Book One of Gord the Rogue: Saga of Old City

World of Greyhawk
Two moons, a pale one “Luna” and a small blue one “Celene.”
Languages in the City included Common, modern Oeridian and Suel.
A typical “Old Oeridian town” has construction and architecture influenced by gnomes and dwarves.

City of Greyhawk
Run by a Lord Mayor and the Directors of the city. One is the Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild,
another the Guildmaster of the Merchants Guild.
Winters are damp and chill, but rarely that bitter.
The people are a mixture of Oeridians and Suloise.
Old City is divided from New City by a wall.
Passing through a wall gate costs one iron drab per pair of legs.
Currency: Iron drabs are nearly worthless. Copper commons. Brass bits. Bronze zees. Silver nobles.
Electrum luckies. Gold orbs (1,000 bronze zees in value). Rectangular platinum plates (1,100 bronze
zees, or an orb and a lucky combined).
Merchants have a secret Cant. Beggars have a Cant too.
Gord disguised himself as a “bound-boy.”
Bloodpox is a plague, victims with sores who wobble and twitch.
Character with golden-brown hair. Another with gray eyes.
Hose, pantaloons, doublet and short cape. Hose are typically worn rather than trousers.
Mail-clad Officer of the Watch.
Bailiff (judge) with Man-at-arms.
Workhouse: Large dangerous rats plus centipedes. A gnome.

Districts of Old City:

Slum Quarter: Actually part of the Beggars Quarter. Gang is The Headsmen. Large dangerous rats.
Menial laborers live in the better area.
Foreign Quarter: Petit Bazaar run by peddlers (near the Black Gate). Farmers and serfs from nearby,
dark swarthy Rhennee bargefolk, half-orcs, halflings, mercenaries and merchants and teamsters.
Beggars Quarter: Actually part of the Thieves Quarter. Beggars Union under Theobald the
Beggarmaster, “King of Rag-pickers,” in a large dilapidated building filled with ruined finery. Allies
are street gangs, quacks, gypsies, tinkers, peddlers, jongleurs and actors. Beggars wear a wooden
“hand” symbol around their necks. Have an understanding with the Thieves Guild, pointing out likely
targets and other information for a cut.
Thieves Quarter: Thieves Guild, Grand Master Arentol, pays a share of its thefts to city officials.
Robbery and gambling, prostitution, swindles, extortion, loan-sharking, fencing, smuggling, forgery
and counterfeiting.

Districts of New City:

Processional is a major street that runs north-south. South is the Grand Square and Citadel. North is the
Garden Quarter.
Garden Quarter: better-off merchants and artisans. Blue Boar St known for ships, drinking, eating,
gentlefolk and rakes. The Wizard’s Hat, a respected tavern and eatery.
River Quarter: Processional runs through. The Strip is an area running from Dockside to Low Street
known to be roisterous with rivermen, bargers, riffraff, ruffians, soldiers and sailors looking for fun and
entertainment. Bawdy houses, taverns, gambling dens, saloons. Main base of operations for the Thieves
Guild (although their headquarters is in Old City). Gate to Old City is Waghalter Gate. Near Grand
Square and Citadel, as well as Halls and Clerkburg.
High Quarter: well-lit and patrolled, no link boys or personal guards necessary. The Patricians Club is a
luxurious gaming house.
Craftsmens Quarter: There is an Artisans League.
Low Quarter:
The Strip:
Clerkburg: district of bureaucrats and the bookish. Upper end is near The Halls. The lower end is given
over to the colleges of Greyhawk’s university and minor schools. Mazes of interconnecting buildings,
small walled parks. Hundreds and hundreds of students.
The Halls: the government sector and location of many religious edifices.

