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Oerth Journal #35 is Released!

2025-10-16T19:04:00-04:00June 15th, 2021|

Oerth Journal #35 is Released! Volume III, no. 08 The next issue of the Oerth Journal has arrived! This time it's a Winter/Spring issue. During this very difficult time, things have slowed down a lot, and many things are simply not as active during the pandemic. There's all kinds of content from incredible authors and artists! Another issue of the Oerth Journal has arrived! There have been more issues of the Oerth Journal in the past two years than there were in more than the ten years preceding. When GHO began providing the OJ again, one of the biggest things we worried about was how overwhelming a production schedule can become. And, even though we purposely avoided doing a monthly or bimonthly schedule and set it as quarterly, that's still a lot to produce a magazine every 90 days! We're very proud to have so many contributors to the OJ that we can accomplish the goal of a quarterly magazine! It's only through the efforts of all of the artists, authors, and editors that we can make such a great magazine! Some of the articles and authors in this amazing issue are: Articles about things found during Growfest, and a wide variety of other topics! Librarian's Chronicle: Letter from the Editor - by Kristoph Nolen Scholarly Selection of Suel Secrets - by Michael Bridges Wilds of Womtham - by Rodney Hart Legends of the Gnarley Forest: Wild Ange - by Les Reno Dust Cutters - by William Dvorak Outlying Territories of Lo Nakar - by Amy Crittenden Fistful of Baubles, pt 2. - by David Leonard Omnipotent View - The Kel Avone Retna ... read more!

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grodog’s post-GaryCon-XIII Repose – Part 2

2025-10-16T19:04:02-04:00May 31st, 2021|

Being as I'm about to head out to the North Texas RPG Con in a couple of days, I'd better get my GaryCon Report Part 2 concluded! ;) Continuing from my now-too-long-in-the-tooth Part 1 summary, after running my games on Thursday and Friday of GaryCon XIII, I spent most of the rest of the connvention playing in games (Sunday afternoon excepted).Saturday, 27 March 1-6pm: I played in Les "OblivionSeeker" Reno's "Death Master's Gambit: Dead Men Tell No Tales" AD&D 1e adventure---although they do blackmail with some regularity, it seems. Our PCs will seek to eliminate the blackmail at the source, somewhere in the Wild Coast....Les crafted a supremely-cool scenario in which our PCs were pulled into a rather Machiavellian plot:Your recent adventures began in Safeton. Slanarus Zaal, a prosperous merchant, gathered you together. He felt he could trust you. You’d done work for him in the past, and each of you had proven yourselves to be honorable, in your own fashion, and discreet. Almost a year ago, letters began to arrive at the man’s office under mysterious circumstances. They seemed to *materialize* on the desk or between a ledger’s pages when the man turned his back for a moment or left and locked the room. To the casual reader, the contents would seem banal—details of a journey, as recorded by a business associate; a jesting but flirtatious inquiry from one of the widower’s former lovers; requests for forbearance from some debtor or other. At first, Zaal was irritated by the intrusion and gave little thought to the texts. Then he realized that the letters were all written in the same hand. He studied them and ... read more!

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grodog’s post-GaryCon-XIII Repose – Part 1

2025-10-16T19:04:06-04:00April 2nd, 2021|

Yet-again, I had a wonderful time at GaryCon this year. Here's the first part of my post-convention recap, working off of my schedule for GaryCon XIII! Wednesday, 24 MarchIn our usual fashion, members of the Legio V gathered on Wedsnesday night for our pre-con get-together, which was a fun time as always. We didn't game this year, just hung out and caught up on life, the universe, and everything.If you're not familiar with the Legio V, here's some info:The Lake Geneva Legio V began as a handful of gamers who have attended Gary Con since its inception. We have grown over the past few years to include like-minded individuals united by a respect of Gary Gygax and his legacy. We are the dedicated attendees who love Gary Con for the camaraderie it establishes, the Game Masters who run games from across the decades, and the committed gamers who spend these four days in a fervor of dice rolling and old school good times.Although events run as LEGIO V Presents will use a variety of rule systems, our focus is on games authored by Gary and his contemporaries as well as those systems whose designers pay homage to these pioneers.Thursday and Friday mornings - grodog's Castle Greyhawk: Escape from Level 14Over Thursday and Friday I ran two sets of players through levels from my version of Castle Greyhawk. Both opted to attempt to get away from Level 14, which I first ran at the North Texas RPG Con #1 in 2009, and subsequently at GaryCons #2 (2010), with reprises at NTX and GaryCon #10 in 2018. The scenario premise is: Escape From Castle Greyhawk – Player ... read more!

