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An Index of the D&D Works of Lenard “Leomund’s Tiny Hut” Lakofka

2025-10-16T19:04:23-04:00November 1st, 2020|

While Lenard Lakofa is perhaps best known to D&D players for his character "Leomund" and his associated "Leomund's Tiny Hut" column in Dragon Magazine (as well as the third-level MU spell of the same name from AD&D), his roots in fantasy gaming run much deeper:Lenard attended the inaugural GenCon in 1968, and was contributing to the Spartan and the untitled IFW newsletters in the same year. See IFW zines at The Tome of Treasures forums by for "lakofka" as keyword: https://www.tomeoftreasures.com/forum/search.phpLenard's fantasy miniatures rules were developed and playtested in his Diplomacy zine, Les Liaisons Dangereuses through mid-1975, as well as at GenCon VIII in 1975 and continuing through until at least 1980Like most TSR and/or TSR-associated tourneys at early GenCons, the titles of the events were very generic like "D&D For Prizes" or "D&D for Novices" or "D&D Adventure" up through about 1979, when event titles began to differentiate:1980 featured "Consort of the Queen" and "The Crypt of Yenoughu" ("A single session game with plenty of hard-and-heavy action for pre-rolled 5th-11th level characters."), "The Town of Grellton" ("An AD&D adventure with pre-diced characters, second through fifth level.) among others1981 featured "Devil’s Spire" ("A party of 8th to 11th level adventurers weather encounters with a Pit Fiend, a Mage and myriads of monsters in an attempt to send Dispater back to the plan of Dis. An AD&D adventure."), "The Embassy to the Pale" ("Adventurers of 3rd to 5th level are recruited by the Baron Ratik, who seeks to attack the Bone March. The Baron must first obtain the help of the Theocracy of the Pale, and you and your comrades will carry his message to the ... read more!

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Virtual TsunamiCon 2020 – A Resounding Success!

2025-10-16T19:04:27-04:00October 19th, 2020|

My thanks to the indefatigable Erik Carl and his cohort of admins, helpdeskers, and technical wizards for putting on TsunamiCon 2020 Virtual Con this weekend!As usual, I have a wonderful time each year at TsunamiCon, and 2020 was no exception! I played Dread for the first time under the auspices of Matt Harrop’s madcap (and sometimes just mad!) Empire-Records-meets-the-King-in-Yellow scenario for Dread, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” with Angela K. A. Robertson and Vanessa Keeler, all three of whom had me laughing uncontrollably throughout our session together! While laughter isn’t always terribly common in a Cthulhu game, it just proves the old axiom that it’s the best medicine/remedy, since we did in fact manage to save the world, in spite of ourselves ;)I also played in Jb Wilson’s excellently-run Delta Green scenario, “Operation: Dust Bowl”—the first time I’ve played under the “new” DG RPG rules, and possibly the first time I’ve played it in general since the late ‘90s when Pagan Publishing still ruled the CoC roost! I had a good time playing alongside Brian Wiles for the first time (on the same side of the screen, that is—we met at TsunamiCon last year, in fact!), and with our fellow Cell-W agents portrayed by El Cid, Becky Hooton, and Andrew Shepard. Becky’s “Agent Wade” didn’t make it out, but the world lives to fight another day through his greatest sacrifice, which is all DG ever asks for ;)I also ran two playtest sessions of my Iounic Vaults AD&D 1e scenario, and one session of the late, great Tom Moldvay’s unpublished module CH-1 The Morandir Company. I’ll blog about those, as ... read more!

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Virtual GreyhawkCon – Day 1

2025-10-16T19:04:34-04:00October 3rd, 2020|

I had a wonderful time at Virtual Greyhawk Con today!: Friday afternoon I ran the first of four playtest sessions for the Iounic Vaults (two at vGHC, two at the upcoming TsunamiCon 2020 Virtual Con), and had a very fun time with a crew of eight players. They managed to almost recover The Ring of Gaxx, but didn't quite pull it out in the closing minutes of the session. Settling for the One Ring isn't a bad alternative, right? After a quick pizza dinner, Carlos Lising of casl Entertainment ran his new Greyhawk scenario "Reflections from a Smoking Mirror" for five of us---a diplomatic rescue suicide mission from the beleaguered Free Onnwal to the Tuov in Hepmonaland, both mutual victims of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Carlos' games are always fun, and he wove together the mythologies of Greyhawk and the Central American Aztecs into a seamless whole. It's not often I get to nearly not-die while fighting the god of death, which is a great way to conclude a Friday night of gaming :D Allan.

