Introduction
The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (LGG hereafter) is the latest incarnation of one of the very first published roleplaying campaign settings. Initially released in the early 1980s, Greyhawk had its start as the homebrew setting of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator E. Gary Gygax and was the primal stomping ground from which many of the game's most distinctive offbeat tropes emerged.
How does this venerable setting hold up after more than twenty-five years? Remarkably well, all things considered.
Before we proceed any further, however, into what the LGG is, I want to make it very clear what it is not:
1. The LGG is not a "crunchy" book. This alone sets it apart from not only most other D&D products, but most other roleplaying books period. The LGG contains not one single new prestige class, spell, feat, magic item, or monster. In fact, it also doesn't include statistics for any of the various NPCs mentioned throughout the text. Not a one. The writers had only 192 pages to work with and apparently chose to forsake such things entirely in favor of packing the LGG to the gills with details on history, cultures, politics, theology, and geography. Whether this is a strength or a weakness is up to you. Personally, as someone who enjoys D&D-style games without D&D-style rules, I found this virtually systemless format to be ideal for use with other rulesets.
2. The LGG is not a pretty book. Despite beautiful cover art, the LGG is far from pleasing to the eye overall. Moreover, it's softcover, a turn-off for some.
3. While the LGG does present the framework of a great campaign, there is no attempt made to match the sheer level of minute detail present in settings like Forgotten Realms and Kingdoms of Kalamar. Rather, the LGG's focus is on the big picture: Gods, geography and broad national and ethnic divisions. If you want a setting that details every little rut in the backroads, Greyhawk is simply not it. As someone who specifically doesn't want a world with a "canon" answer to everthing and few real mysteries and spaces left to fill-in myself, this aspect appeals to me. In the end, there's no right answer. It all comes down to how much setting detail is not enough for you, how much is too much, and how much is just right.
4. Greyhawk is not "fresh", "new", or "out there." As the original home of most of the classic Gygaxian D&D tropes, Greyhawk doesn't feature the clever (and often more than a little subversive) takes on them that defined such settings as Spelljammer and Planescape. If you still enjoy thoroughly "vanilla" D&D-style gaming, Greyhawk may be the world for you. If you don't, keep looking.
Now that we've gotten the disclaimers out of the way, we can move on to the book itself....
Physical Presentation
The LGG is a standard-sized 192-page softcover book with black-and-white interiors. William O'Connor's color cover art is magnificent, featuring the archmage Mordenkainen standing on a rugged mountainside overlooking the lands of the Flanaess. He seems to be peering back over his shoulder at you with an inscrutable gaze. The outline of a warrior with a sword doing battle with a demonic entity of some sort is visible in the clouds behind him.
Both the front and back inside covers are a joy to behold, as well, featuring dozens of full-color coats of arms and other heraldic devices used by various nations, orders of knighthood, etc.
The back of the book contains standard ad copy.
Despite the promising cover, the LGG's interior art is sparse and unforgivably poor. Even the amateurish quality of most old AD&D 1st Edition interior art looks godlike next to the crude, ugly line drawings scattered throughout the LGG. A true pity. Art should attract, not repel.
A color poster map is included, as well. While no great work of art, it clearly and accurately represents the Flanaess as described in the book and has no apparent flaws.
Content
The LGG is divided into seven chapters and an appendix.
Chapter One: Greyhawk's World
This first chapter, a brief three pages, provides a broad overview of the planet Oerth (including its twin moons), the continent of Oerik and the Flanaess, the easternmost portion of the continent on which the book focuses. Also included are details on climate and the naming conventions for the days of the week and the months of the year under three different widely-used calanders (common, elven, and nomad).
Chapter Two: Folk of the Flanaess
This eight-page chapter is an overview of the major races of the Flanaess, with emphasis on their histories, temperaments, languages and areas of greatest geographic concentration.
Information on the standard D&D elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, etc, are just what you'd expect if you've ever picked up a Player's Handbook or Monster Manual. The real meat of this chapter is the information on the Flanaess' six major human races. Basically, you have:
Oeridians: Aggressive types with a flair for war, conquest and exploration. Best compared to a melding of the stereotypes of ancient imperial-era Romans and late medieval western Europeans.
Suel: Pale skins, blond or red hair and blue eyes effectively mark the Suel as the Flanaess's Nordic types.
Flan: A bronze-skinned tribally-oriented race of hunters and gatherers that occupied the Flanaess (and served as its namesake) before the Migrations brought the Suel, Oeridians, etc. Most closely-comparable to real world Native Americans, Flan culture has been gradually eroded-away over years of conquest and assimilation by the more aggressive and technologically-advanced human races.
Baklunish: Arabs, basically, with a culture that spans the whole spectrum between cultured city-dwellers and wild desert dervishes.
