Black Blade Publishing and the OSR Community

...or, Why Does Black Blade Publishing Still Exist?

Earlier this year, Jon Hershberger and I met to conduct some Black Blade Publishing 2025 planning, and discussed preparations for GaryCon XVII and North Texas RPG Con, among various and sundry other topics, as is our wont.  

Black Blade Publishing logo---
yeah, that's us!

A Short History of Black Blade Publishing

In case you are unfamiliar with Black Blade Publishing---which is not only possible but quite likely since our web site has been kaput since before COVID, we don't do much in the way of outbound marketing, never launched a Kickstarter, and publish brand-new products less frequently than we would prefer---here's a snapshot summary:

Founded in 2009 by Jon Hershberger and Allan Grohe, Black Blade Publishing publishes and sells old school role-playing game products. We publish the OSRIC rules and Monsters of Myth supplement, adventure modules by Robert J. Kuntz (co-DM of the original Lake Geneva Greyhawk campaign), Tales of Peril (the D&D fictions of John Eric Holmes), and gaming supplies including graph and hex pads in a variety of formats ranging in size from 4.25 x 5.5" up to 17 x 22".

2025 marks 16 years that we've been been pursuing OSR publishing, which in our case invites some occasional introspective reflection.

Black Blade's Raisons d'Être

As part of our discussion, we revisited some of the core principles around which we founded Black Blade back at the dawn of the OSR---a phrase that recalls Babylon 5's season one opening line, "It was the dawn of the third age of mankind" (or at least it sounds that way in my head! ;) ).  Some of the principles that guide us include:

1. Publishing high-quality print products that support AD&D 1e and it's retro-clone, OSRIC
2. Supporting that communities that keep AD&D 1e and OSRIC alive 
3. Providing the homebrewing tools that drive DIY gaming
4. Supporting the publishers and gamers who participate in the old-school community

For the record, other reasons drive our business goals and planning too, but the above four were top-of-mind in our discussions at the start of the year.

Let's tackle them each in turn!  

1.  Publishing High-Quality Print Products that Support AD&D 1e and it's Retro-Clone, OSRIC

Publishing high-quality print products that support gaming using the rules and design ethos of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition (AD&D 1e) and its retroclone, OSRIC. 

This includes our work publishing OSRIC and Monsters of Myth, our adventure modules The Original Bottle City, Cairn of the Skeleton King, and Tower of Blood by Rob Kuntz, Tales of Peril: The Complete Boinger and Zereth Stories of John Eric Holmes and our graph and hex paper pads that support homebrew gaming:

Monsters of Myth
(BBP edition 2024)

Tales of Peril (released 2017,
returns to print in 2025)

Cairn of the Skeleton King
(BBP edition, 2015)

Tower of Blood (BBP edition 2015)
by Robert J. Kuntz

The Original Bottle City
(BBP edition, 2014)

The Original Bottle City map from Castle Greyhawk,
by Rob Kuntz (included in BBP edition, 2014)

2.  Supporting the Communities that Keep AD&D 1e and OSRIC Alive
 

We support the AD&D 1e and old-school gaming communities that keep the heart of AD&D 1e alive and kicking nearly fifty years after its launch with TSR's Monster Manual in 1977.

2a.  OSRIC Pricing

This includes our pricing strategy for our OSRIC hardcover edition, which binds our price to the Lulu.com edition---Black Blade's price is $26, the Lulu version is $25.20.  

Our fixed price keeps AD&D 1e and OSRIC available in a comprehensive edition (including the equivalent content of TSR's PHB, DMG and MM books in a single volume) at an affordable price that's accessible to any gamer who wants it.  (We have been told by many other friends and publishers that we should be selling OSRIC for $50 or more!). 

OSRIC continues to remain freely available in PDF and wiki editions:

OSRIC front cover

2b.  Gaming Conventions

Black Blade's community support also includes our participation, engagement, support, and promotion of 1e gaming both offline at GaryCon, the North Texas RPG Con, and at conventions local to us: 

Locally today, that's primarily through Jon's continuing leadership at ScoutCon, which he has supported since its 2017 beginnings; we also supported KantCon in Kansas City for its first eight or nine years, and TsunamiCon in Wichita for many years as well:

Online, Allan continues to support the annual Virtual Greyhawk Con each fall, and both Jon and Allan support the hobby through engagement in online old-school and OSR groups on Facebook, reddit, and discord, as well as through community forums at Dragonsfoot, Knights & Knaves Alehouse, ODD74, and various other social media channels.  

3.  Providing the Homebrewing Tools that Drive DIY Gaming

Some of our philosophical approach is to provide the tools that support old-school DIY game play and homebrewing, which is where our graph and hex pads come to the table---literally and figuratively:

Black Blade graph and hex pads
(all but the new big one)

Black Blade's largest hex pad at17x22"
with an OSRIC rulebook for scale

In addition to the below examples, you may find my post #Dungeon23 Resources - Mega-Dungeon Tools of the Trade helpful to homebrewing and DIY gaming.  

3a.  Graph Pads!

