The original D&D campaign setting brought to life in a gritty, sword-and-sorcery style where magic is dangerous, monsters are terrifying, and survival is never guaranteed. The Free City of Greyhawk stands as a bastion of civilization amid a continent scarred by the wars of petty kingdoms, the machinations of evil archmages, and the restless hordes of humanoids pressing in from the wild frontier. Adventure here rewards cunning and steel over raw magical power.
Story Arcs
Shadows Over the Free City
The adventurers arrive in the Free City of Greyhawk seeking fortune and find a city gripped by paranoia. Merchants are being murdered in the Foreign Quarter, a thieves' guild war has spilled into the streets, and rumors swirl that an orcish warlord is massing forces in the Pomarj. The Lord Mayor hires capable swords to investigate the murders, which lead to a cult of Iuz operating within the city walls — smuggling weapons to the orc tribes and destabilizing Greyhawk from within.
Into the Wild Frontier
With the cult's operations in Greyhawk disrupted, the adventurers learn the true scope of the threat: a bandit army fortified in the ruins of a frontier keep is coordinating raids across the Wild Coast while an alliance of orc and troll warbands prepares to sweep down from the Pomarj. The party must venture into the dangerous wilderness beyond civilization — navigating the treacherous Gnarley Forest, crossing the contested plains, and forging alliances with suspicious frontier settlers and woodland folk who have little reason to trust city-dwellers.
The Tomb Beneath the Cairn Hills
The bandit lord and orc warlord both serve a greater master: a lich entombed in a forgotten crypt beneath the Cairn Hills east of Greyhawk. This undead archmage, a disciple of Vecna from a bygone age, has been patiently assembling an army and network of agents for decades. Now it prepares a ritual to shatter the magical wards that protect the Free City. The adventurers must brave the lich's trap-laden tomb, confront its undead guardians, and destroy it before the wards fall and the horde descends on Greyhawk.
Session Outlines
These outlines are for planning reference only. Actual sessions are not created by the template.
Arrival in the Free City
The party arrives in Greyhawk through the Highway Gate, immediately immersed in the sights and sounds of the largest city in the Flanaess. Introduce the Foreign Quarter with its taverns, money changers, and pickpockets. At the Green Dragon Inn, the party witnesses a merchant being assassinated by a cloaked figure who vanishes into the crowd. The City Watch captain, Dernan Varje, conscripts the party as deputized investigators since the Watch is stretched thin by the thieves' guild war. The dead merchant carried a coded letter referencing a shipment of weapons.
Thieves in the Night
Following the coded letter leads to the River Quarter and a confrontation with members of a thieves' guild splinter faction. The guild war is cover for something bigger — someone is using the chaos to move crates of weapons through the sewers beneath the city. A dungeon crawl through the old sewer tunnels beneath the River Quarter leads to a hidden shrine to Iuz the Old, decorated with skulls and reeking of blood magic. The cultists have already moved their main operation, but the party recovers documents pointing to a safehouse in the Garden Quarter.
The Cult of Iuz Unmasked
The safehouse raid reveals the cult's plan: weapons are being smuggled out of Greyhawk to arm orc tribes in the Pomarj, and a bandit captain in the frontier is coordinating the effort. The cult leader, a half-orc cleric of Iuz named Grashnak, escapes through a magical portal during the raid, but a captured cultist reveals the staging ground is a ruined keep on the Wild Coast. Captain Varje and Seline Durnham, a council member, urge the party to pursue the threat beyond the city walls before it grows beyond control.
The Gnarley Forest
The overland journey to the Wild Coast takes the party through the Gnarley Forest, an ancient woodland that resists civilization. The trails are poorly marked, the canopy blocks the sun, and the forest is home to territorial owlbears, giant spiders, and worse. A ranger named Elara Thornwood guides the party but warns that the forest has been restless — animals are fleeing eastward, and the druids speak of a corruption spreading from the south. An owlbear encounter tests the party's wilderness survival skills.
Frontier Justice
Emerging from the forest, the party reaches the frontier settlement of Safeton, a rough town that has suffered repeated bandit raids. The settlers are suspicious of outsiders and reluctant to help. The local reeve, Aldric Stonewall, has been paying protection money to the bandits and is terrified of reprisal if the party interferes. Convincing the settlers to resist requires diplomacy, demonstrations of strength, or uncovering that the reeve has been skimming the protection payments. A bandit patrol attacks the town that night, giving the party a chance to prove their worth.
