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TGL presents: FACTIONS – THE GUILD OF WIZARDRY

2019-07-10T17:29:57-04:00July 10th, 2019|

Welcome adventurer! Before we get into the article I want to be clear that everything I post is truth within the campaigns run by ‘The Grey League‘ but is not canon, per se. I try to stick close to canon but where Gary Gygax left it vague… well, that’s the beauty of Greyhawk isn’t it? The creative freedom. That is why I will start every article title with ‘TGL presents’ so you know it isn’t 100% canon. Hope you enjoy my work and Happy Gaming! Symbol: Three golden triangles, one over the other, the middle one thin and the outer one missing a part in the two upside lines. The outer and inner one symbolizes the two pyramids, the UMA and the Guild itself. Surrounding the triangles is a magical circular swirl and, in the centre, the golden, lightly glowing letters GW – Guild of Wizardry. Those of rank 1 have the same insignia but with the letters UMA, to show they are still learners at the University of magical arts. Overview: Founded as a free haven for all mages in 393 CY by the legendary ‘Mad’ Archmage Zagig Yragerne. While the Guild of Wizardry is interested in its own aggrandizement, it has no political agenda. The wizards are usually too busy with their own affairs to meddle too much in the politics of the city. Membership also does not require exclusive allegiance, and many hold another faction membership. Because of this, many magi across the Flanaess claim an affiliation with this guild. In many places, membership in the guild is a source of prestige, due to the guild’s international fame. Over the last decade ... read more!

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TGL presents: FACTIONS – THIEVES’ GUILD of GREYHAWK

2019-04-24T16:00:50-04:00April 24th, 2019|

Welcome adventurer! Before we get into the article I want to be clear that everything I post is truth within the campaigns run by 'The Grey League' but is not canon, per se. I try to stick close to canon but where Gary Gygax left it vague... well, that's the beauty of Greyhawk isn't it? The creative freedom. That is why I will start every article title with 'TGL presents' so you know it isn't 100% canon. Hope you enjoy my work and Happy Gaming! “Olidammara curse me! I’ve misplaced my coin purse! But…what is this paper doing in my pocket? A coin and key symbol? What is that supposed to mean?!” - an introduction to the thieves’ guild in Thieves’ Cant. Symbol: A coin attached to a key. The coin represents wealth and the key influence. Overview: There is little you can do within the city that won't be spotted by them and reported to their taskmasters. The Guild was once the very epitome of shrewdness and superiority but now it is but a shadow of its former self. More recently, the war precipitated by former Guildmaster Arentol against Theobald and his Beggars' Union both killed off or discouraged many low-level thieves and apprentices, reducing the guild's pool of roguish talent. Make no mistake though, the Guild is still very influential. Anything lost or missing is most often blamed on the Thieves' Guild and they are used by mothers as the boogie man: “If you keep this up, the thieves will come in the night and steal you away”. After the great War, the Guild enlarged their own territory to include the whole Domain ... read more!

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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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ANNOUNCING THE GREYHAWK WIKI

2023-03-01T14:46:34-05:00December 20th, 2018|

Announcing The Great Library of Greyhawk (GLoG) hosted on GreyhawkOnline.com.We are working toward installing a plethora of new pages, but, as always on a wiki, WE NEED YOUR HELP! There are just over 3,000 articles presently, and in addition to adding new content we need your assistance updating old entries. Without exaggerating there are more and more pages being added every single day. Come take a look and add a sentence or a few words to your favorite page! Greyhawkonline.com/GreyhawkWiki Seal of the Great Library of Greyhawk—by Saracenus The Editors and Admins of Greyhawkonline.com would like to graciously thank the owners and contributors of Canonfire!, the oldest continuously operating Greyhawk fansite on the 'net, especially and specifically Gary Holian, for creating and maintaining the previous version of the wiki for so many years. Also, for making it available and allowing the use of the Creative Commons license so that it could be imported to GHO and used by everyone for their research and edification for years to come! And to Lamashtu/w80 for hosting a mirror of the older wiki for a number of years, ensuring it never went entirely missing. A great host and great fan.Without these people, what we do now at Greyhawkonline.com wouldn't be possible. Please feel free register, to get the benefit of notifications, messages, and a Watch List! Once you do, then add and edit new pages about your favorite topics including people, places, and things in the World of Greyhawk™. We look forward to all of the contributions, and all of the support that is coming from the community. It is together that we ... read more!

