Virtual Greyhawk Con Experience

Hey hey heroes of Greyhawk! On the last day of Virtual Greyhawk Con, I'm here to write about my experience in gaming and streaming with this new community event. If you didn't take part, let me tell you first, it was a resounding success in attendance. So many games and DMs and players pitched in, and I hear tell that VGC 2021 is already planned for early October, so start setting aside time now!

My two favorite parts of the convention that I took part in was Casey Brown's Living Greyhawk Bandit Kingdom tournament module. He ran and scored three tables Friday-Sunday in a module written by former LG author Chris Gorsuch. I was in the initial Friday party, playing Gariveena the Pure, cleric of Pholtus (Ebongleam). My teammates at the virtual table were Jon Dawes, Steve Fridsma, Matt Shephard and Matt Robertson. Just our luck, Chris Gorsuch was also on hand to watch us speed run our way through his creation, a nasty insane asylum in the city of Rookroost. Fortunately for us, Pholtus shined the way through this darkness and got us to the final boss, and thus scored enough points along the way to win this tournament!!!! As the winning table we each acquired a PDF copy of Casey's Unofficial Living Greyhawk Bandit Kingdoms Summary. The tournament MVP, Jon Dawes got a hardcopy of the book for his charming portrayal of halfling rogue Tammy Gonegan. 10/10 would do this again.

Then on Saturday I filled in for my good friend Gary Holian at the Greyhawk All-Stars RPG ran by Jay Scott. This table drew the largest crowd and included other RPG luminaries like Luke Gygax, Erik Mona, Anna Meyer, Stephen Chenault and Chuck Cumbow. I was definitely the low man on this esteemed group! In this 1e/2e scenario set in the Cairn Hills, I played Gary's unique creation, Sir Gareth Lundern, cleric of St. Benedor the Ashen Hand, hero-god patron of the Knights Protector. We were on the hunt of Nazim Bin Kalifa, a former elementalist apprentice of Alhamazad the Wise who was corrupted by Abi-Dalzim into also being a necromancer and was about to use an artifact called the Tongue of Rugero Bloodmoon! Fun fact, I helped Jay create this villain before I was called on to play in the game. It did not help because this wizard was deadly and nearly broke Sir Gareth's neck!

Luke Gygax got to play Eliador (Smelf) the son of his original PC, Melf, from his dad Gary Gygax's home game. The highlight was when Eliador cast his "Dad's Acid Arrow" spell! Anna was her regular ranger-magic-user Imrie from Jay's home game and so was defacto our representative to the Order of Ulek who hired our characters. Chuck was the roguish follower of Ralishaz, Fritz Winchester who sneaked around and stabbed everything. Steve was Angrim the dwarven fighter (who probably did most of the killing). Jay also gave Sir Gareth a squire named Joseph Kocur (yes that Kocur) who would've been my PC if Holian had been able to show. Finally, Erik Mona was the breakout star of the show with his well-role played one-eyed cleric of Ralishaz Vanarium. He charmed us, he fought with us and in the end after Kalifa was beaten to a pulp by Smelf, he double-crossed us, taking the Tongue of Rugero after drinking his potion of gaseous form and LEFT! I hope this plot gets resolved in the future! Damn you Mona!

In the end, we all survived and had a good time. Plenty of people watched and threw cheer points our way to help out (big time). Again, there was many other amazing games and panels this weekend. I can't cover them all, but check around the community and there will be plenty of stories for us to tell from this convention for the rest of our lives!