Olman: Similar to real world Mesoamericans like the Aztecs, the Olman once ruled a great empire in the little-explored southern jungles. Years of war with another human race, the dark-skinned Touv (who are mentioned in passing, but not fully-described) combined with Suel and Oeridian slave-raiding to put an end to their empire and render the remaining free Olman highly xenophobic.
Rhennee: A race of extraplanar refugees that have adopted a rootless, Gypsie-like existance as nomadic bargefolk on the Flanaess' great inland waterways.
Chapter Three: The Path of History
Four pages in length, this chapter is a brief primer on the most important historical events of the past one thousand or so years. To summarize:
In the distant past, two great magical civilizations, the Suel Imperium and the Baklunish Empire, went to war. After years of escalating conflict, the Suel mages of power called down their most terrible magic on the hated Baklunish. This Invoked Devestation, a cataclysm so complete that its actual form remains unknown to this day, swept whole cities and peoples from the face of Oerth, utterly ruining the Baklunish Empire. In retaliation, the surviving Baklunish wizards and clerics pooled their power and summoned forth the Rain of Colorless Fire. Miles-wide shining rifts opened in the heavens above the Suel Imperium and all beneath them was burned to ash.
With their former homelands in ruin, the surviving Suel and Baklunish were forced to migrate east, into the great uncharted wilderness known as the Flanaess. Brought along for the ride were the Oeridians, a loose confederation of western tribes that viewed the downfall of their neighbors as a sign that they should strike east in search of their destiny, and the vicious humanoids (orcs, goblins, and such), who had been utilized in great numbers as mercenaries by both sides during the Suel-Baklunish war.
Over the next few centuries, these migrants spread far and wide throughout the Flanaess, often at the expense of the native Flan tribes and demihuman peoples. The most powerful of the Oeridian tribes founded the Great Kingdom of Aerdy, which eventually grew into a true superpower that held virtully the entire continent in its grasp.
So it went for many years until the upstart House Naelax conspired to murder the Great Kingdom's rightful Overking and set one of their own in his place. This touched off a period of civil war and villainous debauchery known as the Age of Great Sorrow. Each successive Overking of the Naelax dynasty proved to be even more decadent, cruel and incompetent than his predecessor. The once upright and noble Malachite Throne became known as the Fiend-Seeing Throne, as rumors of devil worship among the nobility became prevelent.
Meanwhile, in the far north, an obscure nobleman of the Howling Hills died and left his fief to his "son", a being known as Iuz. As Iuz quickly embarked on a campaign of conquest against his neighbors, it became apparent that he was no man at all, but rather the fiendish offspring of a necromancer and a demon. With the majority of rulers then more concerned with surviving the harsh political climate of the rapidly-disintegrating Great Kingdom, Iuz's influence continued to grow unchecked. Eventually, his depraved human and orcish followers came to worship him as a god, and the worst fears of goodly folk across the Flanaess were realized when Iuz's priests began to manifest powerful magical ability granted by their newly-ascended diety.
Things finally came to a head nine years ago, when Iuz's trickery touched off a transcontinental war the likes of which the Flanaess had never seen. Whole nations quickly fell to the forces of evil and the apparent destruction of the last Naelax Overking, an undead madman known as Ivid the Undying, signaled the final dissolution of the Great Kingdom. By the time an uneasy (and surely temporary) end to hostilities was finally negotiated, the news was grim: Large sections of the northern Flanaess were lost to the Empire of Iuz, while several key southern lands had been usurped by the sinister Scarlet Brotherhood, a secretive order of Suel monks dedicated to a doctrine of world conquest and militant racial supremacy.
And that's where things in the Flanaess stand today, with the forces of good licking their wounds and the hosts of evil working to fortify their ill-gotten conquests.
All-in-all, this chapter does a fairly good job in bringing Greyhawk newbies (like myself) up to speed with both past and current events in the game world.
Chapter Four: Gazetteer of the Flanaess
Clocking in at 121 pages, this is by far the book's longest chapter. Each major nation of the Flanaess is discussed in detail, with the emphasis on government type, rulers, major cities, population demographics, coinage, prominant religions, allies, enemies, and history. Each entry also includes an average of 3-5 short "adventure seeds" intended to provide inspiration to scenario-crafting GMs.
Generally, this chapter is excellent. The lands of Greyhawk are lively, facinating places with a lot of variety among them. You have squabbling remnants of great empires, a kingdom of orcs, free cities, northern barbarians in the Viking mold, theocracies both repressive and benign, dwarven and elven lands, Arabesque lands straight out of the Arabian Nights, a hidden land ruled by a reclusive wizard and his outcast elven followers, and more.