I offer two examples of dungeon levels built using our Black Blade graph pads, but you can crawl through the blog and find many others if large levels don't excite you:

Allan and Henry's summer 2022
COVID mega-dungeon

Allan's revised Level 1 map
for grodog's Castle Greyhawk (2020)

You can read more about those levels and designs in my posts about Mega-Dungeon Design Sprints with Henry (or, How to Cope with COVID together after NTX 2022), and my Revised Maps for the First and Second Levels of grodog's Castle Greyhawk.  At the other extreme, some smaller examples on our mini-pads appear at Cairn Hills Lairs - The 1st and 2nd Fluted Cairns. 

3b.  Hex Pads!

Here are a few images that offer a better look at the hex pads in action:

Our 11x17" hex pad, showing the Gnarley Forest
and Kron Hills west and south of Dyvers (drawn by Allan Grohe) 

An earlier draft of the above map, with my 
DMG ruined monastery environs on the right

I've previously shared my DMG monastery environs map, but not this map of the environs around Nosnra's Steading from G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, drawn under guidance from Bill Silvey for his Monday nights Greyhawk campaign: 

Nosnra's Steading Environs, 
map by Allan Grohe 

Mike "mortellan" Bridges has featured our hex pads in many of his maps shared on his Greyhawkery blog, with this beautiful Perrenland regional map being the most-recent  (click through to the blog post for a higher-resolution version):

Mike Bridges' gorgeous Perrenland cartography,
on our 17x22" hex pad!

Mike has similar examples of his fabulous maps at https://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2017/06/new-greyhawk-map-ulakand-mesa.html and https://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2020/11/new-map-ice-barbarian-campaign.html, among others.  You should definitely check all of his Greyhawk work out!

4.  Supporting the Gamers and Publishers Who Thrive in the Old-School Community

Lastly, through our work at conventions and in our booth, Black Blade supports the OSR and old-school gamers, designers, artists, and publishers who also support AD&D 1e, OSRIC, and similar old-school systems. 

Knockspell Magazine #3
(Summer 2009)

Jon and Allan have both written for Knockspell Magazine, and while Allan has occasionally contributed to Fight On! Magazine, Jon spearheaded and led production on the massive Gong Farmers Almanac for the DCC community from its inception through 2020 (as well as maintaining our Black Blade DCC zine annual indexes during that same time). 

Saving Throw #1 fundraiser zine, 
honoring the memory of Jim Kramer

This also includes maintaining our Black Blade booth at GaryCon and the North Texas RPG Con each year.  We have attended GaryCon and NTX since their inceptions, and in our booth we try to promote the best that the OSR has to offer alongside our own products, since many of those products are created and published by our friends and fellow-gamers!:

Black Blade's GaryCon booth in 2024

Black Blade also represents a large and varied assortment of other old-school game publishers, carrying their products for Gary Con and North Texas RPG Con attendees' enjoyment. These publishing partners include Goodman Games, The Tekumel Foundation, Anthony Huso, Bat in the Attic Games, Mythmere Games, North Wind Adventures, casl Entertainment, The Arcane Library, Swordfish Islands, Three Line Studio, E.M.D.T. - The First Hungarian D20 Society, and numerous others. 

You can view pictures of our booths in our Facebook albums, and see gaming in action in my 2025 and 2024 GaryCon convention reports (and further back if you're inclined toward a stroll down memory lane!).

John O'Neill, editor in chief of Black Gate magazine, has also showcased the breadth and depth of our booth's cornucopia-like offerings in recent feature articles from 2023 and 2018.

Still Crazy After All These Years

In revisiting our origins and talking through the whys and whats that we do, Jon and I reaffirmed our interest in continuing Black Blade. 

Jon (tacojohndm) Hershberger and Allan (grodog) Grohe
in the Black Blade booth at GaryCon 2025
(photo courtesy of John O'Neill)

"Staying in business" is not a foregone conclusion since Black Blade consumes a lot of our time (including vacation time from our day jobs---Black Blade is far from a full-time career for Jon or me, and it would never support our families), energy, and creativity.  We intentionally reexamine this question every few years, as the business climate and our personal circumstances warrant.  

We have come close to shutting down Black Blade more than a few times in the past, but for now we plan to hold the line, and to continue to proudly carry the torch for old-school gaming.

A Heartfelt "Thank You" 

As always, we thank you for your patronage and your continuing support for old-school gaming in all of its forms, and we look forward to seeing you in Lake Geneva and Dallas again in 2025, and beyond!

Allan and Jon.

grodog's Top 10 Favorite Greyhawk Adventures

On tonight's Gabbin #353 "The Top Published Greyhawk Adventures!" show, Jay Scott, Anna Meyer, and Mike Bridges feature Erik Mona, Carlos Lising, and Joe Bloch as guests (with others to be announced during the show) to discuss their favorite Greyhawk modules of all time.*  

My favorites rankings have slowly evolved over time (two different links there), as I've revisited various classics and my assessments of them:  D3 and L1 rose through such reconsiderations, while G3, WG4, and S4 lost some ground when considered as adventures first and sine qua non, rather than for their introductions of seminal new monsters or magic items, etc.

