Greyhawk A-Z: Cities & Towns

Howdy Greyhawkers! I. As usual I need something to write about this week. I miss an opportunity when we recently talked about artifacts on Legends & Lore, and there is so much being put out in the community I don't know where to start sometimes. So instead I'll do one of my regular columns. If you have seen my A to Z column before just go to the Best of Greyhawkery and follow the links. This week I'm going to muse over various towns and cities of the Flanaess. Let's get to it!

Admundfort: Capital of the Shield Lands. I always pictured this place as an impenetrable fortress-city on a rocky island many miles out in the Lake of Unknown Depths. How could Iuz really take it over, expect by magic or flying? Otherwise, it's the perfect place to defend if you're a Knight of Holy Shielding. Although, if your primary mode of combat is horseback, it must be a pain to travel to shore and back. I imagine the knights hate being called back to see the earl.

Beetu: B-2...Bingo! Joking aside, this Nyrond city of 11,000 is featured in the Marklands, an indispensable source book. Get it! Beetu is a medieval town oppressed by a local count. It's near the Celadon Forest as well, so it's the perfect place to set a Robin Hood style campaign.

Courwood: I always loved the name of this town. I also thought it was part of Celene. I know I'm not the only one, it's got "wood" in the name for Corellon's sake! The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer disagrees. It belongs to the County of Ulek. Boo. What is Courwood's deal? I don't know!

Dorakaa: Capital of the Empire of Iuz. There is no place on Oerth more evil than this city. If you want a taste, get the 2E module City of Skulls. You want an aerial view, check out this map by me.

Exag: Have you heard of the Seeds of Seehan mini-AP? Written by Matthew Conklin and Tom Ganz, this 3-part adventure started in Dungeon #145 and features a write up on the old town of Exag in Perrenland. It's quite an exotic locale. If you can find this article, enjoy!

Fax: Town in the Wild Coast. Short name. Silly name. Maybe it's only silly because it's the shortened form of Facsimile.  I hate fax machines, maybe that's why I can't take the town seriously. There's a town in Wisconsin named Colfax. Gygax tended to use anagrams of people and places close to where he lived in Greyhawk. That's the best I got.

Glot: At a mere 5100 people, the reason Glot is capital of the Ice Barbarians has to be due to the fact it's the least icy part of the Cruskii lands.

Hochoch: The Grand Duchy of Geoff is one land that I've rarely used. I don't know why, it's got so much going on with giants and so forth. Hochoch pre-Giant Troubles is totally unknown to me unless I pick up a copy of AtG:Liberation of Geoff. Also if you're intrigued by Hochoch like me, get this awesome map by Mike Schley.

Irongate: This city in my opinion would be the best place to base an urban campaign in the east. There is alot going on here; dwarves, wizards, Iron League, Aerdian conflict, Scarlet Brotherhood, pirates, etc. It's the Minas Tirith of the Flanaess. If you want to know more check out Denis Tetreault's site Melkot, and the old Irongate Project. There is also an article on the city by Denis and Gary Holian in Dragon #351. Maybe this city project can be resurrected!

Jurnre: Found in the County of Ulek, Jurnre I believe is one of, if not the oldest city founded after the migrations. This, not Courwood, ahem, is the capital of this demihuman realm. There is actually a pretty good write-up with map of Jurnre in Fate of Istus. Don't run the adventure, just use this book as a source for all the wonderful cities in it.

Krakenheim: Capital of the Frost Barbarians. The Thillonrian peninsula (Rhizia) is so underdeveloped, but tiny Krakenheim is the most bad ass city name on the map. You just know those seafaring warriors once fought a kraken on the Grendep Bay. It used to be a great town I gather, but in 576 CY Gygax writes that the Fruztii have never recovered from the Battle of Shamblefield and they are technically under the rule of the Snow Barbarians. A shame.

Leukish: Capital of the Duchy of Urnst. I don't know what Living Greyhawk did with Leukish, but I think it's an excellent place to start if you are running Ghost Tower of Inverness (the Seer and the Soul Gem quest).as well as Maure Castle/ Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure. It's on the Nyr Dyv coast. You can do a lot with this city.

