News and Announcements Archives

A New Wiki Feature!

2025-10-16T19:02:46-04:00December 17th, 2023|

Welcome, Greyhawkers! Greyhawk Online now has a new wiki feature functionality added to the Great Library of Greyhawk! There's many ways to use the tools that Mediawiki allows, and they're usually easy to implement. Which makes the Great Library of Greyhawk better and easier to use! So, to make the wiki as useful as possible, the cross-referencing table at the end of articles now has links! Users no longer must copy+paste to see if a page for a source even exists! Useful and Convenient The most important fact about wikis is they are universally meant to be easy to use for the end-user. If they're not, they're not serving their purpose. The biggest complaint we hear about indexes, codexes, databases, spreadsheets, etc. is they are often difficult to use. Especially as they typically use abbreviations which used to be common, but are now usually not used as often. Time was, just saying "S1" or "U1" was enough. Nowadays, though, gamers and fans would likely recognize the names of Tomb of Horrors and Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. This is particularly true since Sinister Secret has been made available to fifth edition fans in a newer book for new players to have the same incredible experience as so many people did way back when. But, the codes don't necessarily automatically convey the title anymore. So, when the difference between things like "TAB" and "tAB" are unfamiliar (there's not one!) a user wouldn't know what they mean. Then there's also "TSB", "TSC", "FTA", and "FAT". It can all get very confusing. There are even others which are more obscure, or people just might not know off the top of ... read more!

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GaryCon XIV Seminar

2025-10-16T19:03:38-04:00March 4th, 2022|

Hurrah!! It's that time of year!! GaryCon is here once again!! ... and GreyhawkOnline is gonna be there! Our very own Editor-in-Chief of the Oerth Journal, Kristoph Nolen, is going to be there, in addition to some of the authors and editors of the magazine! He'll be giving a seminar Thursday morning at 11am, helping to kick off the convention! If you're interested in more information, there's a whole page for the GaryCon Seminar There's even a virtual ticket if you can't make it in person! Get yours now! Be sure to watch all the events! It's just a little later this month (24-27 March 2022) , and we're looking forward to seeing all the special guests this year! Some of those wer're looking forward to seeing: Peter Adkison Jeff Butler Darlene Jeff Dee Jeff Easley Larry Elmore Alyssa Faden Matt Forbeck The Gygax family—Luke, Ernie, Heidi, and Alex Allan Hammack Tim Kask Diesel LaForce Matt Lillard Joe Manganiello Mike Mearls Erol Otus Jeff Perren Satine Phoenix Stefan Pokorny Ed Stark Jim Ward Margret Weis Tom Wham Skip Williams Come and see us at the Con!

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Happy Needfest and Merry New Year!

2025-10-16T19:03:43-04:00January 3rd, 2022|

While life has continued to wear me out (in particular my day job*), with the new year's turn, there's always a fresh bout of hope that seeps into my fingers and toes, so I'm dusting off the ol' blog once again.This post will summarize some news and updates, and help to kickstart the rest of the month's writing! News and UpdatesJason Zavoda - Greyhawk Fan and Friend - 1965-2021I have sad news to share that Jason Zavoda died on 22 December 2021. Jason was a long-time Greyhawk fan and member of its online communities dating back to AOL's late-2e heyday. Jason published his Hall of the Mountain King blog, wrote Greyhawk fan fiction, contributed articles to the Oerth Journal (and edited some issues during its Turmoil Between Editors phase), and, perhaps most importantly to Greyhawk fans, spearheaded his wondrous index of Greyhawk references in all published products. The index is an indispensable research tool, and began as a humble .TXT file that grew over the years, and was recently updated by Eric Johnson in the Greyhawk Resources Files on Facebook as a Microsoft Excel format to allow more filtering and sorting.Carlos Lising of casl Entertainment wrote a very nice Greyhawk-themed tribute to Jason in the Facebook Sages of Greyhawk group (you'll need to be a member of the group to access his story).Paul Stormberg (of The Collectors Trove and Legends of RolePlaying) and I have discussed putting together a compilation of Jason's many contributions to the Greyhawk fan community, to help ensure that they're preserved and available to the fans for years to come, and I've reached out to the GreyhawkOnline admin team on that front too. ... read more!