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grodog’s Castle Greyhawk – Campaign Journal 25 September 2020

2025-10-16T19:04:37-04:00September 28th, 2020|

We had an excellent Castle Greyhawk session last night, with some really fun roleplaying among the PCs and goblins in particular, which setup the rest of the session's action very nicely! After exploring into some waterway areas in Castle Greyhawk's level 1 dungeon, The PCs headed back to investigate a door under the entry stairs, discovering what may be a one-way door (the hard way). Afterward, they explored a bit off of a Y intersection, and then met some local goblins in the other Y, and got in good with them through some judicious role-playing (and a charismatic half-orc and MU able to speak goblin). It helped a lot that the PCs mentioned that they were a) a part of the Horned Society, and b) that they had recently routed a bunch of kobolds (back in March at the start of the game), which the goblins had been following up on. The goblin captain (Captain Nieder, pronounced like Needa ;) ) asked them to bring him the head of the Kobold King (who is now likely be be anagrammed from Yuri Gagarin, since "Bring me the head of Yuri Gagarin" is the title of an old Hawkwind bootleg from the Space Ritual era), which they agreed to do, at which point Captain Nieder will take them to meet the Goblin King ("down below"). Now allied with Captain Nieder and his goblins (of the Moon Flayers tribe), he still wouldn't allow them into their "Echo Base" goblin territory, but did agree to take them through blindfolded to the eiger toll keepers (eiger = ogre in Greyhawk alternate races parlance), which would then allow them back south ... read more!

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grodog’s October 2020 Convention Greyhawk Events

2025-10-16T19:04:44-04:00September 19th, 2020|

I'm running events at both Virtual GreyhawkCon and Virtual TsunamiCon in October this year!I've already written about my Virtual GreyhawkCon events, which will feature two playtest sessions for The Iounic Vaults---the concluding portion of my Iounic Caverns level from my version of Castle Greyhawk, as well as one session in Rob Kuntz's classic Bottle City level from Castle Greyhawk: My TsunamiCon 2020 Virtual Con events are submitted!At TsunamiCon (16-18 October 2020) I'll also run two AD&D 1e playtest sessions in The Iounic Vaults (the conclusion to my unpublished Iounic Caverns adventure in Castle Greyhawk), as well as one session of Tom Molday's classic, (mostly) unpublished Morandir Trilogy of adventures (#2 Seren Ironhand was published in 1986). - Iounic Vaults on Friday 6pm, Sunday 1pm- Moldvay Morandir on Saturday 1pmI also registered to play in my friend Matt Harrop's End of the World game (which uses Jenga for its success mechanics), as well as Justin Wilson's Delta Green game =) Allan.

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SYFY Article on Castle Greyhawk

2025-10-16T19:04:47-04:00September 17th, 2020|

Fans of Castle Greyhawk will find Matt Bassil's latest article, "Castle Greyhawk, the lost dungeon that kicked off Dungeons & Dragons, still inspires players today" of interest: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/dungeons-dragons-castle-greyhawk-lost-dungeon I was interviewed for the piece, along with Rob Kuntz, Bill "stratochamp" Meinhardt, and Patrick Wetmore of Anomalous Subsurface Environment fame! Allan.

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For the Love of Greyhawk – Reprise

2025-10-16T19:04:56-04:00August 25th, 2020|

World of Greyhawk Gazetteer, 1980Over on ENWorld, the user Snarf Zagyg started an interesting conversation in response to some discussion about Greyhawk that arose as fans learned about the release of the new 5e book, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.Snarf Zagyg entitled the thread "For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk" and it offers some good food for thought for Greyhawk fans, and for D&D players in general. This reproduces my reply in that thread:==A very interesting conversation, thanks for starting it up, @Snarf Zagyg !While I am a long-time Greyhawk fan, I too would be interested to see what interesting and new material could be published for Greyhawk. Unless and until WotC releases older editions for publishing via DM's Guild, that means new official Greyhawk material will be written for 5e and 6e, ad not for 1e/OSRIC or the other clones. So, if WotC publishes a Greyhawk book that I like, I'll pick it up. Adapting new material Greyhawk is a natural process that every Greyhawk DM has to do who's not playing with the current rules set; it's not a big deal, and it works forward as well as backward (all of those 1e adventures are also easy to bring forward into 5e too). I do the exact same thing with material from FR, Necromancer Games, Call of Cthulhu, and whatever else feels right to use in my Greyhawk campaigns.One of the core strengths of Greyhawk (in addition to its resilient and enthusiastic fanbase, who provide support for the setting through many ways, including the Oerth Journal---a freely downloadable professional quality zine---to name just one example among multitudes*) is ... read more!

