I am working on a dungeon adventure set for my players in the City of Greyhawk this summer.

As we all know, the adventure can take any direction or completely derail, but at least for now, I am creating drawings, maps, and write-ups for three locations.

The locations include the Black Lilly Inn, at the extreme South end of the wharf, in an aged and run-down area called Downbank, and the old Hill House ruin, located in the northeast corner of my map on the opposite side of the river from the city.

The Black Lilly is a location tied to one of two rival Guilds of Assassins I created for my campaign.  The guild involved with the inn is simply called The Brotherhood, which is a Lawfully aligned organization that receives contracts from a variety of powerful sources and offers these to a stable of approved independent freelancers.  The Brotherhood is a quasi-religious organization with centuries of rules that govern how freelancers are approved and how their professional behavior must be conducted both toward the public and toward one another.  The Brotherhood is inspired by fictional portrayals of groups like the Knights Templar.  Members of this guild are Lawful or Neutral in alignment because of the strict rules and traditions they must follow.

The rival guild to The Brotherhood is a highly secretive, radical religious cult called The Cult of Screams Cut Short.  The Cult worships an evil power whose details and name are kept a closely guarded secret.  The Cult is based on the strangler cult from the Black Company book series.  Screams Cut Short members can be of any alignment so long as they are evil and their membership in the cult is accepted by the dark power that guides them.

The Hill House is an isolated ruin that has stood abandoned for more than a century.  It is known to be a dangerous location, perhaps even haunted.  It has a certain reputation.  Only a handful of adventurers have ever managed to return from the place.  Those who did return came back wealthy individuals, although at least half of those who survived were so emotionally scarred that they left adventuring for good.

The third location I hope to include in this adventure is reached through the tunnels found below the City of Greyhawk.  I have some ideas about a reclusive order of clerics called The Grey Men, who choose to dwell in the tunnels and sewers below a city as part of their order's religious vows.  The Grey Men use some of their clerical magic to clean the water running into the city sanitation system as it moves through standing tanks and large sections filled with regularly refilled filters made from charcoal before it is allowed to exit the drains and return to the river.  The Grey Men will heal a wound or cure a disease for the poor and outcasts of the city who are brought to them in need.  The Grey Men do much to keep plagues of disease out of the city overhead.  They don't usually charge for their aid but sometimes will require that a later service of some sort be performed at their request.  Both the Beggar's Guild, the Thieves Guild, and the Merchant's Guild donate regular amounts of gold and supplies to the Grey Men for their valuable work and keep them handy as allies.

 My homebrew COG map.  Very, very loosely inspired by the Gord novels by Gary Gygax.  I tried to include some locations from the books on the map where they are meant to be, and I included others but moved around for my own purposes.  I also added a whole bunch of my own ideas.  So this is a fan-based, homebrew, personal COG map and not an attempt at creating something canon.  

 City of Greyhawk

The Thieves Way

The Guild uses this path of travel to move people and items in and out of the city.  The path begins at Lantern Point in the Shacks, where a ferry moves between the Shacks and Far Side.  The Thieves Way takes an almost straight path of travel through the slums and ends at Redbuckle Alley.  

Redbuckle Alley is a dead end that meets the exterior walls of the old Wannos Estate. Long ago, the estate was constructed directly into the city's outside curtain wall. This was meant to be a cost-saving measure: The Wizard would pay for the upkeep of the wall in this section and provide guards and magic to protect it.  

Since the Wizard's death, the Estate has fallen into disrepair and neglect.  A rope ladder, hidden by an invisibility spell, allows guild members an easy way to climb up and over the exterior wall.  At least for now, the back wall of the empty Estate is not under guard.  This will certainly change in the event that the city anticipates an immediate threat of attack.  

The metal grate covering a large drain in the central courtyard of the Wannos Estate provides direct access to the tunnels and sewers that crisscross the Great Square, which the Estate borders. Once inside the tunnels, guild members can travel underground to the familiar vaults beneath the Thieves Quarter in the Old City. 

 These are my personal ideas for my Greyhawk campaign.  Nothing in this blog or article is canon.

The Brotherhood and The Black Lilly

The Black Lilly is a large Inn located at the Southern end of the wharf in the River District, not far outside of the Cripple Gate.

The building, towers, and walls were once the barracks and headquarters of the Greyhawk city watch for soldiers and staff assigned to the River District. The location served this purpose for over a hundred years until the passage of time made the grounds increasingly expensive to maintain. Twenty years ago, the old barracks were closed, and the watch was moved to a new barracks constructed inside the city walls about two blocks East of the River Gate.

A foreign wizard eventually purchased the property, signed agreements, and greased enough palms to remodel and rebuild it into a luxurious Inn. This Baklunish warlock was an important member of a secretive organization called the Brotherhood.  

The Brotherhood is one of two large guilds of assassins within the Kingdoms of Oerth.  The other guild, being its rival, is named "The Cult of Screams Cut Short" or, more simply, "The Cult".  These two powerful guilds are opposites both in philosophy and methodology.  

The Brotherhood is a guild organized and governed by laws.  The Brotherhood can be hired to slay an enemy, but it can also be hired to protect someone, especially against attempts to poison or assassinate them.  Additionally, the Brotherhood will accept an annual payment of one thousand gold pieces to ensure they do not accept contracts to slay an individual.  Part of this fee goes to their rivals in the Cult, who also agree to refuse contracts against the person, for the most part.  Should the Cult accept such a contract against a protected person, they will notify the Brotherhood of this at least seven days in advance, allowing the Brotherhood to warn their customer and offer additional security.