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Greyhawk (and grodog) News Miscellany

2025-10-16T19:03:50-04:00August 7th, 2021|

Some updates from or of interest to World of Greyhawk fans:Virtual Greyhawk Con 2 to be held from 1 to 3 October 2021 was announced by Jay Scott, and event submissions are already live and being accepted through 29 September 2021; Event Registration begins in one week, on 15 August 2021; badges are $5 so come check it out!:Trent Foster posted his AD&D conversion notes for Gary Gygax's magnum-opus adventure, Necropolis, and he also recounts (in the links in his blog post) playing it with Gary back in the late '80sDan Boggs recently posted a map by the Dutch cartographer Daniel Hasenbos that blends the original Blackmoor campaign setting with Darlene's classic Greyhawk map (as well as with Anna Meyer's too):Zach "Zenopus Archives" Howard recently rediscovered that the published text of Lenard Lakofka's L3 Deep Dwarven Delve adventure (the last official AD&D adventure published, in the 1999 Silver Anniversary Boxed Set) was in fact much-more accurate than he had originally thoughtAnthony Huso recently posted about a cool site that allows you to build heraldry at the elements level, and I thought it might catch folks' eye, particularly Greyhawk fans: https://worldspinner.com/heraldry/device_editor/Carlos "casl Entertainment" Lising will be a Guest of Honor at GrogCon 2 in central Florida from 15-17 October 2021; Carlos will be running a new Greyhawk scenario entitled "The Witch Queen's Lament" (a title which I suggested, in fact!---and I really need to place my catch-up order on his newer titles, too)The Oerth Journal issue numbers #35, #34, and #33 are all now available to download (for free, as always) since I last plugged the zine ;)Black Blade Publishing (which I co-founded with Jon Hershberger ... read more!

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Oerth Journal #33 is Released

2025-10-16T19:01:57-04:00June 30th, 2020|

Another issue of the Oerth Journal has now made it to press! It's been a long row to hoe, but not really any more so than usual. *<insert winking emoji of your choice>* This was a pretty big issue, as far as publishing things. There's always a lot going on behind the scenes, but that too, is normal. About the Issue We've got a whole bunch of articles again ... this month, there isn't a "theme", per se, like some of our more current issues have had. There's almost a cornucopia of topics that ought to find a way to please most everyone! There are several articles about Dwur of various regions which tie together nicely. There's an adventure by John Roy, too! It's a sequel to his Unwelcome Guests (a free PDF download) which he published in October of 2019. And it's straightforward enough that which edition it's written for is almost irrelevant. More of Gary Holian's Death Knights are making an appearance, this time alongside an NPC featured in one of the AD&D Greyhawk Trading Cards. There's a surprising number of magical items, too ... which we might have to look at data on that and see if that's something readers want more of. Speaking of which, be sure to tell us in the comment section below what it is you'd like to see!! About the Cover Art We're especially pleased to feature cover art by one of our most well-known community artists, "LadyLoth". You can find her on both Instagram and Twitter. She's a wonderful artist and has a unique style that looks very "painterly". The piece is called Nyrondese Soldiers. One ... read more!

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BRAND NEW WIKI FEATURE!

2022-03-07T11:21:03-05:00April 16th, 2020|

The Great Library of Greyhawk incorporates the Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index! The Great Library of Greyhawk has a brand new feature! What is it? The project originally created by Jason Zavoda the Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index, has been modernized and integrated into the GLoG. Through the diligent efforts of Eric Johnson to turn the EGI into a XML where it can be used as a database, and Sean Williams who did the heavy lifting on coding the database, there's now a table on most every page of the wiki that has citation/source information for references. The table queries the database and displays data including the page's subject, type of subject (Item, NPC, etc), sourcebooks, page numbers, and will soon have product codes added next to the source.It auto-populates the table, which means anytime the database is updated, new data automatically shows up on the table on the wiki page Where is it? It's every content page! It's not every page (e.g. - not sourcebooks or author's names), because some just don't make sense because they're not EGI entries and don't have a bibliography. But, everything that's a "topic" has an EGI table! Occasionally, there's a page which will populate extra info, e.g., The "Grinder" will still show results including "The Doomgrinder" for obvious reasons, but most of these have been reformatted to not do this. We're continually working on improvements, and it'll get better and better!! We want to eventually have cross-links on all the product's names, so that a user can click the name or product code and go to the page for that product. And, we'd even like to see ... read more!