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grodog’s Greyhawk Campaigns Updates

2022-12-26T15:57:33-05:00August 11th, 2020|

Life in the real world has been full of strife, chaos, madness, and the bat plague of late (to quote Gabor Lux!), so our escapism has been into the World of Greyhawk. Castle Greyhawk - The Boys over 4th of July WeekendFathers Day AD&D gaming coupons redeemed from the boys meant a return to the dreaded halls of grodog's Castle Greyhawk! =)Unfortunately for the dungeon's inhabitants, the PCs plowed through most of them, then retreated back to the City of Greyhawk for healing.The boys discovered a new entrance to lower levels via a trapdoor, but upon banging around on nearby barred doors, the PCs stir up more orcs, who sounded the alarm gongs, and began pursuit!Spooked, the PCs bugged out via a secret door (seemingly unknown to the orcs), only to encounter a pair of shriekers in the main entry/exit hall, who in turn attracted a swarm of 20 kobolds. That engagement delayed their departure sufficiently long for the orcs to catch up, which is where we left things off for lunch.... The dragon mini (one of my favorite sculpts!) is a stand-in since I don’t have a black dragon that currently has attached wings, but you can never go wrong with Tom Meier’s work 🙂The boys met this same dragon IRL several years ago, and fled from it quickly (they were particularly awed by it yelling at them, and the ranks of lizard men in front of it and charging in the PCs' direction!). This time they were prospecting the dungeon level with a wand of metal and mineral detection looking for more loot, when they happened upon it by chance 😉 Henry's Underground Mansion ... read more!

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Virtual Greyhawk Con: 2-4 October 2020

2022-12-26T15:57:33-05:00July 26th, 2020|

In case folks haven't heard about this virtual convention for Greyhawk fans yet, here's some info/details: I hope everyone is staying safe during these times! It is good to see things starting to open up once again! To continue with the online gaming momentum, I am organizing a brand new convention: Virtual Greyhawk Con 2020! This is a "Fan Content", not for profit convention, that will take place the first weekend of October, 2nd-4th. I have commitments from NINE of my Twitch Community Live Streamers, over two continents, to provide World of Greyhawk content for those wishing to experience some of the best ever made Campaign Setting for D&D. Also we will have fantastic seminars from the likes of the great Anna Meyer, and main Sponsorship from Troll Lord Games. For continuing information, please go to the following: https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2020 Our Virtual Greyhawk Con 2020 Discord Server is setup at: https://discord.gg/yHyG75 More information during Twitch Live Streams: https://www.twitch.tv/lordgosumbaEvents that are already registered can be searched at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2020/schedule#?query=VGHC Key DatesRegistration and Event Submission............July 1st, 2020Event Registration............August 1st, 2020Last Day Event Submission............September 28th, 2020Virtual Greyhawk Con............October 2nd to the 4th, 2020I submitted events this evening, and will playtest a previously-unexplored section of my Iounic Caverns level in my version of Castle Greyhawk (on Friday and Sunday afternoons), and will submit another TBD iconic Greyhawk event for Saturday. I'll also participate in the wrap up seminar on Sunday night.Here are details on my events, for those curious:grodog's Castle Greyhawk - The Iounic Vaults - Friday afternoon 2-7pm EDTBottle City - Castle Greyhawk with grodog - Saturday morning 10am-2pm EDTgrodog's Castle Greyhawk - The Iounic Vaults - Sunday afternoon 2-7pm ... read more!