If the Brotherhood is approached about a contract to slay a current client, they will refuse the contract and notify the client.  

If a third party assassinates an important client of the Brotherhood, the killer will become a target of the guild.  They will be hunted down, along with their close associates and immediate family members.

Because the Brotherhood is a guild ruled by traditions and laws, only characters of a Lawful, evil, or neutral alignment are accepted as members.

The Cult of Screams Cut Short is a religious organization. It has its own traditions and code, but these are more guidelines than strictly enforced laws. Any character of neutral or evil alignment may join the cult, provided the evil supernatural power they serve accepts them.

 Fourteen years ago, the Magic User, Orlis Jan, purchased the decrepit ruin of the old River District city watch headquarters.  Located at the Southern end of the City of Greyhawk's wharf, the old watch barracks and headquarters had stood empty and ignored for two decades.  

The mayoral counsel had constructed a new barracks inside the River District proper, just two blocks within the city walls through the River Gate.  From their new barracks and headquarters, the members of the River District's city watch had easy access both within the city walls and outside the River Gate in the bustling streets of the docks.  With the single exception of the High District city watch, the River District protected some of the city's most lucrative shops, trade, and warehouses.  In turn, this provided the commanders of the River District city watch with a certain amount of influence and control over these vital assets and, through this control, became wealthy.

Meanwhile, the Warlock, Orlis Jan, paid a pretty sum of gold orbs to rebuild and refurbish the old barracks into a fine Inn and Tavern of a grand size.  The protective walls surrounding the old barracks he had shored up and the old bastion tower repaired so that it could be converted into a comfortable home for his personal use.

Of course, the furrowed brow of the Baklunish Warlock contained plans within plans.  His Inn, the Black Lilly, would become an important location for adventurers, drawn inevitably to the City of Greyhawk in search of adventure and treasure.  This business would keep the Inn and tavern bustling and turning a modest profit in coin but, more importantly, provide a smoke screen for the location's real purpose as an important meeting point and resource for the Black Brotherhood, the Assassin's Guild.

 I am working on a map of the City of Greyhawk.  After watching many more vlogs and reading more books and articles, I realized that the enthusiasm of the Greyhawk fandom is inspiring and intimidating.  I want my city map to be used at the game table and framed up on my wall.  I want to pour all my imagination into it, as that is the point of enjoying these games.  On the other hand, I worry about annoying the very passionate and knowledgeable Greyhawk fans with my own random fantasy imaginings and bits of art or maps.

So, what I think I will do is focus on smaller bits and pieces of my ideas for the City of Greyhawk and the surrounding region.  This will give me some additional time to think deeper about what it is that I want in each smaller area for my game and hopefully translate all of that into some future, final version of the city map I feel inspired to create.

I have a fully drawn first draft map of the city, and I've decided to go ahead and color it since I plan to use it more as a player hand-out than as a final piece of art.  I will share pictures and, eventually, some scans of that map here as time allows.

Tonight, I was working on a zoomed-in neighborhood map for a part of the City of Greyhawk that I've dubbed Downbank.  Downbank is located outside the city wall, on the South end of the wharf on the East side of the Selintan River.  In my version of the city, it is sometimes called the Old Docks district, as it was once a section of some of the earliest docks and buildings of the port, but what is left of the docks in this area are neglected, half rotten, barely used, and ignored.  

Further to the South still, past Downbank, is a section of wall running from the SW corner of the city all the way to the South gate for almost a mile, where the ground is mostly dank and swampy.  The natural flow of water in and around the City of Greyhawk runs from the North to the South, and so the city water system and sewers drain into this piece of land before rejoining the river.

The very Southern tip of this section of muddy, overgrown, insect-infested land outside of the Southern city wall climbs up abruptly into a rocky point.  The graveled shore and solid purchase around the rocks have made it a useful landing spot well away from the activity and guards of the wharf proper.  Over the years, the outcrop has been dubbed Smuggler's Point.

Indeed, ten years ago, a good-sized river barge skirting the shoreline down the Grey Run ran afoul of some of these rocks and was so badly damaged and run aground that it was abandoned.  For three years, the ruined barge sat neglected until an enterprising old gnome named Fiddlebart Bendbuckle greased sufficient palms in the city proper to allow him to construct a permanent and secure tavern, one with its own small private dock right up out of the remains of the shipwreck.  For the last seven years, The Broken Barge Inn has operated a successful private business just a hundred and fifty yards to the East of the stone outcrop of Smuggler's Point.

So I suppose I have two smaller detail maps on the kitchen table.  One for the Old Docks or Downbank area and one for the muddy section of neglected land immediately South of the city wall out to Smuggler's Point to include The Broken Barge Inn.

Return to the World of Greyhawk

 I've been following the Greyhawk blogs of several friends and the youtube channel of a cool guy that goes by the handle of the Greyhawk Grognard.  I have my own homebrew D&D campaign, of course, but more and more I've been drawn back to my late 1970's and early 1980's roots with the World of Greyhawk.

To this end I've picked up some PDFs of some of the box sets and I am reading through those as time permits.  The price of an actual copy of these things can be rather steep.  I would love to have a physical copy of all of the published Greyhawk material but sadly, I don't have thousands of dollars just sitting around waiting to be spent on cool D&D material.  Still, 9 bucks for a PDF download in good quality isn't a bad deal at all.  Our printer has been out of action for some time now and getting into Greyhawk will inspire me to get a replacement, so I can print physical copies of certain maps or materials I'd rather have in a 3 ring binder than only in digital form.