JohnBiles's page

I have the Super Adventure. It is based on the assumption the 1E and 2E versions of the adventure happened in times past, and now Acerak is up to a new plan which the PCs must stop.

It is four adventures connected by the common theme of Acerak's plans. They play out between levels 10-22, with the DM putting adventures of his own design between the pieces.

The Garden of Graves (Level 10) takes the PCs into the Feywild to a set of Fae caerns.
The Tomb of Shadows (Level 14) takes them to the ruins of Moil in the Shadowfell.
Skull City (Level 18) takes them to Skull City and the original Tomb of Horrors.
Dead Gods Tomb (Level 22) takes them to the Astral Sea and the final confrontation with Acerak.

Some traps and tricks are explicitly set up to test Player ingenuity rather than simply skill levels. There are some pretty nifty puzzles and traps and some interesting fights and critters.

I'm most of the way through it and pretty pleased. (Interestingly, you could easily interleave this with Revenge of the Giants, especially since ROG has a time travel segment where you meet Acerak.)

What if the time gate they pushed him through landed him in the current PC's lap? That might be fun to circle back on their earlier character's exploits. My current 4e game is centered around cleaning up the mess left by my 2e campaign 20 years after the campaign ended.

What if this time the group has to help Vecna rather than defeat him? Maybe after his time trip he is in a weakened state and the party has to protect him from agents of Rary. Maybe Rary has somehow enlisted the aid of Kas the Betrayer...

I like the idea of them being in the world created by what their old chars did :)

I miss Greyhawk. Have you done anything with Vecna and Kas?

Rary hopes to eventually trap Vecna and steal his power and the PCs beat up some servants of Vecna back in Thunderspire Labyrinth.

(The same players, MANY YEARS AGO went through Die, Vecna, Die and shoved Vecna through a time gate, then discovered they'd changed history so he was now in Iuz's place, but we never finished that game...)

The last time I ran Tomb of Horrors, the PCs took out the Demilich in 1 round by just scooping him up with a bag of holding and tying it shut.

For me, a lot of the time problem is just people figuring out what to do. The better your players know their skills, the faster that goes.

The PCs are now 15th level and we just finished my adaptation of Expedition to Castle Greyhawk. The situation:

Iuz and Wastri are once again trapped under Castle Greyhawk and the PCs trashed every way to reach the Godtrap other than being able to tunnel through solid rock/phase through it. They freed Zuoken and Rudd from imprisonment and also Robilar.

They know there is ALSO a 'Robilar' working with Rary the Traitor in the Bright Desert. They're going to go to the Bright Desert with Robilar to find out what's going on; they think it's probably another evil duplicate like the dupes of the Circle of Seven they fought in Castle Greyhawk.

Timelinewise, I'm using some ideas from Greyhawk Wars, but mostly this is Pre-Greyhawk Wars Greyhawk setting adapted to 4E.

At this point:
Iuz's followers have some idea the PCs exist and have locked up Iuz, but don't know where he is or how to free him; they want revenge.

Wastri's followers probably don't even know he's imprisoned yet.

Rary has no idea they're coming for him but he's gearing up to conquer Greyhawk City so he can control access to the Castle Greyhawk dungeons to get at some of Zagyg's old lore. He has a force of Dragonborn desert nomads and Brass and Brown dragons and some of the Orbs of Dragonkind. He has taken control of a Tiamat cult and hopes to use it to get resources for his master plan--kill Vecna, steal his power. He wants access to the Godtrap and doesn't know the PCs have cut it off.

Rudd wants to reward the PCs for saving her; Zuoken basically takes them for granted and heads off to the Baklunish lands to probably vanish off stage.

Duergar living in the Abbor-Alz, which the Pcs must cross, want revenge on them.

Any suggestions for things to do with all this in motion appreciated. The PCs basically plan to head from Greyhawk SE to the Abbor-Alz, cross them, and then head through the Bright Desert to investigate.

Okay, here's my effort to help you, since I have all of Age of Worms.

