Adapting 4E for Greyhawk Campaign Setting, Preliminary Discussion: What is essentially 'Greyhawk'?


4th Edition


4E is coming, and Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro has been promising to produce 4E versions of various Campaign Settings, starting with the Forgotten Realms. At present Greyhawk seems likely to be somewhere down the list; but whether an official update ever comes or not, for those who want to play Greyhawk in a 4E game it seems likely to me that adaptations of the official 4E background and rules will likely prove necessary if the traditions and continuity of the setting are to be maintained.

With less than a month to go to the official release date for 4E (as of the time of my posting this) it seems logical to me for those who play in and love the Greyhawk Setting to start identifying what is quintessential to the Greyhawk Setting, laying out a checklist of these key features. Once 4E is released this checklist can be gone down, and areas where the official 4E background and rules may not suit 'what is Greyhawk' can be identified and targeted for fixes.

The aim of this thread is to be a forum where posters can air their views on and discuss what makes Greyhawk 'Greyhawk'. Once 4E comes out other threads may be started for posters to share their thoughts on fixes for those areas where 4E diverges from the Greyhawk setting.


1) Acererak and the Tomb of Horrors
2) Temple of Elemental Evil
3) Greyhawk Pantheon
4) Iggwilv

...just to get things started...

Scarab Sages

Good question. A good first start is too look at Golarion. The Paizo developers have a clear goal of making Golarion "Greyhawk-like", so that helps.

My 2cp:

Human-Centric. Yes, there are "demihumans", but they are at the fringes of society: Mysterious, lightly xenophobic, insular.

Epic. Not in the modern youth vernacular, but rather in scope. A Greyhawk campaign isn't about obscure hero's in an obscure corner of the world doing obscure things (forgotten realms I am looking at you - before you flam, I mean obscure, not "unimportant"). Paizo did a wonderful job capturing that epic scope with the Adventure paths. In greyhawk, the epic nature manifests early. There is no doubt at "low levels" the hero's have stumbled upon something BIG, potentially world-shaking.

Medieval. This is in terms of technology, social structure, etc. Not renaissance.

Magical. This one is weird, and where most disagreement exists. I've always accepted Greyhawk as being a place of magic, but where that magic is coveted and hidden t=rather than exploited. Eberron, by contrast is highly magical and its very open and exploited. Forgotten realms is high magic, and while not exploited, there exists many powerful, well-known magical beings. Greyhawk by contrast would have the same magic (its the same game and thus the same magic mechanic afterall) but its subdued, hushed, whispered. Mages do not make sunrods for profit to sell at a magic shop. Magic is power and one does not sell power for gold. One hordes magic (and gold for that matter). I don't think the the horror of the twin cataclysms, while "ancient history" have put a SIGNIFICANT distrust of magic in peoples minds. Not quite as fearful as those in the warhammer universe, but closer than perhaps forgotten realms embrace of it.


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.

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