Greyhawk News You Can Use in the Month of Planting!

Black Blade - GaryCon booth review at Black Gate

John O'Neill of Black Gate Magazine visited our Black Blade Publishing booth at GaryCon last month, and rote a very nice piece about the booth and the books at https://www.blackgate.com/2023/03/26/gary-con-report-black-blade-publishing-and-limitless-adventure/.

Allan working BBP's GaryCon booth
(photo by John O'Neill)

The article nicely updates John’s rediscovery of our booth back at GaryCon X at https://www.blackgate.com/2018/03/13/the-1001-treasures-of-black-blade-publishing-and-goodman-games-gary-con-2018-report-part-ii/.

It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate the breadth and depth of excellent content available in the greater old-school, OSR, and Greyhawk gaming communities, and John’s article does a great job summarizing the passion that we bring to this hobby. 

It’s a true pleasure to help introduce gamers to the myriad of wonderful books, adventure modules, fiction, and other fan-created projects at GaryCon and North Texas RPG Con each year.

 

Tonisborg Review, 2002 Gygax Video, and the Marmoreal Tomb Shambles into Unlife

Two news items via Trent Smith’s always-insightful blog, The Mystical Trash Heap:

1. Trent’s excellent review of The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg, recently reprinted via Kickstarter by the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary team
   
   
2. A recently-rediscovered 2002 interview by Peter Michael Garcia with Gary Gygax at GameFest 2002 (Richmond, VA) at https://vimeo.com/809850827 (23 minutes):

2002 Peter Michael Garcia interview
with Gary Gygax

 

The video was shared on Facebook by Ernie Gygax, and Trent reshared it from there.

Ernie’s and Benoist Poire’s Marmoreal Tomb Kickstarter also began to ship product in March, after the long-delayed project was rescued through the assistance of Troll Lord Games, who completed production and fulfillment.  I wasn’t a backer, but the new books do look pretty good, per a picture that Anthony Huso shared recently from his blog:

 

The Marmoreal Tomb in all of its glory
(photo by Anthony Huso)

 

What’s Up in the Greyhawk Fan Community

The community has been pretty busy of late---creating, announcing, and delivering several new projects!:

• Ben Ball’s Peoples of the Flanaess download is at https://www.mediafire.com/file/zbmel607ngy0zfj/Peoples_of_the_Flanaess.pdf, and offers pre-defined lists of names for each of the 61 cultures, nations, and named regions in the World of Greyhawk. Each d30 table includes columns for female and male names, alignment, hair color, hair texture, complexion, and eye color.  Follow-up discussion is available at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse (where Ben also shared some brilliant encounter tables for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, too!).
  
  Ben’s work aligns nicely with the Greyhawk naming discussion on Canonfire! that Marc-Tizoc Gonzalez began, and which I mentioned in last month’s news update.
  
  
• The new Gulf of Ghayar Gazetteer can be downloaded at https://www.annabmeyer.com/2023/04/19/gulf-of-ghayar-gazetteer/.  Designed by Crag and supported by the Greyhawk fan commuinity, the 96 page PDF details the full scope of the Dramidj Oceanic region, located at the extreme northwest of the Flanaess, beginning at Ekbir and sweeping westar beyond.
  
  
•  Jay “LordGosumba” Scott, Anna Meyer, and I hosted another discussion with Rob Kuntz on Saturday morning, 22 April 2023---Earth Day, so perhaps we should have made it an Oerth Day chat, but we didn’t think of that and instead we discussed the origins, history, and continuing development of Rob’s player character, Lord Robilar (and a few other topics).  You can watch the recording on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1800551316 and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mH6A85uMC8:
  
  
  
  
  And if you missed last month’s widely-ranging discussion with Rob, the recording is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmGKXKPS6kA.
  
  
• Jay also recently announced the dates for Virtual Greyhawk Con 4:  this year it’s being held from 6-8 October 2023!:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Last, but certainly not least, a new Greyhawk fanzine is in the offing, Visions of Greyhawk:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Evan “FormerlyKnownasNorker” Cummins announced the new zine on Canonfire! at http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=9716 with a pointer to this four-page download:  http://www.canonfire.com/visionsofgreyhawk/VisionsofGreyhawkProposal.pdf:
  
  

  VISIONS OF GREYHAWK is a new e-zine being made by and for World of Greyhawk enthusiasts. It will be hosted on Canonfire.com. As that website has done for the hobby for over two decades, this e-zine will present mini-modules, lore articles, reviews, new monsters and magic, and more, regardless of the version of the rules employed.

  
  Zine submissions opened on 15 April 2023, and Gary Holian added some commentary in the above Canonfire! announcement thread: 
  
  

  My two cents. The Oerth Journal continues to exist and we should be proud of of it as one of the longest running zines in fandom. But this is more about Canonfire and its new direction.
  
  I will be relaunching the [Canonfire!] site soon, with updated forums and using a modern Wordpress installation as a base. That should greatly improve the signup process and the search engine, both of which are functionally broken in many ways. We'll work on ways for people to discover and re-discover all the great content on this site.  [snip]
  
  Why the name Visions of Greyhawk? I suggested we choose a name that leaves no doubt what the content is about, targeted for people far and wide who are not just members of Canonfire, but it will be hosted and promoted on CF.

  
  The editorial team has been firming up as new community members volunteer to help support the zine, and currently includes (as of 19 April 2023):
  
  
  • PROJECT EDITOR: Ewan Cummins
  • CONSULTING EDITOR: Gary Holian
  • LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Lee Schaidle
  • ASSISTANT EDITORS: Gary “hedgeknight” Francisco

Visions of Greyhawk is still accepting volunteers for assistant editorial positions.  To volunteer your help in editing or layout and design, or to submit an article or a piece of artwork, emails visionsofgreyhawk@gmail.com.

Since the new zine is positioned as complimentary to the Oerth Journal rather than competitive with the OJ, I remain cautiously optimisti that the community can support multiple zines.  We’ll see!

 

And that’s all for the month of Planting!  Happy Oerth Day everyone (yet-again blogger ate my content yesterday afternoon, so this being posted a day late and a post short), and see you next time!

Allan.