I was a player, module author, and eventually Admin for the Mid-Atlantic (Geoff) region. LG was huge, with regions and rivalries. It encouraged traveling to local small cons in other regions so you could experience those story lines. Plus there were CORE modules anyone could play and Meta Regionals that several (but not all) regions could play.
There has been some continuation of that LG campaign. Greyhawk Reborn I think. But for those who want to know, LG happens post Greyhawk Wars and the current DMG material is PRE Greyhawk Wars
I loved Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil game in the Greyhawk setting. The dull npcs, the shadowy electronic music, the excellent 3.5e rule enterpretation. Everything is just soooo good. I miss Troika as a game studio.
Not sure if you know but it was a adventure before a game. Really odd he did not mention it as it is (imo) one of the best ever written and is set in Greyhawk. I also loved the game but like all Troika game needed fan mods to really shine :)
Oh man, I remember just spending all day looking over my Greyhawk maps and picturing where the modules were located, like Tomb of Horrors and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
The Greyhawk fan community has stepped up and has started publishing a bunch of 5E Greyhawk material on DMs Guild, including my own Campaign Guide, Player's Guide, and Cleric's Guide. As the saying goes, editions change, Greyhawk endures.
I've always heard, since the 80s, that "Oerth" was pronounced "Earth". I have that original boxed set and the map is framed on my wall. It's got a TON of packing tape holding it together, but I still love it.
I was hoping for Jorphdan to cover Greyhawk! There isn't a lot of Greyhawk lore videos on youtube. I would love to see videos on the Greyhawk Pantheon.
The DMG actually got me excited for Greyhawk. I always knew about it, but I never saw anything about the setting because Forgotten Realms was always in the forefront. (plus I was a huge BG1/2 and Drizzt fan, so I just wanted FR stuff) I've ran a few older Greyhawk and Mystara modules with OSR and I'm absolutely in love with them, especially Keep on the Borderlands. And seeing as that will be the new starter set coming out in the future, I'll probably convert fully to 5.5 and just run Greyhawk material in the future after my current campaign
Loved the giant map you got from that box set. Had it pinned onto the wood panelling wall of the basement rec-room, above the D&D desk, where we played in the 80's. :)
I found that the structure of the Greyhawk books allowed, being an overview or outline rather than microscopic detail, the DM to build the world out to suit their needs. While I have most of the available material I find that the way our group deviated from cannon early on meant that a lot of the later material is simply not relevant. Also, reading through Appendix N will provide a different view of the world than if you come in with a background of modern fantasy. Greyhawk should have typical fantasy elements combined with a lot of old weird fantasy from Camp & Pratt, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and H. P. Lovecraft. At its core, it should not suppose feel like Tolkien's Middle Earth.
Definitely worth it IMO. I've been a Greyhawker since the 80's, and while I like a lot of the materials from the Wars / Ashes era (thru Common Year / CY 585) and the Living Greyhawk era (thru CY 591) I think it was the right call to reset to CY 576 / gold box Greyhawk. It's much more approachable for new GM's, compatible with the classic big name adventures set in GH, and is an excellent example of a "less is more" skeleton for GM's to make their own.
The first actual Greyhawk product I ever bought was the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer, which does not have the word Greyhawk as part of the title. This despite having played D&D in one form or another for about the preceding 20 years. And it makes me feel old just typing that.
I joined DnD during the very end of 4th edition. My entire knowledge of what "Vanilla D&D" is comes from the Forgotten Realms. I am really excited to be able to learn what Greyhawk is and what I can steal from it for my game. Also glad that its Jorphdan thats covering it!
I love Greyhawk because it's archetypal DND. There's no real surprises or inversions on tropes, it has everything you expect in a standard fantasy setting. I especially love it in combination with Eberron, which always has a unique take on everything. Greyhawk is a great setting for introducing players to DND and fantasy ttrpgs, whereas Eberron is great for experienced players!
I’m more of a forgotten realms guy but greyhawk is interesting and I do have some of the older stuff I nabbed from my older cousin who was a huge dnd fan in the early 80s. He had lots of chain mail and early dnd stuff that went “missing” back when I was around 10-11 many many years ago.