For my top favorite Greyhawk modules lists below, I've limited myself to adventures set in Greyhawk (whether explicitly or with the serial numbers filed off), rather than those that can (or perhaps should) be adapted to Greyhawk:

grodog's 10 Favorite Gryehawk adventures, ranked, with some quick notes about what appeals to me about each:

1. D3 Vault of the Drow by Gary Gygax:  D3 has dethroned G3 as my favorite adventure of all time; it is the quintessential AD&D scenario---a high-level sandbox of doom that will snuff out your PCs if they're not as capable diplomatically as they are in combat; combining the best of dungeon play alongside factions and city play, D3 is the ultimate test of a DM and a play group!
   
   
2. WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure by Rob Kuntz:  WG5 continually remains a favorite, but it is difficult for me to choose between these three levels vs. others in Rob's Maure Castle (in my head, I group the three levels here with the three from Dungeon alongside "Warlock's Walk"), but for the moment it remains at the top among his designs, in my eye:  it's hard to beat the Kuntzian expansiveness of The Lost City of the Elders, the octych stars before the Unopenable Doors, the imaginative Eli Tomorast and his unique familiar Rel, Kerzit and his stewardship of The Tome of the Black Heart, and the fabulous set-pieces throughout the first level
   
   
3. MoZ4 The Eight Kings by Rob Kuntz:  like WG5 it's hard for me to rank MoZ4 vs. others in the series, but this one edges the others out since it presents a 32nd-level archmage's magical lab demi-plane, invaded and taken over by Xaene after Zydilec (its original proprietor) fell victim to one of his own experiments; it also offers a wonderful conclusion to the series, and the opportunity for the PCs to restore the good-and-just Ivid V to the throne of the Great Kingdom (as opposed to his evil clone, controlled by Xaene)
   
   
4. T1 The Village of Hommlet by Gary Gygax:  the quintessential challenge for expert players---new 1st level PCs thrown into a powderkeg of local politics and regional-spanning machinations that involve gods and demon princes!; the fact that Lareth is beloved by Lolth (or Zuggtmoy, or whoever you decide to replace his patron with) also demonstrates the importance of actively-engaged deities in the setting (St. Cuthbert and the Old Faith druids and bards, among others), something I have certainly taken to heart in our current campaign
   
   
5. L1 The Secret of Bone Hill by Lenard Lakofka:  another wonderful introductory sandbox, this one uniquely providing local wilderness exploration accessible to lower-level PCs (2nd to 4th), alongside fun dungeon exploration, and the introduction of local politics later exploited and developed further in L2 The Assassin's Knot
   
   
6. G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King by Gary Gygax:  While I've slipped my ranking of this adventure as I've reconsidered it over time (for many many years it was my #1 module), that's only because I've grown to appreciate the other scenarios above even more-deeply; I still love the drow, the interplay of the factions throughout the adventure (in particular when you consider any previously-surviving giant thanes from G1 and G2 making their last-stands here after fleeing the PCs earlier in the series!), the temple to the Elder Elemental Gods, the wall of tentacles and tentacle rods, and the subtly-suggestive interplays among the evil forces (Queen Frupy's occasional magical control of her husband, the suggestion of an affair between Eclavdra and the king, the illithid spying upon everyone, etc.)
   
   
7. A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity by David Cook:  perhaps my only pick still on the list influenced in part by nostalgia (A1 was the first module I ever bought for myself, using monies saved up from paper routes and/or lining Little League baseball fields), I still find this scenario quite compelling---the introduction of the Slave Lords and their foul depredations throughout the communities of the Sea of Gernant, our first introduction to the ruined-but-still-living city of Highport, my first exposure to tribal shamans and witchdoctors in play, and the vision offered for how to flesh out a four-hour convention tournament (with scoring details, and now-iconic pregen PCs) into a campaign scenario; A1 inspired me to design other buildings in Highport, and to build out its sewer system that the dungeon level would naturally connect to, as well
   
   
8. "Chambers of Antiquities" by Rob Kuntz and Paizo in Dungeon Magazine #124 (July 2005):  my favorite of the three levels published in Dungeon, and only eclipsing #112's "The Statuary" because I still dislike the ideas of the Id Core and its minions (I haven't reimagined these concepts in my head yet for deployment at the table) enough that they outweigh my love of The Statuary's map (one of my favorite designs by Kuntz); that said, the set-piece encounters of "Chambers of Antiquities" are brilliant, and I love the concept of the Maure family maintaining vault of "stuff to dangerous for us to mess with yet," and the hints at the wider world of the setting (the Dragonmasters of Lynn, Arodnap/Pandora, and the many artifacts and relics Kuntz introduces).  
   
