What a well-traveled citizen of Greyhawk knows about the realms of the Flanaess. Each one is marked on the zoomable map; click a gold ring to jump here. For how it all came to be, see History of the World. For rough real-world counterparts of each realm, see Real-World Parallels.
The Flanaess falls into five broad regions. The Free City sits in the middle of the first.
The Central Flanaess
Rich farmland between the Nyr Dyv and the Yatil Mountains. Free cities, young kingdoms and old elven realms, now squeezed between Iuz to the north and the remnants of Elemental Evil to the south.
Greyhawk
The Free City, the Gem of the Flanaess, on the Selintan River below the Nyr Dyv. Home. See The City and the World.
Dyvers
Greyhawk’s rival on the lake: a free city of merchants and shipwrights with a strong navy, ruled by a magister. The two cities compete for every barge on the Nyr Dyv.
The Nyr Dyv
The Lake of Unknown Depths. It’s huge and cold, with barge-folk living on it, and things below that nobody has charted. Trade between Greyhawk, Dyvers and the Urnst lands crosses it daily.
Kingdom of Furyondy
A proud, prosperous kingdom of knights, one of the first provinces to break from the Great Kingdom. King Belvor IV rules. It’s Iuz’s nearest strong enemy. Its crown prince Thrommel vanished after Emridy Meadows and is still missing.
Veluna
A theocracy of Rao ruled by Canon Hazen, a byword for justice and learning. A marriage between Thrommel and a Velunan noblewoman would have united Veluna and Furyondy; his kidnapping ended that.
Verbobonc
A small viscounty between Veluna and Celene. The ruined Temple of Elemental Evil stands in its hills, near the village of Hommlet.
Celene
The elven kingdom of Queen Yolande, beautiful and aloof, with many gnomes and halflings. Its elves fought at Emridy Meadows, and have mostly kept to themselves since.
Highfolk
A free town of elves and humans in the Vesve Forest, now hard pressed as Iuz’s creatures spread into the woods.
The Shield Lands
A league of nobles behind the Knights of Holy Shielding, on the north shore of the Nyr Dyv, facing the Horned Society and the Bandit Kingdoms. Brave, and very exposed.
The Horned Society
A grim realm ruled by faceless hierarchs said to worship devils, allied with Iuz, with armies full of humanoids and mercenaries. It appeared only about sixty years ago.
Land of Iuz
The domain of Iuz the Evil, a demigod: blighted land, crawling with monsters. Even the fierce nomads go around it. Iuz returned in 570 and has been building an army ever since.
Perrenland
A tough, fiercely independent confederation of mountain cantons on Lake Quag, famous for its mercenaries.
The Wild Coast
A lawless strip of free towns on Woolly Bay, home to outcasts and dissidents.
The Pomarj
A peninsula south of the Wild Coast, overrun by humanoids sixty years ago. Now a nest of bandits, raiders and, people whisper, slavers.
The Eastern Flanaess
The heartland of the old Great Kingdom of Aerdy and of the rebels who broke away from it.
The Great Kingdom
The empire that once ruled most of the Flanaess, now decadent and cruel. Overking Ivid V of House Naelax rules from the Malachite Throne in Rauxes, and is said to keep fiends as advisers. He is fighting two wars at once and taxing his people to the bone. Its North and South Provinces are ruled by his kinsmen, the herzogs, almost as independent states. Its old border lands are slipping away one by one, though Ivid’s titles still claim many of them.
Medegia
A church-state of the Great Kingdom, ruled by a Holy Censor whose power is rumored to come from devils.
The Sea Barons
Island fiefs that serve as the Great Kingdom’s navy.
Rel Astra
A rich city that nominally serves the Overking and is quietly plotting to break free.
Kingdom of Nyrond
The heart of the resistance to the Great Kingdom, and a strong, old, rather stiff kingdom since it broke away in 356 CY.
Duchy of Urnst
A wealthy duchy south of the Nyr Dyv, ruled by Duke Jalken Lorinar. Neighbor and trading partner of Greyhawk.
County of Urnst
The Duchy’s sister state across the river, ruled by Countess Belissica. A marriage between her and the Duke’s heir would unite the two Urnsts.
The Pale
A strict theocracy of Pholtus of the Blinding Light. Unfriendly to outsiders, and to anyone else’s gods.
