Last week, Luke Gygaxreferred to the upcoming Greyhawk book for Dungeons & Dragons as Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk: The Shield Lands. However, it turns out that that might not be the actual title.
According to Scott, who is on the writing team, the book is actually called ‘Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk: The Borderlands of Iuz‘.
I came on to clarify as I believe Luke was mistaken when he was excitedly talking about the project and the Easley artwork of Melf. My real name is Jay Scott: I was directly mentioned in the press conference with Luke and Dan Ayoub …. We have a project meeting with Luke and the entire team this evening, and the project is on point to make all date goals. I will specifically ask Luke about his comments on the title. To my knowledge, Book 1 is still titled: Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk: The Borderlands of Iuz. If a change has been made, I would be happy to let you know here.
Jay Scott also mentioned that the team was small, including Stephen Radney-Macfarland and Les “Oblivion Seeker” Reno.
Possibly more importantly, Scott also refers to the book as ‘Book 1’–hinting that a series of books is on the table. Additionally, he refers to “the old, gritty Greyhawk while being written in current 5.5 2024 ruleset”. Finally, he notes that no WotC personnel are involved with the project, although the book is ‘Official Greyhawk D&D WotC.
The title Borderlands of Iuz refers to an evil demigod in the Greyhawk setting. He lives on Oerth itself (the world of Greyhawk) ruling an empire, and is the son of Graz’zt, one of the demon lords of the Abyss, and Iggwilv, a human witch. The Shield Lands, by contrast, refer to a number of provinces, many of which are ruled by Iuz, with the exception of the ‘New Shield Lands’, which seeks to reclaim the areas lost to Iuz.
Read more at this site