I'm doing this as a level 3 encounter, as I am not sure exactly what level PCs would be by the time they reached the end of the Whispering Cairn itself. Adjust up if they're too high for this to be a threat.

The basic layout of area 24 is good for a 4E fight; there are multiple movement routes and push powers may well really screw a target up.

However, just dropping people into a pit = boring.

Idea: There is a huge updraft. Anyone who is pushed off the side will be brutalized by stiff winds and knocked back up onto the walkway in a nearby area to where he fell. This avoids putting anyone down a sixty foot pit while opening tactical possibilities.

So if you fall off the walkways, the updraft winds attack as a Level 3 Hazard (150 XP, DC 10 Nature or Dungeoneering to see the risk), +7 vs. Fortitude, 1d10+4 and Push 4 (target must end up on a walkway). The Wind Warriors can fly into the winds and at the cost of risking a beating, control where the Push takes them. This may enable them to bypass defenders trying to block their advance on the walkway (increasing their movement at the same time.)

Further, the frescos have special effects if you get close to them:

24A: Unfortunately for the Wind Warriors, this Fresco has become imbued with bad luck for them, given its subject matter; they suffer -2 to all defenses if within 2 squares of the wall here. They won't fight here if they can help it.

24B: This painting is very inspiring. PCs and Wind Warriors alike may use Second Wind as a minor action when within 2 squares of this fresco (once per fight).

24C: The wandering dukes improve mobility; add +2 to your movement rate until the start of your next round if you begin within 2 squares of this fresco.

24D: This symbolizes victory over Chaos. The Wind Warriors and any Lawful Good characters add +1d6 to damage when within 2 squares of this. Chaotic Evil characters suffer -3 to damage.

Wind Warrior Level 3 Elite Skirmisher
Medium Elemental Humanoid (suit of armor) XP 300
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +1
HP 96; Bloodied 48
AC 17; Fortitude 15, Reflex 15, Will 12
Resist Thunder 10
Speed 6, fly 8
m Longsword (standard; at-will) | Weapon
+8 vs. AC; 1d8+3 and push 1; the wind warrior may then shift 1
M Superior Two-Weapon Fighting (standard; at-will) | Weapon
The Wind Warrior makes 2 Longsword attacks at the same or different targets
C Sonic Blast (standard; Refresh 5-6) | Thunder
Close Blast 4; +6 vs. Fortitude; 3d8+3 Thunder Damage
Alignment Unaligned Languages Primordial
Skills Acrobatics +9
Str 16 (+4) Dex 17 (+4) Wis 11 (+1)
Con 16 (+4) Int 8 (+0) Cha 11 (+1)
Equipment Ceramic Armor, Two Longswords

There's a lot more non-combat stuff because we've been able to do lots of interesting stuff with skill challenges which has tended to encourage me to build more not-hitting into the adventures.

Whereas my players tended to be fighters and fightery classes in previous editions who usually had fairly minimal skills and were basically only useful for stabbing.

I have this and I'm pretty pleased with it, though it has its flaws. The basic idea is that an alliance of giants has formed to try to free one of the primordials from imprisonment and the PCs have to try to prevent this. It means you mainly deal with giants and various allied elementals, but you also get to do things like time travel back to Bael Turath too.

It's a mixture of fights and investigation and diplomacy as you try to find out what is going on, build an alliance against the giants and thwart the giants' plans. (There are also some quests to collect components for a magic item set to help you deal with the giants)

It's big flaw is that it's structured in terms of the PCs being recruited by the last of a long line of heroes who wants the PCs to take up his mantle and basically the PCs spend the adventure working for him. This may not suit most campaigns, but you can pretty easily change that, IMO.

Having passed the horrors of the Welcoming Hall, you pass to the Shadow Crossroads, littered with graffiti which offers hints to travels and the shadow of past adventurers. A DC 20 Perception check allows the deciphering of one useful clue. Unfortunately with the dungeon not yet written, we can't tell you what is.