Assault on the Ruined Keep
With intelligence from Safeton, the party locates the ruined keep serving as the bandit army's headquarters. The keep is partially collapsed but heavily fortified with palisades and watchtowers. The Bandit Captain, a scarred human warrior named Korath the Red, commands a force of bandits and orc mercenaries. The party can assault the keep directly, infiltrate by night, or rally the Safeton militia for a coordinated attack. Inside the keep, they find evidence that Korath serves a greater power — maps showing troop movements and a letter bearing an arcane seal from the Cairn Hills.
The Orc Warhost
Korath's defeat does not end the threat. An orc warlord named Grukash Skullsplitter has united several tribes in the Pomarj and is marching north with trolls as shock troops. The party must intercept a troll-led raiding party threatening to destroy Safeton before the main horde arrives. The troll encounter is deadly — regeneration, fire vulnerability, and the trolls' terrifying ferocity push the party to their limits. Captured orcs reveal that Grukash serves "the Whispering Lord" in the hills, who promises to make the orcs rulers of the Flanaess.
Rallying the Wild Coast
With the orc horde approaching, the party must forge an alliance among the fractious frontier communities to mount a defense. This requires visiting three settlements, each with their own demands: one wants help clearing monsters from their fields, another demands the party mediate a land dispute, and a third will only join if their missing scouts are found alive. Time pressure mounts as orc outriders are spotted. Old Seline Durnham arrives with a small contingent from Greyhawk — the council has finally taken the threat seriously — bringing weapons and supplies.
Battle of Safeton
The orc horde hits the frontier alliance in a large-scale battle. The party commands a section of the defense, making tactical decisions that affect the outcome. Grukash Skullsplitter leads the assault personally, riding a massive dire boar. The trolls attempt to breach the palisade walls while orc archers provide covering fire. The party must hold their section, deal with the trolls using fire, and ultimately confront Grukash in single combat or coordinated assault. Victory breaks the horde, but Grukash's dying words reveal "the Whispering Lord will raise me again."
The Cairn Hills
Following the trail to the Cairn Hills, the party discovers a landscape of ancient burial mounds and crumbling monuments. The hills are haunted — at night, ghostly lights flicker between the cairns, and the dead walk. A hermit scholar named Theodric has been studying the tombs for years and identifies the Whispering Lord as Kethranax, a lich who was a disciple of Vecna centuries ago. The entrance to Kethranax's tomb is hidden beneath the largest cairn, protected by warding glyphs that Theodric can help dispel.
Descent into the Tomb
The tomb is a classic dungeon crawl: trapped corridors, puzzle rooms, and undead guardians. The lich has had centuries to perfect its defenses. Rooms include a hall of animated suits of armor, a flooded crypt where drowned undead lurk, a false treasure room with a deadly curse, and a library of forbidden lore where the lich's phylactery research can be found. Grashnak the half-orc cleric reappears as an undead revenant, now serving the lich directly, providing a mid-dungeon boss fight with personal stakes.
The Whispering Lord
The final chamber is the lich's sanctum, a vast underground hall lined with the preserved corpses of centuries of victims. Kethranax the Whispering Lord sits on a throne of bones, the ritual to shatter Greyhawk's wards nearly complete. The lich is arrogant and offers the party a place in its new order. The battle is the hardest the party has faced — legendary actions, lair effects, and waves of undead minions. The party must destroy the phylactery (hidden within the throne itself) to end the lich permanently. Victory saves Greyhawk and earns the party a hero's welcome in the Free City.
NPCs
Captain Dernan Varje
Human · City Watch Captain
A weary, honest officer of the Greyhawk City Watch who has served for twenty years and seen the city's underbelly at its worst. He is methodical and fair but stretched impossibly thin by the thieves' guild war and rising crime. He deputizes the party reluctantly, trusting their swords more than their judgment, but grows to respect them if they deliver results without causing collateral damage.
Seline Durnham
Human · Council Member
A sharp-minded member of Greyhawk's ruling council who controls significant trade interests and uses her political influence to protect the city she genuinely loves. She is pragmatic to a fault — willing to fund adventurers, bend laws, and call in favors if it serves Greyhawk's security. Her network of informants rivals the thieves' guilds, and she is the party's most powerful political ally.
Elara Thornwood
Half-Elf · Ranger and Forest Guide
A taciturn ranger who patrols the Gnarley Forest and serves as an intermediary between the woodland druids and the frontier settlements. She speaks more to animals than to people and has a deep distrust of anyone who wields arcane magic, having seen what the cult of Iuz does with it. Her knowledge of the forest trails is unmatched, and she fights with a brutal efficiency born of years surviving alone in the wilds.
