Old Greyhawk City

 City of Greyhawk

Immediately after the initial adventure, I realized I had overlooked detailing the place where equipment was purchased, lodgings kept, and so forth. To manage for the time, I "fudged" a city, making notes and a line map as I went along. From this came a single sheet of graph paper with a walled city. The crooked streets were mostly unnamed. Blocks of buildings were mostly filled in inn the dull gray of pencil marking. Only the major points were indicated. These were done in various shades of colored pencil. Red was an arms dealer, green an inn, blue a tavern, brown a merchant, yellow a money changer, and so on. [15] [The colors contradicts the one in the later post, but I think it is immaterial, the point is he color coded it].

Bold adventurers needed a place to go to sell off loot, seek the services of mages or clerics, as well as for a change of pace. In short, the players wanted a large community setting where they could manage special needs of their characters, and a place for those same swashbucklers to encounter the darker denizens of a city, experience other challenges quite different from those of underground dungeons. Where else, it seemed, than a city of the same name as the castle. So the City of Greyhawk sprung up as a single piece of graph paper around the same time that level four of the castle dungeon complex was being developed. [6] 

"In the Tavern" is licensed under CC-BY 4.0. 

No version of the city that I designed has ever been published. [6#1960] 

the castle and dungeons came about a month before the first, one-page map of the City of Greyhawk. #6171

City Map

The original map of Greyhawk city was one sheet of graph paper with colored boxes indicating various places where PC would go--inns & taverns, armorers, money changers & banks, gemners & jewelers, city buildings, guilds, etc. That was expanded to two, then four map sheets, with the thieves' quarter and Rob's Green Dragon Inn shown. I was working on a very large version some 20 years back, but I abandoned it as far too detailed. [6#1960] 

Red for a tavern or inn, gold for a money changer or gemner, gray for a weapon and arms dealer, green for a merchant, blue for a temple, purple for the place of a potent wizard, etc. Other areas around the city were developed on the spot as the need arose. As a matter of fact, all of the adventures in the City of Greyhawk were “winged”, created from whole cloth on the spot. The many players now active loved this. Even though the castle dungeon levels were deeper, the challenges greater, the rewards richer, proportionally more time was spent in “city adventuring.” [6] 

Only very gross details of the place were developed, save for the specific ones that the PCs frequented. Thus there were about a dozen inns and taverns that had developed floor plans, inhabitants, and so forth. There were a score or so other locations that were likewise detailed – several temples, a wizard’s tower, the “Sages’ Guild”, the “Mercenaries Brotherhood”, a few arms & armor dealers, merchant shops, and of course moneychangers and jewelers. The wizard was never very helpful, and that was a role that was most enjoyable for the DM to assume. Eventually an irate monk (played by Terry Kuntz) [other reports have it an unnamed monk played by Dave Arneson] dared to paint that curmudgeony spell-worker’s tower with red and white barber-pole strips. Of course the wizard took this in stride and styled himself the “Striped Mage of Greyhawk” thereafter.  [6] 

The city material I included in the Gord novels was either from my notes, memory, or created to fill in gaps. The latter material was meant to be true to my vision of the City of Greyhawk, its infrastructure, places, and persons. [6 1996] 

Sadly, no, as a detailed one was never done. I winged it from first a one-page map, then a general four-page version. The vast detailed map that was to be around 4' by 6' when completed was never finished, parts of it languishing somewhere in the basement storage areas here. #6279

In my campaign the city was over 100,000, a metropolis. #4895

Evolution of the City

Such places, and a handful of guilds, temples, other public buildings, frequented streets and byways, and notable places were eventually named, as discovered by exploring PCs and hastily given such identity by the DM. With more players continually joining the campaign, the map was overwhelmed with scribblings and notations. 

I quadrupled the map. The City of Greyhawk now filled four sheets of graph paper, one for each city quadrant, with slums and the thieves quarter, merchants quarter and high, and a citadel area very clearly shown. Various temples and wizards' dwellings also became major features at this time. Nonetheless, much of the map remained dark blocks of unnamed buildings on like arteries. Crooked alleys, lanes, and angling streets were mostly nameless, save by their identity as 'the way to the Green Dragon Inn' or 'the close that encircles the wizard's tower.'

