The release of The World of Greyhawk in 1980 was an event that I didn’t mark. At that point, it was still a year before I would get my first introduction to Dungeons and Dragons. Eventually I was introduced to the World of Greyhawk through the first real AD&D campaign I played in the mid- to late-eighties, and that was using the later World of Greyhawk (2nd Edition) 1983 boxed setting. It was only in the past decade that I became aware of this original 1980 release of the setting.

Now, thanks to the wonders of e-bay, it is mine! The folio’s cover is battered, but the maps are in surprisingly good shape and the 32-page booklet within is looking as well as can be expected for a 30-year old papery thing.

Looked at from this vantage point in the game’s history, it’s amazing how brief the descriptions of the countries are. The 1983 release, whilst not changing that much for the countries’ descriptions (albeit it did up the population counts a bit), added in a wealth of other material, including names of the rulers, actually listing the gods of the world, plus specific encounter tables and the like. There is no doubt that the 1983 boxed set is the superior treatment.

The most striking elements of the original release are the two poster-sized maps by Darlene Pekul. The maps, printed on glossy thick-stock paper, have held up well through the years. There is no doubt that the maps are designed for gaming use: there is little bleed over from one hex’s contents into another. At the scale of one hex=10 leagues (30 miles), there is a lot of terrain covered in the maps – and yet they still are a fraction of the size that would be covered later by the Forgotten Realms. I have always been very partial to these maps, although there are some odd artefacts, such as coastal or river cites not always being depicted on the actual coast or riverside!

The other notable element of the folio is the description of the History of the World of Greyhawk: interestingly, there is no creation mythology given at all (something lacking in every version of the World of Greyhawk), but instead we get an approximately four-page description of the past thousand years of the world. It is a history that begins with the destruction of the Baklunish and Suloise Empires at the end of a war between them in the Twin Cataclysms (The Rain of Colourless Fire and the Invoked Devastation), continues through the migrations into the eastern portion of the continent of the remnants of the empires plus the Oeridian people to a land mainly inhabited by the Flan (all of those peoples being human cultures), the rise of the Oeridian Empire (the Great Kingdom of the Aerdy), and its decline into fiend-worshipping insanity. Matters such as the Temple of Elemental Evil and the rise of Iuz the Old are also discussed, and it is from this history that we get the best description of the land of Greyhawk.

The rest of the book, as mentioned, is scant in information. At times, it notes where a notable early D&D adventure module is placed within the world: the Giant series, the Descent into the Depths, the Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain and the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks all warrant mentions here. Occasional notes proclaim upcoming releases – some of which never really materialised in the form they might have expected. The Village of Hommlet and the Temple of Elemental Evil are two such, but perhaps the most disappointing “future release that never really happened” is that of the City of Greyhawk: the description of the city itself refers people to that work, but it would be nine years later in 1989, at the beginning of the 2nd edition era that The City of Greyhawk boxed set would be released, and that with none of Gary Gygax’s input. The result doesn’t bear all that much resemblance to the city described herein and in Gary’s “Gord the Rogue” novels.

The book closes with a number of runes – several pages of them, in fact – that can be employed to annotate treasure maps and handouts, with such meanings as “Danger”, “Death”, “Treasure” and “Dragon”. These did not receive such an extensive spread in the 1983 set, and – indeed – they feel very much like padding in this set. It is astonishing to see how much space is devoted to the runes, given how little space was given to individual country descriptions.

Given that, how are the descriptions? There is little here that goes deeply into each country. However, I do take away with me the sense that this is a world where each country isn’t its own microcosm: there are links between the countries, occasional notes of past wars or occupations, and suchlike. There is basic inspiration here for the Dungeon Master, but most details are up to them to create.

To the modern eye, the 1980 release of The World of Greyhawk is somewhat of an amateurish effort – with the exception of the maps. This was still early in the history of D&D, and the revised set in 1983 would be a far more complete effort. I’ve spent many years playing in the World of Greyhawk, using four different editions of the D&D game. The basis for my campaigns can be found as far back as this release, although it does not provide the ingenuity and creativity a DM needs to make a memorable D&D campaign, it does provide a starting point. For that, the 1980 World of Greyhawk Foliowas an important release.