4e Greyhawk (coming earliest 2010, latest 2012) will restart the setting in circa 576CY.
There will be no timeline advance. Rather, there will be a timeline retrograde.
In the restart, the Flanaess will be reimagined. Everything that has “happened” in published products will “never have happened” unless it is specifically reincorporated in the restarted setting.
The Greyhawk Wars will never have occurred. There will never have been demon armies rampaging all over. However, Iuz will be on the march and the “bad guy of the North.”
The Scarlet Brotherhood will never have been “outed” by going for an empire. It will be a “general” bad guy found everywhere - sneaky, silent, unseen.
The Great Kingdom will be caught in a quasi-civil war with lots of politics, magic and religion. No undead animus rulers. No United Kingdom of Ahlissa. No Great Kingdom of the North. Medegia is not a wasteland. The Iron League and Nyrond stand opposed. Its “old school” 83Greyhawk in this area with the volume turned up to 11.
The Sheldomar Valley (Keoland and smaller states) will be “monster central” as monsters (giants, dragons, drow etc.) attack civilization relentlessly. Think Points of Light dialed all the way up.
The City of Greyhawk will be the “center of it all” where things start or come together. Everything in D&D will fit somewhere in the central region of the Flanaess around Greyhawk to include the Wild Coast (Turrosh-Mak and the Empire of the Pomarj will never have happened). The Circle of Eight will function as a premade “mission control.”
Celene will be moved into the Feywild with the addition of Eladrins. Celene will be sort of like a “fortress” from which fey forces sally forth to fight evil.
The Bandit Kingdoms and the Rift Canyon will be “dungeon-land” where all things dungeony can be readily found. Lots of dragons too. Speaking of which.
Dragonborn will be incorporated. They will be from “off the map” to the south in the Amedio/Hepmonaland.
The Tieflings will be incorporated. They will not be monolithic, as in a nation. Rather, they will have origins in the Horned Society, the Sea of Dust, the Lands of Iuz, the Land of Black Ice etc. Essentially, where there are evil planar influences, there will be Tieflings. More on this below.
The idea is to compartmentalize Greyhawk into the ultimate “classic play” menu of a setting with “zones”:
What to kill monsters? Play in the Sheldomar.
Want heroics and politics with evil wizards and evil high priests oppressing people who must be stopped? Play in the Great Kingdom, Nyrond or the Iron League.
Want to oppose the One Big Evil Guy? Play in the north against Iuz.
Want to go exploring ancient ruins and dugeons, see the BK and the Rift Canyon.
Want everything in one spot? One organizing principle? Play in the City of Greyhawk/Central Flanaess - adventure-in-can-land.
This split will essentially “define” Greyhawk as the Flanaess. Other areas will be marginalized (the Baklunish West as “genie-land” the exception). There will also be some geographical changes to Oerth (but I have no sense of the extent or details at this moment).
The cosmology of Greyhawk will not be the Great Wheel. Given the premise of the restart, Greyhawk’s cosmology will be 4e standard and will have “always been that way.”
The new cosmology will also be the restarted Greyhawk’s “McGuffin” or new animating force. The restart described above is intended to “keep Greyhawk as Greyhawk.” On top of that will be “the hook” that can neatly summarize the setting - why do you play here?
Tharizdun will be name to conjure with - The Fight Against the Dark God! But in the process, Tharizdun will function almost as a convenient means to introduce numerous other planar elements, in the sense that PCs must traverse the planes and deal with planar incursions into Greyhawk as a necessary part of - The Fight Against the Dark God! Its almost Greyhawk meets Planescape. Sort of. Maybe better to say Planescape (but not 2e Planescape in any pure sense, rather The PLANES) within a Greyhawk context or frame. The idea is that the planar aspect will not be so pronounced (more subtle) as to overpower the Greyhawk elements; the Greyhawk elements are to remain the focus but with a very strong planar theme. However, individual designs are unpredictable, naturally.
So saying, the above is only what I have been able to suss out post-Con Season (and I’m not infallable by any means) and is waaaaay in advance of the range of release dates. Stuff could change. However, I feel comfortable posting the foregoing and saying at this time “Remember, you heard it here first.”