Magepoint: This village of 130 souls is in the module Return of the Eight. Spoilers, this village is comprised entirely of veteran infantry who work for Tenser, whose castle is off the shore from here. I like the idea of a garrison in disguise. Perfect for a wizard domain.

Nevond Nevnend: Capital of the Duchy of Tenh. I like this choice because it's a double-N entry. What little I know about Nevond is found in the book WGR5: Iuz the Evil. I recommend alot of Greyhawk books in this post, but Iuz the Evil by Carl Sargent is the only one that is a MUST HAVE. It covers so much ground. From Vesve Forest to Nevond Nevnend? That's half the map in one book. Get this now. Now this Duchy of Tenh bears no resemblance to DA4: The Duchy of Ten from the original Arneson Blackmoor campaign. There is no Nevond Nevnend, no Flannae, no Bandit Kingdoms next door and definitely no Stonefist. In fact, it's just across a river from Blackmoor! The capital is called Stargmorgan. Owning this book, I can say, while it is impossible to retrofit into the Flanaess, this Ten is much better detailed than what we get from Sargent.

Ogburg: This city of 17k is in the Theocracy of the Pale. I don't know much about it, but given the Pale's reputation of being a bit over-zealous, Ogburg probably makes Beetu look like a nice place to live.

Port Toli: I love this city. In my current Hold of the Sea Princes campaign, it's the home port of the Toli Armada. This faction contends with Monmurg in political intrigue. Port Toli is my version of Casterly Rock in Game of Thrones. Like the Lannisters, the nobles of Port Toli are rich and like to bully around others. I have grand ideas someday write-up this city. So far it's all head-canon though. If you want to know more about my vision of the Sea Princes and the Toli Armada, go download a copy of Oerth Journal #32, there is an article by me on the Unconquered Hold of the Sea Princes.

Quaalsten: This Highvale town is found in Marklands as well and yes, it's named after Quaal of feather token fame. I like this concept a lot. There should be more towns and villages named after heroes; Tenserton, Mordenkainenshire, Gordville, Leomundia, Okay this is harder than I thought.

Rel Astra: If you've been around Greyhawk you probably know Rel Astra is the biggest city in the Great Kingdom, albeit a free city with its own ruler (Drax) and intrigues. This city is possibly the biggest in the Flanaess. Greyhawk is 59,000+ and I think Astra is 61k. The only problem with Rel Astra is it's location. It's on the east coast of the map and there just isn't much for Astrans to do here unless they go around the Scarlet Brotherhood or travel overland through thousands of miles of Flanaess. If Rel Astra was in the South Province it would make a lot more sense. Ah well. I had dreamed of doing a Rel Astra campaign once, with thieves guilds and wizards, then realized it's too much like Greyhawk City, just more evil. Maybe someday I'll revisit the idea.

Spinecastle: This is a minor Furyondian fort in on the front lines of war with Iuz. Nah, just kidding. The REAL Spinecastle out near the North Province and Ratik, is what the Frost Barbarians got slaughtered over long ago. Spinecastle may be the second roughest place to visit besides Dorakaa. If you'd like to know more about this Bone March citadel, go find a copy of Dungeon #148, Gary Holian and Steven Greer's In the Shadows of Spinecastle has you covered.

Tringlee: Capital of the elven ruled Duchy of Ulek. Courwood would've been a cooler name. that's all I got on this one.

Ulakand: What? You've never heard of Ulakand? It's the capital of the toughest nomad nation in the western quarter of the Darlene map! If you want to know more, check out this map and article on Ulakand by me!

Vlekstaad: So you want a remote, rough and tumble place that isn't really like the standard medieval cities in the Flanaess? Vlekstaad and the terrible Fists of Sevvord Redbeard could be a good candidate. This place is like the Ull of the north. Vlekstaad on the coast of the Icy Sea is an interesting base to do some in-depth wilderness adventures. You got frozen waters, imposing mountains, vast tundra and a couple huge forests that look like they've hardly been explored. It's worth a try.

