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Greyhawk Happenings in the News

2025-10-16T19:03:28-04:00August 20th, 2022|

New Settings from WotC Announced They include both Spelljammer and Dragonlance, but no Greyhawk---none of which are big surprises, really. Perhaps I'll have more to say on this front later, but for now, that's sufficient. Virtual Greyhawk Con #3 - 30 Sept to 2 Oct 2022It's that time of year again, and Jay Scott has organized another Virtual Greyhawk Con! Event registration began today at Noon CDT, and event submission closes on 26 September; see https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022 for details.My events this year will be: Carlos Lising's _G2 The Witch Queen's Lament_ on Fri Sep 30 at 8:00 pm (4 hours) at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022/schedule/62Rob Kuntz's _Maure Castle and Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure_ on Sat Oct 1 at 7:00 pm (5 hours) at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022/schedule/63Erik Mona's _COR1-03 River of Blood_ on Sun Oct 2 at 2:00 pm (4 hours) at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022/schedule/64All are set in the World of Greyhawk (of course!) and will be run using AD&D 1st edition rules (of course!). In addition to my events (all of which still have seats open as of this posting), numerous other Greyhawk fans are running events spanning OD&D to 5e, all set in Oerth. I'm playing in three other events, and will take part in the closing Greyhawk panel discussion too:"Citadel by the Sea" from Dragon Magazine, and run by Jay Hafner in 5e; I've never played with Jay before, but am looking forward to testing out this classic adventure in my first 5e game (PC levels 1-3)"The Broken Stone Alliance" a 1e scenario for PC levels 7-9, DM'd by Michael Mossbarger. Also my first time playing with Michael."The Ravages of the Mind" by Lenard Lakofka, his final adventure: journey into Ratik's Timberway to root ... read more!

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Mega-Dungeon Map Design Sprints with Henry

2025-10-16T19:03:31-04:00June 14th, 2022|

Update - 13 June 2022 at 7:18pm: Well, just like my lost big posts during Kellri's Module Challenge, blogger crapped out and I lost this huge post detailing the fun mapping work Henry and I were doing. I was uploading pictures from my phone, and perhaps it got too be too much. Who knows. Here's what I'm able to recover by manually retyping it from the preview window on my phone. *sigh* Lesson re-learned: a) type the blog post in Word, and b) eventually move to another platform if I’m going to keep the blog ;) == We drove six hours (one-way!) to Dallas for the NTRPGCon and all we got was this Lousy Coronavirus.... Somewhere along the way to/from, or while attending the North Texas RPGCon (NTX as I affectionately dub it) over the end of last week/weekend, my 14-year-old son Henry and I caught COVID. This is not that story (or convention report, for that matter; that will follow soon-after!). Neither is this the story of Henry’s excellent learners-permit drive through the Oklahoma City leg of our return journey on Sunday later afternoon for about 90 minutes (this will also be included in the convention report!---sneak peek: he did great :D ). This is, however, the story of some of the fun we had while passing the time in our post-infection bubblehuts. Playing Games in COVID-land While Henry and I have been isolating from Heather and Ethan (who have tested thankfully negative since our return), we’ve been playing games and hanging out together in general. Our symptoms haven’t been too bad, all-in-all; I’ve continued to work all week long, although Henry had to ... 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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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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Renovating the Monastery – Recasting the Classic DMG Dungeon in Greyhawk – Part 1

