Wizards of the Flanaess (5E)

With the announcement of the latest setting books that are coming from Wizards of the Coast, I find myself at a point where I doubt the World of Greyhawk is going to come out anytime soon for 5th Edition D&D.

While their slow publishing strategy is definitely working in terms of keeping down the setting creep that so afflicted the later 2E era, and the rules creep that do so to 3.x, Wizards of the Coast does seem more interested in new, “sexier” campaign settings that are more likely to appeal to people who watch Stranger Things, stream D&D games on YouTube like Critical Role, and who listen to what “social media influencers” have to say.

That is, they’re not likely to commit a lot of effort on something that’s likely to appeal to a relatively small (if active and vocal) group of gamers who are dedicated to a setting that literally came out 40 years ago, and whose aficionados are more often than not vocal advocates for older versions of D&D or games that aren’t even published by WotC in the first place. There have been exceptions, of course, and there probably will be in the future. But they’re not the core.

And I completely understand that rationale. As a company, they’re in this to make money, and they’re going to make a lot more money publishing Wildemount than they are Greyhawk. I don’t blame them one bit for the shift, and I would probably do the same in their position.

That said, I’m not in their position, and having reconciled myself to the fact that I am no longer WotC’s target audience, I’m also not going to sit around any more waiting for WotC to publish more Greyhawk content or open up the World of Greyhawk setting on DMs Guild (although I’d be more than happy if they did).

So, since I have developed a ton of 5th edition content for Greyhawk over the years, you can expect a slew of new stuff along those lines very soon. Indeed, here’s the first one already!

Wizards of the Flanaess is a 35 page booklet that expands the options for 5th Edition wizard characters in the World of Greyhawk. Eight new Arcane Traditions are presented; the schools of Bigby, Drawmij, Mordenkainen, Nystul, Otiluke, Otto, Rary, and Tenser, along with more than 100 spells adapted from earlier editions to the latest 5th edition.

You can download the file here.

You’ll notice a tip jar off to the right now, and there’s a link to the same in the file. If you enjoy this book, I would ask you to drop me a few dollars to help me keep producing free material. Or you could join my Patreon and make your support a regular thing. Either is very, very much appreciated.

Written by 

Wargamer and RPG'er since the 1970's, author of Adventures Dark and Deep, Castle of the Mad Archmage, and other things, and proprietor of the Greyhawk Grognard blog.

8 thoughts on “Wizards of the Flanaess (5E)

  1. Well said! Times flies. We waited through 4e and I’m not sure it’s worth waiting out 5e either. I’m glad you’re getting this content out finally one way or another.

  2. Well, they certainly beat the Sword Coast to Death, I don’t see why they couldn’t do the same for Greyhawk. I know the things that you outlined here in your post, but I will continue to shout at them from the sidelines to give Greyhawk the 5e treatment. I don’t care if they ignore me either. I’ll continue to hammer them. I’m a Critical Role fan too, but I’m not going to support the Wildemount campaign setting with my hard earned money. I’ll let the Mathew Mercer fanboys support them.

  3. If I may ask, what do Critical Role and Stranger Things have to do with social justice influencers? I’ve gotten up to ca. episode 41 of the first Critical Role campaign (and I still have a lot of streaming to do) and while I noticed a couple of things like a gay relationship, I didn’t really see anything that was really “social justicey’. I’ve seen several cool shout-outs to classic D&D, ranging from references to Greyhawk gods to making Vecna a major villain to the Lovecraftian elements of the underground illithid city the party visits in the first story arc.

    And I don’t know anything about Stranger Things.

    Can you explain a bit more what you mean by this? Otherwise, it kind of sounds like you’re making some arbitrary connections between things that aren’t really related.

      1. In the words of the great Homer Simpson…

        D’OH!

        Sorry about that. I think I need to schedule an eye appointment.

  4. Great stuff! And thank you for releasing this. It’s ironic that I became a member of your Patreon from the beginning with the secret hope that you would do just that, ie. release 5E Greyhawk content, but after over a year of waiting I lost hope and dropped it just last month. I guess I’ll have to rejoin the Patreon or use the tip jar!

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