Ah one of my personal blind spots in the old era of game worlds. Know a fair bit from osmosis and diffusion but never really go into it. Great work once again!
I have been running a Greyhawk game for about 4 years. I had a box full of ad&d modules and just made some conversion charts for AC and thaco. In fact, we have been running Greyhawk Ruins for about 2 years. One of my responses when someone "metagames" and quotes a monster stat from 5E is to say "Yes, but that's a Realms species. This is Greyhawk. Things are a little bit different". They seam to enjoy it.
Looking forward to future videos on Greyhawk, I've done my own reading into in the past for the mentioned "setting cannibalism" and its very fun to explore.
I'm curious where you get the notion that "fans were frustrated that there wasn't more". I bought it when it came out and it was the most comprehensive world building I had seen up until that point. I wasn't a kid who wanted to read the Silmarillion. But Greyhawk was the perfect level of detail for my brain to fill in the blanks. I could still talk about the Baklunish, Sueloise (sp), and Oerid migration patterns, and I haven't read more than snippets in 30+ years.
Greyhawk will likely be the starting point of my next campaign. The scheme is to do an amalgum of Saltmarsh, Witchlight, Yawning Portal, & Infinite Staircase, with Tasha & Mordenkainen as central players.
While we all devoured Greyhawk material and most of us had its maps we all used the initiative he started to create our own worlds. All my favorite D&D material is Greyhawk and 1st and 2nd ED D&D.
Honestly, I have been playing since the transition between 2e and 3e. My group in highschool, we always homebrewed our own worlds... Didn't even play in FR until COVID on roll 20
The idea that Greyhawk was set on a map of North America is a myth. Gygax did use maps from around Chicago for practicality in play, but the setting was always part of the Castle and Crusade map published in the Domesday newsletter. It was only vaguely modeled on North America.
@Jorphdan, what a teaser!! Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing the following videos about Grayhawk, as I never had a chance to dive into that setting… a special one about Living Grayhawk as a campaign would be great, too!
I got into Greyhawk in the 1990s because of the community in TSR Online in AOL of all places. The history and lore of the setting were incredibly controversial at the time. Greyhawk Wars had blown up much of the original political and conceptual areas of the world and the From the Ashes boxed set reinterpreted it as a rather grim setting overrun by fiends and evil empires. Many who loved the early iconic setting really disliked its tone. What was fascinating in the WotC era was that, before 3e came out, they actually had people like Lisa Stevens in the Greyhawk forum in AOL talking with fans, and released a series of new modules and supplements. A new full setting didn’t come out until 3e but the vibe was very much in favor of winning over the Greyhawk community. Erik Mona even got hired to be part of Living Greyhawk. The timeline is fascinating to me. The original folio and boxed set are set in CY 576. From the Ashes moved it to CY 585, and The Adventure Begins up to CY 591, which stuck around for the Living Greyhawk era. The new DMG kicks the timeline all the way back to CY 576. Also - a version of the first level of castle Greyhawk was published. It’s called Castle Zagyg and was put out by Troll Lord Games shortly before Gary passed. They’re planning to release a complete version in the future. (And a final note. No discussion of Greyhawk lore is complete without discussing *all* of the novels, including Quag Keep, Gary’s non-TSR books, the bizarre Rose Estes books with Mika-Oba, Robin Wayne Bailey’s Night Watch, and the module books of the late 90s.)
Kind of strange that Greyhawk didn’t get anything from 4th edition when it would have perfectly fit the points of light concept that edition was going for.
Hey Jordphan, I appreciate this video as it’s the way you used to make videos; with images and pictures of or closely related to what you are talking about. I watched all of your Faerun lore before anything else you published and that’s what got me hooked to your channel. Seeing your face is fine… if you’re doing unboxing something or summarizing a kickstarter campaign setting. Speaking of which, did you ever “complete” the world that you were creating that was run by warlocks?