Womtham: A major city in Nyrond near the Duntide River. What do I know about Womtham? Not much, but I do know it's an anagram of old school game designer Tom Wham. Wham's minigames like Elefant Hunt were one of my favorite treats in Dragon Magazine back in the day. You're welcome.

Xia Ulos: I had to pull this one out of The Scarlet Brotherhood. This obscure little town is a redundant port is mainly used by the brotherhood to do maintenance on ships that can't make it back to a bigger port.

Yecha: Capital of the Tiger Nomads. I've never used it, and I'm fairly sure 90% of Greyhawk DMs haven't either. Fortunately for us all, fellow Greyhawker Blake Ryan did a write up on this town last year on Tribality.

Zeif: I love this city. It conjures pictures in my head of an Arabian Nights type story. Grab a copy of Al-Qadim and you can run some fantastic stuff here. Oh, did you know Zeif had a Living Greyhawk group for a few years (Canada)? Check out this old L&L show we did with some of Living Greyhawk: Zeif's principle members. Good times!

That's all for now. Greyhawk has thousands of cities, towns and villages. I could do this same A-Z many times over. But, eh, no thanks! See you all next time.

New Greyhawk Posts

Hail Greyhawkers! Today I promoting a few things out there in the Greyhawk community. Ready?

First off, sorry to those who showed up yesterday to see Legends & Lore on the Greyhawk Channel, we had to push the last episode of the season back a week due to real life, but hopefully that will give us time to get a guest on with Anna Meyer and me!

Second, Blake Ryan is at it again with his Greyhawk series on Tribality. Mr. Ryan writes easy to use articles, packed with adventure hooks for whatever town or geographical area he is focused on. This article is titled Greyhawk-Forestscape: Fellreev. The forest-scape presented is a 20x20 mile area of encounters and quests that can be used in any cold-temperate forest. Specifically for Greyhawk, he writes:

"Notes about the region : In Greyhawk this forest area would be in the south west Fellreev forest in the Horned Society lands. During the Greyhawk Wars much of this area was explored and trashed by the various humanoids and fiends who serve the demi god Iuz."

Be sure to check it out.

Lastly, if you haven't already seen the blog Greyhawk Stories then you're missing out on an excellent republishing of Kirt Wackford's campaign classic adaptation, It Started in Saltmarsh. Follow the link and read the entire story from the beginning, though beware: spoilers for anyone who has never ran or played through the original 1E module Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh!

Until next time!

Greyhawk Articles on Tribality

Howdy Greyhawkers! I am a bit behind on promoting super-fan Blake Ryan's excellent run of Greyhawk articles on Tribality. Let's play catch up shall we?

First up is Shadowfell, a follow up on Ryan's Feywild article. Shadowfell is a more evocative name for the Plane of Shadow. Greyhawk has many ties with this plane and this article presents some great locations that touch on the Shadowfell such as Valley of the Mage, the Dim Forest and the Cave of Deadly Shadows. He also suggests some great monsters to use in connection with the Shadowfell, including a focus on the elven subrace Shadar-kai, which has been pushed in 5E D&D.

Next up is Blake's take on the most notable feature in the Flanaess, Riftcanyon. Blake does a handy job researching this canyon, giving us a downloadable map, times when there is daylight at various depths (a genius addition) and many many DM ready quests, geographic locations and links to other Riftcanyon sources from the Oerth Journal. Enjoy!

Another article on Tribality is Menowood. This ancient forest in the south east of the Flanaess is mainly known for its werewolves as mentioned in the Greyhawk boxed set. Menowood is otherwise under-developed and this article is now your most useful tool. As the article mentions, Menowood was once a treant and elven stronghold. Judging from the lists and quests presented. things have got a bit more dangerous here in recent history. Check it out!

Lastly, is Yecha Hills, another underdeveloped region of the map that separates the vicious Tiger Nomads from civilized Baklunish culture. There's a lot to find in this article for your home campaign, including the usual quests, ruined locations and monsters. He also suggests some site specific magic items from Greyhawk Adventures to introduce here. Be sure to download the Yecha Hill map as well. Well done Blake! I look forward to your next set of whirlwind tours.

