Mortellan's GenCon Recap

Welcome Greyhawk fans. Here is a few bits and pieces of my convention experience this year in Indianapolis:

This was the year for Wizards to shine with their new edition of the Player's Handbook and crowds of people vying to play in the new organized play (as I saw many lucky VIPs got advance copies of the Monster Manual) and the adventure theme, Tyranny of Dragons was everywhere (my friends kept calling it tranny of dragons). I did not take part in any of this madness, but it was the big deal of the show.

I did manage to achieve a goal however by going to the Wizards Bazaar where I got the cool Tomb of Horrors mini set from GaleForceNine. I am stoked at having minis of the old lich Acererak but the Iggwilv's Treasure set was also tempting. I only recently got around to assembling my Lolth mini from last GenCon so I felt I had to stick with one purchase. There was also a Scourge of Suderham (Slave Lords) set, but nothing really new Greyhawk-themed. I'm sure once the Forgotten Realms/5e thing settles down, GF9 will try some more classic minis.

For me and the Gamerstable podcast group, GenCon is especially about eating and drinking. There was so many different food trucks outside the convention center all day, and so many restaurants to eat within walking distance. I can't accurately give you reviews of all the places, but needless to say I used to confine myself to the RAM Brewery and it's a mistake folks. There is a lot of great places to go for nightlife in downtown Indy. Next year, I intend to find out where all the gaming industry people go after hours.

As you read previously Anna Meyer's Flanaess Atlas did not win an ENnie for cartography but at our annual Greyhawk meet-up, I met Anna and she assured us that the exposure of being nominated was more an award than anything and she will be getting plenty of future professional mapping gigs from here on. Anna was amazing to talk to as we shared memories of our first experiences with Greyhawk and our inspirations of getting into making maps and articles for the setting. A lot of fans missed out on this rare chance to talk about Greyhawk. I cannot wait until next year to do it again.

As I was officially representing Canonfire! at the con I got in the exhibition hall an hour early to meet with some important folk including Erik Mona and a name many in the community might not know is a huge Greyhawk fan, Jon Leitheusser. Jon works with other companies right now, but last year he had a freelance adventure published The Battle of Emridy Meadows. We talked a lot about the future of Greyhawk and agreed that things should go back to the basics of the boxed set (576 CY). Jon has major connections to Wizard's Chris Perkins (another big Greyhawk fan who I cannot track down at GenCon) and game company Green Ronin so who knows what may come out in the near future?

Here's a realization that was brought up at the Greyhawk meet-up, why is no one running a Greyhawk event at GenCon? I'm not saying a seminar/panel, just a straight up 4-hour module set in Greyhawk in whatever edition or game system the DM is happy with? There's zillions of games ran at GenCon, but where's the old schoolers? You all know a Greyhawk game for six would sell out in a minute. I'd do it, but come on, don't I do enough? ;)

That's it for now. Hindsight being 20-20 I'm starting to remember authors and booths that I didn't visit enough so I'm going to have to start keeping better notes and managing my time in the future. If anyone has some good GenCon news to share feel free to comment!

Anna Meyer at ENnies Friday Night

Well folks, tonight at the 2014 Gen Con EN World RG Awards, Anna Meyer's World of Greyhawk maps unfortunately did not win in the Best Cartography category.

Anna's true labor of love, an entirely free atlas lost out to perennial favorite Pathfinder and Monte Cook's Numenara. Despite this, the nomination was a truly justified recognition for her years of tireless work on this popular fan project. The increased attention from the ENnie awards will surely give Anna a boost as she continues on as a professional fantasy cartographer. I have no doubt she will be back in the ENnie race again someday.

The groundswell of support for Anna in the Greyhawk community was fantastic and couldn't have come at a better time. Her nomination stands as a signal to Wizards of the Coast and the rest of the D&D playing world that Greyhawk has not gone away and people still want to see quality material produced with the setting. Congrats to Anna and good luck on her future endeavors!