Rhennee Bargefolk
Dark, swarthy, olive skin, smallish. Brightly garbed in satins and gaudy accessories.
They winter in secret coves.
The elder females are a cross between seer, witch and clerical matriarch.
The young women deferred to the men, the men deferred to the old women.
They have their own patois akin to Thieves or Beggars Cant.
A Rhennee “Lord” is a bargemaster or captain. He has a deck cabin of his own above decks in the rear.
A barge is six paces wide and almost four times as long. Shallow draft less than a fathom unless heavily
loaded. A pair of side keels may be lowered to stabilize in deeper waters. High freeboard and planked
rails for protection. Roundish bottom. His “family” dwells below deck.
Most have a single mast, but a barge this big has a second mast. There are also sweeps.
Typically this size carries 24, half of whom are adults.
Armed with scorpions, huge crossbows that shoot “lances” nearly two furlongs set into sockets fore and
aft. Normal crossbows may be mounted on swivels located on the scantlings (planked side rails). The
missiles for both are in side lockers. Oil pots or jugs secured in netting on either side to be used in
emergencies. The oil would be dumped in the water then set alight with a torch, though it risked the
barge.

Attloi Gypsy “Rhennee”

Don’t get along with the bargemen, who deny any relationship exists. Share the same patois.
Move in caravans of covered gypsy wains.
A bit wilder and rougher. Swords and crossbows.
Horse breeders, as well as thieves, traders, tinkers, remedies, fortunes and entertainers. Some (not all)
are tumblers and acrobats. Prudent in their thievery.
A caravan may include a hundred or so horses.

Duchy of Urnst
The people are a mixture of Oeridians and Suloise.
They wear long trousers and plaids or checks.
Architecture: tall narrow buildings with pointy arches and square towers. Columns and pillars
everywhere, steeply peaked roofs and tower caps.
Dwarves of Urnst
Apparently have a Swedish accent!
Dungeon Adventure
A Place of Great Power, near Maure Castle in the Duchy of Urnst. In the Abbor-Alz, or rather the
mountains that separate it from the Cairn Hills. The mountains are too steep for mounts on the east side
(the west is slightly easier). However on the east side at just about the elevation where you’d have to
leave your horses behind, there is a tor shaped like an ogre when viewed from the north. It marks a dry
stream bed that floods when it rains. It switches back and forth as it climbs higher, and the floodwaters
rise suddenly and very high up the canyon walls, churning down fast enough to bash and drown a hill
giant. Yet when dry, horses can be walked carefully along it. After climbing up it for about a full day’s
travel you reach the summit of this narrow mountain range. There is a defile marked by a notch in the
crest. There is a hidden valley, a circular place that is unnatural. The air is thin. Steep walls ring a level
plateau, hemmed by monoliths. Seven circles of different sorts of stones. The size of the stones grows
larger as the rings progress inward, from no bigger than a milestone to taller than a giant. There is a
cairn at the center. It is rumored to contain a relic.
Sleeping in the area brings restlessness and nightmares, the result of the malign presence inside. It may
cause suicidal or murderous insanity, the victims’ eyes glowing red.
The cairn is sealed but the opening mechanism can be found. One slab is on a pivot pin. The inside
surface of the slab has graven arcane sigils bearing traces of pigment. These keep a captive demon
penned inside as a guardian of the relic. The demon is of a type known as a Cataboligne.
Past the entrance slab is a low-ceilinged antechamber six paces in width, five in depth. Tons of stone
lay above it, many old and cracked. There is a narrow opening on the right side of the rear wall; beyond
is a small landing and narrow, worn spiral stairs carved from the solid stone of the mountain, spiraling
down and to the right.
There is a powerful corporeal undead creature here, something like a zombie but quicker and stronger.
It was an evil cleric armed with a mace and wearing plate mail (base AC 3). It cannot make a sound,
but its eyes glow with hate. Edged weapons do half-damage so it must be mostly skeletal.
Ninety steps below there is a round natural cave with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and
stalagmites worn down into mounds by something dragging across them again and again. There is a
pile of old torches against one wall. Directly opposite the stair is an arched opening carved into the
wall. There are two more, one on either side of the first. The broad tunnels beyond (six paces wide,
room for three abreast) are a combination of natural and worked stone, with chiseled floors. There is
the smell of putrid decay and foulness which gets worse the further in you venture.
The three tunnels are straight for about sixty feet, then each splits into two curving branches that bend
back. Each of those splits again, and then again, first straight and then splitting into curves. Then they
split again, and then again. They run in three asymmetrical circles, one within the other.
The demon’s lair is a large beautiful oval cavern. It is strewn with bones, skulls and unidentifiable litter.
Cataboligne description from the web:
DEMON
Cataboligne
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: -3
MOVE: 9"
HIT DICE: 9
% IN LAIR: 20%
TREASURE TYPE: G
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1 – 6/1 – 6/ 2 - 8
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +3 or better weapon to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 60%
INTELLIGENCE: Very
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
SIZE: L (8'+ tall)
PSIONIC ABILITY: 150
LEVEL/XP VALUE: VII/ 2900 + 12/HP
Cataboligne demons are quite nasty, and often summoned to be used as guardians. They may, at will
and once per melee round, use the following abilities: animate dead (as 9th level magic-user), cause
fear (as wand), cause paralysis (as wand), change self, darkness (10' radius), detect invisible, dispel
magic, levitate (as a 9th level magic-user), magic missile (four missiles), telekinese (4000 g.p.), and
teleport (no error). Catabolignes regenerate as do trolls until they are totally slain. (THERE SHOULD
ALSO BE THE ABILITY TO CREATE TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT ILLUSIONS. AND SOME
SORT OF VOCAL MESMERIZATION POWER.)
This demon has a wrinkled visage with wide, fanged mouth, yellow eyes with horizontally-slitted
pupils, and horns. Its body is gray-blue and covered by plated scales, and twin rows of triangular
spines run down its back. Its hands and feet are wickedly-clawed and its somewhat short tail ends in a
spike. (IT ALSO GIVES OFF A BLUE RADIANCE.)
There is another smaller cavern in the maze that contains a deep cold pool of water. It can be reached
through two openings, but where the third would be is an illusion disguising a passage blocked with
piled blocks or slabs. Beyond is a short hewn passage, then a natural tunnel leading to a cave beyond a
worked archway.
The cave is thirty feet wide but over forty in length, at least; and strewn with broken stones. There are
many side openings, leading to a tangled network of natural tunnels which have seen some use. The
cave contains twelve pale adders over six feet in length. Their mother is a 60’ long giant adder.
Midway along the cavern is an ancient chest with a poison needle trap. Inside is a golden coffer. It is
covered with glyphs, runes and sigils, and radiates magic. It is not locked, although some effort is
required to pry it open. Inside is a tarnished coffer of silver, also not locked. Inside that are a great
number of gemstones, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires; representing the celestial bodies in
the sky. Yellow uncut corundum is the sun, an emerald orb is Oerth, an opal for Luna, and a smaller
star-sapphire for the blue disk of Celene. Round diamonds are stars, little black opals for various
moons. A large jacinth for the planet Rao, largest of the spheres in the system. Collectively worth a
small fortune. But finally inside there is a strange object, the relic. It is a spherical mesh of twisted wire
made of unknown metal that shines with a bluish-silvery sheen. Held within is an oddly formed and
convoluted thing that absorbs light. It should not be looked at too closely or for too long.
Exploring the side tunnels is time-consuming, but one will eventually find a way out onto a grassy
slope in a small valley on the western side of the mountains. The giant adder would come this way to
hunt. It takes several days on foot to descend into the foothills.

