New D&D Greyhawk Books Won’t Be Coming Anytime Soon
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For longtime fans of Greyhawk, the launch of the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide has been a dream come true. That’s because the legendary D&D setting is featured prominently within the pages of the new DMG. It lead many players to hope that future Greyhawk sourcebooks would also be released under the new DnD 2024 rules, creating a new era for the campaign setting.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case. At least according to a recent announcement from Wizards of the Coast. So just what does this mean for the future of Oerth? Below, we dig into all the details.
How is Greyhawk being approached in D&D 2024?
In the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, Greyhawk is presented as a sample campaign setting, essentially serving as a template that shows DMs how to structure a setting and build out connected adventures. This includes a detailed map of several key regions in the Flanaess area and a very loose structure of various locations, NPCs, monsters and adventure hooks.
In a recent October 15th press briefing to discuss the new DMG, however, lead designer Chris Perkins noted that Greyhawk will likely not be supported by any future materials. “In the short term, we want the Greyhawk content in the DMG to stand on its own,” said Perkins. “Basically we’re saying ‘hey DMs, we’re giving you Greyhawk as a foundation upon which you can build your own setting.’ Whether we get back to Greyhawk or not in some other capacity I can’t say. But that’s our intention now.”
Perkins further described Greyhawk as more of a general sandbox for new DMs to explore and build upon and noted that “we may not come back to this version of Greyhawk for a while because we want DMs to kind of own it and play with it before we start.”
Despite the news, Wizards of the Coast has announced plans to release a Greyhawk-themed DnD one shot entitled Scions of Elemental Evil which returns to the iconic Greyhawk location of the Temple of Elemental Evil. The adventure will use pre-generated characters from the 1980s D&D cartoon, who also recently appeared in the one shot Uni and the Hunt for the Lost Horn. It will first be available only at game stores and conventions from October 29th to November 25th, 2024, but is expected to be released on D&D Beyond shortly afterwards, so Greyhawk fans can at least get a little more love in the near future.
Final thoughts
The world of Oerth remains one of the oldest and beloved D&D campaign settings, having appeared in every edition of the game, not to mention spawning board games, video games, trading cards and even a series of Greyhawk novels. In DnD 5e, the world did appear a few times, most notably in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal adventure anthologies. The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, however, is the first time in over a decade that Greyhawk has been more fully explored as a campaign setting.
And while it’s disappointing that we won’t see any new Greyhawk materials anytime soon, there is reason to be hopeful. That’s because during the recent Wizards of the Coast press conference Perkins appeared open to future Greyhawk campaign materials, if there’s enough player demand. In other words, if we play it, they may build it.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
