Greyhawk Maps by Rob Lazzaretti

The Flanaess, as depicted by Lazzaretti, in the 2005.

Maps! Maps!! Maps!!!

In a series of recent Twitter posts, renown cartographer Rob Lazzaretti has been talking about some of the work he’s done in the past … and sharing some images based in the World of Greyhawk™ he’s done. 
Thus far, he’s shown us:

• Various maps of Hardby
• A preliminary colour rough of his World of Greyhawk map, known colloquially as the “Paizo Map”.
• A black-and-white sketch of the “Paizo Map” centered around Ekbir to Ull.
• Land of the Black Ice and Tonnsborg

Some of the maps he’s been sharing, including the above map of Hardby, were mostly done about 15 years ago around 2004, for articles like Hardby: City of the Scorned in Dungeon magazine #109, adventures in the same magazine, and Dragon magazine articles

Cartography is a very on-demand art. Maps are rarely done just because they’re pretty. They’re commissioned mainly only when they’re needed. For many of Rob’s illustrations for adventures in Dungeon magazine or other adventure books, the map was needed to locate the site or were for locations in the adventure itself. Because the sites hadn’t ever given a location specifically on a map and had often never been mapped, at all. Some very, very iconic locations had never been illustrated before Rob’s work, and now ended up being established in lore because of his maps.

There are so many maps Rob has done for the World of Greyhawk, it seems nearly innumerable.
But, just some of the many notable locations Rob has done in Greyhawk include:

 

• Oerth, in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer and in Dungeon magazine
• Hardby
• Alhaster
• Exag
• Istivin Hinterlands/Sterich
• Midnight’s Muddle in the Free City of Greyhawk
• Diamond Lake
• Ehlonna’s Scar
• Isle of Dread
• parts of Castle Maure
• Worm Crawl Fissure
• Land of the Black Ice (Blackmoor), and Tonnsborg
• Whispering Cairn
• Fireland

  And so many more it’s difficult to detail them all!

Seriously, they’re really all too numerous to list.

Rob has had an amazing career. Starting out as an intern fore Games Workshop, TSR eventually saw his work and invited him to come work for them doing cartography. He ended up doing maps for things like Planescape, helping to solidify the look of it.
Rob later became the Art Director for Cartography for WotC. He was instrumental in establishing the look of D&D throughout the 90s during 3rd Edition.
Though he has many other projects now and doesn’t do much Greyhawk these days, his is a very recognizable style and even fans who aren’t familiar with his name know his artwork – especially if they started playing in the 90s.
Because, in the 90s, Lazzareti illustrated in Dungeon magazine quite a lot.

And because Greyhawk was the “default” setting in 3e, a significant number of Dungeon magazine adventures ended up being set there, ergo: maps! Many of the “default” adventures didn’t include content that was so closely tied to Greyhawk that it would preclude them from being easily set anywhere else. So, they were given an “Any Setting” label. But, Greyhawk was the “default”. And so, even though they weren’t “explicitly” set in Greyhawk and were “generic” adventures, many still used many of the names from Greyhawk. So, there’s lots of maps of villages, towns, canyons, mountains, castles, etc. which are sort of minimally set in Greyhawk without containing or furthering lore. But, they’re still set there. For example, in Dungeon magazine e#111, Strike on the Rabid Dawn. It refers to the “Lake of Unknown Depths” and “the Horned Society” and the town of “Hardby”, but, the “Leaning Lighthouse” isn’t previously mentioned as a feature of Hardby.
However, the adventure does refer to a harbormaster having someone in the jail, and in officially published sources, the lighthouse of Hardby serves as a jail for the watch.
So, Lazzaretti’s map of the “Leaning Lighthouse” from the adventure just adds more interesting stuff to the setting by having a visual depiction of the place that is indirectly in Greyhawk.

Perhaps most significantly, we’d not have the “Paizo Map” of the World of Greyhawk™ that has established so much lore. There were many, many places that are now part of an officially published source because of that map. Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens, of Paizo, inc., started out as enormous Greyhawk fans, and years later when their company got the “official” license from WotC to publish Dragon and Dungeon magazines, they didn’t hesitate to put a plethora of Greyhawk into them. And that map is arguably one of the greatest resources of that era, and perhaps in all of Greyhawk’s history. Based on the original Darlene maps, it was literally “game” changing. (Bah-dum-tssssss!)

[Update—09 December 2019]

Again on Twitter, Rob has been sharing more maps [though it seems this tweet may no longer be publicly available]—new Greyhawk maps amongst them! This time, it’s a map “from a private commission from a few years ago”.
… and it’s no less a mysterious and wondrous place than FIRELAND !!
It’s in the same style as his previous Paizo Map, with the colors, symbols, legend, and even title and coast of arms being the same.
A small compass rose is in the lower righthand corner which bears an unknown icon in its center. It appears to be a dragons head, neck and wing.

There’s not a lot known about Fireland. There’s rumors and myth, of course, but, there’s been very few details in officially published sources. Even previous maps of the region have been notably less-than-detailed.
It should be noted, however, that this version isn’t exactly congruent with the officially published outlines or coastlines of Fireland. We haven’t heard any details yet about the project, such as what project it was for (if Rob can even disclose that outside an NDA), or when exactly it was done. He does note in the Tweet that it’s an “Un-tagged version”, so that tends to make us presume there’s a “tagged” version. There’s likely reason Rob can’t release the names of settlements, nations, geographical features etc.
It does generally fit by description … a larger island, with a smaller island to the northwest, an even smaller island due east, numerous inlets or bays along the coastline in approximately the right areas, the main island being roughly circular, etc. ….
No matter how one looks at it, however, it’s clear that Rob’s artwork continues to add value and interest to the World of Greyhawk.

Mr. Lazzaretti, we thank you for your work, and for giving us, the Greyhawk Fans, so much to look at over the years. You’ve established our world in a way few other artists have gone to.
You’ve made our imaginations become a visual reality.

Thank you all for reading and come back soon for more Greyhawk!

’til the Starbreak!