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grodog’s GaryCon XIII Schedule – 25-28 March 2021

2025-10-16T19:04:11-04:00March 25th, 2021|

I'll be scarce the next several days as I'm running and playing games at GaryCon Gaming Convention XIII. It's going to be a great convention again!---good times to be discovered, dice to be rolled, monsters to be put to the sword, and treasures to be looted! =) My schedule is full of fun this year!:Thursday, 25 MarchNoon-5pm: DM for grodog's Castle Greyhawk: I'm running either my "Four Way Hub Level" or "Escape from Level 14" level, based on the players' selection. My 13 year-old son Henry will be playing in this session, which is always fun =)7pm-Midnight: Player in Rich Frank's "Lost Temple of Set" dungeon, where we seek to recover the fabled Eye of Horus:The party has traveled through a jungle to locate an ancient and forgotten Temple of the God, Set. Set has not been worshipped in any notable or public way in centuries, most of the old temples having been thrown down and replaced with temples to other Gods. However, Set, being a major God, has been able to maintain a cult of worshippers despite being forced out of the consciousness of most of the population in this world.The motivation for the characters is to find the fabled Eye of Horus, a large piece of jade in the shape of a pointed oval, with the symbol of the Eye of Horus carved into it, and inlaid with gold. Among the purported properties of the Eye is the ability to roll back time and view what happened in the area the Eye is currently placed. (More on this in the description of the Eye of Horus at the end of this document.) Indeed, the ... read more!

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grodog’s virtual GaryCon XIII events – March 2021

2025-10-16T19:04:13-04:00February 28th, 2021|

I submitted two five-hour delves into my version of Castle Greyhawk to Virtual GaryCon XIII this evening. The events will hopefully be scheduled at these times I submitted: grodog's Castle Greyhawk - Thursday, 25 March from Noon to 5pmgrodog's Castle Greyhawk - Friday, 26 March from 9am to 2pm Legends of Roleplaying Tournament: Into the City of Brass - Sunday, 28 March from 1pm to 5pm The two event descriptions are identical: Explore grodog's Castle Greyhawk levels. Choose from: 1) seek to Escape from Level 14, or 2) battle the dreaded Holaki in the Four-Way Hub Level. Bring your graph paper, dice, and a healthy dose of paranoid courage! 6th-10th level pregen PCs will be provided. Virtual session will be run in Webex, details to be provided after registration. ---The Lake Geneva Legio V began as a handful of gamers who have attended Gary Con since its inception. We have grown over the past few years to include like-minded individuals united by a respect of Gary Gygax and his legacy. We are the dedicated attendees who love Gary Con for the camaraderie it establishes, the Game Masters who run games from across the decades, and the committed gamers who spend these four days in a fervor of dice rolling and old school good times.Although events run as LEGIO V Presents will use a variety of rule systems, our focus is on games authored by Gary and his contemporaries as well as those systems whose designers pay homage to these pioneers. I'll be helping Paul Stormberg to DM his Legends of Roleplaying tourney again this year, and plan to register to play in various Greyhawk- and old-school themed events, ... read more!

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Review: Oerth Journal 34

2025-10-16T19:04:15-04:00December 4th, 2020|

Review: Oerth Journal 34 The Oerth Journal #34 has arrived! Oerth Journal has hit the newsstands once again, and once again, I find an example of my humble work, A Fistful of Baubles, within its covers. Is there a theme to this issue? Not that I am aware. Past issues had a theme, but this one is a free-for-all, and it shows. There are bios, ecologies, stories, and histories. It's a mixed bag. As much as themes are thrilling, so too is the unexpected. What's my submission about? In a word: Skrellingshald. What's that, you ask? It's one of the mysterious places, or adventure hooks in James M. Ward's "Geography of Oerth" portion of Greyhawk Adventures. More specifically, my submission is a story about Hradji Beartooth's search of that mythical city in the Griff Mountains, and the treasures that may be secreted there. By the way, for those who are not in the know, Skrellingshald is the Rhizian's name for Tostenhca. You don't know what Tostenhca is? It's an ancient Flan city. Indeed, it was one of the greatest cities built by the Flan, or humans, for that matter. Pick up a copy of the module Return to White Plume Mountain to learn more. So why Beartooth's search for Skrellingshald? Because it's a quest, a dangerous one; maybe even a harrowing one. Were it not so, I'm sure someone would have discovered it long ago. Because it's a footnote in Greyhawk's history. Because it's a tale of doom brought on by Keraptis and the Ur-Flan. And because it's a tale told in the far north, a woefully underappreciated corner of the map, in my humble opinion. ... read more!

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Oerth Journal #34 is Released!