   
9. "COR1-03 River of Blood" by Erik Mona, an introductory and core Living Greyhawk scenario from the campaign's launch in 2000:  Mona's brilliant introductory scenario stands right up there with T1, L1, and T1 as an excellent introductory campaign starter; it leverages xvarts (an under-used goblinoid monster unique to Greyhawk), and as the first in his "Absolute Power" series of planned LG scenarios ties into the Maures, the octyches from Maure Castle, S2 White Plume Mountain, and the ancient powers of the Suloise archmages; Mona followed-up on this adventure in "COR2-01: As He Lay Dying" and I hope that he returns to the series in the future, as it's an excellent premise
   
   
10. Return of the Eight by Roger Moore:  Despite it's railroady introduction---which, in truth, is not much worse than others in classic modules; the advantage of such starting premises is that they can a) be easily jettisoned, and b) take up little space in the module's text---I love this module for its creation of Greyhawk lore (oerthblood and the Fortress of Unknown Depths itself), its exploration of a high-level wizard's demesne (only Kuntz's MoZ4 surpasses it as such!), and a continuation and homage to Iggwilv's ongoing machinations in the setting, building from S4, WG6, and later scenarios (like "The Ravage of Ghorkai" from the d20 freebie download for Slayers Guide to Dragons, and perhaps most-notably in Carlos Lising's use of the character in his C11 and G2 modules)

10 Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order by title, rather than ranked):

• "Fiend's Embrace" by Stephen S. Greer in Dungeon Magazine #121 (April 2005)
• G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief by Gary Gygax
• G2 The Witch Queen's Lament by Carlos A. S. Lising 
• LGCC-1 The Original Bottle City by Rob Kuntz
• "Kingdom of the Ghouls" by Wolfgang Baur in Dungeon Magazine #70 (September/October 1998)
• "Quest for the Golden Orb" tournament from Origins in 1984 by Elaine Walquist
• S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary Gygax
• "The Whispering Cairn" by Erik Mona in Dungeon Magazine #124 (July 2005)
• WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun by Gary Gygax 
• WGR6 City of Skulls by Carl Sargent

I'm sure the discussion tonight will be well-worthwhile, so check it out live on Twitch or as a rerun on YouTube!  (I'll update these links once it's posted).  

* The discussion piggybacks on "The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time" listing published in Dungeon Magazine #116 (compiled by Mona, James Jacobs, and the Dungeon Design Panel and published in November 2004).

For reference, here is that list, but note that a) it's not Greyhawk-specific, and b) it cheats by grouping multiple modules in a series as a single line item, which doesn't force hard choices like G1 vs. G3, for example ;)

1. GDQ1-7 Queen of Spiders 
2. I6 Ravenloft 
3. S1 Tomb of Horrors 
4. T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil 
5. S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 
6. I3-5 The Desert of Desolation 
7. B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 
8. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil 
9. S2 White Plume Mountain 
10. Return to the Tomb of Horrors 
11. The Gates of Firestorm Peak 
12. The Forge of Fury 
13. I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 
14. Dead Gods 
15. X2 Castle Amber 
16. X1 The Isle of Dread 
17. The Ruins of Undermountain 
18. C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 
19. N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God 
20. A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 
21. Dark Tower 
22. S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 
23. WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 
24. City of the Spider Queen 
25. DL1 Dragons of Despair 
26. WGR6 City of Skulls 
27. U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh 
28. B4 The Lost City 
29. L2 The Assassin's Knot 
30. C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness

...with some analysis by Glyfair in 2004 ENWorld discussion:

• OD&D: 0 
• 1st Edition: 18 
• Basic D&D: 4 
• 2nd Edition: 5 
• 3rd Edition: 3
• Non-TSR/Wotc products: 1 

Allan.

A Brief History on the Development and Design of the Planar Cosmology in AD&D

I was reading a good discussion a couple of months ago (in February 2025) about the nomenclature for the power levels of different types of demons over on Dragonsfoot, when the topic veered a bit more planar in focus.  This proved interesting, since it highlighted some inconsistencies between lower-planar monsters' alignments and the planes that they were assigned to within their descriptions in the Monster Manual.

This made me ponder and reflect a bit, after which I realized just how much planar content development in AD&D was compressed into the three-year span from July 1977 to August 1980's release of Deities & Demigods.  There's a little development before, and significant additions afterward, as my planar bibliography demonstrates, but that three-year window is very significant!

Planar Development Timeline, 1977-1980

1. 1977:  Gary Gygax’s first article on the planes appears in "Planes" in The Dragon #8 (July 1977). It introduces the first visual of what will become the Great Wheel, and calls out the new spell Vanish as a means to enter the Ethereal (also spelled as the Etherial in the article, a spelling employed by Tramp in his "Wormy" comic stories).
   
   
   

   

   The Great Rectangle?? - D&D's first planar schematic,
   from The Dragon #8 (July 1977)

   
   
   This planar diagram isn't oriented as we've grown used to seeing it---here, the lower planes are on the left side of the diagram, with The Abyss occupying the traditional location of the Nine Hells, while the devils reside in the traditional location for the Seven Heavens.
   
   As Gary states at the end of that piece, “This writer has used only parts of the system in a limited fashion. It should be tried and tested before adoption.”—so, the planar concepts were in the process of being developed while the Monster Manual was being finalized.  Gary returns to this playtesting focus a few times during this planar development spurt.
   
