It was a long time ago. In the late 80s, I managed to meet up with three other like-minded individuals – that is, people interested in this strange game called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and we began a campaign. The DM had already played a similar campaign with a friend, and he wanted to introduce us to the idea. And so, the four of us created characters – Scarlett the Paladin, Brunak the Barbarian, Bardal the Rogue, and Meliander the Mage – and embarked on a massive endeavour: to play through Temple of Elemental Evil, Against the Slave Lords, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, and finally finish with the Bloodstone Pass series.

We didn’t get there. But the initial stages of this campaign instilled in me a deep, abiding love for the World of Greyhawk, something that has continued to the present day.

My character was Meliander. My brother played Brunak, and despite the name, did not actually have the barbarian class. He was a standard fighter. Our DM was happy to break the various strictures of AD&D, and so his own character was an elf paladin. Heresy!

In fact, there were a lot of house rules that I barely glanced at. Then, as now, I had a fascination with the way the official rules worked, but little interest in creating a set of house rules to change the game. (I’ve introduced a rule or two in the past few years, but not that many compared to many, many other DMs).

It’s funny how memory works. I can still remember many details of our first session, so long ago. Meliander entered the city of Mitrik, capital of the state of Veluna, and made his way towards the Blue Hornet Inn, a renowned gathering place for adventurers. On the way there, I met a young man – Brunak – being robbed by an elf thief. With the thief holding Brunak’s money pouch, both of us set off in pursuit. And I believed that the thief would be the third member of our group – Bardal, who was an elf thief.

But no! It was just a deceptive NPC the DM had created. And – despite my excellent knowledge of the rules – I still committed a rookie mistake, casting the sleep spell on Brunak and the thief as they struggled. In AD&D, elves were 90% immune to the sleep spell. First level human fighters? They didn’t even get a save. And thus, having assured the escape of the thief, I shamefacedly made my way over to Brunak and woke him.

Those were my first experiences in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting.

There were nice touches in this game. The Blue Hornet Inn had a message board with a lot of adventuring opportunities listed. I can’t remember most, but I do remember the chance to join an expedition to investigate a great ball of fire that had appeared over the Barrier Peaks. We didn’t choose that one.

The details on meeting Bardal and Scarlett are a lot hazier. I know we did all meet up, and soon had accepted our first job: to retrieve the Bell of Celestian from a nearby shrine that had been taken over by a chaotic priest. The adventure our DM was using was a short scenario from Castle Caldwell and Beyond, though I think he was using the one from the In Search of Adventure compilation module. I discovered a wand of paralysation there that I used to great effect. Well, I like to think I used it to great effect! (I believe the DM pulled out the well-worn trope of DM fiat to prevent it working on the evil priestess, Elwyn).

From there we headed off to Hommlet. Why Hommlet? Well, we needed to go there to start the Temple of Elemental Evil! But my unreliable memory tells me that Scarlett had discovered a clue to the whereabouts of Prince Thrommel – and it lay in the Temple of Elemental Evil, nearby.

The tale of Prince Thrommel is one of the cornerstones of Greyhawk. Two of the great nations of the world are Veluna and Furyondy, and they had banded together to fight many evils – especially that posed by Iuz the Old, the evil demigod that ruled the land to the north. And a greater alliance was forming, where the Prince of Furyondy was engaged to the daughter of the Plar of Veluna. But, on the eve of their wedding, the Prince disappeared. No-one knew who had taken him. That is, until Scarlett, with access to odd sources of knowledge, put the pieces together.

Odd sources? Whatever the DM thought appropriate to get us on the right path. Remember it was the intention of this campaign to get us all the way up to the Bloodstone Pass series, and to make that series fit Greyhawk, Veluna and Furyondy would end up merging to become Damara. The evil kingdom of Vaasa? Well, the land of Iuz would probably take that role!

All of this is the basis of my own Greyhawk campaigns, which have been continuous since 2000 (and were run before that as well). Not everything of this initial campaign made it into the canon of my own games, but some things did. Meliander. Brunak. Meliander’s homeland, the County of Ulek, would feature more. And the idea of the Temple of Elemental Evil and Thrommel’s fate would be picked up again. This is where it began… but not where it would end!