The powers of Greyhawk.

[Shinizak]

What are the major factions of the Greyhawk setting. I only know the theologies of Grey hawk since it's a factor in drawing up clerics.

[Escheton]

By the power of Greyskull?

prolly not the first/only mind to jump to that...

on actual greyhawk...I got nothing.

[Harperfan7]

I don't know much about greyhawk, but Mordenkainen has a circle of eight who are all powerful and act in the name of balance (neutrality).

[Yora]

Greyhawk is a strange setting, as there's almost no info about it around.
I looked it up at wikipedia, and apparently the only publication since 1993 was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer in 2000, which is called "the most in-depth examination of the world of Greyhawk ever produced". Which at 192 pages is not much. Both the FRCS and the Eberron CS are over 300 pages and not very in-depth.

[Matthew]

Kind of. You can check out the Greyhawk canonfire sites, and the Oerth Journal, though. Off the top of my head, in terms of evil organisations, there is:

The Scarlet Brotherhood
Iuz the Evil
The Horned Society
The Bandit Kingdoms
Lloth and the Drow
The Elemental Evil Factions

[jamroar]

Greyhawk is a strange setting, as there's almost no info about it around.
I looked it up at wikipedia, and apparently the only publication since 1993 was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer in 2000, which is called "the most in-depth examination of the world of Greyhawk ever produced". Which at 192 pages is not much. Both the FRCS and the Eberron CS are over 300 pages and not very in-depth.

That is because unlike FRCS and Eberron CS, the LG Gazetteer was completely world background and no crunch (no additional spells/feats/prestige classes/monsters/stat blocks/etc), and sparse black and white art. The level of detail of fluff was roughly the same as the FRCS.

[Mojo_Rat]

There actually is a fair bit of fluf finfo availble on Greyhawk, but alot of it is hidden in moduals the Gazeteer is also extremely useful

If you can get it there is also a very good 1st ed box set for it complete with large fold out maps. i useto have them done up on foam core looked really nice but lost it over the years.

Lastly the return to castle greyhawk was a great adventure and besides the castle bit is the most recent colour map of the city of grey hawk itself.

For some reason since it switched to Wotci ownership what is essentially a very well designed world has gotten almos tno support.

But to answer the Question and this is going by memory so i may have missed some


the big Factions are
The Scarlet Brotherhood, Iuz, GReyhawk itself, Furyondy. I think in the most recent published info the Great kingdom fell and is how just Ahlissa.

Its been a very long time though and dont have any of my books on hand.

[cZak]

Greyhawk - my first & fave

It is dependent on what time period you are looking at.
Pre or Post-Greyhawk Wars

[Shhalahr Windrider]

The factions that would affect a Greyhawk campaign depend heavily on what reigion you are playing in. Aside from the Circle of Eight, I’ve never really read about many characters that move and shake things on a global scale.

The next largest faction is Iuz. But his wars with neighboring countries take up a lot of his attention, so he doesn’t have much direct influence outside of those neighboring countries and his own. But then, he does have a lot of neighboring countries, so it’s still pretty impressive.

Rary, traitor to the Circle of Eight, is also a notable player. But I don’t think he does much outside of the Bright Desert.

Really, if you plan on running an actual Greyhawk campaign, the Gazeteer is essential.

[hamlet]

Really, if you plan on running an actual Greyhawk campaign, the Gazeteer is essential.

I recommend against the gazateer, actaully.

If you really are interested in running Greyhawk, better to pick up the 1st edition World of Greyhawk Boxed Set: The Boxed Set

It's wide open for creativity and has some of the best info going without losing the concise and excellent writing style that makes it a real pleasure to read. No, really, I enjoy just picking up that box and reading it from time to time.

It's got more info than Folio, specifically in deities and such, but eschews the stupid metaplot that turns off a great many people.

Stay away from the From the Ashes boxed set. It's not bad, really, just not as good as it should be. TSR, after ousting Gary, decided to advance the timeline by a decade and essentially blow everything up. Many MANY people are unahppy about it.

As for the OP, the point of Greyhawk is that, with a few notable exceptions already noted above, the DM was supposed to create his own power blocks working for control and engage his players in them. There's no built in story or meta-plot going on in Greyhawk. It's up to the DM to create it.

[Thurbane]

Greyhawk - my first & fave

Seconded.

I consider it almost criminal negilgence, the lack of support Greyhawk got in 3.X. I mean, they lifted the deities and spellcasters (Mordenkainen, Bigby etc.) for the "default setting", but never gave Greyhawk anything nice of it's own.

If Greyhawk had've gotten even 1/4 the support that FR and Eberron got, I would've been happy.

I suspect it was a lot to do with WotC wanting to distance itself from TSR and Gygax. Stupid politics.

Last module my group finished was the 3.5 Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. We enjoyed it a lot. I was a aplayer, but I believe the module has a fair bit of greyhawk info in it.

[Lord_Kimboat]

I'm guessing that some of the lack of support was due to the Living Greyhawk campaign that was run at conventions and was created by groups of people from around the world. The plot and politics of most of the countries were controlled by a 'triad' from a particular real world region.

Unfortunately since it was dropped with the release of 4e much of this information has been lost. A pity really. There are pages and pages of information that I knew existed about Perrenland - my home region, but now I can't find any of it.

[Keld Denar]

RIP Living Greyhawk. You will always be remembered for the hundreds of hours I spent playing you over the 7ish years I was active in the campaign and the hundreds of different people I met while enjoying those many hours, and the crazy weekend road trips to various LG conventions, and interactives, and midnight madness slots, and all that shananigans!