2022-12-26T15:57:39-05:00February 16th, 2020|

Wichita Greyhawk CampaigningI ran the unnamed sample monastery dungeon from the Dungeon Masters Guide for my eldest son's after-school AD&D group a few years ago, and I've repurposed it as one of the starting points for the new Wichita Greyhawk campaign that kicked off last month. I've compiled the bits and pieces about it that I've discussed over at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse forum and Scott Gregg's Doomsday Games forum:BackgroundMaps - Wilderness Environs Maps - Dungeon LevelsKeysI'm detailing #1 and #2 in this post, with more info to follow on the updated, revised, and expanded dungeon maps and keys later. Below I dig into plenty of spoilers for the sample dungeon, so if you are currently playing through it, you should stop reading now. *** SPOILERS ****** *** *** SPOILERS ****** *** *** SPOILERS ****** *** *** SPOILERS *** *** *** *** SPOILERS *** *** *** *** SPOILERS *** *** *** *** SPOILERS *** *** *** *** SPOILERS *** Background I've decided to leverage my continued interest in the sects and cults of Wee Jas for my background to the DMG Monastery dungeon in the Wicihta campaign. This necessitates some changes to the original sketchy background from the DMG:The slain abbot becomes an abbess The fire opal becomes a holy relic of Wee Jas, perhaps in part reflecting her vanityThe lower level needs a new rationale from how I'd originally conceived it, and I'm thinking it may be tied to the Plane of Shadow now, but am still noodling on that: perhaps the shadow influences are what, in part, lead to the near-total destruction of the monastery, and if so, it seems likely that the destruction was meted out ... read more!

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The Dada Dungeon and Wichita Greyhawk

2022-12-26T15:57:41-05:00January 20th, 2020|

Henry has been DMing me through his "Dada Dungeon" since mid-August 2019, and we picked up our game again yesterday afternoon over the long weekend. (Well, a long weekend for Henry and his older brother, anyway ;) ). Since August I've spent a lot campaign time dealing with machinations, assassins, and attacks on the town of Scortop (located in South Province hex #N2-87 on the Darlene Greyhawk map, which is 3 1/2 hexes up from the D in Rieuwood), which were only "resolved" recently. I still don't know the identity of the mysterious and seemingly-ancient Octarius---of the long-lost Archbarony of Ilgelgoron, east of Blackmoor (mentioned in a letter dated 319 CY, over 257 years ago!)---or of his possible agent Frengier and his long-distance-writing magical quills (they seem to act like longhand telegraphs). That has allowed a return to the abandoned dwarven gem mine dungeon, which we hadn't revisited since the start of the school year:Henry's Dada Mega-Dungeon - Level 1Player Map by Allan GroheHenry completely improvised the upper caves level, as well as most of the resulting escapades in town. I had previously only discovered a well (visible in the upper left of the above map in the "dog with pointy ears" cave") as a possible lower entrance. I think that the surface plottings had grown a bit beyond what Henry originally intended, and he was happy to return to the dungeon itself today.We played for about 4-5 hours, from before and through lunch, until about 4pm. The PCs spent time exploring the level rather than engaging everything encountered---we didn't open any doors, and were really just trying to get the lay of the land. ... read more!

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grodog’s Mega-Dungeon Maps – The Heretical Temple of Wee Jas

2022-12-26T15:57:46-05:00November 18th, 2019|

So, today's my first new Mega-Dungeon Mondays post, and I thought I'd share a bit about my mapping design process. "The Heretical Temple of Wee Jas" level was the map that I began to design immediately after The (First) Landings Level, and its original name was The Second Landings Level (original, eh? ;) ). Like "The Landings Level", I playtested this dungeon at GaryCon, the North Texas RPG Con, and KantCon, among other events. I completed the first iteration of the map over several nights, noodling through a few different options on how best to design the lower half of the map, particularly the large temple in the SW corner:Draft 1: grodog's Heretical Temple of Wee Jas---draft 1 dungeon level mapWhen I'm unsure how I want to work out a particular section, or when I'm working on keying for a level with a completed map draft (I almost always draw my maps first then work on keying), I'll make photocopies of the level to play with variations until I'm happy with how the design turns out.I did that several times with the temple in the SW corner, as you can see in the various second drafts:Draft 2a:grodog's Heretical Temple of Wee Jas---draft 2a dungeon level mapDraft 2b:grodog's Heretical Temple of Wee Jas---draft 2b dungeon level mapIn the end, the completed first draft 3 of the level looked like this, but you'll note that I still hadn't decided on how to trick out the temple area:grodog's Heretical Temple of Wee Jas--- completed draft 3 dungeon level mapI was also still drawing non-narrowing stairs as stairs up at this point in my design process, but I eventually ... read more!

