More Greyhawk News to Cheer your Sunsebb!

Darlene's Greyhawk Map with Hex Coordinates 

Zach Henderson's Map

We got discussing module hex coordinates in the Flanaess Geographical Society group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/5868854479844570/ (building in part on some September discussion at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/permalink/5621068317956522/, where I was looking for a map-based mechanism to ID hex locations on Darlene's map), and Zach Henderson created this fabulous map:

 

Zach Henderson at work
on Darlene's map

You can download Zach's full map file freely at https://www.dropbox.com/s/xjogcd7xltwqv4c/WoG_Map_Coordinates_v2.jpg.

Thanks Zach!  

Paul Stormberg's Module Hex Coordinates

During that same discussion about TSR module locations, Paul Stormberg of The Collector's Trove, Legends of Wargaming, and Legends of Roleplaying fame, shared the list of known hex coordinates for classic-era TSR modules set in Greyhawk. Paul's list draws in part on the module locations as defined in the Glassography to the World of Greyhawk booklet (1983 boxed set, page 30), but expands upon it as well:

In any case here is the "official" World of Greyhawk Glossography locales and another set done in Polyhedron 10. Both have some problems with their locations and likely have some "windage" applied to them by fans over the years to mark "better" locations:

 

• A1 A4-101 (Poly #10: A4-101)
• A2 A4-102 (Poly #10: B4-103)
• A3 A4-104 (Poly #10: Z3-103)
• A4 A4-104 (Poly #10: Z3-103)
• C1 A4-137 (Poly #10: Y3-135)
• C2 A4-92 (Poly #10: Z3-91)
• D1 M5-138 (Poly #10: M5-141)
• D2 M5-138 (Poly #10: M5-141)
• D3 N5-138 (Poly #10: M5-141)
• Q1 N5-138 (Poly #10: M5-141)
• EX1 D4-86
• EX2 D4-86
• G1 P5-129 (Poly #10: N5-126)
• G2 S5-134 (Poly #10: V5-128)
• G3 M5-138 (Poly #10: N5-139)
• I1 Y-109
• L1 B-78
• L2 (Module: "18 miles south[-east]" of B-78
• L3 (Module: "18 miles south[-east]" of B-78) 
  
• N1 K5-113/H5-112
• S1 K2-97 (Poly #10: L2-100)
• S2 T3-70 (Poly #10: U3-69)
• S3 A6-119 (Poly #10: Z5-118)
• S4 E5-88 (Poly #10: M5-141)
• T1 O4-98 (Poly #10: N4-95)
• U1 (Poly #10: U4-123)
• U2 (Module: V4-124) 
• U3 (Module: W4-125)
• UK1 (Poly #10: O4-124)
• UK2 (Module: E5/137 and F5/138) 
• UK3 (Module: E5/137 and F5/138) 
• WG4 F5-88
• WG5 (Module: X3-86) 
• WG6 D4-86 (Greyhawk Castle Locale)
  

 

Compiled module locations are also shows on the Canonfire! map at http://www.canonfire.com/cf/ghadventures.php (but you don't get hex coordinates with them too).

 

Lenard Lakofka GenCon "AD&D Open" Tournament Adventures Newly Re-Discovered!

Tentatively identified as rounds 1, 5, and 6 of the 1982 GenCon Open tourney:

Recently sold by Michael Cox of The DragonsTrove:

• 4001 The Guildmaster's Museum by Mark Shoemaker at https://www.ebay.com/itm/275539255792
  
• 4005 A Minor Threat by Lenard Lakofka at https://www.ebay.com/itm/234778960945
  
• 4006 Threat from Nowhere - The Gift at https://www.ebay.com/itm/234778960944
  

I'll pull the details from the auctions and add them to my Greyhawk Tourney History page, if applicable (I don't immediately see any Greyhawk content in them, but will dig some more).  I've also been in touch with Matt Shoemaker, who maintains the GenCon Events Database at http://www.best50yearsingaming.com/.

Lenard was a fan of The Companions' hex grid maps, which helped me to ID the last round of the tourney as possibly also created by him. 

