The Oerth Journal is a magazine dedicated to the World of Greyhawk, and is written by and for fans. It has been published since 1995. Originally produced by the “Council of Greyhawk”, there have been several Editors and a plethora of different authors and artists who’ve contributed to it. There’s an abundance of great content here, just waiting to be placed in your campaign! There’s many new NPCs, side treks, gods, equipment, and things you may’ve never thought of like the constellations of Greyhawk.
Take a look at each issue, and download and read them all!!!
Be sure to notice that it’s not just a list, it’s a DATABASE!! You can enter text in the searchbar, and it will show results with your search words in the title, description, author, or date of them!
All issues of the Oerth Journal are published individually as a whole under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, and may not be distributed in part.
There are some ongoing columns which are kind of like categories for different types of content. Below is a list of the major article features presented in The Oerth Journal. These are generally what one can expect from articles with these titles:
Alternate Oerths
This section deals with divergent campaign ideas, alternate story lines, or dramatic changes in canon/ continuity. Authors in this section often explore the what-if’s of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the implications therein.
Denizens of the Flanaess
Articles in this section include detailed examinations of a single monstrous creature. Articles include a physical description, behavior, interests, history, lair, secret plans or agendas, possible interactions with Player Characters, and a probable future. Additional material, such as unique magic spells or items, weapons, or lore, are sometimes included.
Gateway to Adventure
Spotlighting adventures set in the World of Greyhawk, Gateway to Adventure submissions should be short to medium-length modules suitable for insertion into an ongoing campaign.
Gazetteer of the Flanaess
This section is devoted to adding detail to undeveloped areas within the Flanaess. These articles cover any area that is sparsely detailed in existing Greyhawk lore. Individuals, establishments, guilds, events, locations, and adventure hooks are just a few of the articles.
Of Oerth and Altar
Myriad deities and holy orders of Greyhawk are the cornucopia of this section. Each article in this department details a single deity of the Flanaess.
Rogue’s Gallery
Mysterious and cunning movers and shakers are all about the Flanaess. This section details the many NPC’s and organizations in the World of Greyhawk providing backgrounds, motives, histories, and developments.
Tales from the Green Dragon Inn
This section is dedicated to any and all Greyhawk fiction writers and their works.
The Good Oerth
Articles in this department explore an area outside of the Flanaess, including such locales as Hepmonaland, the Land of Black Ice, the Sea of Dust, or regions even further afield. Articles may detail an area as small as a city or unusual feature, to one as large as a kingdom or broad region.
With Boccob’s Blessing
This section presents an in-depth view of a single unique magical item, artifact, or relic. They are examined and detailed in each installment of this department. Articles include things like: a physical description; history; goals and aims of the item, if intelligent; powers; curses, repercussions, or malign effects of using the item; the location or possible locations of the item in Greyhawk; and adventure hooks.
We want to thank all of our readers and Patrons for years’-worth of support and making the Oerth Journal be a fantastic magazine!
If you’d like to support Greyhawk Online in producing the Oerth Journal, take a minute right now to sign up for a copy of the OJ in print!
OJ 29 won’t open for me. It said acrobat can’t decrypt it.
Hi, James! We want to say we’re terribly sorry about this. we know this has to be terribly inconvenient, and we know it sucks to not be able to read a file that you’d like to see. We’ve been spending a lot of time over the last few weeks trying to duplicate what’s gone wrong. We’ve tried several different PDF readers, and have even re-saved the file. If you could, we’d like it if you’d talk to our tech support staff via email with information about things like what platform you’re on, and what PDF reader you use. When you… Read more »
I have the same problem. I cannot open Oerth Journal 29 with Microsoft Edge PDF reader.
Hi there, David! Thanks for letting us know! We were unaware that the Edge reader has had problems. Unfortunately, we’re kind of unsure (so far) what would cause a generic reader to not be able to access the file. We will continue to look at the issue, and we’ve put in a request to Microsoft to try and get more information. It’s kind of a last resort for us to need to say this, but, since we haven’t been able to figure out why some readers can’t open it, we might suggest trying a different free reader, and see if… Read more »
Adobe works fine.
Glad to hear it, David! It’s strange to know there’s something that doesn’t work in one case, but not in others!
Rest assured, we’ll continue to look into it to find out what is different about that issue, and keep it fixed in future issues!
I just found this site this morning, so I have not looked at much content yet. Are there links in the articles, or does anyone know where i can find maps of the various cities of Oerth?
Hi there, Eric! And welcome!
There are some links in the magazine articles. Especially the newer ones, if a map is available freely. We can’t distribute other’s work without their permission, so, we only link to or publish maps for which we have permission.
We’d highly recommend the Facebook Group of our resident cartographer, the wonderful Anna B. Meyer!
While she doesn’t typically do individual city maps a whole lot, there’s many resources which can be found in the “Flanaess Geographical Society” where hopefully you can find free (and legal) links or downloads of the city maps you’re interested in.
Good to have the OJ back. Excellent work gang.
I love what you are doing; keep up the great work! Greyhawk lives!