Gem of the Flanaess

A Guide to the Free City of Greyhawk. Nestled in a river valley near the geographic center of the Flanaess, the City of Greyhawk is perfectly suited for trade coming from the Lake of Unknown Depths to the north and Woolly Bay to the south. Here the rich and the poor share the same outer walls, though their worlds are divided into separate cities, new and old. Coin from as far away as Blackmoor changes hands in the city’s markets, and the opulent mansions on the hill overlooking the city attest to the wealth generated by its markets. This wealth brings artisans, scholars, and laborers to Greyhawk. It also breeds a brand of thieves that has given Greyhawk a reputation for shadowed villainy that spans the continent.

Settlements and Locations of the Domain of Greyhawk:

Greyhawk Militia within the Domain of Greyhawk:

Treasures plundered from ancient tombs in the nearby Cairn Hills first brought Greyhawk to prominence hundreds of years ago. Every decade or so, someone discovers the entrance to an unexplored cairn, and the hills crawl with swordsmen and wizards consulting ancient maps and bizarre historical riddles. The presence of Castle Greyhawk, the greatest treasure laden tomb of all, ensures the interest of those who live by sword and spell, making adventurers an important part of the city’s social fabric.

Locations within the Near Domain of Greyhawk:

Governance of the city falls to fifteen members of the Directing Oligarchy, a council of coequal members who represent various interests in the city. The Directorate, as it is sometimes called, elects one of its members to sit as Lord Mayor, with the current title held by Nerof Gasgal (LN male human rogue 14), an aging politician who has strong ties to the Thieves’ Guild. Due to his influence and the presence of several of his guild fellows on the Directorate, many believe that the city is managed by thieves, an assumption not far from the truth.

Economics and Politics in Greyhawk
Directing Oligarchy of Greyhawk
The Public Council of Greyhawk
Law and Order in Greyhawk

In Old City, south of the grimy Black Wall, agents of the Thieves’ Guild are everywhere. In this long-shad-owed area of leaning tenements and filthy streets, a man’s life is worth less than his shiny brass belt buckle. The penniless laborers who keep the city running dwell in squalid conditions here amid the wanton criminals and desperate beggars. Opportunity and wealth seem distant notions, zealously guarded privileges kept for-ever out of reach.

The City of Greyhawk:

City Walls of Greyhawk
City Gates of Greyhawk
City Quarters of Greyhawk

North of Black Gate, in the so-called New City, merchants, students, riverfolk, and adventurers flock to Greyhawk’s markets, to her influential universities, to her boisterous taverns. The city’s reputation for all these and more brings it fame across the continent. Even in the distant Gran March, a common clerk knows that anything can be bought for a price in Greyhawk, that the metropolis is an excellent place to disappear or to be seen. It is all things to all people.

People of Greyhawk
Social Class and Status in Greyhawk
Fashion and Dress in Greyhawk
Religion in Greyhawk
The Guilds of Greyhawk

What it isn’t, at least for the time being, is safe. Iuz truly means to tear down the city’s monuments and put its people to the sword as retribution against Robilar, Tenser, and the others. Even now, his armies march through the Underdark on the approach to Castle Greyhawk. From there they will spill across Zagig’s Bridge to savage the heartlands of the domain of Greyhawk and capture the Free City as a new “southern capital” of the Old One’s heartless empire.

Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, Erik Mona. Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, 2007

Greyhawk

Gem of the Flanaess

Greyhawk Samaryllis Samaryllis