Fabled Greyhawk, dungeon, castle, city, world and supplement, Greyahawk is all of these and more. Looking at the thief class recently brought me back into the well worn pages of Supplement I Greyhawk wherein Mr. Gygax and Mr. Kuntz lay out the rules as practiced in their Greyhawk campaign. As is evident by the picture above my original copy of Greyhawk has seen some wear. It is by far in the worst shape of my original books, all purchased together for Christmas 1977. I assume Greyhawk shows more wear because it got the most use of all the books. Probably for good reason...there is a lot here in Greyhawk!
The illustration on the cover (by Greg Bell I believe) is pretty good for the era. The floating eye/beholder/eye tyrant is actually more creepy in my opinion than many later illustrations of the classic beasty. The smaller, lidded eye and mouth, the latter with just a hint of drool, make it seem more sinister, more patient and confident of it's prey. The fighting man with sword and shield leans away and seems a bit ragged, maybe he is frightened or already turned to stone, hence the confidence of the beholder.
This is a 5th printing from April, 1977. It says so right on the title page. It also says copyright 1976, but I believe Greyhawk was first printed in 1975. Facing the title page is a full size illustration of the lizardman which can be seen in miniature on the cover. This fellow was used as the TSR trademark following the intertwined GK and preceding the wizard fellow. It's also attributed to Greg Bell. In his Forward to this supplement, Mr. Gygax tells us what we are getting, "new characters, new abilities, more spells to use, a horde of new monsters, heaps of new magical treasure, and various additions to the suggestions and rules for adventuring above and below the ground."
The supplement uses the same organization as the original three LBBs and is therefore divided into sections titled Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure and The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures. As mentioned in my last blog, under Men & Magic we find two new character classes, the paladin, a subclass of fighting man and the thief class. The PC races as they are used in Greyhawk are described and now include half-elves as well as dwarves, elves, hobbits and humans. Greyhawk changes the role abilities play in the game by giving bonuses, sometimes significant bonuses to PCs with high ability scores. This makes ability scores somewhat more important than they were in white box. In the world of Greyhawk we are told fighting men enjoy benefits from high strength and dexterity scores. High scores in other abilities may benefit PCs of other classes as well.
Hit points in the Greyhawk world are determined differently than in the white box. PCs in Greyhawk roll different dice according to class for their hit points. Magic users now roll d4s, fighting men now called "fighters" roll d8s. The experience system in Greyhawk is altered from that described in the white box and therefore sets the trend of experience being one of the most frequently "house-ruled" aspects of the game. The weapon verses AC modification table makes its first appearance here and will appear again in AD&D. I have used it upon occasion, but find it more trouble than it's worth for my taste. One of the things I really like about older editions of D&D is how fast the combat goes and the weapons vs. AC table just slows combat down.
Variable damage done by weapon type (and by monster) also makes it's first appearance in Greyhawk and will remain with the game up until today. I have generally used this convention as most of us have, but recently am finding myself more in favor of a flat d6 damage and all classes using a d6 for hit points. There is something that appeals to me about any weapon being able to kill any character with a single blow. When using the "all weapons do 1d6 damage" I usually allow two handed weapons to roll 2d6 and use the higher roll, just because!
Spells now go to level nine! At least for magic users. Clerics can cast up to level seven spells from their list. As I would come to expect when describing the rules for a new world, there are some new spells on the list among the lower level spells. Magic Missile makes it's first appearance and will remain a staple 1st level spell through the editions to this day. The description in Greyhawk is unclear as to whether a Magic Missile to-hit roll needs to be made or not.
We are now about half-way through the 68 page book and entering the Monsters & Treasure section. Again these are two areas I have come to expect to be somewhat unique from world/setting to world/setting and are heavily involved in establishing the nature and character of the world/setting. In Greyhawk I find the usual monsters and treasures from the white box and several new ones. Some of the "classic" D&D monsters make their first appearance here such as the beholder, umber hulk, rust monster, displacer beast, stirge, owl bear and carrion crawler. Each monster has a few lines of text which frequently makes for good entertainment when read.
Magic items, like spells, generally get a power boost to higher levels, swords and armor reaching +5 bonuses. Some "classic" magic items such as the deck of many things, figurines of wonderous power and bag of tricks make their first appearance. The magic items are briefly described also with a few lines of text.
The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures section is brief, only 5 pages, but in it are described several tricks, traps and monster combinations that illustrate the creative genius that is to be found in the world of Greyhawk. My personal favorite- skeletons that are able to hurl their finger joints as if they were arrows! Greyhawk ends with a page devoted to corrections.
Ah, Greyhawk, origin of many memories, I have spent many hours amongst thy pages. There is perhaps no better known setting in the hobby, especially among us older adventure gamers. As I close your worn covers with care, I ponder the multitude of adventures born of your pages. Origins are just that, places of beginning. Castle Greyhawk and Blackmoor Castle are two such places of beginning from which so much has spread. As is widely known, Greyhawk was the setting for many of the game aids published by TSR back in the day. Whether the referee used those play aids as part of his/her own unique campaign or played them as part of their version of the Greyhawk world, or even as stand alone adventures, a part of Greyhawk was there shaping the story that emerged. How fantastic!
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