A spiral staircase descends down to lower levels here and a circular walkway rings the shaft of descent. Tunnels lead west, east, and south from here, while a door allows egress back to the Hall of Welcoming if you enjoy freaky sub-humans trying to eat you.

DC 20 Perception reveals a secret door to the Southeast which allows access to the Stairwarden's chamber. Once a set of guards dwelled here under his command, guarding the stairs. But they died long ago, turning to undead.

The Stairwarden's chamber is wedged in between the eastern and southern hallways with DC 20 secret doors to each, narrow close to the walkway and broadening out as it moves further way. It has a table and chairs in the center of the room where the undead have been gambling the same treasure from each other for a very long time.

The floor is slick with the yet undried blood of past victims and with various kinds of nasty slimes and fungus which grow in the unholy brew.

10th Level Encounter: Gambling Undead Stairwardens (2400 XP)

Foes:
1 10th level Nasty Floor Hazard
1 12th level Stairwarden (Battle Wight Commander)
3 9th level Battle Wights

10th Level Floor Hazard:

Anyone who steps onto the nasty floor is attacked by it: +14 vs. Reflex; target falls down hard, taking 1d6 damage and 1d6+5 poison damage and being rendered prone. To rise from prone, they must make a DC 21 Athletics check, or they fall down and take the damage again.

Note that the Wights are immune to the poison damage but not the falling.

I like the idea of a 2-stage monster, though it seems a little odd to have the first stage be the tough one and the second stage dies with one hit.

They look pretty reasonable and the core idea is good, though I'd be happier with a little more idea of what they do; alien inscrutability is good for scaring players, but I have to know what to do with them. Definitely interested to see more previews, though.

Draconomicon was really excellent, balancing the fluff and crunch very well and giving me tons of ideas and useful encounter fodder. And it gives you lots of prefab Dragon lairs at various levels. And it has non-solo dragons so you can build things like Dragon + rider or multiple-dragons encounters easily.

Martial Powers looks really good too.

I've pretty much found 4E to be a lot of fun to run and very easy to make / convert adventures for it.

David Fryer wrote:

Let me ask this, As someone who will likely never play 4th edition, but likes searching for ideas in all kinds of places, is this book worth my time to pick up?

I was wondering the same thing, if the Swordmage might have some mechanics and ideas that work better than the Eldritch Knight PrC or the Hexblade base class, while being perhaps a little bit less of a one-trick pony / alpha strike build than the (awesome, but kinda limited) Duskblade.

The Swordmage is pretty awesome. The Swordmage is an Arcane Defender, which is to say, his job is to interdict people's movement towards the squishy party members, while dishing out respectable damage. But he/she does this using magic and a sword (so it's a lightly armored defender who relies on magic and high dex or int to avoid being hacked into kibble.) The core choice between assault focus or defense focus is the choice of your magical aegis:

Swordmage has a mix of offensive and defensive powers, often with an elemental flare to them.

The feats and rituals have some cool ideas and the various described lands could be plundered for adventure ideas/locations for your own game.

When you say Lankhmar feel, what do you mean? (As always, different people experience literature differently...)

Throw enough Daleks at him, and we'll see who's chewing whom... ;)
Of course, we could also see how he handles a Rust Monster ;) :D ...

He'd zap it to death with the nose laser.

I did a conversion of Expedition to Castle Greyhawk. Some stuff converted very easily; other stuff was a lot harder and some stuff I just changed. But a lot of the encounters in ETCG were already in the style 4E encourages with lots of terrain, monster groups, etc.

JohnBiles wrote:

(The known world in general is underpopulated)

Compared to real world population numbers, I'm sure it is. We all have things that we nerd about and medieval demographics isn't my thing so I'll happily defer to someone who's into that.

I'm a historian by profession, so I notice that sort of thing.

In general, you can expect:
1 person/3-5 square miles for hunter/gatherers
1 person/square mile for pastoralists and their animals
10 people/square mile for horticulturalists
20 people/square mile for primitive agriculture
30-40 people/square mile for more sophisticated but still not modern agriculture
50-100/square mile, possibly more in and around a significant city.