2025-10-16T19:04:20-04:00December 2nd, 2020|

Oerth Journal #34 is Released! Get Oerth Journal #34 NOW! The next issue of the Oerth Journal is here! Another season has come and gone, already. Summer's over and we're already into the back half of Autumn. Which means ... Another issue of the Oerth Journal has arrived! Hi--ho, good neighbor! Your friendly neighborhood Editor-in-chief, here! So, this issue (#34) is the seventh issue in the last two years. I mention this not only because it's awesome and incredible, but also because it's a little surprising and nerve-wracking. Never before has the Oerth Journal come out so many times so often. We'd like to thank so many of our contributors for all the articles and art they submit. Many are fan favorites, like Gary Holian and Denis "Maldin" Tetreault, but just as our goal is to promote fan-created work concentrating on Greyhawk, there's all kinds of ecologies, lore, fiction, various D&D editions, and just general GH content by a dozen different contributors. Look Who's Looking! So, surprisingly, it hadn't occurred to us that the Oerth Journal would be noticed by RPGgeek.com, sort of. We found out recently that current issues of the Oerth Journal had begun to show up in their database, and we were pleasantly surprised to find the magazine listed there! As always, there's loads of useful content in this issue - and the folks at RPGgeek are gonna have to keep up with us, because the fans are really putting out some astounding material and the Oerth Journal is just gonna have more issues in 2021! In this issue: Monsters, Famous NPCs, New NPCs, Fiction, Ecologies, and more! Librarian's ... read more!

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Prospects and Retrospects – 101 posts From Kuroth’s Quill

2025-10-16T19:04:21-04:00November 21st, 2020|

Due to the vagaries of real-life timing winning out over planning, my 100th post in From Kuroth's Quill arrived uncelebrated as my compiled (and still far-from-comprehensive) bibliography for Lenard Lakofka's D&D writings. Given Lenard's recent death (about which I still have a memorial post in draft), it didn't seem the right time to crow about much of anything at all, and is another hash-mark against 2020 that began back in January with my post in tribute to Rush's drummer, Neil Peart. So, this will be my semi-celebratory and semi-reflective piece about the ongoing writing of this blog. 'Tis a rainy, grey afternoon outside, which is more conducive to writing and reflection than most, so here we go!From Kuroth's Quill - grodog's Vision vs. RealityMy blog masthead proclaims,"From Kuroth’s Quill" is grodog's regular design column covering the elements of adventure design (and more-specifically dungeon design, given my interest in that topic). I will also wander through the design of spells and magic items; monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures; PC and NPC classes; planes and pantheons; and likely other topics as well. In the blog, I hope to provide practical examples that will be useful in campaign play, to show theory in action. While From Kuroth's Quill remains more sporadic than regular than I'd prefer, and while it's not always 100% focused on AD&D and/or Greyhawk, it's generally remained on-target, although I've certainly focused more overall on general dungeon design than on creating specific content for AD&D or Greyhawk. Here's a breakdown of my posts by year, as well as some high-level topical analysis for them:2020 - 25 posts YTD = 2.08 per month (counting this ... 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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New Player Summary: Furyondy

2025-10-16T19:04:32-04:00October 10th, 2020|

New Player Summary: Furyondy In my endless quest to make Greyhawk accessible to new Fifth Edition players thought I'd try my hand at a gazetteer style entry. I think my ideal introductory 5e Greyhawk product would be a new guide of similar style and length 1983 Box Set that would give about the same level of detail, but tailor the information more towards what new players would find most useful in a contemporary game. Heavier on adventure hooks and clear, usable concepts for playing in the setting and lighter on say, army composition, or stat blocks for gods. So, I wrote this entry on Furyondy in 576. Anything you think it needs added or could do without? Furyondy Greed and cruelty rise across the Flanaess, yet in the kingdom of Furyondy, the forces of good stand strong. Brave knights defend honest folk for a worthy king. Their vigilance is vital. From just across the northern border, fiendish forces attack. Adventurers seeking a righteous battle against true darkness will find it here. Furyondy is a feudal kingdom of 350,000 led by a just and fearless Paladin. King Belvor IV rules from Chendl, a riverside city of 15,000. Powerful families sworn to his service govern their ancestral lands in his name. A small merchant class conducts trade from Chendl, Littleberg, and the freshwater port of Willip, but most of King Belvor’s subjects are peasants. They farm, fish, raise sheep, or mine gold on the land of nobles who tax them in exchange for protection. Fertile plains and bountiful lakes mean plenty of food for export. The kingdom’s excess wool and linen clothe the people of ... read more!

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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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Gendwar, Hero-Deity Warlock Patron

2025-10-16T19:04:41-04:00September 23rd, 2020|

Art by Adrian Smith Gendwar, Hero-Deity Warlock Patron Original Post Originally published on the Greyhawk Companion blog, by William Dvorak.

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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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Heward, Hero-Deity Warlock Patron

2025-10-16T19:04:46-04:00September 19th, 2020|

Heward, Hero-Deity Warlock Patron Original Post Originally published on the Greyhawk Companion blog, by William Dvorak.

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Kyuss, Hero-Deity Warlock Patron

2025-10-16T19:04:48-04:00September 12th, 2020|

Art by Wayne Reynolds Kyuss, Hero-Deity Warlock Patron Original Post Originally published on the Greyhawk Companion blog, by William Dvorak. This is a call to action button

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