So I Bought Some Greyhawk Novels

Greetings Greyhawk enthusiasts! It's a few weeks away from Gary Con 2020 and I just finished a piece for the upcoming Oerth Journal #32 which will be available in limited print for those who attend the convention this year! Never fear though, Greyhawk Online will have it ready for download as well, and I'm quite sure there will be a ton of extra download material that you won't see in the print version. Keep an eye on the OJ ink at Greyhawk Online for this newest publication!

Speaking of publication, I finally got tired of waiting for fate to intervene so I made a couple purchases. Yes, I am talking about old Gary Gygax novels. Lately I've been hearing people talk about the content in these novels, but I've always been a bit snobbish in only reading game publications. I certain did already own a couple books, Saga of Old City and Sea of Death come to mind. But now after hearing about Night Arrant and City of Hawks for the umpteenth time I just bought these two novels online.

This is significant because my goal has always been to try and find these novels in the wild and buy them, but I don't go to enough cons and book stores to make that life-quest feasible anymore. I got lucky. These are some used copies, in good condition and they didn't cost all that much which is nice. The cover art cracks me up. I've always been skeptical of pulp fiction and comic book covers not representing the story inside. Man do I hope there is a giant vulture getting shot with a lightning bolt! So now comes my next conundrum, what is the chronological reading order for these Gord books?

Can anyone help out?

Greyhawk Lore in Tome of Foes

Howdy Greyhawkers! Even if you don't play the most recent editions of D&D like myself, then you may have got Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes by now. This book has a very nice smattering of Mordy lore in the sidebars of course, but it also does some decent bits of Greyhawk lore in the main sections as well. Let me point out the ways.

The Balance: The moral philosophy that drives Mordenkainen and his Circle of Eight is detailed here. It spells out pretty well that the Blood War between lawful devils and chaotic demons is a focal point on this cosmic-level concept. Examples are telling:
"a disciple of the Balance might act cruelly or heartlessly one day, and benevolent and caring the next."
"Keepers of the Balance sometimes resort to strategies that seem inexplicable to those who don't grasp the whole situation. A crusading paladin might be discouraged from seeking out and defeating Demogorgon because doing so could weaken the Abyss..."


This can perfectly explain the questionable behavior of not only Mordy but also Rary the Traitor. I surmise that the fact the Circle of Eight didn't stop the Flight of Fiends is because it affected both sides of the Blood War. If it were instead the Flight of Demons, then there would have to be an equal purge elsewhere.

Tzunk on Stygia: Speculation that the layer of Stygia was once a prime material plane that was pulled into Hell by Asmodeus mentions the archmage Tzunk who researched the topic extensively. Tzunk should know some things about the planes, he used to own the Codex of the Infinite Planes and tried to conquer the City of Brass with it!

Demonic Boon of Zuggtmoy: Creatures who serve the Fungi Queen might get some rewards including stat and spell bonuses. There is also this nasty boon, Spore Kissed. "Zuggtmoy's followers are primarily mindless victims of her children's strange spores. The spores burrow into a victims' brain, turning it into a fanatic servitor." Basically the creature is immune to being charmed or frightened and if slain, the spores break and poison everyone. Nice.

Elf Deities (Seldarine): The entire elven pantheon is listed here. This is good news to fans of obscure Greyhawk deities such as Ye'Cind (music, enchantment) and Gadhelyn (independence, outlawry)

Vecna's Obsession: Apparently the Archlich Vecna wants to take the Raven Queen's power (elven goddess of the Shadowfell). "Vecna has long coveted her ability over knowledge and souls; to steal souls would give him the ability to amass and army of the dead large enough to conquer the Shadowfell (Plane of Shadow) and turn it into his own kingdom of death...Vecna has embroiled himself in a terrible conflict, leading his armies into relentless battles against the Raven Queen and her shadar-kai fanatics..." Yes, Vecna has moved on from taking over Oerth to an entire inner plane! He still hates Kas though. Woe to any PCs who get involved in this war.

More Deities Listed: Ulaa appears in the dwarven pantheon list, Bleredd (labor, crafting) in the gnome list and Charmalaine (keen senses, luck) in the halfling pantheon. Charmalaine gets some lore in fact, including her ferret friend Xaphan and the power to astrally project to scout out things before she goes into danger.

