Hello everybody. English isn´t my first language, so excuse if I mess badly...
I´m thinking of starting a new Greyhawk campaign with some friends using some modified 3.5 rules. I have always thought Greyhawk is the best for low level dungeon-exploring adventures, but, the problem is, when you reach mid-level, it´s impossible not to get entangled with the stupid Greyhawk Wars, which I don´t like, both because I´ve problems understanding how come Iuz doesn´t auto-win (with 2nd edition rules high level characters could fight demigods, but this is not truth anymore) and because they have been done again and again.
The thing is, I would like the group to do something new and original once they reach mid-level, but they are going to roleplay a group of mostly do-gooders, and most of them are going to be well integrated in their local communities (they have family and friends, and maybe even businesses), so it´s going to be really difficult to keep them out of the War.
I guess we could just erase Iuz and the Wars from the campaign, but that would enrage several of the players, who are Greyhawk lovers and want to keep it as canonical as possible...I have also considered to make the campaign happen after Iuz has been defeated and killed, and make him come back as a "mere" uber-lich (like the goddess Arazni of the Pathfinder campaign), much less threatening (and as such, much less a priority), but I feel that would give a sort of "you have lost the really awesome stuff, guys" feeling...
So the question is, how would you make Iuz less of a priority while changing the campaign to a minimum? I know some people have given several reasons for Iuz not to kill the world with an army of bodaks, ghouls, ghasts, shadows, spectres, vampires and other infectious undead (by the way, I would love to do just that if the players ever reached epic level), but they are largely metagame (as a god of pain, he wants humanity to suffer under his thrall, not to be destroyed; also, he is scared of pushing too far the other gods...etc.) and the good PCs would ignore them, so they would feel compelled to join the war against Iuz.
So, what would you do?