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Kellri’s 18 Module Challenge – Day 11: S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary Gygax

2022-12-26T15:58:04-05:00October 9th, 2018|

Day 11 - A Module You Never Tire Of: S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary GygaxThe S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth adventures began life as one of the bottom-most levels of Rob Kuntz's Castle El Raja Key dungeons, before Gary imported the level into the 1976 MDG Wintercon tournament adventure, Lost Caverns of Tsojconth (where it became the Greater Caverns):That tourney was later expanded and published in the more-commonly-known 1982 edition:Why I Love S4 Lost Caverns of TsojcanthMy love for and abiding interest in the Lesser, Greater Caverns, and Other Named and Unnamed Caverns of Tsojcanth is well-documented, so I won't dwell too much on that here (although my page does need some updating in light of Kuntz's manuscript sales over the years since I first published the page, and in particular the El Raja Key Archive contents). I love S4 on so many fronts:Its design practically forces me to explore it closely as a DM, and to expand it further to detail the various levels named and/or mentioned in passing and/or implied and/or hinted at obliquely:I love the Greyhawk lore introduced in both versions of the adventure, in particular about Iggwilv, the various new demons, lords, and princes introduced in the module, (as well as, of course, how to summon and bind them!---my entire Demonomicon series on Canonfire! only exists due to S4!), and, lastly, Drelnza herself, too:I love the gates-focused nature of the Lost Caverns, and the implications that Iggwilv's lair is itself separated across many hundreds leagues and only stitched together via gates---a World of Tiers-meets-Moorcock's multiverse-meets-The-Lion-GameI love that the old campaign map of the Great Kingdom from Domesday Book #9 allows ... read more!

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Kellri’s 18 Module Challenge – Day 10: Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore

2022-12-26T15:58:06-05:00October 8th, 2018|

Day 10 - A Module I Have Big Problems With: Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore (TSR, 1998)Today's topic was another difficult one to wrestle with, since there are so many problems with so many published RPG scenarios! However, I decided to focus on flawed scenarios that I like despite their failures, and then added three more scenarios that have worse flaws (in my mind, anyway) but can be salvaged, and three stinkers that are total garbage, too! What I Love and Loathe about Return of the EightRoger Moore's Return of the Eight launched TSR's re-focus to the World of Greyhawk campaign in 1998, and inaugurated the "Greyhawk 98" era of products, several of which were quite good. Perhaps even more importantly, Greyhawk 98's successes led directly to Greyhawk becoming the "core setting" for D&D Third Edition, and the founding of the Living Greyhawk campaign---the most-successful program run by the RPGA. I also like several elements within Return of the Eight (this link goes to Adrian Newman's newer site that includes the back cover page scan too), in particular:Tenser's Fortress of Unknown Depths---an inspired site that's placed into the broader context of key locations in Oerik where artifacts can be created; as Tenser's fortress, it is also a bastion for the forces of good; Moore also alluded to concepts from Gygax's TD#37 article "Greyhawk: the Shape of the World" (May 1980), WG6 Isle of the Ape, and the Gord novels in how Tenser was portrayed, which was a nice touchThe concept of Oerthblood, a magical substance created by Moore as a key ingredient in the manufacture of certain ... 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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Vote for Greyhawk in New Survey from Wizards of the Coast

2017-08-26T09:29:00-04:00August 26th, 2017|

Wizards of the Coast has a new survey up for D&D 5th Edition at http://sgiz.mobi/s3/36e018baf04e which asks several questions where fans can support their favorite settings, including the World of Greyhawk.World of Greyhawk Folio, 1980 (image from The Acaeum)Go vote for Greyhawk! :DAllan.