I’m not altogether sanguine about this 4eHawk, largely because it trashes the idea of established “canon,” intentionally just as the 100 year timeline advance did in the Realms. I get the “logic” but as a long time fan I can only think of this as “OtherHawk.” Still, I will admit I see some cool possibilities here. I just wish I knew about potential geographical changes to make the map of the Flanaess appear “cooler” and immediately “new.”
And if you want to say I’m off my rocker. That I’m speculating or delusional. That I don’t know jack. Or worse. (Well, maybe not worse) Go ahead. Please just remember all that when we are discussing “OtherHawk” in a few years and recall, “You heard it here first.” Who knows? It could be cool. Possibly.
Um... I find the concept interesting. I don't have a heavy investment in Greyhawk, particularly the Current status quo of Greyhawk.
My only thought on this is that if this much info has been leaked AND turns out to be Accurate. I would think that it would be a 2010 Release and not later. Just do with how far they have to be in the development. Guess we don't find out until Next Gen Con (when they tell us what the 2010 setting will be).
Thinking about it I can totally see them doing this and announcing it next Gen Con. D&D turns 35 in 2009 and I can see them running a year long (Gen Con to Gen Con) 35th Anniversary theme Starting with the Baby of there settings (Ebberon ) ending with the Release of (the Grand daddy of them all) Greyhawk for 4th Ed.
It might be better that Greyhawk remain in limbo rather than the devlopers try and 4E up the setting.
That's one opinion though....you guys, and WOTC for that matter, have your own take on things naturally.
In the restart, the Flanaess will be reimagined. Everything that has “happened” in published products will “never have happened” unless it is specifically reincorporated in the restarted setting.
The Greyhawk Wars will never have occurred. There will never have been demon armies rampaging all over. However, Iuz will be on the march and the “bad guy of the North.”
The Scarlet Brotherhood will never have been “outed” by going for an empire. It will be a “general” bad guy found everywhere - sneaky, silent, unseen.
The Tieflings will be incorporated. They will not be monolithic, as in a nation. Rather, they will have origins in the Horned Society, the Sea of Dust, the Lands of Iuz, the Land of Black Ice etc. Essentially, where there are evil planar influences, there will be Tieflings. More on this below.
The more I think about it the more I like this idea and hope that's what WotC is planning.
I don't know much Greyhawk lore, but I thought I'd pipe in to say I wouldn't mind learning about the setting (which I've always heard about) under the umbrella of 4e. I really like the approach to tieflings described above. However, on the other items, I find it hard to imagine WotC erasing entire chunks of a world timeline. At most they might officially set a campaign in an earlier time period, but even that seems iffy to me. (By comparison, I'm thinking even officially setting DragonLance back in the War of the Lance era might be iffy. Btw, loved the novel The Black Wing if that's what your name refers to!)
Okay, the other reason I had to post here is because for the last week I have been reading this thread title out of the corner of my eye as Greyhawk Robots. Until just five minutes ago I was wondering, "What on earth are those Greyhawk people talking about??"
:PI don't know much Greyhawk lore, but I thought I'd pipe in to say I wouldn't mind learning about the setting (which I've always heard about) under the umbrella of 4e. I really like the approach to tieflings described above. However, on the other items, I find it hard to imagine WotC erasing entire chunks of a world timeline. At most they might officially set a campaign in an earlier time period, but even that seems iffy to me. (By comparison, I'm thinking even officially setting DragonLance back in the War of the Lance era might be iffy. Btw, loved the novel The Black Wing if that's what your name refers to!)
Okay, the other reason I had to post here is because for the last week I have been reading this thread title out of the corner of my eye as Greyhawk Robots. Until just five minutes ago I was wondering, "What on earth are those Greyhawk people talking about??"
:heehee
To be honest, I don't really know a whole lot about the setting either, (though I do plan on reading up on it soon), but I thought this approach to a 4E update and implementation of the new races was quite interesting. I don't know what WotC's plans are for any of the settings beyond Eberron, and this amount of info certainly seems suspicious for coming so early, but I wanted to try to draw more attention to it here in order to give WotC an idea of what their own forum people think of it. I also wonder what portents such a thing might hold for future setting updates.