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Cairn Hills Lairs – The 1st and 2nd Fluted Cairns

2022-12-26T15:57:55-05:00April 6th, 2019|

I've been noodling on more regional Greyhawk adventure locations, and the Cairn Hills continue to call to me---there's LOTS of room in them thar hills for various vicious and grand adventuring sites, as well as gold and explorational hijinks!The Cairn Hills - map by Darlenefrom the 1980 World of Greyhawk FolioI've dubbed these small dungeons Cairn Hills Lairs, and drew two new ones last night and this morning. Both are part of an inter-related system of cairn dungeons called "The Fluted Cairns"---so called because of their titular flutes are, in fact, the entrances into the cairns: I imagine them as the end-points for large pipe-organ-like tubes that stick up out of the ground all over the hill that the cairn is sited on. You enter by climbing in and sliding down, arriving in one of the various fluted corridors drawn along the edges of each map:The Fluted CairnThe Fluted Cairn - by grodogThe Second Fluted CairnThe Second Fluted Cairn - by grodog More to come later in terms of the actual key information about the Fluted Cairns, as well as updated maps with intra-level stairs and other dungeon features.Allan.

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UPDATE 2 – Charting The Flanaess: a Settlements Distance and Mileage Chart

2022-12-26T15:57:56-05:00February 24th, 2019|

In May 2018 I began work on building a Settlements Distance and Mileage Chart for the Flanaess, but the project has lain fairly fallow until last month.Since before the start of the year, our team of Greyhawk fan contributors have been working on material for the Greyhawk Seminar (details in last month's update), and I've been doing my part in that effort too.As part of some of that work, I've realigned my mileage distances chart data to include only those settlements that appear on Anna B. Meyer's Flanaess map excerpt for the handouts. In doing so, I removed a few cities from my original swag list, and added a few more, which meant that last Sunday I performed the rest of the Darlene map measurements to drive my distance calculations formulas. Here's where things stand at present:grodog at work -fitting the Flanaess into spreadsheet cellsWith the change from some of the original settlements that are now out-of-scope for the map area in the new handouts, and adding in the new ones, I've now completed distances for 17 of the 130 locations, which is 13.1% of the overall effort. A little progress goes a long way---although not so far in this case, since all of these settlements are in the Central Flanaess and are pretty close to one another! ;) Allan.

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UPDATE 1 – Charting The Flanaess: a Settlements Distance and Mileage Chart

2022-12-26T15:57:57-05:00January 19th, 2019|

In May last year I began work on building a Settlements Distance and Mileage Chart for the Flanaess, but the project has lain fairly fallow until recently.Greyhawk Seminar at GaryCon 2019A crew of six of us will host a Greyhawk seminar at GaryCon XI in March 2019, focused on the state of the state of Greyhawk fandom. The seminar is titled "Celebraing Greyhawk: A Fandom Renaissance" and the event description is:Greyhawk fans have been creating and sharing content online for 25+ years, across many platforms. Join Bryan Blumklotz, Mike Bridges, Allan Grohe, Carlos Lising, Anna Meyer, and Kristoph Nolen as we celebrate and showcase Greyhawk resources created by the fans who champion one of D&D's oldest settings. Reference handouts will be provided, and perhaps prizes if we get our act together! Bryan “Saracenus” Blumklotz – Bryan is the lead administrator for the CanonFire! A Greyhawk Resource! Facebook group and is creator of the World of Greyhawk Heraldry site. Mike "mortellan" Bridges – Mike publishes the Greyhawk blog Greyhawkery and co-hosts the weekly Legends & Lore show on the Greyhawk channel. Allan "grodog" Grohe – Allan publishes his grodog's Greyhawk fan site and is co-founder of Black Blade Publishing (OSRIC, Rob Kuntz’s The Original Bottle City, etc.) and The Twisting Stair mega-dungeon design zine.Carlos "caslEntertainment" Lising – Carlos writes and publishes OSRIC adventures set in Oerth and in Avremier via casl Entertainment and Patreon.Anna "GH Maps" Meyer – Anna publishes her Flanaess maps and founded the Flanaess Geographical Society Facebook group. She also co-hosts the Legends & Lore Greyhawk show with Mike Bridges.Kristoph "Icarus" Nolen – Krisoph is leading the redesign of Greyhawk Online and showcases ... read more!

