The City of Greyhawk

Greyhawk Source

The City of Greyhawk
Cover of The City of Greyhawk boxed set, art by Erik Olson (1989).
Type:	Boxed set
Code/Abbreviation:	TSR1043
Edition:	AD&D second edition
Author(s):	Douglas Niles and Carl Sargent
Editor(s):	Mike Breault
Cover Artist(s):	Erik Olson
Publisher:	TSR
First Published:	1989
Pages:	Two 96-page booklets, 23 cards, three posters
ISBN:	0-88038-731-9
Class:	Officially published content
Setting date:	late 581 CY (after summer)

This article is about the boxed set. For the city itself, see Free City of Greyhawk.

The City of Greyhawk is an AD&D second edition boxed set detailing the Free City of Greyhawk. Written by Douglas Niles, Carl Sargent, and Rik Rose, the boxed set was released by TSR in 1989, and was highly praised by Dragon magazine.

Contents

The boxed set describes the major city of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting in detail. The Free City of Greyhawk, Gem of the Flanaess, is the adventuring town that gives the World of Greyhawk setting its name. The City of Greyhawk includes two 96-page perfect bound books, four poster maps, and twenty-four separate card stock pages.

The first book, Gem of the Flanaess, details the city quarters and surrounding Domain, and can be cross-referenced with the poster maps. These maps include a diagrammatic, keyed-location street map; a map of the sewers and underground passages; and a map of the surrounding region, covering the Domain of Greyhawk. The fourth poster map is a three-dimensional bird's-eye-view of the town, illustrating the various landmarks and architecture of the city, and corresponding to the street map.

The second book, Folk, Feuds, and Factions, describes a wide variety of NPCs, their fellowships and conspiracies, and their associated game mechanics, personalities, tactics, and loose narrative threads. Potential allies, patrons, informants, and enemies are available for any group of characters. External politics are intertwined in the city's internal affairs, and rival guilds compete for power and influence, while dark conspiracies are plotted beneath the streets. Folk, Feuds, and Factions also includes four adventure scenarios that develop themes and elements already presented in the city background.

The card stock pages include twenty-three short adventures, each printed on the front and back of a single card, with the twenty-fourth card summarizing the monster stats for these short adventures. Each adventure develops at least some element of plot, character, or theme presented in the city background material. Some are dungeon crawls, some wilderness expeditions, some city adventures, and some diplomatic intrigues.

List of reference card adventures

Card#	Title	Location	Levels
1	"Bath Time for the Hopping Prophet"	Free City of Greyhawk	3
2	"The Born-again Ogres of the Blinding Light"	Harrington	4
3	"Dark Denizens of the Deep Delve"	Cairn Hills	5
4	"The Dead of the Howling Hills"	Howling Hills	3
5	"A Diplomatic Incident"	Free City of Greyhawk	6
6	"A Far Cry from the Swamp"	Free City of Greyhawk	6
7	"The Final Resting Place of Dorshak Krane"	Free City of Greyhawk	2
8	"The Ghose Ship"	Sea of Gearnat	7
9	"The Griffon Hunt"	Bright Desert	7
10	"The Lich Staff"	Free City of Greyhawk	10
11	"Mayhem at the World's End"	any tavern	6
12	"Minding the Store"	Free City of Greyhawk	1
13	"The Prisoner of Zender"	Scant	9
14	"Pygmies, Sage, Myconid, and Plants"	Free City of Greyhawk	4
15	"Riders of the Storm"	Stark Mounds	5
16	"Shadows of Terror"	Crystalmists	10
17	"Siege of the Highfolk"	Vesve Forest	2
18	"To Slay a Hierarch"	Admundfort	12
19	"The Sunken Temple"	any hills	7
20	"The Swamp Hag"	Hepmonaland	7
21	"Verbeeg of the Gnarley Forest"	Gnarley Forest	6
22	"Vote for the Goat"	Free City of Greyhawk	3
23	"Wine Harvest"	Cairn Hills	1

Publication history

The City of Greyhawk was designed by Doug Niles, Carl Sargent, and Rik Rose. It was published by TSR in 1989 as a boxed set which included two 96-page paperback books, four full-color 22” × 34” maps, and 24 one-page adventures on card stock.

