Greyhawk summary

[Bad Wolf]

Can somebody give me a quick summary of greyhawk, with a quick cover of the things that might affect gameplay?

[BWR]

I don't know what you're asking. Real world history of the setting, a brief in universe history of the setting, an introduction to the current political map of the setting; what?
And 'things that might affect gameplay' can be. well, everything.
If you want to know about specific things, the Greyhawk wiki might be of use.

[LibraryOgre]

"Please define the universe for me."

Briefly? Greyhawk is an expansive campaign setting, and one of the originals. The title refers to both Castle Greyhawk, one of the earliest megadungeons, and the City of Greyhawk, a free city on a large inland bay known as the Nyr Dyv (NEER Dive). The City of Greyhawk shares some characteristics with Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar and Sanctuary of the Thieves World series... all have the same sort of pulpy drudgery, in my mind, with lots of grey-scale actors, usually facing threats darker than they are.

Like many game worlds, Greyhawk has a variety of human, demi-humand, semi-human, and humanoid races. Being one of the original ones, they tend to conform to the standard view of those races (though kobolds in Greyhawk are the old style, not the new dragonish ones). There are a variety of deities, again with many of the standard demihuman and humanoid pantheons originating in Greyhawk, and with 3.x's "standard pantheon" being derived from an amalgamation of different human pantheons (the human ethnicities of Flan, Oeridian, and Suel all contribute deities to this).

Greyhawk (the campaign setting) is the setting of many early adventures, including the famous Temple of Elemental Evil and the Slavers Series.

[Bad Wolf]

Cool, thanks.