Tribality: New Greyhawk Articles

Greetings Greyhawers! It's summer in the land of Ull so we need some cool topics to cover. As always, our friend in the community Blake Ryan over at Tribality continues to put out some amazingly good Greyhawk articles to keep the creative juices flowing.

First is a look at Eru-Tovar, the nominal capital of the Wolf Nomads. This is a fun take on the adventures, culture and factions one might find in this nomadic region of the setting. I really like the mention of Long Fang Riders as it summons memories of playing Warhammer 40k Space Wolves. The Long Fangs in that were veteran warriors, who were literally "long in the tooth". I imagine the same goes for Eru-Tovar's elite riders. Also, DMs should take note on the hardships the Wolf Nomads endure by being next to the evil of Iuz. This is a dangerous yet rewarding area to send players.

Lastly, is Mr Ryan presents an article on an overlooked facet of the Greyhawk setting and that's its connection to the Feywild. This term for the home lands of faeries and sylvan creatures in lore is one of my favorite recent updates to the D&D dictionary (including Shadowfell). In Greyhawk the Feywild and Fading Lands are related. The Fey Wild is a place of mystery and nature where Seelie and Unseelie Courts rule. For a visual, Ryan evokes some of my favorites like Alice in Wonderland or Willow, I might add movies Pan's Labyrinth and indeed Labyrinth!

The article goes a step further and provides some useful areas to access the Feywild from Oerth, including not only the well known Welkwood (by the elven realm of Celene), but also a tropical region (Turucambi) and a Baklunish cultural region (Pinnacles of Azor-alq). He also gives some useful lists on what type of creatures and magic items you might find in the Feywild. All in all, this is a good DM's resources for sending players to another plane for a side-quest.

A Few Interesting Greyhawk Posts

Howdy Greyhawkers! The big news from Wizards last weekend was about their new adventure, Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus and they've announced a setting hardback for Eberron. (for some reason) I'm not here to discuss Sharn, but I do have a few Greyhawk items to tide us over until I can get the new Ghosts of Saltmarsh book and then with Anna Meyer, on June 5th, start back up Legends & Lore on the Greyhawk Channel.

First up, over at Tribality, author Blake Ryan has another mysterious location to show off in his Greyhawk series, this time it is Xanvak, an underwater lair of Aboleth in Lake Quag near Perrenland. Suddenly that sleepy lake got 1000% more deadly. Blake throws in some interesting loot choices drawn from Greyhawk Adventures if your players care to brave this deep danger.

Second, the new Avernus book mentioned above partially takes place on the first level of hell (making this a stealth Planescape adventure). One of the product points for this event is some big nasty vehicle called the Infernal War Machine. Over at ENWorld there is photos and advance look at the rules. They are touting this as Mad Max inspired, though my next inclination is my Warhammer 40k orks would love to ride that. However, an astute Greyhawk-file will also point at this infernal machine and scream DOOMGRINDER! Or for that matter maybe the Machine of Lum the Mad or Mighty Servant of Leuk-O could come from this family of hellish devices. All this time they were Blood War left overs!

Lastly, I rarely go to Dragon+ cause reasons, but in this month's feature for the Best of the Dungeon Master's Guild by Shawn Merwin also includes some links to PDFs of classic Dragon Magazine articles that can enhance a nautical campaign. Among these excellent entries is a Greyhawk article I DO NOT REMEMBER. This is significant to me, because I thought I had seen it all. Ironically, issue #125 from 1987 features a cover painting of King Arthur at the Battle of Camlan by Roger Raupp.

This same artwork would later be recycled in 1991 for...Greyhawk Wars boxed set cover. Yes I am underwhelmed too, but I had forgot that excellent cover graced Dragon before the forgettable game. Fast forward almost three decades later and now it is here again. Magical Maps of Greyhawk by Lee Ian Wurn has some excellent lore on the Cataclysms to go with his unique magical items. Download this article!

A Few New Greyhawk Articles

Greetings seekers of all things Greyhawk! Today I bring you three new works from various luminaries of the Greyhawk community. Let's get it started!

