Favorite Greyhawk Megadungeon

Howdy Greyfiends! I occasionally add a poll on the front page for fun and today I've decided to comment on the results of the one on megadungeons. I have to admit first that I could only think of 4 true megadungeons for Greyhawk. If I overlooked a choice tell me, but really isn't 4 more than enough?

Ideally, Castle Greyhawk/Greyhawk Ruins/etc. should be the champ here but it came in last at 12%. In hindsight I wonder if it's because I inadvertently named it Castle Greyhawk and people thought I meant the joke module? No I meant all incarnations as a whole. Oh well, the whole poll is ruined, moving on...

My personal favorite is Maure Castle. Whether its the original Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure or Dungeon Magazine's update and expansions, Robert J. Kuntz's dungeon holds more danger and mystery in my mind than Greyhawk's ruins. Also, Eli Tomorast! However, those polled said it was only second place worthy at 17%!

The Temple of Elemental Evil is first place at 55% and probably deserved so. It's classic Gygax, it has a great back story, location, iconic villains and a sand box feel. I have no problem with people picking this dungeon though if I was more clear about Greyhawk Ruins the poll would be closer.

Lastly, I threw White Plume Mountain in for variety, figuring it was next closest qualifier for a megadungeon and it came in third! I debated with myself that the Tomb of Horrors was a megadungeon and concluded it's too short and was just a series of traps. Now I don't know much about the later additions to ToH or WPM for that matter. Give me your opinion if I'm off base.

Needless to say, aspiring authors, the World of Greyhawk might be overdue for a new megadungeon. Greyhawk Ruins has been done to death, Maure is pretty much tied to RJK stylistically and the others have been revisited as well. If I had to pick a location off the top of my head for the next great megadungeon, I'd place it in the middle of a forest. Perhaps the Fellreev or the Grandwood. Okay now get to work on that!

Two More Greyhawk Factions

Hey Greyhawkers! Today I'm following up on my last report about Flanaess Factions over at the blog neuronphaser. This week there is two new factions to explore for your Greyhawk campaign. The Knight Protectors brings back lore on an old knightly order of the Great Kingdom and also explores the more contemporary knightly orders of the Flanaess, including a nice addition of the Iron League as a usable faction. The Old Faith a well researched article on druidic lore with more nature deities mentioned in one place than you've seen in a long time!

Another good pair from neuronphaser. I'm looking forward to the last two installments.

Update 06/19/2021: Sorry folks, links to Neuronphaser are broke.

New Factions by Neuronphaser

Hey just when I thought no one was creating Greyhawk content, I discover that the blog neuronphaser has started an article series on Factions of the Flanaess, which is timely since I too recently did such works with the Pentad and the Hexad.

Neuronphaser has two articles so far, check out The Circle a power group made up of NPCs closely associated with Mordenkainen and the Circle of Eight. and then read about The Guild, which is no less than the well-organized thieves guild in the Free City of Greyhawk.

I am looking forward to neuronphaser's next few articles set in Greyhawk. Kudos!

Update 06/19/2021: Sadly, I don't see Neuronphaser online anymore. Links removed.

Take a Greyhawk Survey

Over at Greyhawk Grognard, good friend Joe Bloch has posted a short survey for his own use on where we as Greyhawk fans would like to see the setting progress in the hypothetical future. Why not? Take the survey HERE. Enjoy!

State of Greyhawkery 2017

Hello Greyhawk loyalists!

It's been an extremely slow Fall for Greyhawkery. I am writing this post to address my thoughts on the future of Greyhawk community projects going into 2017. This isn't an early new years resolution thing either, this is a state of the blog brainstorm for any who would like to chime in. Here we go...

Greyhawkery as a blog has been a lot of fun for the last 6.5 years, but I'm not sure I have enough good content to keep up even my regular two post a week schedule. I've tailed off to once a week and many times those posts are just promoting the Castle Greyhawk webcomic blog. I'm not entirely sure how much traffic I send to Scott's comic blog for the comic in this fashion.The comic is drawn by me so it does count as content for my own site I guess, but in terms of my blog stats those posts flag way behind on pageviews from my random articles on various topics or new items.

That said, I recently stopped doing game recaps of my Sea Princes campaign as well due to the same lack in viewership. Having the content is good for the site yes, but many times I felt this was all I had to offer. I still have put out my art and conversions to 5E as I feel these have more use to other people who might frequent my blog. I'm curious if there's a huge demand for 5E Greyhawk conversion? Thats one avenue I've flirted with here, but not wholly embraced.

Back to random articles and news, I time to time hit on a great idea to write about from a chat discussion or game night and I love composing those things - if I ever have the time. Stuff like 5 Reasons to Visit Nyrond and The Pentad are great educational exercises and add to the setting overall. I'd love to do more like that which leads to my next thought.

The Greyhawk community is dormant. A lack of contemporary Wizards involvement in 5E has forced many gamers to move on to other settings or RPGs entirely. My stalwart home Canonfire still chugs along after all these years as the unofficial #1 fansite, but new fanon content is all but dried up and the website itself is sorely out of date. The forums still have life and that's good but hardly the preferred means of social media anymore (and IRC chat is dying out too). Add to this, the lack of backing for a continued Oerth Journal ezine. The old publication was a blast back in the 3E era when the setting and community was vibrant with freelance creators and a call for conversions. This excitement hasn't translated to 4E or 5E D&D for that matter. So between these three creative outlets I have chosen to utilize my own blog first, then anything else second. Outside my blog and a couple others, there isn't anyone carrying this torch besides Greyhawk Reborn perhaps.

The dearth of newsworthy items has also hampered my ability to blog effectively. At one time I could always count on an eDungeon adventure by Chris Perkins or scour the internet for map projects and the like, but these opportunities are too dried up. Even my GenCon efforts to generate Greyhawk buzz have waned (Anna Meyer's map notwithstanding) to the point I'm thinking of skipping 2017 and going to Garycon instead.

What's all this mean? I guess I'm searching for a mission or some validation to keep it going in 2017. I'm sure I can hold out one more year and see. However, it'll take a BIG Greyhawk storyline from Wizards in the next couple cycles to keep my interest from finally fading altogether.

Update 06/19/2021: WOW! Looks like things turned around the last 4 years. Even though 

I'm on hiatus now, it's for entirely different reasons than in December of 2016. Wizards still isn't fully supporting GH but it has put out plenty of anthologies of old modules. Oerth Journal and Canonfire is resurgent and both have an active Discord channel, that rivals the old outdated IRC chats. Along with that, streaming service Twitch has been the injection of fan involvement I wished for, and then some! 2020 was a rough patch with the pandemic, so alot of these online outlets thrived. Good times!