I also recently confirmed that Lenard co-wrote  "The Great Deck" (by LL and Wm. John Wheeler), "Cards of Minor Power" (by Wm. John Wheeler, with LL and Peter L. Rice), and Magical Treasures (by Wm. John Wheeler and Peter L. Rice, with LL and others) in The Companions' Treasure Trove I: Cards of Power 1982 generic D&D supplement.  

I'll add these details to my Lenard Lakofka Index over the holidays.

grodog's GaryCon XV Events Submitted and Approved

I also submitted two events to run at GaryCon XV in March 2023.  Both have been approved but not scheduled formally yet, so take the date/times below with a grain of salt for the moment:

• LEGIO V—Gary Gygax's Castle Greyhawk Level Keyed by grodog     
• Queued for Scheduling     
• Thursday at 19:00     
• 5 hours      
• LEGIO V—Gary Gygax's Castle Greyhawk Level Keyed by grodog     
• Queued for Scheduling     
• Saturday at 19:00     
• 5 hours
  

 Here's the event's long description text:

Explore grodog's version of one of Gary Gygax's unpublished Castle Greyhawk dungeon levels. The Chessboard level existed in either the Original or Expanded Castle Greyhawk. grodog has a copy of the original map, but not the original key.  So, you're playing Gary's (slightly modified) map with grodog's key.

Bring your graph paper, dice, and a healthy dose of paranoid courage! 6th-8th level charcaters provided.

==

The Lake Geneva Legio V began as a handful of gamers who have attended Gary Con since its inception. 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 Gary Con 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.

 

On Friday night, I will also help DM one of the rounds for Paul Stormberg "Legends of Roleplaying" AD&D Open tourney.  That's usually at 6pm. 

grodog Interviewed Twice in One Week!

October was a rare month with two interviews for me:

Shane Plays

Shane Stacks of Shane Plays interviewed me on Sunday afternoon 9 October 2022, and it just went live last night:

OSRIC & The OSR with Allan T. Grohe Jr. - Episode 264- 11/30/2022

RPG developer and publisher Allan T. Grohe Jr. (aka "grodog") joins to talk AD&D retroclone OSRIC, the OSR, Black Blade Publishing, John Eric Holmes, and RPG goodness in general. Allan LOVES him some Greyhawk. The skills he learned tracking down early information on Greyhawk helped lead to his main non-RPG career. How active is the current AD&D 1E and/or OSRIC scene? What is Allan’s definition of OSR, and does he feel it’s important? The legal importance of OSRIC to the OSR community. ‘zines are often lauded, but at one time Dragon magazine was a sort of “D&D website” in its day as well. Watching an RPG project happen behind the scenes. Shane offers a mild defense of rules lawyers. “Vanilla” fantasy is not a derogatory term. Cthulhu and Delta Green. Look, just hit Cthulhu with a boat. Shane has figured out Lovecraft’s indescribable color. Thunderdome match: Strongheart versus Warduke.

You can listen at https://shaneplays.com/osric-osr-rpg-allan-grohe-podcast/ and on YouTube or your podcast platform of choice (see the main link).   

 

College of Wooster Gaming Research

Within the same week, on Thursday evening, 13 October 2022, Laura Jentes---who is working on a gaming history MA thesis at the College of Wooster (in Ohio)---interviewed me about my experience gaming in the later 1970s through to the present.  

This is part of her research on the oral history of gaming (she also wrote a bio on Gary Gygax as part of a class she took last year).  All of the content and research will be shared later in the spring once her work has concluded, and I'll share the news when it becomes available.

I'm off to Philly to visit my family and friends in South Jersey on Friday, and I may perhaps try to drop in on PAX Unplugged, too.  We'll see how the timing shakes out.

And that's all the news that's fit to print, for the moment, anyway ;)

Allan.

The Strange Case of the Forgotten Folio Forest

Life's been very busy and distracted of late with changes in our daily homelife and work routines caused by the COVID-19 outbreak in the 'States.  Thankfully our family has remained untouched by the virus to date, but it has slowed down my sharing via the blog.  

I've managed to keep designing and writing (and editing, and drawing, and...), and hope to return to a more-regular pace soon.  In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this bit of Greyhawk research trivia.

==

At the topographical level, the Flanaess is filled with many strange and wondrous features, some inherently magical or the result of the expenditure of vast magical energies in aeons past---the Land of Black Ice, the sunken Isles of Woe, and the Bright Desert may, perhaps, all owe their infamy to such magics.