This chapter's greatest flaw, oddly enough, is its poor coverage of the setting's namesake city of Greyhawk. Firstly, the city sports one of the book's shortest entries. Secondly, that entry contains virtually no useful information on the city itself! We aren't even told if Greyhawk is divided into different districts or neighborhoods, nevermind what those might be. Interesting sights that might be of interest to adventurers? Nope. Instead, all we get is some fairly irrelevent notes on what the city militia is armed and armored with and a brief discussion of the city's current and former mayors. Huh? Pardon me, but if you're going to name your entire setting after a city, you had better make sure that that city comes off as actually interesting in some way. While the sections on other major cities like Irongate and Rel Astra are facinating reads, the LGG's abortive entry on its namesake only serves to paint it as an exceedingly dull place. Big mistake.
Finally, there are a few spots where undefined terms render the text difficult to use. The entry on the Hold of the Sea Princes states that natives of the land worship a minor god named Kalenan, while some Olman residents worship Chitza-Atlan. Neither of these dieties is ever described. At all. We don't even get their genders, their alignments or what they're actually gods of. So I repeat: Huh? I know that space was at a premium, but why even mention this stuff at all if it can't be done in a lucid and useful fashion?
Similarly, other people and places, like the Touv race of humans, the hero-diety Daern, the western nations of Mur and Komal, and the Isles of Woe are mentioned, but never explained in any way. Not even a tantalizing hint or two. While I generally applaud the Greyhawk philosophy of leaving some details to be filled-in by the GM, these contextless, unelaborated one-sentence references are more confusing and frustrating than inspiring.
Still, what is actully detailed is good stuff, and overall gets a thumbs-up from me. A small handful of unsupported references and a poorly-done Greyhawk entry don't even come close to outweighing the mass of quality material here.
Chapter Five: Geography of the Flanaess
This seventeen page section does an admirable job detailing all of the Flanaess' major mountains, hills, lakes, seas, oceans, forests, jungles, islands, swamps, deserts and wastelands. Each area's major resources, inhabitants (normal and monsterous), and mysteries are summarized in good detail. The listing of what portions of each major river are navigable is an especially nice touch.
Chapter Six: Power Groups
This eight page chapter provides a broad overview of some of the setting's major transnational power groups. They are:
The Circle of Eight: A secretive association of archmages (including such famous names as Mordenkainen, Bigby, Otto, and Nystul) dedicated to the preservation of the balance beween good and evil in the Flanaess.
The Horned Society: Tyrannical cultists once thought to have been destroyed by Iuz (who didn't appreciate the competition), the surviving Hierarchs of the Horned Society are now suspected of continuing to spread their insidious evil from deep behind the scenes.
The Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom: Once the most noble and powerful order of knighthood in existance, this group is now nearly extinct after the decline and fall of the Great Kingdom.
The Knights of the Hart: A tripartite organization founded by the allied nations of Furyondy, Highfolk, and Veluna, the Knights of the Hart are a small but politically-active group currently engaged in the crusade against Iuz.
The Knights of Holy Shielding: This order was driven out of its own territory when the Shield Lands were overrrun by the forces of Iuz. Now, the few remaining Knights conduct a grim campaign to liberate their homeland. Few believe they can succeed.
The Knights of Luna: An elven order of knights that is often at odds with the isolationist politics of the elf kingdom it has sworn to serve.
The Knights of the Watch: An order with great influence in the Kingdom of Keoland, the Knights of the Watch follow an obscure quasi-religious code that seems exceedingly strange to outsiders. A close analogy can be made here with the real world Knights Templar.
The Mouqollad Consortium: The united merchant clans of the Baklunish nations, which together are more powerful than any one ruler of the region.
The Old Faith: The Flanaess' international druidic hierarchy.
The Old Lore: A school of bards appended to the Old Faith that are noted for their use of druidic (rather than arcane) magic. Savvy readers will note that these are basically the old AD&D 1st Edition bards.
The People of the Testing: A mystery cult made up of elves that have passed through the elusive Moonarch and undergone a series of spiritual tests administered by the elven gods.
The Silent Ones of Keoland: Reclusive wizards devoted to safeguarding the dangerous magical legacy of the Suel Imperium.
None of these entries is particularly long, but all do a good job of establishing the "feel" of each group along with the basics of their organization and operation. A well-done and highly-useful chapter overall.
Chapter Seven: Greyhawk's Gods
This 27-page final chapter is the LGG's second longest and consists of alphabetical descriptions of the setting's many gods.
Unlike in some fantasy settings, each major human culture has its own distinct pantheon of gods. This is a nice touch in my opinion, as it sets up some compelling divine rivalries (such as the one between Xerbo and Procan, the Suel and Oeridian sea gods) and serves to render each human culture even more distinct.
