As longtime Greyhawk fans, we were thrilled when Wizards of the Coast announced they were opening up the setting for third party creators to develop content for Dungeon Masters Guild. Not only could we create our own content, but we would also be able to buy new material from fellow fans of Oerth.
Judging by the new map coming out with the Dungeon Master’s Guide next month, they’re rewinding the clock to 576 CY, which actually makes sense. The world took a seriously dark turn during the Wars, and if they’re hoping to attract a broader fanbase, they might have felt a need to scale back the grimdark. I’m a huge Carl Sargent fan and read all of his supplements many times, so it’s not off-putting to me, but I can see how some would find Ivid the Undying, in particular, to be a little off-putting.
Our adventures and sourcebooks will be set in 576 CY and the years after that. Canon is super important to us, so we’ll be sticking as close to it as humanly possible, with any deviations clearly marked as such. Canon for 576 is a bit tricky because so much has been published for 582 and later, and decoupling Wars-skewed historical facts from the timeline takes some work.
The first project is a 64-page adventure in an iconic setting, with two related adventures to round out the set. Getting the plot right and playtesting the encounters takes a while. I’m a game developer, so I have tools for simulating encounters and making sure they’re balanced, but balance, while important, isn’t the be-all, end-all. My big questions are around whether it makes sense and if players will find it memorable. Is it fun?
Getting the presentation and artwork right is also important. We may mock up concept art with AI to get an idea for what we want, but the final pieces in the book are not created with AI. We draw maps with Dungeondraft, Wonderdraft, Dungeon Alchemist, and GIMP. The setting images are from renders built in Unity and Unreal Engine. We get the scene and the lighting set up the way we want, then grab snapshots and videos from a variety of angles. The character art takes the most time of all. Our current pipeline involves a combination of Daz3D, Blender, Unreal, and GIMP.
We’re looking forward to getting these adventures out into the world and seeing what happens.