There are, however, additional and perhaps greater powers at play in the World of Greyhawk.  Powers that shape the course of all of The Flanaess, of Oerik, Oerth, and the multiverse itself---and beyond!  I am, of course, referring to the powers and perils of editing within the game design process! ;)


In particular, today I'm referring to a forest that is largely lost in Greyhawk's publishing history---a forest that straddles the Crystal River in central Furyondy.  "Wait!" you say, "there is no such timberland in Greyhawk!"  And in most instances of the maps of the Flanaess, you would be correct:  

The Crystal River, in central Fuyrondy -
Greyhawk Folio 1980

All subsequent versions of officially-published Greyhawk maps also omit this feature:  the 1983 Boxed Set, From the Ashes in 1992, The Marklands in 1993, Greyhawk: the Adventure Begins in 1998, the 2000 D&D Gazetteer and 2001's Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, the Furyondy Triad's Gazetteer in 2002, and the Dungeon Magazine four-part Greyhawk maps in 2005. 

However, in its large-scale continental and migrations maps, the 1980 Greyhawk Folio clearly depicts this forgotten forest:

The Continent of Oerik -
Greyhawk Folio, 1980

Human Migrations into the Flanaess -
Greyhawk Folio, 1980

I've also zoomed-in and colored the forest for clarity:

The Continent of Oerik, mangled by grodog - 
Greyhawk Folio, 1980

Now, that does not mean that the forest is an error or oversight on the smaller maps, and neither does it mean that fandom has completely ignored the forest, either.   The forest appears on Gary Gygax's original sketch maps for the 1980 Folio Map; unfortunately I cannot share images from those maps at present, so you'll have to take my word that it appears therein. 

Anna Meyers' Greyhawk maps are the other major source that marks the forest, and not just her 576 CY maps that I linked to, but all of them:

Flanaess Full Map 576 CY (zoomed-in view) -
by Anna Meyer

You too can zoom into the above view through Anna's Flanaess Full Map 576 CY - 2020 Edition.  In addition to placing the forest, Anna christened it as the "Hindewode." 


This is my working-map for placing the forest in the Darlene maps' hex coordinates grid:

The Forgotten Forest - sketch map by grodog
(orient sheet with large hexes flat for easier reading of notes)

I wanted to work through the hex location of the forest, estimating via the Folio maps, so I grabbed an old homemade hex sheet I'd drawn as a kid from TSR's Hexagonal Mapping Booklet (you can see some of the larger hex lines are somewhat crooked in places ;) ), pivoted it 60°, and called it good enough to sketch on.  Based on my interpretation of the forest's placement, it occupies the J4-79-ish to L4-82-ish hexes.   

You'll see in my notes that the forest, as drawn on the Folio continental map, is similar in size to the Axewood (which has a different shape as rendered in the published version of the maps), as well as comparable to the unnamed forests in the south of Veluna and west of the Gnarley---also named by Anna as Dapple Wood (Northern and Southern sections) and Iron Wood.  

In total, the forgotten forest spans about three to three-and-a-half of Darlene's 30 mile hexes, which breaks down into about 14 1/2 five-mile hexes (six per larger campaign hex) in length, and 9 five-mile hexes in width, as measuring across the longest and widest points of the forest. 

I'll write next about the fun aspects of what this missing forest means in the context of my current Greyhawk campaigns!

Allan.

Darlene Greyhawk Gothic Font

Darlene Artist's wonderful Greyhawk font, showing-off some of the dungeon level titles from my version of Castle Greyhawk!

You download the free-for-non-commercial-use font from https://www.facebook.com/groups/1471065309863986/permalink/2082384232065421/

In the text file of the download, Darlene includes details on how to purchase a commercial license as well.  

Some additional context/details from Anna Meyer, who sponsored Darlene's development of the font:

I helped Darlene create a font featuring the famous script of the Greyhawk logo. It took awhile but here it is, version 1 of the Greyhawk Gothic font.

It is released as Creative Commons -BY -NC -SA 4.0 so you can use it for all your gaming needs as long as they are not for commercial purposes. 

You can grab it here: http://bit.ly/GreyhawkGothic-Font

After I downloaded the font, I played around with it using some of my Castle Greyhawk dungeon level titles:

Allan.