Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, Chapter 5

This chapter is, thankfully, much shorter than the previous one. This covers the physical geography of the Flanaess, describing the physical features that make up the land. There are lots of forests, mountain ranges, some deserts, plenty of rivers, and even some swamps here and there. This will be a pretty quick overview, so let's get to it.

I was going to do single-sentence overviews of each forest, but I didn't realize there were four pages of them. That's a lot. 33 of them, in fact. So we're not doing that. The most important forests and jungles in the Flanaess would include the Vesve between Furyondy and Iuz, the Burneal in the north that forms the southern border of Blackmoor, and the Adri, which used to be a lot bigger but has been subject to logging for a long, long time in the Great Kingdom. And of course, there is the Amedio Jungle which houses one of the all-time classic modules, C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

Greyhawk's mountains are legendary, from the Barrier Peaks to the Crystalmists to the Hellfurnaces. So many untouchable adventures including the Giants series and S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which introduced us to Spaceships and Dragons.

The hills of the Flanaess include the Abbor-Alz, which ring the Bright Desert, the Drachensgrab Hills in the Pomarj that once housed the vile Slavers (A1-4 Scourge of the Slavelords), and the Kron Hills, home to many gnomes as well as a certain temple dedicated to elemental evil. 

The seas and lakes of the Flanaess start with the Nyr Dyv, which is one of the most important trade routes on the continent; it's the equivalent of the Great Lakes on its own. In the far north is the Icy Sea, which spends far more time Icy than Sea. To the east of the Flanaess is the Solnor Ocean, and to the south is the Azure Sea along with Relmor Bay and the Sea of Gearnat, which are almost private lakes of the Scarlet Brotherhood at this point.

There are more wetlands in the Flanaess than I realized; from the Cold Marshes in the north to the Vast Swamp (a possible home of the legendary Tomb of Horrors), there are about a dozen different marshes and swamps that are homes to many nasty critters that discourage visitors.

Finally, there are the wastelands. These are the deserts; most of them are to the west, over the Crystalmists and the Yatils, where the Baklunish, Oeridians and Suel came from before the Twin Cataclysms. So, there's the Sea of Dust and the Dry Steppes, but there is also the Land of Black Ice to the north of Blackmoor, and the Bright Desert in which roams Rary the Traitor.

So, the geography of this land is quite varied; it's perfect for adventuring, because you're never far from a new terrain with its own challenges and dangers. Next up is the Power Groups of the Flanaess. This should be interesting.