   
2. The Monster Manual is published in December 1977, and vastly expands the planar monsters without really codifying the planes much at all (as its five-point alignment system demonstrates).  
   
   The five vs. nine alignments is somewhat telling, since one of the aspects that Gary mentioned in the TD#8 article on page 28 is that, "As of this writing I foresee a number of important things arising from the adoption of this system. First, it will cause a careful rethinking of much of the justification for the happenings in the majority of D&D campaigns.... Third, and worst from this writer’s point of view, it will mean that I must revise the whole of D&D to conform to this new notion."
   
   Those revisions were not yet finalized, and clearly not fully-introduced in the MM either,  despite Gary sketching out some of their architectural outlines six months earlier.  
   
   (Aside:  I wonder if the amount of work required to introduce the new planar underpinnings into the system is part of why Gary felt justified to declare AD&D to be a new game significantly different from OD&D).  
   
   
3. 1978 sees some of Steve Marsh's first public writings about the planes in D&D, in his  zine series "Elaikaises' Tower #2" and "Elaikaises' Tower #3" articles in Lords of Chaos #4 (Spring 1978) and #5 (May 1978).
   
   I'll follow-up on these soon, after I reread them in depth and compare them to the material I have from Steve's player characters folder, and to the 1980 TSR memo below.
   
   

4. The Players Handbook reiterate (and reorient!) the Great Wheel with its release in June 1978.  Here, the planes are reoriented to match the positions of the alignments in the original graph from The Strategic Review #6 (February 1976) and in the PHB itself:
   
   
   

   

   Revised planar architecture for AD&D,
   Players Handbook (1978)
   

   
   
   
5. "Elementals and the Philosopher's Stone" by Jeff Swycaffer in The Dragon #27 in July 1978 is directly commented upon by Gary in TD#32 (see below), and begins the wider community-based discussions about the planes in response to Gary's initial outlay of them in TD#8.
   
   

6. D3 Vault of the Drow introduces mezzodaemons and nycadaemons as new creatures---and by implication, daemons as a new type of denizen of the lower planes---at GenCon XI in August 1978.  
   
   

7. 1979:  While the barghest wasn’t widely known until its publication with the release of Monster Manual 2 in 1983, it first appeared in The Dragon #26 in June 1979 (and its text remains notably unchanged in MM2), and speaks to Gehenna's inhabitants in a manner consistent with other entries in the MM.
   
   
8. The Dungeon Masters Guide's release at GenCon XII in August 1979 provides some suggestions and guidance on planar matters, but spends far more words on how to convert characters back and forth from AD&D to Boot Hill and Gamma World rather than focusing on the planes themselves, unfortunately.  
   
   
9. Gary’s "Playing On the Other Planes of Existence" in The Dragon #32 in December 1979 talks to night hags, nightmares, daemons, and larva as known dwellers in Hades, codifies the 1979’s DMG guidance on converting BH and GW as parallel worlds in AD&D, and follows up on the ideas of the Greyhawk campaign's short-lived subway excursion into the real world of Earth mentioned in TD#30 (October 1979).
   
   But going forward very little of OD&D's wild and wooly days of "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery" in The Strategic Review #5 (December 1975) or "Faceless Men & Clockwork Monsters" in The Dragon #17 (August 1978) remains in AD&D's planar conceptions.
   
   Gary also responds directly to Jeff Swycaffer's article in TD#27, and concludes with another appeal to the fan base:  "If you have opinions which you wish to share with us, please drop me a line.   Better still, if you have what you believe is an outstanding treatment of one of the planes, why not submit it to TSR's design department?" (page 13).  
   
   
10. 1980:  Ed Greenwood's seminal article, “From the City of Brass… …to Dead Orc Pass… In One Small Step: The Theory and Use of Gates” in The Dragon #37 (May 1980) details  the use of gates as a travel device in the fantasy and science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the works of Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and Philip Jose Farmer, James H. Schmitz, and C. J. Cherryh.  
    
    In that same issue's “Greyhawk: the Shape of the World” article, Gary updates us on the development of the ten elemental planar modules with Steve Marsh---and these are in addition to Skip William’s unpublished Shadowland module set in the Plane of Shadow (Gary opines that “perhaps that should be Quasi-plane of Shadow”) as being outlined in the development department , and Queen of the Demonweb Pits, to be set in the Abyss.  (Gary also provides troop details and notes about high-level PCs and followers from the Greyhawk campaign, and talks to other doomed Greyhawk projects like Castle Greyhawk and the City of Greyhawk).  
    