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Jim Holloway – RPG Artist

2020-07-02T14:59:00-04:00July 2nd, 2020|

Jim Holloway passed away on Sunday, 28 June 2020, per the note posted by his son Mike Holloway in The Art of Jim Holloway group on Facebook:I feel like it’s necessary to post this because of all of the support everyone has given my dad over the course of this group. Earlier today, he passed away peacefully. My brother, uncle and I were there for him, holding his hand and telling him we loved him. To everyone who reached out or commented on my post about him being sick, thank you so much. It means a lot to us, and it meant a lot to him. Afterwards, I went to his house and looked at all of his old paintings. I wanted to share this one from the ‘70s with you all — a scene from The Hobbit, a book my dad forced me to read as a kid (I’m not complainin!) it’s a picture of the painting, not a scan, so I apologize for the unlit sections. But if everyone could please continue to share his art in this group and wherever else, my family would really appreciate you helping us keep his memory alive. He was a talented man, and I love seeing the stuff everyone shares.Jim contributed to many RPG publications over the years, and I had the pleasure of working with him on a few different projects. Jim was always easy to work with and kind---a true professional who managed changes as requested and always delivered his work on time. I wish I'd have had the opportunity to work with him more. I pulled a few of his pieces from those books, ... read more!

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grodog’s Favorite Mega-Dungeons

2022-12-26T15:57:34-05:00June 15th, 2020|

Some info about my favorite mega-dungeons, from the classics to the newest, hot-off-the-presses OSR titles (well, "new" as of today, 15 June 2020 anyway....). This post was inspired by some discussions over on the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea forum, as well as a similar thread over on TheRPGSite. The questions raised in those boards were:Which mega-dungeons do you like, and why? Which mega-dungeons have you used in play?The Quilt Map - Map by Tony "Wheggi" Rostengrodog's Thoughts on Well-Designed Mega-Dungeons -- The Stuff that Matters at the Table I think that for me what I like about a mega-dungeon really varies, based on who I've been playing with (or sometimes, working with). I've really enjoyed nearly all of the mega-dungeons that I've played in or run, but I've also generally had the wonderful pleasure of excellent DMs and players, which makes all the difference in the world in terms of the game experience at the table.Thinking through the mega-dungeons I'm familiar with, the stand out qualities that I love to play through, and the mega-dungeons that bring that to the table are:Best Environments to Explore and Map: Castle El Raja Key, Maure Castle, Caverns of Thracia, FoolsgraveMost-Fun Encounters: Castle Greyhawk, Foolsgrave, Rich Franks' mega-dungeonMost-Fun Puzzles, Enigmas, and Centerpiece Encounters: Castle Greyhawk, Maure Castle, WG5, ASE1/2-3, UndermountainCoolest Maps: Arden Vul, Castle of the Mad Archmage, Foolsgrave, The Quilt Map, Undermountain, Vladikavkaz Best Presentation in Print: None* Pulls It All Together: Caverns of Thracia, Foolsgrave, Maure Castle, Tomb of Abysthor * In terms of best-published format/presentation for a mega-dungeon, I don't think that we've seen any stand-out products deliver on the goods on that yet. Necromancer Games ... read more!

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Planar Architecture for grodog’s Current Greyhawk Campaigns

2022-12-26T15:57:35-05:00May 28th, 2020|

Part of what I'm working toward, by defining and incorporating the forgotten Folio forest into my current Greyhawk campaigns, is to play a more gates-oriented game. This is one of several campaign concepts on my DMing bucket list, and in this case they appear excerpted here as a cluster of related ideas:Games/campaigns I'd most like to run, in rough order of my desire:gates-driven AD&D campaign starting out at fresh at low level (1st-3rd-ish), where gates are sufficiently common that they drive the entire campaign: economy, weather, culture, travel, etc. (think The Primal Order meets Stargate meets World of Tiers meets Moorcock's multiverse meets Greyhawk)AD&D "Treasure of the Dragon Queen"; I'll have to write it first, of course: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_tourneys_dragon_queen.html AD&D Greyhawk drowic adaptation of MERP 1e Courts of Ardor campaign (could be played as an evil campaign by drowic PCs or traditional good-ish PCs; could merge with previous gates-driven entry)AD&D Abyssal campaign (PCs are a new generation of demons, vying for power amidst the chaos; could combine with gates or drowic ones above); I've slowly been building the framework for an AD&D game where the PCs run demons and explore the mythic geography of the multiverseIn order to play a gates-oriented game, I need to design elements that specifically introduce gates and related magics into the game. Some of that is easier, some harder. We'll see how it goes as the games continue, but here's the framework that I've been working up for Oerth's immediate multiversal neighborhood. I wrote the bulk of this post in response to some discussion in the Greyhawk sub-reddit, in which the user u/P4TR10T_96 asked A Question About the Planes:Are [the planes] ... read more!