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Paul Stormberg reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on Gygax Manuscripts Archive

2022-12-26T15:57:57-05:00January 9th, 2019|

This afternoon today, Paul Stormberg of The Collector's Trove held a Q&A session over on reddit about the contents of Gary Gygax's unpublished manuscripts:Adventurers wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success! This is an AMA, wherein I allow adventurers to ask me anything about the trove of treasures left behind by Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and what traps and guardians await them.Gail Gygax's agent, Gina Ramirez, also participated in the AMA, covering questions around licensing as well as future publishing plans for computer games, RPGs, etc.In the Q&A discussion, Paul offered several interesting revelations about the contents of the Gygax collection, including details relevant to the original Greyhawk campaign!I'm quoting Paul throughout the text below, and also quote a few of the asked questions for context, as well. And here's a quick mini-TOC in case you want to jump among the topics later:The Gygax Collection as a WholeCastle Greyhawk Data PointsT2: The Temple of Elemental Evil grodog's Questions Gygax Games Website Update --- including Muesuem of the Gods level map!The Gygax Collection as a WholeJustOneAmongMany's Q: "Presuming that you've looked at (or, hopefully, catalogued) the entirety of the material, can you break it down into percentages by category? e.g. 10% Greyhawk, 25% Lejendary Adventures, 15% novels, etc.?"Paul's A: "I'd say it breaks down to 30% product (comp copies and author's copies of product), 15% correspondence, 15% personal materials (play copies of games, dice, desk knick knacks, awards, etc.) , 40% game design materials (manuscripts, maps, notes, etc.)."Of the design materials: novels and short stories 20%, ... read more!

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grodog’s Mega-Dungeon Maps – the Behind Bars level

2022-12-26T15:57:58-05:00January 4th, 2019|

I drew most of this level last night, and noodled on it more today over breakfast and lunch. It's about 80% done or so---I need to work on the detailing more, to make some decisions on areas that aren't connected to the rest of the level yet, insert intra-level elevations, etc., as usual.I wanted to focus on some specific design goals for the flow:visible areas that are on/off inaccessible via portcullises, also with several one-way doors in the mix (including some off of the entry chamber; I need to add some more portcullises too)some larger, more-open spaces, including a dragon lair perhaps (or one for a clutch of sibling sub-adults!)several mini-hubs that corridors/rooms radiate outward froma more middle-of-the-road level of complexity vs. my usual more-elaborately-tormenting designs ;)Beyond what I noted above (and some miscellaneous very light notes on the map), I don't have a specific ideas in mind for the key, but I do envision this as a more upper-level, perhaps even an alternate primary entry route into the dungeons.I got the idea to start another new level when browsing through OSRIC for an unrelated product, and I rediscovered Sean "Stonegiant" Stone's starting area VI on page 159 (in the PDF). (My entry point is the 30' wide stair leading down into the level, center-ish in the lower-left quadrant):grodog's "Behind Bars" level - first draft mapThe full-size version is available @ http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog_level-behind-bars-01.jpgThe other articles in my Mega-Dungeon Maps series include:The Landings Level grodog's Mega-Dungeon Maps - Introduction and V1 Vanquish the EvilAllan.

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grodog’s Mega-Dungeon Maps – The Landings Level

2022-12-26T15:57:59-05:00November 23rd, 2018|

I began this mega-dungeons maps "series" (more consistency in posting would help with that label, I'm sure!) earlier in the year with one of my oldest surviving maps, but that map (and its associated key content) does not reflect the quality of designs that I create today. "The Landings Level" map and key more-accurately reflect my current design sensibilities.I created "The Landings Level" map (the first in a group of similar types of maps), over a few days in early December ten years ago, and it marked the beginning of a new phase in my (ongoing) redesign work for my version of Castle Greyhawk. Over the past decade, I've focused primarily on the creation of new levels and keys, rather than an overall structural schema or holistic design guided by a top-down vision for all of the inter-connections between the levels. That approach has its own disadvantages (making the levels fit together into a rationalized, coherent whole is somewhat more difficult this way), however, its primary advantage rests in that during the several years that followed this first map, I've created a pile of new, well-designed levels, many of which I've playtested at GaryCon, the North Texas RPG Con, KantCon, and various smaller gatherings. So, volume of inspiration and creation vs. perfection in overall design won-out, in the short term anyway! The Landings Level was the work that kicked off this phase of creation, and was itself inspired by my research into various unpublished Castle Greyhawk levels, discussions with Rob Kuntz about the Castles Greyhawk and El Raja Key, and my overall engagement with the old-school AD&D online communities at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse, ... read more!