This form was reasonably satisfactory for me as constant DM, as with notation and notes, I could keep from major gaffes in handling the bands of PCs seeking adventures in the city. [15]

A sketch map of the community, a few places of interested highlighted in color, and then wing it. As the PCs develop something interesting by interacting with what I present that becomes a fixture in the town. This might be a particular street thief, a tavern, a stable with a shifty owner, whatever... #8751

Yeh. It was the seminal campaign 1973 onward in that the S&C area occurred; there was no real solidified WoG until the folio release in 1980; Gary and I used the Outdoor Survival Map for recreating outdoors for the world and added the old map from the C&C Society (1971) to fix locations (but not distances), The Great Kingdom & Environs.... Long history story.

You are correct about the Lankhmar-like tie in to the City of GH. A free and rough city of various adventure seekers, malcontents, power mongers, thieves and assassins, et al, many drawn to it because of the myths and legends of extraordinary magic and treasure contained within the Castle. The Sewers were in fact connected to an ancient temple (off map) that I had drawn and populated, to the castle by extra tunneling by the unknown "intruders", and was a contraband route for the Thieves Guild, and a hide-out for others (assassins. brigands) before many somethings intruded there and upset the apple cart so to speak. Many more personages and groups became embroiled thereafter, including Robilar, who guided City-backed groups to ascertain what had happened, etc. etc.

The only thing static about it are the many ossified corpses one can find. There's also a notorious river pirate tie-in (you can note his ship I drew on the map (SE section) I posted), et al. RJK

The map of the undercity/sewers and the temple are both part of El Raja Key Archive, but lack keys unfortunately.

Downtime activities

As for creating items, that was basically what retired PCs of magical persuasion were allowed to do in my campaign. I left that to other DMs to decide for themselves, but the clear message is that such things should be discovered by adventures and quests, not created in the magical lab. Never could much in the way of magical gear be found for purchase either--maybe +1 arrows or a few healing potions if I were in a most generous mood.

Population

Metal armor is unusual wear for walking about in town unless one is a knightly type or a soldier. Most ordinary citizens will have a dagger, the better class wear a sword, while commin folks have a staff or walking stick (club). [35]

The Striped mage of Greyhawk

I never did learn the name of the wizard in the black tower on the west end of Greyhawk city. All I knew for sure was then a stone to flesh spell was needed that wizard could make it happen. The same went for removing curses or identifying certain high level artifacts. Unfortunately, for others and me he always charged in multiplies of magic items. If we wanted the work done, we had to cough up really good items. Imagine the dilemma we faced. There was our favorite cleric flunky turned to stone. There were a lot of things that turned characters to stone in Gary's dungeon. If we wanted the character restored we had to give up tings like rings of regeneration, wands of lightning bolts, and amulets of healing. Often, we had to give up multiples of those items to pay for several spells at the same time. I didn't figure out until years later, that the wizard was the perfect campaign balancing act. Gary would expose us to deadly dangers that we weren't high enough level to fix ourselves. We paid a dear price in magic items that got those items out of the campaign. [30.1]

This exactly matches Gary's advise in the DMG how to drain surplus magical items from the party.

Taxes

Taxation is part and parcel of feudalism and manoralism. The taxes were usually paid in goods and labor service for the lower class. In most FRPG world settings there is plenty of hard money, though, so one should assume that many of the peasants are free and pay rent, I mention that vassals generally own their temporal lords both service and a portion-- a tithe or some such -- of their income, as the spiritual lord is owned the same. [35]

Road ownership is more of a thorny problem, as the suzerain will likely demand such as his purview, commerce being reliant of roadways and water routes. commerce along with agriculture porduces most of the wealth in states of the sort being considered. To the point, though, I have not actually written about toll roads and bridges. [35]

[References: see Greyhawk References]