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Oerth Journal #32 has Released!

2020-04-03T16:41:08-04:00April 3rd, 2020|

So, here we are ... just past the beginning of Spring! And ... we all know what that means!! A brand new issue of the Oerth Journal! The OJ doesn't always have a theme, but, when it does ... This particular issue's theme is "Infinite Oerths". We did a little discussion about the name of the theme about two or three months ago, before planning even began in earnest. We were talking with the members of the GaryCon panel for the Celebrating Greyhawk: A Fandom Renaissance seminar, and the topic of the next OJ came up. As some of you may know, we've made a custom of sorts of the OJ being given out - in print - to attendees of the seminar. And so, we were all talking about it and Bryan (Saracenus) pointed out that up 'til then we had been calling it "Alternate Oerths" ... which tends to imply that there's one which isn't alternate and is a "prime" or somehow is more "correct" than the others. That's an impression that we specifically wanted to avoid - in fact, we wanted to counter it. So, in gathering the articles and soliciting authors for the issue, we specifically used language that would encourage authors not to create "alternates", but, to take a facet of GH and make it uniquely their own. Some authors went with just a expository piece detailing something in GH that's been done different ways, and some (many) chose to create different timelines or write about one of the "infinite" possibilities of Greyhawk in home campaigns. Amongst some of the most popular, thus far, have been Gary Holian's look at ... read more!

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Virtual GaryCon XII

2022-12-26T15:57:39-05:00March 23rd, 2020|

The "Celebrating Greyhawk: A Fandom Renaissance" seminar We are all excited to be attending Virtual GaryCon XII in just a few days! It's taking place on the exact same days it was originally schedules for. We're taking part in the seminar we'd made plans for, even though we can't be there in person. We'll be live streaming on the GaryCon Twitch channel Friday night at 8:00pm CDT, and simulcast via dual-stream on the Lord Gosumba Channel. Of course, we're all well aware of the crisis that's swept the nation. But, Luke Gygax and all the organizers and volunteers running it have done an amazing job of adapting to the circumstances, and shifting to an event that keeps "social distancing" in mind! There's an incredible amount of VTT games still being played and seminars being held! Be sure to go to VTT.GaryCon.com to sign up for events!! It's entirely FREE!! It's being livestreamed ... but, afterward, it'll be hosted here, and readers will be able to watch the recorded livestream event right from the GaryCon XII Seminar Page. The seminar, similar to the one last year, will include Allan "grodog" Grohe, jr of Kuroth's Quill and member of GHO at Grodog's Greyhawk, Anna B. Meyer of GHMaps.net, Bryan Blumklotz the admin of the Greyhawk Resources Facebook group and known for his heraldry, Michael "GreyhawkMike" Bridges known for his Ull articles and online WoG comics, Kristoph Nolen of owner and lead admin of Greyhawk Online, and Jay "Lord Gosumba" Scott - the host of the popular Lord Gosumba Channel old-school tabletop livestream! There will be LIVE GIVEAWAYS of copies of Oerth Journal #32 (the print edition) free ... read more!

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Orbane Synod: OJ 31 Supplement

2020-01-02T23:50:05-05:00January 2nd, 2020|

The Orbane Synod An Extra Faction from Oerth Journal #31! by Dan Anderson, from BugbearBrothers Cover art by Shabazik From the Editor: Normally ... well, lately ( i.e. the most recent 4 issues), Greyhawk Online has published "extras" from the Oerth Journal as supplementary downloads. This time, however, we wanted to offer a very special article from the OJ as a page of it's own! Download your FREE copy of Oerth Journal #31 now!Dan Anderson is a new author with GreyhyawkOnline, having come to us through Instagram. Social Media is one of the things we've recently talked a good deal about in the "Letter from the Editor" in the last two issues of the Oerth Journal (Autumn and Winter 2019). Social Media allows us to connect with many more fans than Editors of the OJ ever have been able to before! We're really pleased with this Special Supplement to Oerth Journal #31. It offers a look at a faction (two of them, truth be told) which take a normal trope for wizards, and turn it on its head! Read on, Greyhawkers, and find out all about the Orbane Synod and the Blood Council! In the city of Dyvers, there is an ongoing feud between two competing schools of wizardry, the Orbane Synod, and the Blood Council. The Orbane Synod are known for their oral tradition and their peculiar practice of never recording spells on parchment but instead hiding it away in familiars and homunculi throughout Greyhawk. Before wizards are granted the title of alumni of the school, they are sent on a vision quest to capture their personal familiar and begin shaping the world under ... read more!

