From Kuroth's Quill -
grodog's AD&D blog

"From Kuroth’s Quill" is grodog's regular design column covering the elements of adventure design (and more-specifically dungeon design, given my interest in that topic). I will also wander through the design of spells and magic items; monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures; PC and NPC classes; planes and pantheons; and likely other topics as well. In the blog, I hope to provide practical examples that will be useful in campaign play, to show theory in action.

20 August 2022

Greyhawk Happenings in the News

New Settings from WotC Announced

They include both Spelljammer and Dragonlance, but no Greyhawk---none of which are big surprises, really.

Perhaps I'll have more to say on this front later, but for now, that's sufficient.

Virtual Greyhawk Con #3 - 30 Sept to 2 Oct 2022

It's that time of year again, and Jay Scott has organized another Virtual Greyhawk Con! Event registration began today at Noon CDT, and event submission closes on 26 September; see https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022 for details.

My events this year will be:

Carlos Lising's _G2 The Witch Queen's Lament_ on Fri Sep 30 at 8:00 pm (4 hours) at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022/schedule/62
Rob Kuntz's _Maure Castle and Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure_ on Sat Oct 1 at 7:00 pm (5 hours) at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022/schedule/63
Erik Mona's _COR1-03 River of Blood_ on Sun Oct 2 at 2:00 pm (4 hours) at https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022/schedule/64

All are set in the World of Greyhawk (of course!) and will be run using AD&D 1st edition rules (of course!).

In addition to my events (all of which still have seats open as of this posting), numerous other Greyhawk fans are running events spanning OD&D to 5e, all set in Oerth. I'm playing in three other events, and will take part in the closing Greyhawk panel discussion too:

"Citadel by the Sea" from Dragon Magazine, and run by Jay Hafner in 5e; I've never played with Jay before, but am looking forward to testing out this classic adventure in my first 5e game (PC levels 1-3)
"The Broken Stone Alliance" a 1e scenario for PC levels 7-9, DM'd by Michael Mossbarger. Also my first time playing with Michael.
"The Ravages of the Mind" by Lenard Lakofka, his final adventure: journey into Ratik's Timberway to root out a growing malignancy. AD&D PC levels 3-5, DM'd by Joss Popp. This'll be my first time playing with Josh DM'ing, although we've previously played in online games together.

Registration to play is just $5 and events are free: https://tabletop.events/conventions/virtual-greyhawk-con-2022

Oerth Journal

Oerth Journal #36 (Spring 2022 issue) released in May at https://greyhawkonline.com/download/16145/

It's themes is around the "Festivals of Greyhawk" and the table of contents is:

Father Tabor's Guide to Richfest - by Thomas Kell
Richfest in Chathold - by Sam "DMSam" Dillon
Beers of Greyhawk - by James A. S. Muldowney III, M.D.
Erkill's Skullsplitter - by Mark Allen
Saltmarsh Festival of Spirts - by Nathan Doyle
The Desportium of Magick - by Kristoph Nolen
Never the Heroes, pt2 - by Mark Allen
Fistful of Baubles, pt3 - by David Leonard
The Sheltering Ancestors - by Les Reno
Accursed Fishhooks - by Zach Houghton
Alvynn Bannocksburn—gnomish merchant - by Paul Jurdeczka
Seaton - by Case Brown
The Best festival of all—GARYCON XI !!!!

Issue #37 focuses on on "Magick of the Flanaess" and should be releasing soon. Kristoph has shared a few previews from it in the Oerth Journal discord channel of Greyhawk Online: https://discord.gg/DaajjgWU (I think that the OJ channel is for patrons only, so you can check-in at the main GHO channel if you're curious). I believe that my article about a new and enigmatic magical tome may be in that issue; we'll see.

Mapping Happenings in the Flanaess

This spring (March 2022), Denis Tetreault updated his City of Greyhawk map! See http://melkot.com/locations/cogh/cogh.html
Anna Meyer (and sometimes Allysa Fayden too!) are running a new livestream mapping channel in Twitch; see https://www.twitch.tv/anna_b_meyer

Anna's web site at https://www.annabmeyer.com/ got a semi-recent facelift (and thankfully https://www.ghmaps.net/ still redirects, since it's muscle-memory embedded in my fingers!)
On 4 August 2022, Anna published a general update on her Greyhawk and related mapping work
On 1 August 2022, Anna released her updated preview for the Amedio Jungle and Hepmonaland sub-continent map
On 25 June 2022, Anna published an updated 576 CY map for the Flanaess, including Hepmonaland

Stoink: A Wasp's Nest news: Long-time Greyhawk fan Ed Courtroul passed away nearly two years ago now, on 15 November 2020, and is still missed. Through the kind graces of our mutual friend Mike Badolato (Badmike to those in the know, who co-founded the North Texas RPG Con), I am now in possession of some of Ed's original Greyhawk campaign materials, including his research materials about the long-lost-and-partially-recovered Stoink manuscript.

Ed's materials shed a little further light on the map and the three and a half pages of manuscript notes that match the map as potential key headings. These seem to be all that remains of the original manuscript, so far as I can tell, at this point.

I'll spend some time detailing this in a long-overdue second entry in my "From the Vaults" post series (if you can still call a follow-up to a nearly-three-year old post a series ;) ).

More to Come, including Campaign Updates

Some of my AD&D 1e Greyhawk campaigns continue to live on, even through COVID:

The virtual Castle Greyhawk campaign that began in 2020 with the cancellation of GaryCon is mostly-thriving. The PCs (levels 1-3) have been on a mission into the Astral Plane for the high priests of Celestian, and should be returning from Anthony Huso's Zjelwyin Fall soon....
The solo aquatic campaign that I'm running for Henry also continues, and his PCs are about to enter the city of Irongate in Greyhawk. I've been cooking up some new "special" options for aquatic random encounters, and while rolling up the hoards of two different dragon turtles, made a perhaps-campaign-changing die roll....

Henry is also running a solo campaign for me, set in his version of the south-eastern end of Ahlissa in the South Province, between the Rieuwood and the Greyflood. We'll likely return to play there soon, too.
The third, in-person campaign set in the northern bight of the Gnarley Forest near Safeton, and exploring the DMG monastery dungeons, unfortunately succumbed to COVID, and has not returned to the land of the living.

And that's all for now!

Allan.