Theocracy of the Pale

Capital is Wintershiven. Natives referred to as Palish.
Handsome, Oeridian and Flan blend with a bit of blond Suel.
They honor Pholtus and tend towards propriety and soberness. Intelligent, industrious and tough.
No thieves guilds. Stealing punishable by death, along with some other pastimes.

Duchy of Tenh
Referred to as Tenha.

County of Knurl
Clothing includes stockings, short breeches and a doublet worn over a blouse. May include a soft cap
and cloak.

Independent Gnomes of the Flinty Hills

Live in scattered burrows and have a king of their own. They have giant badgers.

Innspa
A place of bubbling springs, hot, cold, colored and scented. Some within edifices, used for bathing,
drinking and treatments.
Great number of hostels, taverns and inns, as well as more than fifty religious buildings of all sizes.

Kingdom of Nyrond
Capitol Rel Mord. A Good realm.
The “Highbridge” spans the Duntide River just below Rel Mord. It is a marvel.
The people are Nyrondel.
Formerly part of the Great Kingdom.

The Great Kingdom of Aerdy

Capitol Rauxes. An Evil realm.
Called Aerdian.
Ruled by Overking Ivid upon the Malachite Throne. He desires tyrannical power.
Knights of the Malachite Throne.

Book Two of Gord the Rogue: Artifact of Evil