First up is the final installment of Joe Bloch's wonderful series of articles expanding the Baklunish Pantheon. If you haven't seen this already be sure to back track and download all his articles on his blog Greyhawk Grognard. In the final issue, Joe features classic deities Geshtai and Zuoken, then adds newcomers Suwat, Waadi and Malakim. They are loving produced and well-written and researched to the point you will swear it's canon!

Next up is actually two entries by one author. Blake Ryan has been building up steam as he releases new Greyhawk articles on D&D fan-site Tribality. His latest contributions to our lore is quite original. First he writes about a place called Zulpar, a lair of the Mind Flayers found in the Underdark beneath the Rakers mountain chain. Remote and scary indeed!
The second is Syrmyr, the lair of a nasty sea hag in the White Fanged Bay near Stonehold. Why would one want to go to such a cold and dangerous place? Mr. Ryan supplies plenty of good reasons in this article. Enjoy!

Last up is a new article at Canonfire! titled Beasts of the Scarlet Brother (5e Update) by Paul "Woesinger" Looby. In this, Woesinger updates an article he did for Dungeon #106 with fellow Onnwalian, Stuart Kerrigan way back in the heyday of Living Greyhawk. Now you can enjoy critters like Dreamstealers, Yeshir and Mazchedeen for your own 5E campaign. Good work, we need more 5E conversions like this.

That's all for now!

Greyhawk News Tidbits

Good fortune to you Greyhawkers! Today I have a few Greyhawk related news tidbits to throw out. Let's get started:
Our very own Bards of Greyhawk have an extraordinary announcement on their Facebook page. They are going to be doing a Kickstarter to promote a short comic drawn by D&D artist and legend, Jeff Dee!

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Jeff Dee made a comic book for Bards of Greyhawk!

We will soon be launching our very first Patreon later this month as we celebrate our 4th Anniversary to announce and begin raising funds for the production and distribution of this fantastic new D&D comic book with eight pages of amazing color illustrations by living legend TSR / Dungeons & Dragons artist, our friend. Jeff Dee! Like and Follow our page to be the first to get in on this exciting opportunity!

I for one, cannot wait to see more of Dee's classic illustration.

Next up is another offering from Blake Ryan at Tribality. He is running a series of short articles on northern towns in the World of Greyhawk. Next up is Djekul, a town of 3000 in the land of the Frost Barbarians. Mr. Ryan's has a way of taking an undeveloped town in Greyhawk and packing a ton of useful game info into it, without it being a slog to read through. Any DM looking for a new location to send their PCs or a humble home base for a rural campaign could not do much better than the info provided in Djekul. Check it out.

Lastly, the Greyhawk Channel will soon be announcing their Summer Season schedule. However, I am going to broadcast early that me and Anna Meyer's talk show, Legends & Lore will be moving to Wednesdays 7-9 pm CST on June 5th. I'd like to give many thanks to all the loyal friend of the show who have been coming each week. We hope that the move up in the week won't affect people coming to watch, in fact we hope it will INCREASE turn out as we won't be competing with other D&D shows on in that same evening. We will have a short hiatus in May then will be back with more lore and guests in June. Stay tuned!

Update 06/24/2021: Well the GHC is no longer active, link updated to their YouTube archive. Me and Anna however are STILL streaming every Wednesday with Jay Scott on LordGosumba channel. 

Tribality Feature: Greyhawk Cities

Hail Greyhawk stalwarts! Today I'm promoting a new regular Greyhawk series over at RPG website . Staff author, Blake Ryan is slowly building momentum with his Greyhawk Cities feature. His first column covers the Ratik capital city of Marner. This is followed by a unique look at the city of Knurl in Bone March. Both of these articles brilliantly combine established sources and maps with a variety of new information from important locations, organizations, NPCs and resources in the cities. The best part of these articles however, is the section on quests that can be acquired in each town. They are broken down into Confusion, Exploration and Rescue Quests. Absolutely smart writing because it turns each city into a center for adventure and exploration found in popular sandbox games.
Tribality

Greyhawk DMs you have to check these articles out, because Mr. Ryan is bursting with ideas for your campaign. And he has informed me that there is many more cities in store for this series. Stay tuned!