Greyhawk (and grodog) News Miscellany

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 '80s
• Dan 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 thought
  
• Anthony 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 back in 2009) has recently reprinted the rules for OSRIC (the 1e retro-clone; with ordering details if you're interested)

grodog's Greyhawk Updates and Interviews

Some new and updated content on my grodog's Greyhawk web site:

• I've recently updated my Greyhawk Anagrams page with various new entries
• I've also re-compiled my Greyhawk Runes reference file, by cutting and pasting the two sets of runes from the 1980 Folio and 1983 Boxed Set together for side-by-side comparisons (the runes are, by far, not all the same!)

 

I've also recently appeared on a pair of streaming shows, in case you'd like to catch up the recordings:

• GrogTalk on Saturday, 10 July 2021, where I chatted away with Dan and James about lots of stuff of about OSRIC and the World of Greyhawk; you can jump to the beginning of the interview at the 2:06:44 mark
  
• Bill "thedungeondelver" Silvey's livestream on Thursday, 5 August 2021, where Bill and I spend some time talking about Call of Cthulhu, Greyhawk, Wee Jas, and some general guidance for AD&D campaigning
  

 

I actually had an internet outage on the morning of Bill's stream, and dialled into the session on my phone via the Discord app (I hate apps!), which is why the perspective of the video is rather skewed ;)  

I had a great time talking with Dan, James, and Bill, and will happily revisit their shows again in the future, as our stars (and schedules) are right.

Allan.

North Texas RPGCon 2021 - grodog's games recap

As usual, I had a wonderful time at the North Texas RPG Con this year (3-6 June 2021)---in particular since this was the first in-person convention that I attended since NTX in 2019!

Some quick NTX info, for those who are unfamiliar with the convention:

• Website @ https://www.ntrpgcon.com/
• Facebook Group @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/310434204630
• TableTop Events @ https://tabletop.events/conventions/ntrpgcon-2021
  

 

Black Blade Booth

These pictures showcase our Black Blade Publishing booth this year:

While it was a transitional and rebuilding year, we did well at the con, and it was great to be able to showcase so many new and cool products to the attending gamers!

grodog's Events

Knights & Knaves Alehouse Social

I played in the K&KA Social on Thursday night, and had a wonderful time.  It's always fun to play with a very large group (15-25 players) each year and to see what mayhem erupts!  This year we were slated to play OD&D (we alternate between OD&D and AD&D each year), and Nathan "tetramorph" Jennings DM'd again. 

We picked up from where we left off two years ago.  Here are my player maps from the 2019  session:

 

and alas, my hapless PC---who used efreeti-granted wishes to become the Lord of the Manor last time---was laid low by those meddling kids!  Rest in pieces, Lord Merrak the Perspicacious, and know that you will be avenged!  (In the meanwhile, he and his efreet did kill the dragon and go down in a blaze of glory! =) 

Nathan posted his DM-POV event summary at K&KA at https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=281522#p281522, with some follow-up comments in the next page too.  General discussion of the social begins on the page at https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16739&start=135

 Here are a few pics of the K&KA crew in the boardroom where we played:

 

K&KA Social 2021 -
picture by Keith "Welleran" Sloan

 

 

K&KA Social 2021 -
picture by Keith "Welleran" Sloan

K&KA Social 2021 -
picture by Chris "benjoshua" Fuller

 

"Treachery in Erelehi-Cinlu!"

 

I ran "Treachery in Erelehi-Cinlu!" twice at the con, with a fine set of players in each.  These were smaller events than I normally run through my Castle Greyhawk levels, with just six players per event, which allowed for a bit more focus on role-playing with and among the players. 

Here's the long event description:

The drowic sage Erastoriûl Ka’arndrik has betrayed your masters, Lyme, Lord Mage of House Eilservs, and Lady Eclavdra, self-styled Queen of the Vault. Eclavdra and Lyme have sentenced the sage to vengeance and unholy death, and you are to be the instruments of their vendetta! Invade the sage's home, slay him, and return with baubles, secrets, and magics that will enrich the coffers and standing of your masters (and yourselves!). Bring your graph paper, dice, and a healthy dose of paranoid courage! 5th-7th level pregen drowic PCs will be provided. Please note: in grodog's version of the World of Greyhawk drow are chaotic evil, demon-worshipping villains, including the pregen PCs and their masters.

Session #1 ran on Friday night, and Session #2 on Saturday night.

Session #1 players:   Dex Briggs, Mark Greenberg, Jim Kitchen, Keith Sloan, Wade Stalcup, Troy Stearns

Session #2 players:    Corwin Getty, Stephen Getty, Marian Hershberger, Natalie Hershberger,  Shannon Hardt, Darren Moura-Smith, William Meinhardt

I didn't end up playing any other events at the con this year, and both sets of players ended up succeeding in the mission for the scenario, which was a bit of a surprise to me.  I may playtest the lower dungeon level for this at Virtual Greyhawk Con in October, we'll see how the rest of my summer design/editing/relaxing time goes....

grodog's NTX Loot

Adventurers and gamers are all about the loot, so here's what I scored at NTX this year. 

My purchases from the con include stuff bought actually at the con, as well as some items that arrived in the mail while I was away for the con, and some items recovered from our inventory that were buried in storage the past 18 months ;) :

 

Highlights include 

• finding a copy of Dungeon Crawl #3 thanks to the vasty stores of Mike "Badmike" Badolato (I had bought a copy of #2 from Wayne Rossi while home visiting South Jersey several years ago; these are still available in PDF via DriveThru)---the Ballantine Adult Fantasy books were from Mike, too!
  
• the pulps-inspired Creature Compendium volumes 1-3 (all Special Editions for NTX), and the Fifty Fiends books, all from New Big Dragon:  I'm a sucker for demons, as well as pulp monsters!
• the new expanded edition of Rob Kuntz's "Beyond the Living Room" set-piece encounter from Castle Greyhawk, recently released by Rob via Paul Stormberg's Legends of Roleplaying 

When I returned home, my copies of Through Ultan's Door #3 and (unpictured, but there in spirit) Gabor Lux's Helvéczia arrived, too! 

 

See!---I'm Not Dead Yet :D

I finally got this out the door, in the waning days of my first vacation this summer, and have some more news and events to share on the blog soon!

Allan.