Discovering that the only lore in the new DMG is straight up copied from material that is both decades old and very out of date is just another of many, MANY things Hasbro/WotC has done with its recent releases that make me so happy I moved onto other systems after the OGL scandal XD
I've no use for the DM Guide aside from the lore chapter, and my group doesn't have enough interest in 5.5 to justify buying the PHB. That said, if WotC can hold off on doing evil stuff for a while, I may well get the Monster Manual for 5.5.
That reminds me, did anyone notice how in the Scions of Elemental Evil module they released for free, stone golems have no resistance to weapons at all? I feel like they should at least have resistance to weapons, with a note in their text that adamantine weapons would bypass that. As it is, there is almost no benefit to getting an adamantine weapon.
I never really understood how Greyhawk was different from Forgotten Realms, from a players perspective. Is there a way to tell the difference, in world? Same goes for where Birthright fits between the two, as far as PCs are concerned.
Check out Tales of Fablecraft! - fablecraft.riftweaver.com/download/?
I was a player, module author, and eventually Admin for the Mid-Atlantic (Geoff) region. LG was huge, with regions and rivalries. It encouraged traveling to local small cons in other regions so you could experience those story lines. Plus there were CORE modules anyone could play and Meta Regionals that several (but not all) regions could play.
There has been some continuation of that LG campaign. Greyhawk Reborn I think. But for those who want to know, LG happens post Greyhawk Wars and the current DMG material is PRE Greyhawk Wars
I loved Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil game in the Greyhawk setting. The dull npcs, the shadowy electronic music, the excellent 3.5e rule enterpretation. Everything is just soooo good. I miss Troika as a game studio.
Not sure if you know but it was a adventure before a game. Really odd he did not mention it as it is (imo) one of the best ever written and is set in Greyhawk. I also loved the game but like all Troika game needed fan mods to really shine :)
Oh man, I remember just spending all day looking over my Greyhawk maps and picturing where the modules were located, like Tomb of Horrors and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
The Greyhawk fan community has stepped up and has started publishing a bunch of 5E Greyhawk material on DMs Guild, including my own Campaign Guide, Player's Guide, and Cleric's Guide. As the saying goes, editions change, Greyhawk endures.
As it happens, I bought them yesterday and plan to go thru them this weekend. Keep up the good work!
@@EdHastingsKillerShrike Awesome, thanks!!
That massive Gen Con Red Dragon banner at 6:09 brings back memories. :)
I've always heard, since the 80s, that "Oerth" was pronounced "Earth". I have that original boxed set and the map is framed on my wall. It's got a TON of packing tape holding it together, but I still love it.
In Greyhawk, you fight kung-fu Nazis. With your PSIONICS. Possibly on a crashed sci-fi space ship! Also, Sauron is there!
Yup, played a Psionicist in first edition in Greyhawk
I always pronounced Oerth as Oh-Erth.
Sounds sensible to me.
I am a simple man. I see a Greyhawk video by Jorphdan, I click.
this is exactly why I am here too.
Same 😊😊
I was hoping for Jorphdan to cover Greyhawk! There isn't a lot of Greyhawk lore videos on youtube. I would love to see videos on the Greyhawk Pantheon.
The DMG actually got me excited for Greyhawk. I always knew about it, but I never saw anything about the setting because Forgotten Realms was always in the forefront. (plus I was a huge BG1/2 and Drizzt fan, so I just wanted FR stuff) I've ran a few older Greyhawk and Mystara modules with OSR and I'm absolutely in love with them, especially Keep on the Borderlands. And seeing as that will be the new starter set coming out in the future, I'll probably convert fully to 5.5 and just run Greyhawk material in the future after my current campaign
Loved the giant map you got from that box set. Had it pinned onto the wood panelling wall of the basement rec-room, above the D&D desk, where we played in the 80's. :)
I found that the structure of the Greyhawk books allowed, being an overview or outline rather than microscopic detail, the DM to build the world out to suit their needs. While I have most of the available material I find that the way our group deviated from cannon early on meant that a lot of the later material is simply not relevant. Also, reading through Appendix N will provide a different view of the world than if you come in with a background of modern fantasy. Greyhawk should have typical fantasy elements combined with a lot of old weird fantasy from Camp & Pratt, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and H. P. Lovecraft. At its core, it should not suppose feel like Tolkien's Middle Earth.