Personally, I like Greyhawk's gods. While a few, like sun god Pelor and grim reaper figure Nerull, are fairly generic, they're a colorful bunch overall. In particular, Tharizdun, the imprisoned god of entropy and insanity, has a nice Lovecraftian feel and Wastri, the toadlike, swamp-dwelling demigod of bigotry is such an oddball that you can't help but root for him.
As good as this chapter is, I do have a few issues with it. Firstly, there's no listing anywhere of the various gods by pantheon. While you can easily deduce who belongs where by reading their entry, it would be nice to have all that information available at a glance.
Secondly, nonhuman gods and the gods of the Olman people are omitted entirely with the seemingly random exceptions of one goblin god and two elven ones. Odd. Even including these beings as simply names on a chart would have been vastly better than nothing. Noting that dwarves worship "the pantheon of dwarf gods led by Moradin" does me little good. Especially when not even Moradin is described.
Appendix: The Living Greyhawk Campaign
In two short pages, this appendix defines the Living Greyhawk campaign and presents a set of short character creation guidelines for it. I know nothing of Living Greyhawk myself, but according to those that do, most of this information is apparently defunct by now. Despite the LGG's title, this two-page afterthought represents the full extent of its "Living" content. All things considered, I can only wish they'd have utilized this space for expanding the gods chapter.
Problematically, the LGG includes no index at the end whatsoever. While the book is exceedingly well-organized, it can still be difficult to locate an obscure fact in a pinch. Pity the poor GM who has to look up what year Idee was absorbed into Ahlissa's South Province at the gaming table without benefit of a good index.
Final Analysis
As a GM, there's a lot I like about the World of Greyhawk.
Firstly, it has a nice feel to it. While not truly "dark fantasy" like, say, Ravenloft or Midnight, Greyhawk has a very gritty, dangerous tone about it. True strongholds of good are few and far between and there's a real sense that the only reason evil hasn't overwhelmed the entire continent yet is because its various factions don't work together too well.
To borrow an old cliche, there's a lot of "gray" in Greyhawk. The city of Rel Astra is ruled by a reanimated corpse and his advisor, a two-headed demon. The people don't seem to mind, though, because while technically "evil", he's also a damn fine mayor. Greyhawk is just the kind of world where evil guys sometimes make better landlords.
Another good example is the Theocracy of the Pale, a nation run by clerics of the Lawful Good god Pholtus. Sounds like a nice place, right? Wrong. Turns out that Pholtus is a great guy...as long as you happen to believe that his way is the One True Way. Disagree and you'll be handed over to the Inquisition before you know it. Bad times. In fact, the Pale would be much more likely to unite with a band of Lawful Evil Hextorians to wipe out some Chaotic Good elves than vice-versa, as disorder and lack of respect for Law are much more offensive to their stern god than Evil. Overall, only the Planescape setting does a better job supporting the oft-neglected Law-Neutrality-Chaos axis of the D&D alignment system.
All this adds up to a lot of potenial angles a good GM can work. A group with a hankering for a straightforward Tolkien-style "stop the Big Bad Evil Guy" campaign can be pitted against Iuz. One that wants more politics and less "Good versus Evil" can choose beween a number of good or neutral nations that go to war all the time over the very same religious, ethnic, nationalistic, or economic pretenses that abound in our own history. One that just wants to ignore the big picture altogether in favor of rooting around in dungeons is well-provided for, as well.
Furthermore, Greyhawk has virtually no major NPC heroes in its canon. Most of the good NPCs described in the book are rulers. As politicians, they can't just grab a sword and march off to slay orcs. The closest thing the setting has to "iconic NPCs" are the various mages of the Circle of Eight, but they're far from do-gooders. In fact, thier philosophy of militant neutrality makes them just as likely to oppose a PC group as help one on its way. This is bound to appeal to gamers disillusioned with settings like Forgotten Realms where dozens of esablished crusading superhero NPCs can sometimes make PC heroes feel unneeded. Overall, the abundance of evil and lack of super-competent NPC adventurers combines to paint Greyhawk as a world badly in need of heroes, and not just any heroes, but your PCs. I dig that.
Finally, Greyhawk has a comfy "lived-in" feel that any old D&D veteran can appreciate. Vecna hails from here, as do Mordenkainen, Tenser, and a host of other famous names from the dawn of fantasy roleplaying. Not to mention places like the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Tomb of Horrors, and the Barrier Peaks and legendry artifacts like the Rod of Seven Parts and the Orbs of Dragonkind. More than any other setting I can think of, Greyhawk has a profound sense of glorious history.
Overall, I heartily recommend the LGG. Despite a few nagging problems like poor interior art, the lack of an index, and little attention paid to nonhuman gods, the world itself is a compelling and believable one with a great deal of flexability and character. If "vanilla" D&D is your idea of a good time, this oldie is still a goodie.
|