Reception

Lisa Stevens reviewed The City of Greyhawk for White Wolf #20, rating it 4 out of 5 overall, and stated that "Overall, this product is the most exciting supplement to come out of the TSR stables since the original Player's Handbook took that first giant leap into role-playing. The quality of the writing and production gives the buyer more than his money's worth. The prose is interesting to read and stimulates the creative juices that so many other products leave stagnant."

Ken Rolston reviewed The City of Greyhawk for Dragon magazine #156 (April 1990). He reviewed multiple city supplements in the same review, but said that this was "the most pleasing and playable" of them, and "it has that comfortable, played-in feeling that warms the heart of the experienced AD&D game DM". The maps "combine the virtues of easy reference, graphic detail, sense of place, and pleasing appearance better than any other city supplement I've seen". The four scenarios included in one of the booklets are "simple, complete, appropriate, and admirable examples of city FRPG adventuring", but the "real treasures" are the 23 short adventures printed on the card stock.<r He described the short adventures as "priceless, many touched with humor and irony, with interesting plot twists; they challenge role-playing and problem-solving. All are eminently practical and playable, and presented with rare charm and simplicity. Noting the inclusion of the Circle of Eight as an example, Rolston commented: "One of the best things about The City of Greyhawk is that it ably exploits all the venerable virtues of the AD&D game. This is the campaign pack that TSR should have produced a decade ago, back when AD&D games were young and fresh. Now it is perhaps a certain nostalgia I indulge in my enjoyment of The City of Greyhawk; this is a package out of the golden age of the AD&D game". Rolston concluded that "The City of Greyhawk is a very good urban FRPG pack, but more than that, it's really a complete campaign setting for the AD&D game, the best I’ve seen—coherent, playable, well-developed, and entertaining."

Gallery

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See also

• The World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting (1980)
• World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1983)
• Greyhawk Adventures (1988)
• Wars (1991)
• From the Ashes (1992)
• Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins (1998)
• Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (2000)

External links

Disclaimer:Any lore presented through the following links does not necessarily adhere to established officially published content, and the views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the editors of this wiki.

• Review in Games International.
• The City of Greyhawk at the TSR Archive.
• The City of Greyhawk at Wikipedia.
• The City of Greyhawk at the Dungeon Master's Guild.

References

Bibliography

• Niles, Douglas, Rik Rose, and Carl Sargent. The City of Greyhawk. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1989. TSR1043
• Rolston, Ken. "Role-playing Reviews." Dragon #156. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: TSR, 1990.
• Shick, Lawrence. Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991.

This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).

Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index

The Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index (EGI) is based on previous work of Jason Zavoda through '08, continued by numerous other fans. The EGI article has a list of sources, product names, abbreviations, and a link to the full, downloadable index.

Topic	Type	Description	Product	Page/Card/Image
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	CGR1 The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook	10
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Dragon magazine #037	11
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Dragon magazine #195	95
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Dragon magazine #208	50
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Dragon magazine #230	8
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Dragon magazine #262	43
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Dungeon magazine #042	32, 33, 34
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	From the Ashes: Atlas of the Flanaess	2, 45, 50
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	From the Ashes: Campaign Book	2, 3, 11, 13, 20, 21, 25, 26, 45, 46
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Ivid the Undying	71
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Living Greyhawk Journal #0	4
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Living Greyhawk Journal #2	4, 19
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	Return of the Eight	6-8, 11, 57, 58
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	The Adventure Begins: Adventure Maps	2, 3
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	LT3 The Doomgrinder	29
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	War Captain's Companion Boxed Set: Book 1	35, 94
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	White Dwarf #014	24
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WG12 Vale of the Mage	33
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WGA1 Falcon's Revenge	2, 9, 15, 23
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WGA2 Falconmaster	8, 11, 19
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WGA3 Flames of the Falcon	2, 5, 27
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WGA4 Vecna Lives!	3, 14, 15, 16, 20, 25, 27
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WGR4 The Marklands	38
City of Greyhawk box set	Publication	Supplement,	WGR5 Iuz the Evil	31, 43