Duchy of Tenh
A northern duchy allied with Nyrond against Iuz.
The Bone March
A province of the Great Kingdom that fell to humanoids in 563 CY. Armies from Nyrond and Almor are fighting to take it back.
Prelacy of Almor
A theocracy of Pelor that declared independence when the Great Kingdom turned to evil. It’s on the front line.
The Iron League
A defensive alliance of states that broke from the Great Kingdom: Onnwal, Idee, Sunndi, the free city of Irongate, and the Lordship of the Isles. It’s at war with the Great Kingdom’s south.
The Scarlet Brotherhood
A secretive Suloise order on the far southern Tilvanot Peninsula, closed to outsiders. Its name has only recently started turning up, attached to kidnappings.
The Northern Flanaess
Cold steppes, forests and fjords. Nomads, barbarians and bandit lords.
The Bandit Kingdoms
A tangle of petty realms ruled by feuding bandit lords, between the Shield Lands and the north. Lawless, and suspiciously friendly with Iuz.
The Barbarian Kingdoms
The Frost, Ice and Snow Barbarians of the Thillonrian Peninsula (the Fruzti, Cruski and Schnai): seafaring raiders who love learning as much as war. The Snow Barbarians are the strongest.
Hold of Stonefist
A hard northern realm founded by a bandit chief, full of malcontents from everywhere.
Rovers of the Barrens
Flan nomads of the cold Barrens, worn down by long wars with Iuz, the Horned Society and Stonefist.
Wolf Nomads
Baklunish horse-clans of the northern steppes, fighting Iuz in the Howling Hills.
Tiger Nomads
Baklunish horse-clans west of the Wolf Nomads, with scattered trading posts. They trace their horses’ bloodlines as carefully as their own.
Barony of Ratik
A small former province of the Great Kingdom in the northeast, holding off barbarians and mountain monsters on its own.
Old Keoland
The southwest, between the Lortmil Mountains and the great western ranges. Old realms of mixed peoples who get along, mostly because of what comes down from the mountains: giants and dragons.
Kingdom of Keoland
The old kingdom of the southwest, once warlike and now peaceable, ruled by King Kimbertos Skotti.
The Gran March
A martial state allied with Keoland, ruled by an elected commandant.
The March of Bissel
A small march contested by Keoland, Veluna and Ket.
Grand Duchy of Geoff
An isolated duchy under the Crystalmist Mountains, with a long history of fighting giants. Lately its caravans have stopped arriving.
The March of Sterich
A march under the mountains, close to Keoland’s crown. It suffers the same raids as Geoff.
The Ulek States
The Duchy (elves), the County and the Principality (dwarves) of Ulek, all former vassals of Keoland, on the Lortmil Mountains.
The Yeomanry
A free republic governed by an elected Freeholder, troubled by hill giants and wyverns from the Jotens.
Hold of the Sea Princes
An oligarchy of buccaneer houses with a strong navy, slowly making peace with Keoland.
Valley of the Mage
A hidden valley ruled by a mysterious archmage. Outsiders who go in uninvited don’t come back.
The Western Flanaess
Behind the Yatils, the Barrier Peaks and the Crystalmists: the Baklunish lands, heirs of the empire that burned a thousand years ago. Rich, proud and full of intrigue.
Ket
The crossroads between west and east, where Baklunish and Oeridian ways mix. Ruled by a beygraf chosen by the great families of Lopolla. A busy trading land with many dragonborn and tieflings.
Sultanate of Ekbir
A strong Baklunish port, bracing for an invasion it fears is coming from Zeif.
Pashalik of Tusmit
A Baklunish state that gets rich by setting its neighbors against one another.
Sultanate of Zeif
The oldest and proudest Baklunish realm, ruled by a reclusive philosopher-sultan who refuses to go to war.
Ull
A harsh land settled by Paynim nomads.
Plains of the Paynims
Endless grassland of Baklunish nomad clans.
The Dry Steppes
Desert where the Baklunish Empire once stood. Its ruins draw treasure hunters.
The Sea of Dust
The ash-waste that was once the Suloise Empire, burned by the Rain of Colorless Fire. Its ruins draw the brave and the foolish.
Drawn from the World of Greyhawk gazetteer (1980) and the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide*, © Wizards of the Coast, summarized under the Fan Content Policy.*