Greyhawk Reading: Greyhawk Adventures

...Now a reading from the book of Greyhawk Adventures, chapter five, page 91:

"In mid-flocktime of CY 198, the Great Kingdom was astounded by a ball of fire which appeared over the Oljatt Sea, passed over Sunndi, Idee, Ahlissa, and Onnwal, and vanished somewhere beyond the Sea of Gearnat. It was visible as far south as the Olman Isles and as far north as Eastfair and Rel Mord, and was cause for wonder and concern even in those prosperous and confident times. Selvor the Younger, after careful extrapolation to its origin in the constellations, declared the shooting star to signify “wealth, strife, and a living death.”
"The pronouncement caused a panic in certain of the larger cities, particularly Rauxes, where a number of prominent nobles took the pronouncement to be a signal for the end of the world, or at least of an era, and created several disturbances. Accordingly, when after several years the predicted events failed to make themselves evident, Selvor was banished from his post and from the court, and held by his colleagues as a laughingstock. There matters were to lie for more than 300 years, while chaos enveloped the greater part of the Flanaess and few had the time or patience to study the work of a discredited astrologer."

-The Pits of Azak-Zil

The excerpt above is purely a random topic. When it comes to Greyhawk lore there are general subjects everyone should know about since they've been rehashed and covered many times over by numerous authors. For example, locations like Greyhawk City, NPCs like Iuz or Mordenkainen, dungeons like the Tomb of Horrors, etc. This is why I take delight in highlighting obscure lore of Greyhawk. More often than not you can open a Greyhawk book to a random page and read about something you thought you knew about, but then the details turn out slightly different than you remember them and maybe sometimes much richer. This intro to the Pits of Azak-Zil by James M. Ward is one such esoteric piece. Some of you may be familiar with the mysterious place already and have used it in your campaign, but to others this might be a rediscovery worth a second look. That's the beauty of the World of Greyhawk. Old can be new.