Korath the Red
Human · Bandit Captain
A former soldier of the Great Kingdom who deserted after witnessing atrocities and turned to banditry on the Wild Coast. His face bears a jagged scar from a sword blow that nearly killed him, and his red cloak is his trademark. He is ruthless but not stupid — he serves the lich because it promised him a kingdom, and he commands genuine loyalty from his bandits through fair division of spoils and a code that forbids harming children.
Aldric Stonewall
Dwarf · Reeve of Safeton
The elected leader of Safeton, a frontier settlement that has suffered years of bandit raids. Aldric is a former miner who won the reeve's seat by promising protection, then found himself forced to pay extortion to Korath's bandits to keep the town standing. He is deeply ashamed of the arrangement and will fight ferociously if the party gives him a real chance to resist, proving himself a capable battle leader despite his administrative role.
Theodric the Sage
Human · Scholar and Hermit
An elderly, eccentric scholar who has spent thirty years cataloguing the tombs of the Cairn Hills from his cramped cottage at the hills' edge. He is absent-minded about everyday matters but possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Oerth's ancient history, undead taxonomy, and the arcane wards that protect Greyhawk. He identified the lich Kethranax from fragmentary records years ago but could never convince anyone in the city to take the threat seriously.
Locations
The Free City of Greyhawk
The greatest city in the Flanaess, a teeming metropolis of over 50,000 souls built at the confluence of the Selintan River and major trade roads. The city is divided into distinct quarters — the wealthy Garden Quarter, the bustling Foreign Quarter, the rough River Quarter, and the administrative High Quarter — each with its own character and dangers. Massive stone walls and vigilant guards protect the city, but threats from within are harder to stop than those without.
The Gnarley Forest
An ancient, primeval forest that stretches for hundreds of miles south and west of Greyhawk. The trees are enormous, their canopy so thick that the forest floor exists in perpetual twilight. Druids and wood elves consider it sacred ground, while loggers and settlers view it as an obstacle to be conquered. Owlbears, giant spiders, and worse hunt beneath the boughs, and the deeper one ventures, the wilder and more magical the forest becomes.
Safeton
A rough frontier town on the Wild Coast, built from timber and stone by settlers who came seeking farmland and independence. The town is surrounded by a wooden palisade that has been patched and repaired so many times it resembles a quilt of different wood types. Life here is hard — the soil is rocky, the winters are harsh, and bandit raids are a constant threat. Despite everything, the settlers are fiercely proud of what they have built and will fight to keep it.
The Ruined Keep
A crumbling stone fortress on a hilltop overlooking the Wild Coast road, originally built as a border outpost by the Kingdom of Keoland centuries ago. Half the walls have collapsed, but the remaining structures have been reinforced with crude palisades and watchtowers by Korath's bandits. The keep's dungeon levels remain intact — cold, damp stone chambers that now serve as armories, prison cells, and a war room where maps of the frontier cover every wall.
The Cairn Hills
A range of low, windswept hills east of Greyhawk, dotted with hundreds of ancient burial mounds and stone cairns from civilizations long forgotten. By day, the hills are eerily quiet — no birds sing, and the grass grows thin and pale. By night, ghostly lights flicker between the cairns, and the restless dead wander paths they walked in life. Treasure hunters occasionally brave the hills, but few return, and those who do speak of whispers that follow them home.
The Tomb of Kethranax
Hidden beneath the largest cairn in the hills, this sprawling underground complex was carved by the lich Kethranax over centuries of patient, undying labor. The architecture blends ancient Suel design with Vecnan iconography — all sharp angles, hidden compartments, and eyes carved into every surface. Traps of both mechanical and magical nature guard every corridor, and the deeper chambers pulse with necrotic energy so concentrated that torches burn with a sickly green light.
Quests
Unmask the Cult of Iuz
Murders in Greyhawk's Foreign Quarter are linked to a cult of Iuz the Old operating within the city walls. The cult is smuggling weapons to orc tribes and destabilizing the city through targeted assassinations and thieves' guild manipulation. Root out the cultists, destroy their safehouse, and follow the trail to whoever is coordinating the plot from beyond the city.
Secure the Wild Coast Frontier
The frontier settlements along the Wild Coast are being strangled by bandit raids and orc incursions. The people of Safeton and neighboring communities need someone to break the bandit army's hold on the region, rally the scattered settlers into a fighting force, and deal with the troll shock troops the orc warlord has unleashed. The frontier cannot hold without outside help.