Gen Con is Upon Us!

Well it's Tuesday so that means me and the Gamerstable gang are soon leaving for GenCon 2014! Normally I don't try to plan a lot of activities but it seems I will be busy after all. Here is some of the things I will be up to this year in no particular order:

Gamerstable Appreciation Awards: You can never have enough gamer awards right? Our own podcast's awards were given out last year at St. Elmo's Steakhouse (I highly recommend it) to novelist Larry Correia and game designer Steven Long. This year we're dining and lauding the talents of artist John Kovalic (Dork Tower, Munchkin) and game designer Shane Hensley (Deadlands, Savage Worlds). Should be fun meeting these long time industry pros.

Flanaess Geographic Society/Canonfire Get-together. A must for Greyhawk fans. I already posted about this one. Here is your second notice just in case.

RAM Brewery: Speaking of get-togethers, Wednesday evening, the Gamerstable crew and friends always congregate at the RAM (patio if possible). If you want to stop by for a drink, meet us, and discuss gaming, we'll be more than happy to oblige!

Chamber Band Concert. Thursday night at 11 pm, friends of the podcast and all around gamer friendly Chamber Band will be at Gen Con this year. I expect to check this out. Never been to a live concert at the con before.

Exhibit Hall: There's always a lot to see and buy here. I go multiple times if possible because there's too much to take in at one trip. I always hit Artist's Row, Paizo, Green Ronin, Fantasy Flight Games, WotC (5e of course) and many other indie game companies. I can't wait!

The State of Superheroes at Green Ronin: This seminar/panel on Friday 10am, will discuss the company's future with my second favorite game, Mutants & Masterminds. I can't wait!

Paizo 2014 and Beyond: I always stop in at one of Paizo's seminars (Sat 3pm), I'm a big fan of their work and especially their writing staff even though I don't run with Golarion. Last year they previewed the concept for this year's Iron Gods Adventure Path release. So if you're into Pathfinder, stop in and have an advance peek at their future developments.

I'm sure I'll be gaming in there somewhere as well. So much to do, so little time!

Castle Greyhawk: Change of Direction

Welcome back Greyhawk Loyalists! As usual, I'm a week behind in promoting the all important milestone, page thirty in the second chapter of our ongoing Castle Greyhawk graphic novel. Follow the links above to get scintillating exposition from epic composer Scott Casper. Alternatively you can view the pages HERE, courtesy of Maldin's Greyhawk.


Artist's Commentary: Ah yes, Gronan makes himself useful! Information on Castle Greyhawk isn't easy to come by evidently, but who better to know than the bandits who prey on wayward adventurers?
This page contained some of my favorite close-ups and angle changes in the chapter. The guys have been at it all night, so the sun is starting to rise. When's the last time that happened in a D&D session? Stay tuned.

Greyhawk GenCon Meet Up

Hola Greyhawkers! This post is to spread the word to anyone reading who is attending Gencon Indy next week. If you are interested in meeting, there will be a gathering of Greyhawk fans at the High Velocity bar at the JW Marriott hotel on Saturday 16th, 6pm and after. This originally started as a small informal group of Canonfire members, but we're hoping to expand this to Anna Meyer's Flanaess Geographic Society as well in light of her ENnie nomination. So if you want to talk Hawk or just gaming in general with great fans like Anna or myself, just stop by on Saturday!

One last thing, if you're going to be at Gencon all four days and have any questions I'll be happy to answer them or perhaps if you'd like to share your experiences/photos with the Greyhawk community here on Greyhawkery, just drop me a line: mortellan@gmail.com

The Lake of Unknown Depths

A few weeks ago in our weekly Greyhawk chats there was a bit of discussion about the Azure Sea and the Flanaess' largest freshwater lake, Nyr Dyv "The Lake of Unknown Depths." This is some follow up research for those interested in esoteric Greyhawk information. As you should already know, Nyr Dyv is centrally located on the map, so obviously much of the game setting revolves around this important lake. Nyr Dyv is a busy waterway connecting many rivers and nations, and it is also known for monsters that lurk in the deeps waiting to prey on ships. But how deep is the Lake of Unknown Depths?