LORE VIDEOS FROM JORPHDAN 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Definitely worth it IMO. I've been a Greyhawker since the 80's, and while I like a lot of the materials from the Wars / Ashes era (thru Common Year / CY 585) and the Living Greyhawk era (thru CY 591) I think it was the right call to reset to CY 576 / gold box Greyhawk.
It's much more approachable for new GM's, compatible with the classic big name adventures set in GH, and is an excellent example of a "less is more" skeleton for GM's to make their own.
HELL YEA Greyhawk! SO excited for the future vids!
The first actual Greyhawk product I ever bought was the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer, which does not have the word Greyhawk as part of the title. This despite having played D&D in one form or another for about the preceding 20 years. And it makes me feel old just typing that.
I joined DnD during the very end of 4th edition. My entire knowledge of what "Vanilla D&D" is comes from the Forgotten Realms. I am really excited to be able to learn what Greyhawk is and what I can steal from it for my game. Also glad that its Jorphdan thats covering it!
Read the Greyhawk novels.
I love Greyhawk because it's archetypal DND. There's no real surprises or inversions on tropes, it has everything you expect in a standard fantasy setting.
I especially love it in combination with Eberron, which always has a unique take on everything.
Greyhawk is a great setting for introducing players to DND and fantasy ttrpgs, whereas Eberron is great for experienced players!
I’m more of a forgotten realms guy but greyhawk is interesting and I do have some of the older stuff I nabbed from my older cousin who was a huge dnd fan in the early 80s. He had lots of chain mail and early dnd stuff that went “missing” back when I was around 10-11 many many years ago.
YES...More of this!!!
Ah one of my personal blind spots in the old era of game worlds. Know a fair bit from osmosis and diffusion but never really go into it. Great work once again!
Bless you, oh sage of the verse!
I have been running a Greyhawk game for about 4 years. I had a box full of ad&d modules and just made some conversion charts for AC and thaco. In fact, we have been running Greyhawk Ruins for about 2 years. One of my responses when someone "metagames" and quotes a monster stat from 5E is to say "Yes, but that's a Realms species. This is Greyhawk. Things are a little bit different". They seam to enjoy it.
Looking forward to future videos on Greyhawk, I've done my own reading into in the past for the mentioned "setting cannibalism" and its very fun to explore.
Great video, I'm new to D&D and am fascinated by the history of D&D. Thanks for making this video!
When I read "oyth", all I can hear my head is a short 1920s gangster with a New York accent
I recently picked up Return to Castle Greyhawk (3.5) and hope to run it soon.
6:42 "Cannibaalising it for your own setting?" That's a great idea! You should talk to Cannibaal Publishing about that Jorphdan!
I'm curious where you get the notion that "fans were frustrated that there wasn't more". I bought it when it came out and it was the most comprehensive world building I had seen up until that point. I wasn't a kid who wanted to read the Silmarillion. But Greyhawk was the perfect level of detail for my brain to fill in the blanks. I could still talk about the Baklunish, Sueloise (sp), and Oerid migration patterns, and I haven't read more than snippets in 30+ years.
While I run my own d&d world, I do have a certain affinity for Greyhawk over the other setting.
Greyhawk will likely be the starting point of my next campaign. The scheme is to do an amalgum of Saltmarsh, Witchlight, Yawning Portal, & Infinite Staircase, with Tasha & Mordenkainen as central players.
While we all devoured Greyhawk material and most of us had its maps we all used the initiative he started to create our own worlds. All my favorite D&D material is Greyhawk and 1st and 2nd ED D&D.
Honestly, I have been playing since the transition between 2e and 3e.
My group in highschool, we always homebrewed our own worlds...
Didn't even play in FR until COVID on roll 20
The idea that Greyhawk was set on a map of North America is a myth. Gygax did use maps from around Chicago for practicality in play, but the setting was always part of the Castle and Crusade map published in the Domesday newsletter. It was only vaguely modeled on North America.