    Shadowland was actually solicited by TSR at one point, and I had preordered it and later received a refund.  From The Acaeum's Ongoing Research page:
    
    

    WG7 Shadowlands.  From the Summer 1986 Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog:  "A high-level module set in the World of Greyhawk.  Journey to the perilous Plane of Shadow to rescue Princess Esterilla and confront the master of the plane... where you find yourself an unexpected guest at a wedding where the guests include a lizardman, a catlord, and a mistress of illusion!".  Assigned TSR stock #9184.  Gary Gygax and Skip Williams were collaborating on the project, but it was shelved due to Gygax's lawsuit with TSR.  Gygax has since stated that while Wizards of the Coast has given permission to have the module published, the fact that it will be produced "on spec" (no contract nor advance payment), makes it unlikely that he or Skip will be undertaking the project anytime soon.  The original mention of it is in Dragon Magazine #37, page 10, where it's called "Shadowland".  The mock-up cover scan of this module, featuring the cover artwork from Dragon #58, is here.  Thanks to Christian R. for the scan.  This research item is closed, but will remain here for trivia purposes.

    
    
    
    

    

    WG7 Shadowlands - unpublished 
    cover artwork by Clyde Caldwell

    
    The WG7 product code was recycled in 1988 for the "joke" version of Castle Greyhawk.
    
    
11. June 1980 TSR memo from Gary to Steve Marsh (with a cc: to Lawrence Schick) that talks to the size of various non-infinite planes, as well as naming some of the planar projects planned at that time, including Steve's Starstrands and Old Shards adventures, and Skip Williams' Shadowland, alas all unpublished:
    
    
    

    

    June 1980 TSR memo on planar adventures
    being developed by Steve Marsh with Gary Gygax

    
    
    
12. The release of Deities & Demigods in August 1980 at GenCon XIII adds the Para-Elemental Planes and the Plane of Shadow to the planar cosmology, and redraws the Outer Planes as The Great Wheel for the first time: 
    
    
    

    

    The Great Wheel debuts in
    1980's Deities & Demigods

    
    

That’s a lot of moving parts being juggled in planar development work between Gary Gygax, Steve Marsh, Dave Sutherland, and, to a lesser extent, Skip Williams, Frank Mentzer (who helped on the spells and magic items adjustments for Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits), and Rob Kuntz (who designed his own elemental planes and Demonworld for play in his Kalibruhn campaign, and incorporated planar and planetary concepts in Greyhawk).

I will examine some of the beginnings of the planar design process prior to 1977 and its continued expansion after 1980 in the next article in this series.

Allan.

The grodog Thither and Hither and Points Between

While the blog and I have languished together in torpid stupor for quite some time now, the blog's silence did not originate in or from wordslessness, but for good reasons that I will delve into soon.  And in case you missed it, this is not in fact my first post in the past ten months ;)

In the meanwhile, we have some catching up to do!

The Recent Past and Near Future

GaryCon XVII - 18 to 24 March 2025

GaryCon was, as always, a mixture of a lot of work and lot of fun.  The fun, as usual, overweighted the work, which is always a good thing and helps me know that it continues to be worth the effort to attend while juggling our Black Blade Publishing booth, playing games, and catching up with friends:  the balance still tilts the fun to the positive for all three, which is a very good thing indeed.  

GaryCon 17 badge and pins

As always, we appreciate the assistance from Rich Franks and Victor Raymond while running the booth, and from fellow gamers and volunteers in setting it up and tearing it down too.  This year, Gilbert Ganse, and Joe Mac helped us set up and tear down in record time!

This year, I played West End Games' Star Wars d6 game for the first time (and using its first edition, in case that matters):  

Star Wars d6 (West End Games) -
1987 original edition

Star Wars d6 (West End Games) -
1996 revised & expanded 2nd edition

While I own both the 1987 original edition and the 1996 Revised & Expanded 2nd edition (which is, I admit, the default I see in my mind's eye), I've never had the pleasure of playing either version before, and I've never played on the same of the screen in the esteemed company of Handy Haversack and his NYC crew---Ross Peabody, Rob Skarbek, Manny, (and maybe Iain too?), along with Chris Kusel, Jim Lohman, Richard Keene---and the rest of the table of diehard gamers on Saturday night at GaryCon in Bluegnoll's "Star Wars: I Got a Bad Feeling About This" event:

Rumors are quietly circulating of an Imperial admiral wanting to defect, but their identity is a well guarded secret. Alliance Intelligence has sent your group to infiltrate an outer rim Imperial base where an unusual meeting of Imperial Navy, Army and Intelligence officials is under way. A local Hutt Cartel smuggler, receptive to Alliance overtures for assistance, has made for strange bedfellows.

My character---anagrammished from my names as Nallorg Godor---was an outlaw (I didn't fix his name on the PC sheet until after snapping the picture, seemingly, and I didn't think to shoot the PC sheet again at the end of the session either, alas:

grodog's first Star Wars character---
an Outlaw named not-Amos!

David used miniatures and scatter terrain with a 1950s road-atlas-sized-, comb-bound book of SF battlemats that admirably set the scene:

The grodog's first Star Wars game!---
our finale battle!

With three additional pics graciously provided by Handy Haversack:

We had a great time, and many thanks to David for finding room for me in the game, and to Handy and crew for letting me crash their party, quite literally!

In addition to playing Star Wars, on Wednesday night I also returned to Greyhawk's Perrenland in Carlos Lising's ongoing The Wolves of St. Cuthbert campaign, which was fun as always.  I really enjoy gaming with this crew, which features a fun mix of heady role-playing, tactical chaos, and Greyhawk shenanigans.