Also, you need roughly 10 farmers for every city-dweller to sustain the city unless it has really valuable resources to trade for food.

Karameikos has 6 farmers for every 1 person in Specularum and its 300,000 or so farmers tend to cluster densely rather than sprawl, so at 40/square mile, they'd be occupying 7500 out of the 43,950 sq. mi. of territory. Which is to say that 82% of Karameikos is basically wilderness.

That being said, every group will interpret things in their own ways; Specularum is only slightly larger than my hometown, so my players tend to see it as not so large :)

Mystara's wackiness actually fits in well with 4e and some of its conceits. It's not difficult to fit most of the Known World countries into a POL framework (Thyatis and Alphatia being notable exceptions, but if you drop their population figures down by a factor of 5 or so it's more manageable), which would allow for adjacent cultures to undergo very different development tracks.

Actually, Alphatian population figures (the official ones) are extremely dinky compared to the actual size of Alphatia. Look at Dawnrim on Bellisaria. There's not even 1 person per 10 square miles!

(The known world in general is underpopulated)

Cheval

Cheval are a special kind of centaur created by Zirchev to defend the wilds and to avenge horses who are being abused. They may take on a centaur, warhorse, or Riding Horse form as they desire. They still worship Zirchev and are most commonly found where his worship is common. They are the especial enemy of lycanthropes and anyone who abuses horses.

Cheval PCs get +2 to Str and Wisdom, +2 to Athletics and Nature, Disengage as an Encounter Power, a Movement of 8, and the Ability to change forms.

Cheval Archer Level 9 Artillery
Medium fey humanoid (Shapechanger) XP 400
Initiative +9 Senses Perception +4
HP 74; Bloodied 37
Regeneration 5 (if the Cheval takes damage from a silver weapon, its regeneration doesn’t function on its next turn)
AC 21; Fortitude 19, Reflex 21, Will 16
Speed 8
m Shortbow (standard; at-will) | Weapon (Centaur Form)
Ranged 15/30; +16 vs. AC; 1d8+5
Twin Shot (standard; at-will) (Centaur Form)
The Cheval may take 2 Shortbow attacks at the same or different targets.
m Hoof (standard; at-will) | (Horse or Centaur Form)
+14 vs. AC; 1d8+3
Double-Kick (standard; Refresh 5-6) (Horse or Centaur Form)
Take two hoof attacks against the same target.
Disengage (Move; Refresh 5-6)
The Cheval may move up to its speed in squares, but the first square of movement does not provoke opportunity attacks.
Horse Forms (minor; at-will) ✦ Polymorph
A Cheval can alter its physical form to appear as a riding horse, warhorse, or a unique centaur (see Change Shape, page 280 of the MM). It cannot use its lance abilities in either horse form, or its Trample in centaur form.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common, Fey, Horse (can talk to horses in any form)
Skills Athletics + 14, Insight +10, Nature + 12,
Str 17 (+7) Dex 20 (+9) Wis 13 (+5)
Con 14 (+6) Int 10 (+4) Cha 11 (+4)
Equipment Leather Jacket and Leather barding, Shortbow and Quiver of Arrows (20 normal, 10 silver for any Lycanthrope foes)

Cheval Archers fight from range when possible, but can mix it up with their hooves if they have to. They will shell foes to break up formations in order to open gaps for the lancers to exploit.

