As you read this, Oerth Journal #33 is out, and along with it, my Fifth Edition Greyhawk Adventure, “Housecleaning.” If you plan to play it, please stop reading.

SPOILERS BELOW.

If you plan to run the adventure, here are some notes. The idea behind Housecleaning was that often there is a Boss Bad Guy at the end of an adventure that the players don’t have any connection to because they only encounter them when it’s time to roll for initiative. He’s really just a pile of Hit Points at that point. I thought of this adventure as a way for the PCs to gradually learn the backstory of the victim (Faedra) and the evil Mahone throughout the adventure so when they finally met them both, they were motivated to fight because the adventure dribbles out the story while the PCs plow through Moonglade Spire.

The main Greyhawk element I wanted to get across was the concept of the Great Kingdom once ruling over most of the continent. So all the heraldry and the talking Pearl of Power (who works great if played like C-3PO) and the abundance of mundane magic items were all meant to sell the idea of this past golden age. I hate reading texts to PCs for lore purposes so I tried to think of as many ways to make it come alive as I could. The Harry Potter-esque Magic Paintings, the talking ancient Pearl full of concern, the books on the shelves, all of it is there to avoid ever having to tell the players “Hundreds of years ago the Great Kingdom of Aerdy…” I can already hear the snores of your players.

I also wanted to flesh out the pantheon a little. In my first adventure, the PCs learn about St. Cuthbert and Iuz, so I got Beory and Tritheron in here. Brod and his family praying to Beory and the fiery Trithereon worshippers in the militia should give PCs a good look at what each god is about and should expand their understanding of the pantheon to four gods now.

Amon, Sister Gwenna, Brod, the little boy, these are all good opportunities to role play fun, broad characters, and the CG aligned militia is a good challenge to players who want to bash everything they see.

One criticism is that the adventure is on rails, and this is true. I felt that controlling the reveal of information to make the revelation that Faedra is a alive and Mahone is the elf in her dreams hit at the right moment was worth removing the option to tackle the rooms of the tower in whatever order the PCs choose, but there is still a lot of room for unconventional solutions once they arrive in the Feywild. My PCs used the Tankard of Sobriety to win a drinking contest with the Satyrs until they were all passed out. PCs will also have a lot of improvising to do with the Militia encounter. Not to mention, the Boggles are a real wild card. Overall, I think the situations are open ended enough that it makes up for the on-rails nature of the room progression.

The next adventure in the campaign is a journey across Furyondy to Pantarn for the Wizard’s Bazaar. I wanted to show my PCs more of their home country, and introduce the government of Furyondy, what daily life is like outside of the fishing village, travelling on the roads of Oerth, and more of the forces of Iuz. See you here soon with notes on that one, and then I’ll put up the adventure. There is a dungeon crawl after that, and then this part of the campaign concludes at fourth level in a big urban manhunt in the City of Greyhawk to stop a demon attack on the quarterly Grand Council.