you to let the dice fall where they fall. Gygax and Kuntz wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Adventure Continues

The world of Greyhawk was created by a group of historical wargamers to simulate, with probability and arithmetic, the sword and sorcery fiction of the twentieth century, where courageous but often morally complicated characters like Conan, Fafhrd, and Elric battled strange horrors, cunning thieves, and dark magic in violent realms based on Earth’s past.

The game we love was shaped in this volatile setting fifty years ago, and its gates remain open to those bold enough to enter. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide will soon give every D&D player enough information to walk through them whenever they like. If you love D&D, you owe it to yourself to take at least one trip to Gygax’s original world. My guess is you’ll want to go back again and again.

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Comedian and writer John Roy (@johnroycomic) has appeared on Conan and The Tonight Show and written for Vulture and Dragon Plus. He is the co-host of the comedy/war gaming podcast Legends of the Painty Men. His albums can be found on Apple Music and Spotify. He splits his time between Los Angeles and the Free City of Greyhawk.

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