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Charting The Flanaess: a Settlements Distance and Mileage Chart

2022-12-26T15:58:18-05:00May 17th, 2018|

So, over 24 months ago I began a discussion in The Flanaess Geographical Society trying to locate a Greyhawk-specific distance/mileage chart for cities. After some lengthy sleuthing, ideas bouncing, and general rummaging around in our collective memories, we came to the conclusion that such a chart didn't exist after all, so I suggested deriving and calculating the distances between settlements across the Flanaess using Darlene's and Anna Meyer's hex maps. And, as with many things in internet discourse, that was that. Fast-forward to the present. Given the approach of summer and the imminence of more-active campaigning in the World of Greyhawk (today was our two sons' last day of school until August), I've begun mulling this mileage chart over in earnest once more, and over the past week or two I've begun to build it.So, I began with the 1983 boxed set's An Index to the Cities & Features of the Flanaess, from the inside back cover of the Glassography booklet:An Index to the Cities & Features of the FlanaessI mined it for its 130 city names and their associated hex-coordinate locations. Those formed the backbone for the spreadsheet that I began to build in MS Excel:grodog's Settlements Metadata WorksheetOnce I had that, I immediately began to expand the baseline settlements listing to include known and named settlements not present the original list, starting with the classic 576 CY Gygaxian era of Greyhawk. I've already re-combed through the 1980 Gazetteer and 1983 Guide and Glassography booklets, and started in on the various Gygax and Kuntz articles from The Dragon. Through this mining, I've added a bunch of new settlement names to the baseline list---Blackmoor (the ... read more!

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The Twisting Stair #3 (Spring 2018)

2022-12-26T15:58:21-05:00February 28th, 2018|

*** UPDATE 20 March 2019: TTS#3 has been reprinted, and is now available for mail order again *** *** UPDATE 2 March 2019: TTS#3 has been reprinted, but will not be available for mail order until 13 March 2019, after we return from GaryCon *** *** UPDATE 6 Feburary 2019: TTS#3 is now out-of-print, and unavailable until after our return from GaryCon ***After a longer delay than planned, Tony Rosten and I are happy to announce that the Spring 2018 third issue of The Twisting Stair is going to press this week, and will debut at GaryCon next week (8-11 March 2018, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin)!The Twisting Stair, issues 1-3Like TTS#2, The Twisting Stair #3 is 20 pages long, is priced at $5, and is available in print format only. TTS#3 ContentsHere's the TOC for The Twisting Stair #3 (Spring 2018): From Kuroth’s Quill by Allan -- "Mega-Dungeon Mapping Strategies for Players" (in which Allan attempts to make mapping fun!)Mapping the Problem: An IntroductionThe Main Functions of a Map - Why to Mapgrodog's Three Mapping Modes - How to MapReplicated Maps - aka, the Ernie Gygax MethodDescriptive Maps - The Captain's LogTrailing Maps - A Hybrid Approach grodog's Mapping Tips and TricksPlaying Mapping TacticsIn-Character Mapping TacticsCritters and GlittersNew monster - Fire Weird by Allan (a firey variation on Ernie Gygax's classic monster)New magic items - Ying’s Fantastic Fireworks by Tony (a collection of ten new one-shot magical devices)The Centerfold Mega-Dungeon Map by Tony and Allan -- The third 11"x17" level of The Twisting Stair dungeonWandering Pairings by Tony -- Third-level wandering monstersDown the Twisting Stair by Tony -- Vertical Design in the Mega-DungeonThe Ups and Downs ... read more!

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