You’ve lived and worked in Greyhawk long enough to be known here. But you may have made your name, fortune, or reputation elsewhere.
The Free City of Greyhawk
The Gem of the Flanaess. Greyhawk sits on the Selintan River between the great lake of the Nyr Dyv and the southern seas, with the Cairn Hills rising to the north. Everything that moves between the lake and the sea passes its wharves. About 58,000 people live inside the walls, and more than 75,000 across the lands it rules.
Old money, new money, ruin money. The city has always been rich, but treasure hauled out of the ruins of Castle Greyhawk, the mad archmage Zagig’s abandoned fortress, set off a boom in the past generation. Adventurers, artisans and mercenaries flooded in, and the city has been spending the money ever since.
Who runs it. A council called the Directing Oligarchy, between twelve and eighteen guildmasters, priests, merchants and officers known as the Directors, chooses the Lord Mayor, currently Nerof Gasgal. Everyone knows the Mayor and the Guildmaster of Thieves are old friends from the Thieves’ Guild. Greyhawkers find this either scandalous or hilarious, mostly hilarious. Taxes are low, trade is good, and the city stays fiercely neutral, so few people want things to change. The full list of Directors is in the player homework.
Who you work for. You’re paid by the Directors. Some of them trust you. All of them use you. You suspect that a few would be happier without you.
The quarters
The city climbs from the river to the Grand Citadel on its hill. The Old City, low and crowded by the river, is walled off from the New City above it.
The New City
- High Quarter: mansions on the Promenade for merchant princes, ambassadors and the Directors themselves. In Greyhawk, wealth is rank.
- Garden Quarter: parks, fine inns and the city’s best markets, plus manicured estates for the comfortably rich.
- Clerkburg: the University, the colleges, libraries and scholars. The quietest streets in the city, and the most argumentative people.
The Old City
- Artisans’ Quarter: workshops, guildhalls and craft families, noisy and respectable.
- Foreign Quarter: where outsiders live, trade and keep their own customs: dwarves, elves, Baklunish, Rhennee bargefolk.
- River Quarter: the docks and the Strip, a mile of taverns, gambling dens and worse. Loud all night, never enough Watch.
- Thieves’ Quarter: home of the Thieves’ Guild, and its rules apply here more than the city’s do.
- Slum Quarter: the poorest streets in the city. The current Lord Mayor grew up here.
Underneath: the sewers, catacombs and tunnels of the Undercity. Sensible people don’t go down there. Adventurers aren’t sensible people.
Living here
- The Watch patrols the streets under the Captain-General.
- Daytime People’s Constables are licensed busybodies, mostly small-time thieves with a badge, who fine people for breaking Zagig’s centuries-old nonsense laws. For example, fondling a duck on the Processional is still a crime. They avoid Clerkburg, vanish after dark, and the real Watch can’t stand them.
- Magic in public: healing and non-harmful spells to stop a criminal are fine. Damaging magic in the streets needs a very good reason, and the Watch decides what counts.
- Magic in public, part II: neither the city nor the setting feature much “convenience magic.” Magic, regardless of its source, is still regarded as uncanny and rare by most, even if it’s old hat for adventurers. Cast a flashy spell in a crowded street and you may accidentally summon a crowd, a Watch patrol, or a priest asking questions.
- The guilds run trade. Almost every craft has one, and working without membership gets you noticed.
- The tax inspectors knock with chain mail and clubs. The Inspector of Taxes is a dwarf, and he never forgets a debt.
- Adventurers are everywhere, licensed or not. Freelancers who aren’t working for anyone in the city owe a fee for the privilege.
Faith
Most of the city’s people pray when they need something; few are devout. Most good and neutral gods have at least a shrine here. Temples to evil gods are banned, so their worshippers meet in secret.
Gods with a real and legal presence in the city:
| God | Known for |
|---|---|
| Pelor | the sun, healing, charity |
| Rao | peace, reason, serenity |
| Boccob | magic and knowledge (aloof, rarely worshipped, widely respected) |
| Zilchus | money, business, influence. Very popular with merchants. |
| Xerbo and Procan | the waters: trade by sea, and the sea itself |
| Trithereon | liberty and retribution |
| Heironeous | valour, chivalry, justice |
| St. Cuthbert | common sense, honesty, zeal (and a cudgel) |
| Pholtus | law, order, light |
| Wee Jas | magic, death and its proper order |
| Ralishaz and Norebo | chance, gambling and luck, good and bad |
| Olidammara | music, revelry, rogues |
| Fharlanghn | roads and travellers |
| Delleb | study and reason (popular in Clerkburg) |
| Istus | fate |
| Ehlonna and Obad-Hai | forests, wild places and nature |
The world in 576 CY
- Iuz is free. The demigod Iuz was one of nine beings Zagig imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk. In 570, the prison broke open. For six years he’s been gathering an army of evil priests, assassins and humanoids in his land to the north, and he has sworn revenge on the people who opened his cell, among them Tenser the Archmage and Lord Robilar.
- The Great Kingdom is rotting. Overking Ivid V rules from Rauxes. People say he’s mad, but no one says he’s stupid. His real power barely reaches past his own lands, and whispers say his dynasty bargains with fiends.
- The Horned Society has risen in the north. Its hierarchs are faceless and its armies are full of humanoids. Its neighbours, the Shield Lands and the Bandit Kingdoms, sleep badly.
- Elemental Evil was broken at the Battle of Emridy Meadows, but not everyone believes it’s gone.
- The Pomarj fell to humanoids sixty years ago, and the Bone March followed in 563.
- The Scarlet Brotherhood: a few years ago a prince and a provost were kidnapped, and the name started turning up in reports. Nobody knows much more.
- The Circle of Eight, a group of powerful wizards led by Mordenkainen, works to keep any one power from dominating. Two of its members are said to live in Greyhawk.