Cheval Lancer Level 9 Skirmisher
Medium fey humanoid (Shapechanger) XP 400
Initiative +7 Senses Perception +5
HP 94; Bloodied 47
Regeneration 5 (if the Cheval takes damage from a silver weapon, its regeneration doesn’t function on its next turn)
AC 23; Fortitude 23, Reflex 21, Will 18
Speed 8
m Lance (standard; at-will) | Weapon (Centaur Form)
Reach 2; +14 vs. AC; 2d6+5
Ride-By Assault (standard; Refresh 5-6) (Centaur Form)
The Cheval may take up to a full 8 square move and then gets a Lance Attack. If the attack succeeds, it may keep moving if it did not use its full 8 squares without provoking opportunity attacks from its initial target.
Lance Charge (Centaur Form)
When the Cheval Lancer charges, on a successful attack he adds +1d8 damage and also renders his target prone.
r Javelin Toss (standard; at-will) | Weapon (Centaur Form)
Ranged 5/10; +12 vs. AC, 1d8+5
Hoof (standard; at-will) | (Horse or Centaur Form)
+14 vs. AC; 1d8+5
Double-Kick (standard; Refresh 5-6) (Horse or Centaur Form)
Take two hoof attacks against the same target.
Trample (standard; at-will) | (Horse Form)
The Cheval may take a full move, which provokes opportunity attacks as usual and must end in an empty space. When it enters an enemy space, it attacks with +12 vs. Reflex; 1d8+5 damage and the target is knocked prone. It does this to every foe it moves through.
Disengage (Move; Refresh 5-6)
The Cheval may move up to its speed in squares, but the first square of movement does not provoke opportunity attacks.
Horse Forms (minor; at-will) ✦ Polymorph
A Cheval can alter its physical form to appear as a riding horse, warhorse, or a unique centaur (see Change Shape, page 280 of the MM). It cannot use its lance abilities in either horse form, or its Trample in centaur form.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common, Fey, Horse (can talk to horses in any form)
Skills Athletics + 16, Insight +10, Nature + 12,
Str 20 (+9) Dex 17 (+7) Wis 13 (+5)
Con 14 (+6) Int 10 (+4) Cha 11 (+4)
Equipment chain shirt + chain barding, Lance, brace of javelins (10)

Cheval Lancers train to take on human cavalry and infantry with lances, reserving their attacks for riders instead of mounts. They prefer to fight in a moble fashion, shelling foes with Javelins, then charging in and darting out before retaliation can come.

Cheval Priest of Zirchev Level 9 Controllers
Medium fey humanoid (Shapechanger) XP 400
Initiative +7 Senses Perception +4
HP 94; Bloodied 47
Regeneration 5 (if the Cheval takes damage from a silver weapon, its regeneration doesn’t function on its next turn)
AC 23; Fortitude 21, Reflex 21, Will 23
Speed 8
m Maul (standard; at-will) | Weapon (Centaur Form)
+14 vs. AC; 2d6+5
Arrow of Zirchev (standard; at-will) | Divine, Force (Centaur Form)
Ranged 10+13 vs. Reflex; 1d8+5 damage and one ally gains +2 to hit the target on his next attack
Lasso of Zirchev (standard; Refresh 5-6) | Divine (Horse or Centaur Form)
Ranged 5; +13 vs. Reflex; 2d6+5 and target is immobilized (save ends)
Zirchev’s Prey (Minor, Refresh when target falls to 0 HP or flees) | Divine (Horse or Centaur Form)
Close Burst 3; Priest and allies in area of effect all add +1d6 damage 1/round each against the chosen target, who must be in Line of Sight, until the target falls to 0 HP or flees the field of battle.
Hoof (standard; at-will) | (Horse or Centaur Form)
+14 vs. AC; 1d8+5
Double-Kick (standard; Refresh 5-6) (Horse or Centaur Form)
Take two hoof attacks against the same target.
Disengage (Move; Refresh 5-6)
The Cheval may move up to its speed in squares, but the first square of movement does not provoke opportunity attacks.
Ritual of Horse Summoning
Given 10 minutes to work, Cheval Priests of Zirchev can summon 1d3 Warhorses; this should generally happen off stage and be figured into the combat encounter.
Horse Forms (minor; at-will) ✦ Polymorph
A Cheval can alter its physical form to appear as a riding horse, warhorse, or a unique centaur (see Change Shape, page 280 of the MM). It cannot use its lance abilities in either horse form, or its Trample in centaur form.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common, Fey, Horse (can talk to horses in any form)
Skills Athletics + 14, Insight +14, Nature + 14, Religion +14
Str 17 (+7) Dex 17 (+7) Wis 19 (+9)
Con 14 (+6) Int 14 (+6) Cha 15 (+6)
Equipment chain shirt + chain barding, Holy Symbol of Zirchev, Maul

Cheval Priests lead other Cheval in battle, designating primary targets with Zirchev’s Prey, pinning the targets in place with Zirchev’s lasso, then supporting attacks on them with Arrow of Zirchev and defending themselves with their maul if need be.

