New Article: Hochoch

Welcome back Greyfiends! With the holiday winding down at last, it's time for me to play catch up on some Greyhawk related items floating out there on the net for a while. Today I have got to rave about and article I've had my eye on for a while.

The new article in Dragon #418 is Backdrop: Hochoch by Claudio Pozas. This one was well worth the wait and if it ends up being the only Greyhawk content for the next year, I am glad I stuck with my D&D Insider subscription to read it. Claudio covers all the material you'd expect and more, including various Flan translations and citing previous Greyhawk publication history. At eight pages, I doubt anyone has seen a more comprehensive write up of this area since The Liberation of Geoff. The article paints Hochoch and the rich surrounding geography of Geoff as the perfect place to launch a campaign. After reading all this article has to offer I'm troubled as to why I've never used this region before! If you can get your hands on this issue I highly recommend it.

The article first covers the extensive history and demographics of Hochoch then moves on to give a colorful overview of the geography, climate and peoples of the land. There is a decent section on important locations in the town of Hochoch like Hochoch Keep followed by power groups of the town such as the Red Griffons and the Knights of the Dispatch. Beyond Hochoch the backdrop features an array of useful info on the shadow dragon haunted Dim Forest, the ancient Otywood, the Midwood Vale and the Rushmoors where lies the setting for N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

Backdrop: Hochoch also has a sublime bird's-eye-view illustration of the town by Zoltan Boros (I think he was the former ruler of Ket) and a splendidly old school style map of Hochoch with an inset showing Geoff done by Wizard's Mike Schley. Lastly, the best part of the backdrop article is that it's editionless material. Kudos to Mr. Pozas and the rest for putting this together. I hope some other overlooked parts of Greyhawk can get a fresh write-up like this someday.

Update 05/09/2021: Link changed. You can get your hands on this excellent article and issue over at DMsGuild.