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 of the most amazing things about her art (in addition to the marvelous historical accuracy of the armor, etc.) is the expression of the subjects’ faces. She always absolutely nails it, capturing their emotions. This piece practically begs for a backstory about who they are and where they’re patrolling!
The Grey League even did a featured interview article about her and shows off the over art without all the cover blurbs, and all!
Take a look and give them a follow to read more Greyhawk Goodness™!
But, I’ve rambled on for long enough, now … the Librarian’s Chronicle: Letter From the Editor is below the table of contents below, if you’d like to hear more about what went into this issue.
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Table of Contents
- Librarian’s Chronicle: Letter from the Editor – by Kristoph Nolen
- Twofold Lands of the Dead – by Gary Holian
- Lore of the Usk Tree – by Lawrence Hawvermale
- Dragons of the Lortmils – by Thomas Kelly
- Dwur of the Lortmils – by Thomas Kelly
- The Dwarven Manual of Creation – by Amy “Theala” Crittenden
- Rumors from the Gnarley – by Les Reno
- Legends of the Gnarley Forest: Erann and Danala – by Les Reno
- Legends of the Gnarley Forest: the Sarnas Weapons – by Les Reno
- Tale of the Hierarchs – by William “Giantstomp” Dvorak
- Cultists of Tharizdun – by Mike “GreyhawkMike” Bridges
- Omnipotent View: Hot Sea and Cold Sun – by Richard DiIoia
- The Owlbear Runt – by Michael “Zudrak” Gross
- Alternate View of the Greyhawk Wars – by Jared Milne
- Housecleaning – by John Roy
- The Undead Hunter – by Jay “Lord Gosumba” Scott
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Librarian’s Chronicle: A Letter from the Editor
By and for the GH Community
This issue proved how much the OJ is absolutely a collaborative community project. Much as with any publishing, this issue had difficulties in being made. (That seems to be something I say often!) We had some hurdles with editing deadlines, due to unforeseen time–conflicts. So we had to put out a call to members of the Greyhawk Online Discord server for volunteer editors to help us out.
Immediately that same day, we had 20 people who’d offered to help us complete the editing of the entire issue! What’s more, they had it complete in 72 hours, helping us stay on schedule!
Some could only spend an hour or so over the weekend. Others put in more than a dozen hours over 2 or 3 days! It literally more than tripled our number of volunteers. The sheer willingness of fans to help contribute to the magazine and facilitate making it successful is heartening, to say the very least. But it wasn’t about getting their names in the masthead – we even had one editor say they didn’t want credit at all.
This perfectly proves the point that this magazine is only able to be published because of the people who support us. We couldn’t do it without fans volunteering their time and effort.
Patreon is Growing
For our patrons, this issue is fairly fast on the heels of its predecessor. While the PDFs have come out almost precisely 90 days apart, for the first print issue patrons weren’t able to donate and receive their print issues ’til well after the PDF came out. This one is scarcely five or six weeks after the very last of the issues were delivered. So, this time, we tried to get the release date of the free PDF and the date Patrons received their copy closer to the same date. … It still isn’t going out ’til about 7 to 10 days after the PDF, but that’s much, much closer!
Another surprising thing has been quite how fast the OJ is growing now. This, again, is a large issue. Yet, we have more articles coming in than ever and we are able to set one or two aside for the next issue. Article submissions still only come in on an almost per-issue basis, though, so we still need contributors every issue and we are always looking for new people who want to Create and Share for the World of Greyhawk!
Last Minute Changes
One last note: The day this issue was published, two authors stepped up and proved once again how important this community is to producing the OJ. A page had to be pulled at the last minute, but, they came through with little or no prep and turned over short articles that could be fit into the vacated space. A hearty “thank you” goes out to Les Reno and Amy Crittenden for being great contributors and making the community better!
We’re all in this together!
So, “Create and Share, for the World of Greyhawk”!
‘Til the starbreak!
Kristoph Nolen, Oerth Journal Editor-in-Chief
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Excellent issue! The stuff on Greyhawk Wars are very near to my mind right now and it was great to read another alternate version. As always it’s stupendous to have Gary Holian involved in the Greyhawk community at this level again. He is an inspiration for all of us to keep making articles for OJ.
Thanks, so much, Mike!!
We appreciate that so much. There’s a lot of folks who volunteer at GHO, but the OJ staff wants to especially thank the authors, editors, and artists for all the work they do!
They’re the ones who are really responsible for an excellent issue!
:D
Always a great day when new Greyhawk content comes out. With the pollution of modern D & D it always brings back memories of the good old days when we would play the game to use our imagination and just have fun. Keep up the great work.
Well, thank you very much. We appreciate the compliment.
There’s a few of us here who do play modern D&D, but we tend to try to keep edition mechanics out of the articles unless they’re absolutely necessary, most of the time.
This issue’s Greyhawk adventure by John Roy has some mechanics in it … we hope you’re able to see how great of an adventure it is, anyway, and adapt it to a rules edition you like!
Let us know how it turns out if you do, or if you use any of the other material!
I’m curious about the page that was pulled… can you at least tell us what it was about and/or why it was pulled? And thanks so much, great issue.
Thanks for the compliment, Jim!
Pulling pages was (mostly) due to printing standards and cost.
We had been using slightly larger fonts before, and this time we went with a slightly more condensed font size, allowing us to fit more in fewer pages.
But it wasn’t whole pages pulled, really. There were numerous small gaps in layout throughout the magazine because of article sizes and whatnot. A total of the equivalent of five pages.
For printing, pagecounts must be in increments of four, and costs for printing can change significantly with even a slightly smaller pagecount. But since it had to be done in increments of four, we pared down from 48 to 44 pages, after the font change.
We rearranged the layout, and that left the one unfilled page we needed content for.
But, there wasn’t really any content on the pages pulled.
That’s probably way more information that you were looking for about page layouts. :P
It was basically just easier to say, “A page was pulled”. :)