Destroy the Whispering Lord
The lich Kethranax, a disciple of Vecna entombed beneath the Cairn Hills, is the mastermind behind the orc alliance, the bandit army, and the cult of Iuz in Greyhawk. It is preparing a ritual to shatter the magical wards protecting the Free City. Descend into its trap-laden tomb, fight through its undead legions, and destroy both the lich and its phylactery before the wards fall.
Find the Missing Scouts
Three scouts from a frontier settlement went to reconnoiter the orc horde's movements and never returned. The settlement will not join the frontier alliance unless their people are found. The scouts were captured by an orc patrol and are being held in a makeshift camp, destined for sacrifice to Grukash's war god. Time is short — the orcs grow impatient with their prisoners.
Encounters
Owlbear Ambush in the Gnarley Forest
Deep in the Gnarley Forest, a mated pair of owlbears has made a nest near the trail. The male charges from the undergrowth with a blood-curdling screech while the female flanks from behind. The dense trees limit movement and visibility, and the owlbears fight with desperate ferocity, grappling and mauling anyone who comes within reach. Retreat is complicated by the thick underbrush and disorienting sameness of the forest.
The Bandit Checkpoint
Korath the Red has established a fortified checkpoint on the Wild Coast road, manned by his best fighters under the command of a seasoned bandit captain. The checkpoint controls a narrow pass between two rocky outcroppings, with archers positioned on the high ground and a barricade blocking the road. Travelers are robbed, merchants are "taxed," and anyone who resists is made an example of. The party must either fight through, negotiate passage, or find a way around through troll-infested hills.
Troll Raiders at Safeton
A raiding party of trolls, sent as advance shock troops by the orc warlord Grukash, descends on Safeton at dusk. The trolls crash through the palisade wall, regenerating from wounds as fast as the defenders can inflict them. Only fire and acid can stop their regeneration, and the panicked settlers need the party to hold the breach. The trolls fight with savage glee, hurling defenders aside and tearing through buildings, while an orc warband follows in their wake to loot and burn.
The Whispering Lord's Sanctum
The final confrontation with Kethranax the lich in its throne room deep beneath the Cairn Hills. The chamber is vast and cold, lit by guttering green flames in skull-shaped sconces. The lich commands waves of undead minions while wielding devastating arcane magic from its bone throne. Necrotic lair effects drain the living, and the phylactery hidden within the throne must be destroyed to end the threat permanently. Kethranax offers bargains and temptations between spellcasts, trying to corrupt the party rather than simply destroy them.
Factions
The Greyhawk City Council
Lawful Neutral
The ruling body of the Free City, composed of the Lord Mayor, guild masters, and wealthy merchant lords who govern through debate, compromise, and the occasional backroom deal. The council is slow to act on distant threats but fiercely protective of the city's independence and trade interests. Seline Durnham is the party's strongest voice within the council, pushing for intervention against the frontier threats.
The Cult of Iuz
Chaotic Evil
A secretive network of spies, assassins, and clerics serving Iuz the Old, the demigod of deceit and oppression who rules the empire of Iuz far to the north. In Greyhawk, the cult operates through front businesses and compromised guild members, smuggling weapons south to arm the orc tribes and sowing discord to weaken the city. Their ultimate goal is to bring Greyhawk under Iuz's dominion without a direct military confrontation.
The Frontier Alliance
Neutral Good
A fragile coalition of frontier settlements along the Wild Coast, forged by the party's efforts to unite disparate communities against the orc horde and bandit army. The alliance includes farmers, miners, retired soldiers, and woodfolk who have little in common except a shared determination to defend their homes. Without strong leadership and visible victories, the alliance will fracture as quickly as it formed.
Recommended Characters
Pre-built characters designed for this campaign setting. Create them separately from the character templates page.
Lysara Greycloak
Elf · Wizard · Level 3
A morally ambiguous wizard trained at the University of Magical Arts in Greyhawk City. Lysara pursues arcane knowledge with an intensity that makes her colleagues uneasy, walking the razor edge between scholarly ambition and dangerous obsession.
Aldric Ironforge
Human · Fighter · Level 3
A grizzled veteran of the Greyhawk Wars who now works as a sellsword along the Wild Coast. Aldric has seen too many battles to count and carries the scars to prove it, but his blade arm remains as steady as ever.
Use This Template
Create a new campaign pre-populated with all the arcs, NPCs, locations, quests, encounters, and factions from this template.