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The Many Levels of Castle Greyhawk – Part 2

2022-12-26T15:58:24-05:00August 10th, 2017|

In part 1 of this article series, I examined the Castle Greyhawk::El Raja Key relationships reveled in Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive, released last fall. In this article, I share an unpublished letter between Gary Gygax and Stephen Chenault of Troll Lord Games, concerning the initial development of the Castle Zagyg project.Letter from EGG to Stephen Chenault, 14 January 2004Afternoon Steve:)Seems as if my email and yours is going to take up a considerable portion of this day, eh? If this goes on much longer I'll phone you +_+> Thanks for this. I thought that might be it but then > looked at the color coded guide and confused myself.Those colors were put in so as to lessen my own confusion...> So to recap, does this look roughly online:> Castle Zagyg> > Part I Yggsburgh - City and surrounding areaRight, and you have the extent of this super-module set.> Part II Dark Chateau - Castle (?)Well, I suppose a castle-like chateau, more of a cross between a mansion and a fortified dwelling with many outside areas and buildings according to Rob.> Part III Upper Works - Castle RuinsCorrect.> Part IV Beneath the Ground (first three levels)Storerooms, Cellars, and Dungeon, plus one sublevel, the Arena.> Part V The Laboratories, Menagier, Museum (five levels)The two side levels being the Catacombs and the Upper Crypts.> Part VI The Deeps (six levels)These being the Lairs and a side level, the Lower Crypts accessed only from the Upper Crypts above; the Labyrinth and a side level the Warrens that can be accessed from the Labyrinth, the Warrens accessing the Lower Crypts above and the Vaults below; and finally the ... read more!

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The Many Levels of Castle Greyhawk – Part 1

2022-12-26T15:58:25-05:00July 27th, 2017|

Since 27 July is Gary Gygax's birthday, and has been heralded as Gary Gygax Day in the old-school gaming communities (or at least social media), it seemed an apt date to discuss one of my favorite AD&D subjects, Castle Greyhawk. In slides I prepared for the The History and Development of Castle Greyhawk Seminar that Paul Stormberg, Jeffrey Talanian, and I hosted at GaryCon V in 2013, I built upon the then-recent re-discovery of Gary's Europa article that detailed the Castle Greyhawk dungeon levels in order, as well as other Castle Greyhawk sources---some commonly known, others commonly overlooked. Further analysis and summaries about some of the levels and keys, encounters, and play summaries from Castle Greyhawk has been conducted at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse, Zenopus Archives, Dragonsfoot, Random Wizard (now gone, but thankfully still readable via the Internet Archive), Sean at Power Score (two separate links there, FYI), in Greyhawk Grognard's Greyhawk Lore collection, and by Michael Mornard via Paul at the Blog of Holding. Other good analyses and anecdotes are out there, so if you have a favorite I've not referenced, please mention it in the comments.Since then, three additional and noteworthy sources have recently come to light:Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive, published in the fall of 2016An unpublished letter between Gary Gygax and Steven Chenault, dating from during their early efforts to organize the Castle Zagyg project I recently organized the notes from my many letters and phone conversations with Rob Kuntz, dating from 1987 when we first met, up through the present-day; the notes fill three looseleaf binders thus far, and while organizing them, I flagged some discussions specifically relevant to Castle ... read more!

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The Theory and Use of Gates in Campaign Dungeons, Part 1: Setting the Stage

2022-12-26T15:58:39-05:00May 13th, 2017|

Prerequisite to the summoning and binding of demons and their ilk is a deep understanding of gates and of the planes themselves. How gates inter-relate with planar travel and truenames, with tesseracts and teleportation; the mastery of the magical traits that define planar portals, including how to ‘wrack them to your own purposes; fissuring the gatetrace of a fleeing archmage to follow and slay him within his own sanctum---these are the foundations upon which a demonologist builds her empire. For without gates there are no summonings.--- The Witch of Perrenland, The DemonomiconA Quick Preface If you have a copy of Ed Greenwood’s “Theory and Use of Gates”---first published in The Dragon #37 (May 1980) and reprinted in Best of Dragon Magazine Volume 2 (November 1981 and February 1986)--- read that before my article below. You don’t need to read Greenwood’s treatise first, but it sets the stage for this article quite handily, hence my recommendation. To A Lesser Degree, Teleporters: An IntroductionThe World of Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are replete with gates and related portals, where they serve as underpinnings that showcase the importance of gates in those campaigns, and in D&D as a whole. Castle Greyhawk is infamous for its portals to other planets and strange demi-planes---including EX1 Dungeonland and EX2 Beyond the Magic Mirror (leading to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland); WG6 Isle of the Ape (King Kong’s Skull Island); the planets from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars and Venus series; Jack Vance’s Tschai from the Planet of Adventure books; and Oz and Melniboné among many other locales. Castle Greyhawk also features much intra- and inter-level teleportation as well, perhaps most-famously to Rob Kuntz’s ... read more!

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