Super excited for this. It's the first setting I was introduced to.
@Jorphdan, what a teaser!!
Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing the following videos about Grayhawk, as I never had a chance to dive into that setting… a special one about Living Grayhawk as a campaign would be great, too!
I got into Greyhawk in the 1990s because of the community in TSR Online in AOL of all places. The history and lore of the setting were incredibly controversial at the time. Greyhawk Wars had blown up much of the original political and conceptual areas of the world and the From the Ashes boxed set reinterpreted it as a rather grim setting overrun by fiends and evil empires. Many who loved the early iconic setting really disliked its tone.
What was fascinating in the WotC era was that, before 3e came out, they actually had people like Lisa Stevens in the Greyhawk forum in AOL talking with fans, and released a series of new modules and supplements. A new full setting didn’t come out until 3e but the vibe was very much in favor of winning over the Greyhawk community. Erik Mona even got hired to be part of Living Greyhawk.
The timeline is fascinating to me. The original folio and boxed set are set in CY 576. From the Ashes moved it to CY 585, and The Adventure Begins up to CY 591, which stuck around for the Living Greyhawk era. The new DMG kicks the timeline all the way back to CY 576.
Also - a version of the first level of castle Greyhawk was published. It’s called Castle Zagyg and was put out by Troll Lord Games shortly before Gary passed. They’re planning to release a complete version in the future.
(And a final note. No discussion of Greyhawk lore is complete without discussing *all* of the novels, including Quag Keep, Gary’s non-TSR books, the bizarre Rose Estes books with Mika-Oba, Robin Wayne Bailey’s Night Watch, and the module books of the late 90s.)
Yay Greyhawk!!!
Greyhawk is what people less familiar with D&D's history think the Forgotten Realms is.
Kind of strange that Greyhawk didn’t get anything from 4th edition when it would have perfectly fit the points of light concept that edition was going for.
According to RPG Geek the 4e version of Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is set in Greyhawk (rather than Nentir Vale).
Hey Jordphan,
I appreciate this video as it’s the way you used to make videos; with images and pictures of or closely related to what you are talking about. I watched all of your Faerun lore before anything else you published and that’s what got me hooked to your channel. Seeing your face is fine… if you’re doing unboxing something or summarizing a kickstarter campaign setting.
Speaking of which, did you ever “complete” the world that you were creating that was run by warlocks?
Fleshed out further yep, but not completed. Still more games to be run in it
I just want to finish my Five Shall be One/ Howl From the North campaign, please. (Which you skipped)
My favorite Greyhawk setting is the Temple of Elemental Evil.
We still play in the Greyhawk setting. Igwilv (Tasha, Natasha) Graz’zt, and many others started there….
Saltmarsh. Took us 3 hours and 12 donuts to get into that boat.
GREYHAWK FOREVER!!!
Looking forward to your videos but mainly I'm just glad WotC is leaving Faerun alone for a bit 😅
Greyhawk tuah
🤣
I prefer the deities from Greyhawk over Forgotten Realms.
good vid
Discovering that the only lore in the new DMG is straight up copied from material that is both decades old and very out of date is just another of many, MANY things Hasbro/WotC has done with its recent releases that make me so happy I moved onto other systems after the OGL scandal XD
I've no use for the DM Guide aside from the lore chapter, and my group doesn't have enough interest in 5.5 to justify buying the PHB. That said, if WotC can hold off on doing evil stuff for a while, I may well get the Monster Manual for 5.5.
That reminds me, did anyone notice how in the Scions of Elemental Evil module they released for free, stone golems have no resistance to weapons at all? I feel like they should at least have resistance to weapons, with a note in their text that adamantine weapons would bypass that. As it is, there is almost no benefit to getting an adamantine weapon.
I never really understood how Greyhawk was different from Forgotten Realms, from a players perspective. Is there a way to tell the difference, in world?
Same goes for where Birthright fits between the two, as far as PCs are concerned.
I pronounce it as 'Oh... er? Thh.'
whack