Yes that is what my screen name refers too. The Black Wing novel is actually the first book I read that was related to D&D, long before I even knew what D&D was. I really enjoyed it and it opened me up to other Dragonlance novels. I got to reminiscing recently about what led me to roleplaying games and decided to change my account name out of nostalgia. (I, still to this day, prefer black dragons over any others)
You'd think you'd want to do this with a game that's a little more WHOA! Something way different from the settings hitherto done. Spelljammer wouldn't be a bad way to go, or Dark Sun even. Something where you look at it and just go "no way you could do that anywhere else".
Greyhawk, I just gotta' say, is just a fantasy world with another big worldmap and another list of obscure NPCs. It feels really baseline. I don't know if that makes it really pop as something to wrap a whole line of product around.
There's a lot of history. A lot of history.
As said by some, it will be probably a 'stand alone' revised (in 4E format) release (if that be the case), I don't see any further material to come thereafter.
3.5E was marked as a 'Greyhawk' nod in reference.
4E is marked for 'Forgotten Realms' as the current default setting.
But one can choose to accept the 'upgrade' or not...it just comes down to taste and want.
I dont mind this and I look forward to seeing Greyhawk survive as a setting. But I dont like that 8 years of history and changes in Greyhawk done in the Living Greyhawk campaign are all for naught.
I don't see the need for another generic setting when there is already FR and core available.
If this gets done before Darksun, I (and many others from the sounds of things on various boards) will be ****** off. I don't mind them making it, but they should do the interesting settings first at least.
The problem comes in when you're giving folks examples of what D&D CAN be. You give them Forgotten Realms--great choice. You give them Ebberron--another very different feeling setting. For the next one though you'd want something really different. Putting down tent stakes. Setting a benchmark. See all the stuff you can do in D&D.
Much as I like Greyhawk, it isn't that kind of game. It's a shallow distinction at best, not much different from Forgotten Realms. Not much different from the 4e Core Setting. More forests and farmland and european kingdoms is not what we need next. We need something big!
The more I think about it and hear folks on here, the more I think that's gotta' be Dark Sun. It's very different. It's very points of light. It isn't crushed under the weight of a lot of history. It could showcase a lot of new rules and races (Thri-kreen and Muls at the very least). It's all about psionics, which works as nice timing for the powers they'll probably be looking at doing.
It's really gotta' be Dark Sun.
I'm not overly keen to see a brand new Greyhawk supplement, in spite of my loyalty to the setting. My reluctance is born from a desire to see Greyhawk articles in Dragon and Greyhawk adventures in Dungeon asap. Paizo spoiled us in recent years and going from feast to famine is a bit much for me. If everything Greyhawk is put on hold until 2010 / 2011, this is a bit too long to wait for any crumbs!
It is possible that ideas about converting Greyhawk Gods might be gleaned from the Divine handbook but it would be nice if we could have some classic npc conversions and a basic 4e conversion guide for the setting to get us started.
Personally, my money is still on Dark Sun for 2010, predominantly because I can't think of another reason for Wizards to be reprinting the Prism Pentad this year into next year. Besides, it fits the D&D4 design philosophy perfectly, and the developers can't seem to shut up about gladiators just now. And it would be very surprising.
By 2012? Sure, I can believe we might see Greyhawk again by 2012, particularly when you consider that Ravenloft has been rolled into the Core Setting and a similar fate is expected to befall the other "transitive" settings, Planescape and Spelljammer -- there just aren't that many AD&D2 settings left to be given the D&D4 treatment. But regressing the Flanaess to what was probably the most stable time in its known history? It just doesn't make sense. Wizards took such pains to advance Forgotten Realms (and presumably Eberron) into times of greater chaos. Why start in with the retroactive continuity now, and only to defeat their own design goals?
I'd say "Greyhawk... 2012" is the only part of this post that is even remotely reliable. Eberron in 2009, Dark Sun in 2010, a new original setting in 2011, and maybe Greyhawk in 2012. After that, your guess is as good as mine.