Gygax wisely provided us with some data in the Darlene hex maps. The oceans and seas are provided with seven color bands (light blue to purple) showing distances in from 0-30,000+ feet. The Azure Sea for comparison covers all seven gradations of depth, each color band in this region is about 1-2 hexes (30-60 miles) across. This means to get to the deepest part of the Azure Sea, one must sail nearly 720 miles off shore. Further comparison shows the Dramidj Ocean to the northwest similarly covers a seven band depth over 720 miles from the mainland.

Now putting this measuring system to Nyr Dyv we see it covers only five color bands; from light blue (0-600') and ending at purple (30,000+ feet) and only a staggering 40-50 miles from shore. This means the Lake of Unknown Depths drops off fast. A barge leaving the Selintan River into the Midbay on Nyr Dyv is comfortably sailing in up to 600' deep waters a mere 10 miles out. Heading out toward Admundfort Isle, the barge would soon enter waters 600-12,000' deep only 20 miles from shore (skipping a color band entirely). This is already dangerous waters where sea creatures might hide. Sunlight underwater is gone at about 330 feet deep so you won't find too many sentient races this far out unless they have darkvision.

As the barge then begins to sail into waters 30 miles out, the Nyr Dyv nosedives to 18,000 to 24,000' deep. How dizzying far did the lake fall off? The majority of Earth's abyssal plain is on average 13,000 to 18,000' deep that's how far. Out in these waters I'd expect to only be harassed by truly massive creatures like dragon turtles or giant sea snakes, if that. The rest of the journey from 30-60 more miles out to the middle of Nyr Dyv descends two more color bands 24,000-30,000' and beyond. The Mariana's Trench on Earth is 36,000' deep at it's lowest point and it's about 1400 miles from the mainland!

So Nyr Dyv lives up to it's mythical unknown depths, but comparing it to an oceanic trench is unfair. Earth's oldest and deepest fresh water lake is Lake Baikal in Siberia. Amazingly, Baikal is a mere 5387' at it's deepest. That is only two color bands by Greyhawk standards so Nyr Dyv is six Baikals deep! The Lake of Unknown Depths is a fantasy world body of water however, so how does it compare to the Flanaess' two other major lakes? Lake Quag is 600-6000' (3300' average) and Whysestil Lake is 6000-12,000' (9000' average). This makes both lakes quite impressive by real world standards without the presence of Nyr Dyv which is truly in it's own category.

A couple more questions to ponder. One, how do sages explain such an impossibly deep lake? Well scientific minds will most likely say plate tectonics, but so much of Oerth's geography has magical implications I don't see how Nyr Dyv can be entirely natural. Consider that the highly magical Isles of Woe in prehistory sunk beneath the Nyr Dyv, so that's no small disaster there. Lastly, is Nyr Dyv the largest body of fresh water on Oerth? Maybe. Despite more recent canonical maps of the globe, the Guide to the World of Greyhawk teases that "legends and tales report a veritable (fresh water) sea far to the west, if such stories can be believed." Could this lake have been wiped out by the Rain of Colorless Fire and existed within the Suloise Empire? That's for a topic for another day.

ENnies 2014: Vote for Anna Meyer

Prolific cartographer Anna Meyer of ghmaps.net has been a friend of the Greyhawk community, not to mention Greyhawkery for a long time. For the first time I can ever remember, someone I know (outside Paizo) is being nominated for an Ennie award at Gencon 2014. Voting ends in a couple days so if you haven't already, vote for the underdog in this year's Best Cartography category, Anna Meyer's Atlas of the Flanaess.

Also, be sure to check out Anna's interview over at Examiner.com

Update 05/31/2021: Removed old broken links to ENWorld and Examiner. Anna is still putting out maps to this day, would've been nice if she got an award!