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Oerth Journal #31 Released

2022-12-26T15:57:43-05:00January 2nd, 2020|

You ever get that feeling that something takes both forever and no time at all simultaneously? Oerth Journal #31 has only been in the works 12 weeks. … but, at the same time, it's been a year. And that year's gone by in no time! Greyhawk Online was the original webhost for the magazine in '95 and GHO started publishing the Oerth Journal again in March of last year (2019) as a supplement for a seminar at GaryCon XI. Similar to most issues, design of that issue, OJ28, really began about 60 to 90 days before that, around January. Gathering authors, doing layout, all that great publishing stuff. But, never before had the Oerth Journal actually been published quarterly before. That was often what was desired or striven for … but, for one reason or another, life always got in the way, and previous Editors weren't able to get content fast enough to publish that often.But, now, we've managed to publish a quarterly issue each season.That makes this kind of a benchmark. It's never been done - whether in a 365-day period or any calendar-year. So, now, Greyhawk Online has taken up the torch and has run with it. , and we're already beginning layout and answering article queries for issue #32 due out in Spring! Oerth Journal #31 As we discuss in the Librarian's Chronicle (Letter from the Editor) on the inside front cover, the fan authors, artists, and editors who make the magazine happen are the real life blood of the magazine. GHO couldn't produce it, if it weren't for them. And that's the part where social media comes in. We are in ... read more!

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Merry Needfest, Happy Christmas, Joyous Yule, and Happy 2020!

2022-12-26T15:57:44-05:00December 31st, 2019|

Merry 2020For those who celebrate holidays at this time of year, I hope you've all had a relaxing break from work filled with good times with friends and family, creative recharging, and fun shenanigans in general, and that 2020 brings your dreams to fruition! :DWe gave my 8-month-old niece some large dice for Christmas, which she took to right away!:My niece, The Notorious RKG Whither grodog?It's been a busy month+ since Thanksgiving, filled with travel and travail, fun family time and busy holiday gatherings, as well as getting over a cold one of our sons gave me (which lasted for a few weeks). Work was exacerbated by bad planning (by other groups within Ruckus) and the bad timing of some security vulnerabilities being announced that kept me busy up through and including Christmas Eve, with some follow-up the two days following too, but things have thankfully slowed down since then. We've all also remained healthy between the holidays, and the boys have enjoyed a fun break thus far. We took all of our local extended family to see The Rise of Skywalker on Saturday as our Christmas gifts (we switched over to "experiences" vs. gifts several years ago, usually doing fun Broadway shows like Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Finding Neverland, etc.). So, other than whining, what have I been up to?: I wrote a 3000 word article on creating and defining factions for campaign play in Greyhawk, for the new Oerth Journal #31, which should debut later today---a fine Needfest issue that wraps up the Folks, Feuds, and Factions themes for 2019:OJ#31 PreviewPlayed several games of Dominion with my father-in-law, which is always fun---he played it ... read more!

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Oerth Journal #30 has Released!