Because as you go up in level, you can use it more often, I expect.

1. Villains. Greyhawk has some very iconic villains, people integrated right into the game lore by first edition in some cases, or else originating in the early modules. These villains, however, ultimately exist to be defeated by sufficiently wily PCs; you shouldn't face them directly until you're ready to take them, either by being tough enough to take them on directly or in a position to thwart their plans without them showing up to twinkmaster you to death if you couldn't handle facing them. Even the gods / demon lords may fall at PC hands (Get more HP, 1E Lloth!).

2. You're mostly on your own. There are powerful benevolent and neutral NPCs but they generally act as patrons and when you're actually adventuring, you're largely on your own. Mordenkainen may hire you to recover the Machine of Lum the Mad, but you won't find him wandering the countryside, meddling in affairs. This is because he's busy finding some way to get Gnarl Glittergold and Kurtulmak to kill each other to maintain the balance.

3. Active forces of Neutrality. There are neutral groups working actively to maintain the balance, who may help either side as appropriate. Mind you, as per rule 1, the PCs may eventually turn them into kibble if they try to balance things at the expense of the PCs. Maybe not immediately, but payback will be possible.

4. Normal life is low magic; PCs move from slightly less low magic to high magic over their careers. The average person may be able to get the priest to heal him or go to a local minor wizard to get something mended, but magical items are rare except in the hands of adventurers and powerful NPCs or in the largest cities. However, as adventurers grow more powerful, they will increasingly thwart creatures from other planes, find and pillage evil temples full of magic, find crashed alien spaceships so they can arm themselves with lasers and reflec armor, take apparati of Kwalish for a joyride across the Nyr Dyv, etc. Eventually the PCs will be able to take on demon lords, Iuz, Zagyg, etc.

5. A mix of civilized societies and points of light. Some parts of Greyhawk are pretty civilized, if not necessarily NICE. You can travel around Keoland with little danger of surprise orc attack or roof dragons. Other places like the Wild Coast, the Greyhawk area, the lands of Iuz, etc, are very points-of-light.

6. Politics, adventure, war. Because of 5, you can use high level politics in a game to help set up adventures, or act as if every place is a threatened hamlet/town in need of your help with no real background politics, depending on where you set things.

7. Human-centric. Humans dominate the World of Greyhawk; everyone else is supporting cast in terms of world importance, though demihuman PCs should be as important as any other PC. But most kingdoms are dominated by humans, while the demihumans tend to dominate only in small enclaves like Celene.

8. Certain Greyhawk Gods: A lot of the Greyhawk pantheon is nice to have, but really don't figure very strongly in the published materials, especially the adventures. Saint Cuthbert, Pelor, Tharzidun, Iuz, Wee Jas, Vecna, Hextor, Heironeous, Nerull, Eirynthul (I know I botched his name). Maybe Istus. Most of the rest seem pretty marginal to me.

9. High to Late Medieval Culture. Greyhawk has not yet moved into the Renaissance and some parts are a lot earlier than that. Much of the rest of the world is completely unknown as trade with places outside the Flaness largely doesn't exist. A lot of societies are feudal to semi-feudal or else tribal.

10. This is my controversial one: Vancian Magic is not essential. I'm going to argue that, in fact, Vancian Magic is not essential to Greyhawk, but would instead count as a second-tier quality, nice to have but not essential the way I think my other points are. There is only one aspect of Vancian magic which is essential to Greyhawk--Named Spells. Bigby's Crushing Hand, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Leomund's Tiny Hut, etc. These say Greyhawk to me, and the existence of a fair number of them helps one think about what's important to their makers. Here's the one place where I really go blort on how to work this in a 4E game. Most of the points above I think will work fine in 4E, but this one, I don't know.