On Friday night, I helped to DM Paul Stormberg's Friday night Legends of Rolepaying tournament.  This year's scenario was a sequel to Allen Hammack's C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness, and was, as usual, quite fun to DM.  The crew at my table (one of 16 tables, for a total count of about 144 players this year) included several folks new to playing AD&D 1e, which is always a treat :D

grodog hard at work,
DMing "Dungeons of the Ghost Tower"

On Sunday night, my business partner Jon Hershberger ran Paul Reiche III's "The Temple of Poseidon" from Dragon Magazine #46 (February 1981) for our Legio V crew of miscreants, which was also fun.  Jon's not only an excellent DM, but he wrangles the Legio crew like a pro!

Jon Hershberger DMing Sunday night's 
Legio V game, "The Temple of Poseidon"

North Texas RPG Con 17 - 4 to 9 June 2025

NTX17 is---from my point-of-view, at least---just around the corner, in particular since free event  registration opens on 15 April 2025 at , a mere 11 days from when I've begun typing these words.  (And it's now one day after registration as I'm reviewing the above words.  So much for timely ;) ).  

Due to the chaos of being of late, I only completed my NTX events submissions very early  on Thursday morning, 3 April 2025.  I'll run three sessions of a new scenario set in my drowic Dark Markets setting:

LEGIO V – Operation: Prism Shards and Unbound Chains

Explore Kiradúvi Mancalënómirond – The Dark Markets, grodog’s new Greyhawk underworld setting:  a flourishing drowic trading hub at the conjunction of subterranean, riverine, and planar travel routes.  In Operation: Prism Shards and Unbound Chains, you are an allied crew of drow minor clan merchants scouring The Undersell—the Dark Markets’ annual secrets auction—to find and rescue a Tormtor turncoat on the run before assassins slay the renegade, or she sells her secrets to the highest bidder.  If you succeed, you will elevate yourselves and your clans in power, and perhaps rise to head new noble houses, while aiding the downfall of the reviled Eilservs-Tormtor coalition; should you fail, your souls will pounded from your bodies by Abyssal goristroi—or worse! 

 

Bring your hex and graph paper, dice, and a Machiavellian dose of paranoid courage!  3rd-5th level pregen drowic PCs will be provided. 

Content Warning:  Gary Gygax’s seminal introduction of the drow to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons portrays their culture and society as chaotic and evil—drow are demon-worshipping villains who actively engage in slavery, torture, and human sacrifice.  The setting in this scenario leverages and extends that baseline depiction into the underworld markets that support and slake their lusts to demonstrate that drow are the antithesis for all that is good in the world:  in both our—real—world, as well as in the World of Greyhawk fantasy game setting.  This includes the pregen PCs and their masters. 

== 

The Lake Geneva Legio V began as a handful of gamers who have attended Gary Con and North Texas RPG Con since their inceptions. We have grown over the past few years to include like-minded individuals united by a respect of Gary Gygax and his legacy. We are the dedicated attendees who love NTX for the camaraderie it establishes, the Game Masters who run games from across the decades, and the committed gamers who spend these four days in a fervor of dice rolling and old-school good times. Although events run as LEGIO V Presents will use a variety of rule systems, our focus is on games authored by Gary and his contemporaries as well as those systems whose designers pay homage to these pioneers. 

My three events run on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 7pm to midnight.  I will likely reprise them at Virtual Greyhawk Con #6 in the fall, as well, in case you missed out on them this time around.  

New Toys and Reviews

A detailed run-down on these must await another follow-up post, but that should also land sooner vs. later.  (I do discuss the Greyhawk-related titles a bit below).  

In the meanwhile, here's my loot-fan from the convention to help tide you over!:

Loot captured at GaryCon by the grodog---
did he level up yet??

This includes a host of excellent tomes and wondrous sundries, including:

• A cornucopia of Greyhawk- and Blackmoor-related riches from Rob Kuntz, Lenard Lakofka, Carlos Lising, Will Dvorak, Michael Mossbarger's reproduction of Eric Shook's rendered Castle Greyhawk level 1 map (which he DM'd this year and provided with as a historical handout), Paul Stormberg's tournament (I worked for this one ;) ), and a pile of seven new-to-me, 3e-era Greyhawk novels gifted to me by David "diaglo" Temporado
• New fiction!  From the Goodman Games booth across the aisle, I bought two Gardner Fox novels one of which I didn't already own (One Sword for Love), and grabbed of copy of Kurt "thank you for killing my clone" Winter's debut novel, The Hero's Fall.  
• The latest and greatest from Alex Bates and Shayla Sackinger:  new miniatures (these two resin pieces accompany the huge John Dennet dragon turtle I bought previously, but I apparently forgot to include the new metal goblins I bought too---rats!), the new adventures The Twin Heads of Avarice (a great title!; this is a full module) and The Awful Amber Doom (a one-sheet dungeon|folder-adventure|thingy), and some very yummy birch caramels (which my wife and boys also enjoyed, thanks Alex!)
• And some other curious sundries:
• A nearly-pristine Shure SM57 microphone from David Prata for my older son Ethan, the musician
• On Tyrrany, an all-too-timely gift from Victor Raymond
• A new zine from Noah Davidson, in two different formats; "Welcome to Halishaft" may the title of the zine, or of its introduction, but it looks like a fun project either way!
• A flyer for a new D&D museum being planned by Jim and Debbie Hunton:  see https://museumofdnd.com/ for more information
  