2019-10-06T12:15:43-04:00October 6th, 2019|

It's a new season! What does that mean? Why, it's time for a brand new issue of the Oerth Journal, of course! Continue to scroll below to learn more about this issue, but, as always, you can find the all the issues: The Oerth Journal page! We've had a sort-of theme going the past couple of issues. There's one of the books from the City of Greyhawk boxed set called Folks, Feuds, and Factions! We've been doing one per issue, so that it looks something like this: OJ29 - "Folks"OJ30 - "Feuds" (this issue)OJ31 - "Factions" (coming this Winter) So, this issue is all about different conflicts, national wars, guild clashes, personal NPCs grudges, sporting team competitions, racial tension, gladiators and their mascots, etc. [sdm_download id="5899" fancy="0"] ● Fifth of Greyhawk - John Roy ● Persecution and Murder - Kristoph Nolen● The Pit: Gladiatorial Favorites - Cal Scrivener with Zuul "Rurat" Ramsey ● Warbands of Ull - Mike "@GreyhawkMike" Bridges● Constellations of Greyhawk: Veneficus et Milés - Andy Miller ● Beggars vs. Thieves - Will "Giantstomp" Dvorak ● Rivals: Auric's Warband - Mark "Sollace" Allen ● Suel-Baklunish War - Cal Scrivener● Who Watches the Watchers? - Nathan Doyle ● Map of Elmshire - The Grey League Also, there's a bouns download!! [sdm_download id="5896" fancy="0"] Nathan Doyle, the author of the adventure in this issue, Who watches the Watchers, also included two appendices full of magical items and monsters/NPCs in the adventure! Be sure to download all the extras! 'til the Starbreak!!

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Happy 64th Birthday to Rob Kuntz!

2019-09-23T18:00:00-04:00September 23rd, 2019|

Happiest of birthday wishes to Robert J. Kuntz as he embarks into his 64th annum, in the best company possible---his wife Nathalie Hachet:Rob Kuntz and Nathalie HachetFrom Rob's biography in The Strategic Review #5 (December 1975):Strategic Review #5 (December 1975)Robert J. KuntzI was born September 23rd 1955 in Lake Geneva and have lived here all my life. As a kid I played the game that everybody played on our block: “Bang! You’re Dead!”, though it did vary at times. I learned about Wargames in a peculiar way. As I sat skimming through an issue of Playboy one day when I was barely thirteen years old, I came upon a game section describing all varieties of party gifts to give to your family or friends for Christmas. I saw a “Dogfight” game listed among the buyables and immediately proceeded to the nearest dimestore with hopes high. I was disappointed when the assistant manager informed me that they did not carry the game and was about to leave when he suggested that I come over to his place and try some games he had. He named a few off; “Stalingrad”, etc., and I was on my way . . . . In my seven and one-half years of participation in the wargames field I have enjoyed boardgames, miniatures and play-by-mail types and am now employed with a company that produces games and of which my best friend is the head thereof. I intend to write many more rules sets before I pass away and I have this spectre friend of mine who can give the inside on this good “ghost-writer...” While a lot has changed in Rob's life since I've known him, he remains the quintessential, creative Dungeon Master, and may his dice ... read more!

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Panel Seminar Video from GaryConXI

2022-12-26T15:57:52-05:00August 23rd, 2019|

A few months ago, back in March 2019, a team of longtime Greyhawk fans got a wild plan together and held a seminar at GaryConXI, called "Celebrating Greyhawk: A Fandom Renaissance". Luke Gygax, the organizer of GaryCon was interested in our topic, and had the entire thing videoed. After the producers and video-editors had the time to put some production value into the raw footage from a couple of cameras and such, they shared it with us! And now, we're finally able to share it with you, other fans of Greyhawk!It feels like a pretty big deal to us here at GreyhawkOnline, because our key focus, as we mention numerous times in the video, is "Creating and Sharing for the World of Greyhawk". There's a lot of things that have disappeared from the Greyhawk community over the years, from sites going down, from loss of data and crashes, and even from simply being things like campaigns or conventions that not everyone could be present for. So, now, through the "miracle of the internet", we can share the seminar we participated in with all of our viewers and readers who didn't get to be there. There's also the our GaryConXI Page with lots of updates in it, including downloads, exclusive content, PDF of the seminar handout, and art! Be sure to visit that page, and get all of the things, to make it almost like you were there with us in the room! Once again, we'd like to thank Luke for helping us in "Creating and Sharing for the World of Greyhawk"! Topics and times are listed below the video. (Times are approximate) [evp_embed_video url="https://greyhawkonline.com/docs/GCXI_Panel_CelebratingGreyhawk-AFandomRennaissance.mp4" width="750" ... read more!

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