Yeah. I am not making this up, part of Wizard's 2011 release schedule, announced at Gencon is an accessory called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium: "...a book of magic items designed to inject more story and descriptions into magic items. Not just a bland history, but a real story hinted at by the item’s description." Now I'm not going to spit bile and harp on 4th edition this time but new Greyhawk material to mock is hard to come by. In fact I am actually fine with the 2011 schedule overall (Ravenloft raises my eyebrow) however, what we have here with the "Magnificent Emporium" is more of the same mining of Greyhawk specific names that has gone on since 3rd edition. But Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium? Come on! For the love of Pelor, Wizards of the Coast! The title implies Mordenkainen-the greatest mage of Oerth-runs a magic item shop?! Blasphemy! Ahem. Moving on... There is a good thread currently running on a couple forums about Greyhawk's relevance. In my opinion, unfortunately, Greyhawk's relevance for the short term is only to be mined for nostalgia's sake as a means to bridge older gamers with new ones. And that's fine. The good news is that the nostalgia trend has been running rampant in D&D's upcoming product schedule so a new, fully relevant World of Greyhawk book is all but inevitable as the creative minds at Wizards continue to whittle away at their list of ideas. No sweat. As for the present, no old school Greyhawk fan is going to look at this Emporium book and think it's about Greyhawk. Sure, Mordenkainen will probably be featured prominently as he narrates histories of magic items both familiar and new, but these newly spun tales will take a bit of work fitting into previous GH canon like all other Greyhawk relevant material that has come out since the end of 3rd edition. No big deal there. But new D&D players will see this book and think it IS about Greyhawk or worse, will think that Mordenkainen is specific to some other D&D setting while never knowing his origin. That is the challenge Greyhawk fans face I believe; keeping Greyhawk relevant and true by not giving up on the world to this edition or even the next. -mortellan f.y.i. My excerpt from the Codex of Mordenkainen was a parody of an obscure excerpt by Mordenkainen about the lower-planar Blood War from 2nd edition's Monstrous Compendium: Outer Planes Appendix. My thanks also go to the fine folks behind GH Wiki for collecting all the cool illustrations of Mordenkainen that are out there. You saved me loads of time!

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