  

Greyhawk News, Both New and Old

I fully intend to catch up on my curated Greyhawk news postings, which by now will be quite out-of-date in most instances, but those that still make the cut will confirm that they were well-worth awaiting:

In the short-term, though, the following news items are definitely worthy of mention:

• The Lenard Lakofka Archive published two new modules at GaryCon:  LAB1 The Lanthorn of Velzarkis (Dan Boggs finished the adventure from Lenard's notes) and RL1 The Ravages of the Mind. 
  
  I've not had a chance to dig into LAB1 yet, but I playtested RL1 when Josh Popp ran it  at Virtual GaryCon #3, in 2002.  
  
  Many thanks to Troy Alleman of Caanibaal Publishing for kindly gifting me a print copy of RL1 at the show!
  
  
• Rob Kuntz's new adventure, Into the Wild Blue Yonder: A Journey Through Blackmoor’s Dark Realm, which he designed for and ran at DaveCon 2 back in the fall of 2024, was published by Griff and Chris, The Fellowship of the Thing crew behind the excellent Secrets of Blackmoor documentary.  
  
  Unfortunately I missed Rob's first visit to the USA since his departure a decade ago, but I hope to catch up with him when he returns next :D
  
  
• Trent "TFoster" Smith just published his new campaign, Brink of Calamity via his Storm Fetish Productions publishing imprint.  (My print copy arrived finally on 16 April 2025!).  
  
  In the sandbox style of Griffin Mountain, Brink of Calamity is set in and around Warnell (Narwell in the Wild Coast of Greyhawk).  I'd hoped to playtest some of its scenarios in my current Greyhawk campaign, but the PCs' excursions to Dyvers didn't lead to entanglements I expected, so that opportunity didn't arise quite yet!  
  
  Trent also has the new campaign book available in a bundle with his Heroic Legendarium book, which we've been using for a few years now in the current campaign:  we have both a single-classed bard and a savant among the PCs.  
  
  
• I finally met William “Giantstomp” Dvorak, and he graciously gave me a copy of his Wicked Studios' Ravensrook sourcebook, and provided several copies to share with other Greyhawk fans who came by the booth, too!
  
  I love helping other Greyhawk fans find books and resources for their games, and several of the folks who walked off with Will's book hadn't been aware of his work yet :D 
  
  
• Vince Garcia continues to publish his monthly zine Gary World in the files section of the First Edition AD&D (Gygaxian AD&D) Facebook group.  The group is private, so you'll need to request membership to join, and Vince publishes the zine PDFs to the files section for a week or so, then removes them.  But they're worth the wait!
  
  

The Crews:  They Keep Me Going

The gatherings of friends and my immediate and extended "gamer family" at GaryCon remind me of how much I love the company of fellow gamers.  I had planned to take more pictures while wandering around the con, the exhibitor hall, in my games, and of games that caught my eye, but I did little photoging, as seems usual these past few years....

I enjoyed wonderful, but always too-short, conversations this year with Doug Waltman, Erik Mona, John O'Neill, Jon Peterson, Matt Finch and Suzy Moseby (including the almost-conversation on Monday morning, had we only known!), and Jay Scott:  they refract among my memories throughout the con.  Longer and deeper ones with Victor Raymond, Paul Stormberg and Doug Behringer, Carlos Lising and Jeremy Breazeale, and Kit at GreyhawkOnline rise above the haze, demanding follow-up....

L to R:  Keith Sloan, grodog, and
Tony "Wheggi" Rosten

I was an unexpected delight to discover and meet Rick Meints at the Chaosium booth---we've corresponded together on YSDC, The Acaeum, and Facebook for years, but this was the first time we met.  I was somewhat dazed from my walk through the hall at the time, but we managed through that.  Rick graciously gifted me a Chaosium 50th anniversary pin, which will I will proudly add to my badge lanyard for North Texas in June :D

Thank You!

My thanks to Luke and Bouchura Gygax, Josh Popp, Dave Conant, Gilbert Ganse, and the innumerable volunteers who bring GaryCon to life each year.  You're keeping the flame alive, and the con vibrant and filled with fun! 

To Rich Franks and Victor Raymond for helping out in the booth so that Jon and I could step away from it, and Joe Mac and [another kind person I've lost track of in my hazy memory :( ] for their help in packing up the booth on Sunday.

To the many friends from online forums, discords servers, publishers, communities, previous  conventions, and the games I've played in and DM'd who I look forward to catching up with each year:  you are why I keep coming back!

Allan.