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grodog’s Mega-Dungeon Maps – Revising and Expanding the First Two Dungeon Levels of My Castle Greyhawk

2022-12-26T15:57:35-05:00May 25th, 2020|

In one of my two concurrent Greyhawk campaigns, the players are exploring the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk, which has been pushing me to revise and expand the first two levels of that infamous death trap. The inventory work for all of my newly-designed levels from the past 15 years began a few years ago now, and continues as play evolves the environs.*** Saturday and Sunday campaign spoilers *** ********* *** Saturday and Sunday campaign spoilers *** ************ Saturday and Sunday campaign spoilers *** ************ Saturday and Sunday campaign spoilers *** ************ Saturday and Sunday campaign spoilers *** Level 1My first and second levels were originally drawn in the early- to mid-1980s. I was never deeply satisfied with the second level, so I began to redesign it significantly in 2017 as my sons began to explore beyond the first level. grodog Castle Greyhawk map - level 1 left grodog Castle Greyhawk map - level 1 rightI still rather like the design of the first level, but decided that I needed a bit more "breathing room" while running the current crew of players in it, and began to expand it earlier this month. The original map was designed on 4 spi graph paper, and I began to worry that the players would soon exhaust its exploration potential, and that they may need a bit more breadth to pick-and-choose their level of challenge across the encounters among its inhabitants. Unlike my revisions to the second level, I preserved most of the first level as-is, and simply extended its expanse, primarily to the south and a little to the west too. The original design for the first level spans ~660 ... read more!

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Foodling: DungeonMorph Dice Geomorphs –> Castle Greyhawk Sub-Level

2022-12-26T15:57:36-05:00April 29th, 2020|

Last night, I created a new sub-level for my version of Castle Greyhawk, using the DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas. I was a backer of their original Kickstarter in 2011, and remain quite fond of their geos dice, and of dungeon geomorphs in general!Here's the original geomorphs dice used for inspiration:DungeonMorph Dice - level arrangement by grodogAnd here's the level as I rendered it:Convection Sub-Level in Castle Greyhawk- draft map by grodog You'll note that I largely ignored the caverns in the eastern half of the dice image, save for general sizing and some shape inspiration.If you're curious, full-sized versions of the images are at:http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog_level-foodling_with_dungeonmorphs-dice-01.jpghttp://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog_level-foodling_with_dungeonmorphs-01.jpgEnjoy, and stay safe amidst the covid-chaos!Allan.

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The Strange Case of the Forgotten Folio Forest

2022-12-26T15:57:37-05:00April 25th, 2020|

Life's been very busy and distracted of late with changes in our daily homelife and work routines caused by the COVID-19 outbreak in the 'States. Thankfully our family has remained untouched by the virus to date, but it has slowed down my sharing via the blog. I've managed to keep designing and writing (and editing, and drawing, and...), and hope to return to a more-regular pace soon. In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this bit of Greyhawk research trivia.== At the topographical level, the Flanaess is filled with many strange and wondrous features, some inherently magical or the result of the expenditure of vast magical energies in aeons past---the Land of Black Ice, the sunken Isles of Woe, and the Bright Desert may, perhaps, all owe their infamy to such magics.There are, however, additional and perhaps greater powers at play in the World of Greyhawk. Powers that shape the course of all of The Flanaess, of Oerik, Oerth, and the multiverse itself---and beyond! I am, of course, referring to the powers and perils of editing within the game design process! ;) In particular, today I'm referring to a forest that is largely lost in Greyhawk's publishing history---a forest that straddles the Crystal River in central Furyondy. "Wait!" you say, "there is no such timberland in Greyhawk!" And in most instances of the maps of the Flanaess, you would be correct: The Crystal River, in central Fuyrondy - Greyhawk Folio 1980All subsequent versions of officially-published Greyhawk maps also omit this feature: the 1983 Boxed Set, From the Ashes in 1992, The Marklands in 1993, Greyhawk: the Adventure Begins in 1998, the 2000 D&D Gazetteer and 2001's Living ... read more!

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