The worst thing Living Realms could do was break up the regional pride that Living Greyhawk fostered. When your character was intimately linked to massive worldwide politics through local shananigans, that region was a part of you. Going to a con and argueing with someone about who's situation was worse (We Furyondian's have a vampire for a king. Well, we in Bissel have Evard the Necromancer poised to invade. Oh yea? We have IUZ himself hanging out in our backyard moochin beer from our cooler).

RIP Liam Wyvernhand, Legendary Hero of Furyondy and the Sheldomar Valley, and hero of the last stand of the Free City of Dyvers!

[Edelweiss]

I have always been curious about Greyhawk, but I have literally never seen any books for the setting ... ever. I have heard it had a generally more European flavor and more to do with intrigue than the default setting. I love intrigue and messing up the plots of big jerks so this appeals to me. But alas, I know next to nothing about it .

So to get back to the topic... sortof... I want to know more about it too!

[Cieyrin]

I suspect it was a lot to do with WotC wanting to distance itself from TSR and Gygax. Stupid politics.

Not to mention that WotC let the licensing expire on Greyhawk as Living Greyhawk wrapped up, so they can't do anything with Greyhawk, even if they wanted to. I believe the rights reverted to Mr. Gygax but since his passing, I have no friggin' idea who is in control of the stuff anymore.

I also really miss LG, as the vast majority of info for Greyhawk got produced through various modules and interactives. While I only got to play for 4 years, it was some of the best gaming I'd played, with lots of friends I don't get to see so much anymore since the campaign ended. You will be missed, Highfolk, even if all the elven clashes got old at times and the Perenlanders hated us. R.I.P. the sole Pure Suel Monk for several metaregions, who outwrestled an assassin vine with minimal magics involved, who showed the Scarlet Brotherhood that true mastery of the unarmed arts was in breaking backs over your leg, he who was always on the wrong end of ancient Baklunish traps that seemed to crop up way too often. R.I.P. the Moonguard, adventuring company of misfits who seemed to do good regardless. You all shall be missed.

[dsmiles]

Kind of. You can check out the Greyhawk canonfire sites, and the Oerth Journal, though. Off the top of my head, in terms of evil organisations, there is:

The Scarlet Brotherhood
Iuz the Evil
The Horned Society
The Bandit Kingdoms
Lloth and the Drow
The Elemental Evil Factions

Yeah, you pretty much nailed most of the bad guys.

Onto the ones that are more-or-less not evil:
Circle of Eight
Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom
Knights of the Hart
Knights of Holy Shielding
Knights of Luna
Knights of the Watch
Mouqollad Consortium
Old Faith
Colleges of Old Lore
People of the Testing
Silent Ones of Keoland

Greyhawk is a strange setting, as there's almost no info about it around.
I looked it up at wikipedia, and apparently the only publication since 1993 was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer in 2000, which is called "the most in-depth examination of the world of Greyhawk ever produced". Which at 192 pages is not much. Both the FRCS and the Eberron CS are over 300 pages and not very in-depth.

As usual, the wiki-geeks prove themselves to not be all knowing. There is a crapton of info in 1e that is way more in-depth than the LG Gazeteer, but its scattered around multiple books.

[Thurbane]

Not to mention that WotC let the licensing expire on Greyhawk as Living Greyhawk wrapped up, so they can't do anything with Greyhawk, even if they wanted to. I believe the rights reverted to Mr. Gygax but since his passing, I have no friggin' idea who is in control of the stuff anymore.

I hadn't heard this - as far as I knew, WotC did (and still do) hold the license to Greyhawk (part of the IP they purchased when they bought TSR, along with Forgotten Realms etc.).

Do you have a source on this?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

As usual, the wiki-geeks prove themselves to not be all knowing. There is a crapton of info in 1e that is way more in-depth than the LG Gazeteer, but its scattered around multiple books.

If the info is scattered around multiple books, then how is that a more in-depth book? That statement doesn’t claim there isn’t any more information on the setting anywhere. It just states that no individual book has as much information on the setting as a whole as this book does.

[cdrcjsn]

Another faction that seemed to foster an unusual amount of hate from players in the living greyhawk campaign was the Theocracy of the Pale and Pholtus in general. I guess a bunch of LG(N) types that looked down their noses at everyone sort of put people's hackles up. The fact that most of the NPCs who claimed to worship him tended to act more LE than LG/LN sort of didn't help either.

[Toliudar]

Another faction that seemed to foster an unusual amount of hate from players in the living greyhawk campaign was the Theocracy of the Pale and Pholtus in general. I guess a bunch of LG(N) types that looked down their noses at everyone sort of put people's hackles up. The fact that most of the NPCs who claimed to worship him tended to act more LE than LG/LN sort of didn't help either.

This worked for PC's too. I played alongside a paladin of Pholtus, and simply by the player working with playing the belief system as written, the rest of the group wanted to sucker-punch the character almost every session. Made Cuthbert look like a lefty-liberal wuss.

[Cieyrin]

I hadn't heard this - as far as I knew, WotC did (and still do) hold the license to Greyhawk (part of the IP they purchased when they bought TSR, along with Forgotten Realms etc.).

Do you have a source on this?

Hmm, I can't for the life of me remember where I got that from... Let me check with some of my buddies I played LG with, as I think I may have got it from them...

I swear it was a story on Slashdot, though, if my addled brain could find it...

[Birstel]

Wish someone could have kept LG going, even if it was only for a couple years like Living City tried to do...