Here's an example of the wrong way to make a 4E Greyhawk campaign:

Flunkies of Mordenkainen:

• Opening: Mordenkainen approaches the PCs in a bar, offering to employ them as his flunkies. If the PCs say no, he powergames them into submission.
  
• Early Adventures (Heroic Tier): The PCs are sent on various missions to save places from being overrun by Iuz's forces on the march, but can't hack it, so Mordenkainen has to step in and save them. Repeatedly. At times, the PCs get to listen to lots of block text about his great deeds. Iuz's forces are heavily armed with magical items and he's building a giant magical rail network to connect his holdings, allowing him to move his troops faster than anyone can respond.
  
• Middle Adventures (Paragon Tier): PCs take loot to Greyhawk city and buy or rob everything on sale at the Wizard's guild. Possibly put Mordenkainen's name on their tab. Mordenkainen now sends the PCs on a series of adventures to assemble pieces of an artifact that can forcibly change Iuz's homeplane to be the Abyss, banishing him out of Greyhawk. This has a basic format of 'Mordenkainen bamfs you into a dungeon, get piece, call for extraction'. Again, Mordy watches you on Crystal Vision the whole time and will intervene several times when the PCs are still in it over their head.
  
• Climactic Adventures (Epic Tier): PCs take loot to Greyhawk City, load up on gear for the final grand adventure. Mordy comes with the PCs and you all fight your way through Iuz's armies to reach him. PCs then activate the artifact, banishing Iuz, only to find it also banishes them, so Mordenkainen can claim the credit and keep the balance. This cannot be escaped. Roll end campaign credits. Punch out DM.
  

Here's an example of the right way to make a 4E Greyhawk campaign:

Return of the Rod of Seven Parts:

• Opening: Iuz fears the Rod of Seven Parts can be used to banish him from Oerth. He has managed to gain a hold over his parents, Grazzt and Igwilv, and is using them to search for the Rod for him. Of course, they want things to go wrong for him without it hurting them, so they're aren't quite using their full capacities to this end... So they've sent flunkies out a looking. Sort of. Meanwhile, the PCs have just recently joined together and save a town on the Wild Coast from destruction by a group of human bandits whose leader has the tip piece of the Rod. He has enough lore of the Rod in his treasure to set them on the search for it.
  
• Early Adventures (Heroic Tier): The PCs take on several humanoid menaces who have made themselves greater threats with the second and third piece of the Rod, travelling around the central Flaness. The acquisition of the third part in the Bright Desert from a rebellious minion of Rary brings them to his attention, though he's not yet ready to act.
  
• Middle Adventures (Paragon Tier): The PCs now come to Mordenkainen's attention, as he has a piece. He sends them on a mission to secure an item he wants, in exchange for giving them the piece they want. He devotes some attention to tracking their general activity but is still focused on other issues, like Grazzt and Iggwilv's meddling. The PCs travel to the lands of the northern barbarians to take out some giants who have the fifth piece, and have to slay a dragon to get the sixth. They also have to thwart minions of Grazzt and Iggwilv who are catching up to them by now.
  
• Climactic Adventures (Epic Tier): The seventh piece is to be found in a strange Suel ruins full of odd items (possibly salvaged from a space ship if you happen to like Barrier Peaks). The PCs face down and defeat Iggwilv and her minions, plus the powerful creatures which lair in the ruins. Under repeated assault by Grazzt's minions, they have to cross the Astral Sea to find his domain and defeat him. They they have to find a way to reach IUZ and take him out with the Rod. Mordenkainen now tries to show up with allies to break the Rod so it doesn't become too potent a force of law in the world. However, the PCs may well beat him down and keep it, depending on their alignments, Epic Destinies, etc. The PCs get to set the future of Iuz's old empire. Fade to black.