Types of Halflings: Greyhawk halflings are mentioned specifically. They live in underground burrows or cottages. They have hairy feet and hands and rarely wear shoes. The list also describes the three subraces, stout, hairfeet and tallfellows.

Elder Elementals: Epic level elemental monsters are in this bestiary. "The methods for summoning elder elementals remain hidden in forbidden tomes or inscribed on the walls of lost temples raised to honor the Elder Elemental Eye." Oh no not him!

Skull Lords: These three-headed undead bosses are new to me, and Vecna is to blame: "Infighting and treachery brought the skull lords into existence. The first of them appeared in the aftermath of Vecna's bid to conquer the world of Greyhawk, after the vampire Kas betrayed Vecna and took his eye and hand. In the confusion...Vecna's warlords turned against each other, and the dark one's plans were dashed. In a rage, Vecna gathered up his generals and captains and bound them in groups of three, fusing them into undead abominations cursed to fight among themselves for all time."

Star Spawn and Elder Evil Blessings: These is some quite evil creatures in MToF and the worst might be the star spawn I'm not sure. Cultists and creatures serving evils like Kyuss or Tharizdun have some ammo in this book. If you're tired of these gods, well there is a bunch of new names to add to your list, like Tyranthraxus the Flamed-One, Ragnorra the Mother of Monsters and Bolothamogg Who Watches from Beyond the Stars. Cthulhuian stuff indeed!

Sword Wraiths: Yes the undead sword wraiths first featured in Greyhawk Adventures are adapted to 5E here. This book takes it up a notch though, and adds Sword Wraith Commanders!

That's all I got on one run through. I'm sure there is more. This book is a must have for those who like planar stuff in their campaigns.

Greyhawk Players Option 5E

Howdy Greyhawk fanatics! If you haven't already, go to Greyhawk Grognard and download Joe Bloch's latest 5E Greyhawk supplement. This one is titled Greyhawk Player Options. Let me tell you he did his homework on this product! Here is what you can expect in this publication:

Lands of the Flanaess (an overview of the nations for new players. Indispensable reference for character creation).
Races of the Flanaess (includes info on placing Dragonborn, Tieflings and adds Snow Elves!)
Languages of the Flanaess (very thorough listings and useful in giving that Greyhawk feel to a character)
Classes (there is a lot of new paths, archetypes, etc)

• Barbarian: Path of Vatun, Path of Totem Warrior
• Cleric: Animal domain
• Druid: Circle of Celene, Circle of the Sun
• Fighter: Brigand, Cavalier
• Monk: Way of Glory Everlasting (Hieroneous), Way of the Gray Hand (Hextor), Way of Rao, Way of the Fist (Zuoken), Way of the Scarlet Sign (Scarlet Brotherhood)
• Paladin: Oath of Obedience
• Ranger: Guardian
• Rogue: Beggar
• Sorcerer: Bitten by the Serpent, Touched by the Wind Dukes
• Warlock: Elder Elemental God (patron), Rexfelis (Cat Lord patron) 
• Wizards: They have no entry but are covered in their own book, Wizards of the Flanaess 5E.

Backgrounds (many new variants of PHB backgrounds, plus four new ones) Amazon, Cultist, Fugitive and Woodsman.

Kudos to Joe on another high quality work. I know I'll be implementing this book for all my future 5E campaigns. Wizards of the Coast take notice!

A Few Greyhawk Items

Heya Greyhawkers! March is fast approaching, so let's quickly run over a few Greyhawk items on the interwebs.

First, registration already started for higher badge categories, but standard registration for Gary Con XII starts any day now. This is because the company handling Gary Con's events has had server issues, so there registration page is down currently. Keep checking, it should be back any day now. If you are attending, be sure to check out some of the cool seminars the community is hosting this year!

If seminars isn't incentive enough to attend Gary Con, Greyhawk Online will be debuting copies of Oerth Journal #32 there. The theme is "Infinite Oerths". I cannot wait to see what our line up is this year.

Speaking of Greyhawk Online, on the front page is a new 5E adventure by guest author Nathan Doyle titled, Owner of a Broken Hart. Mr. Doyle's module is a sequel to Who Watches the Watchers from Oerth Journal #30. Go there now and download his new adventure for levels 6-9!

Lastly, be sure to keep up with the latest chapters of Thomas Kelly's epic story, The Hateful Wars: The Saga of Kristryd Olinsdotter. Check back weekly for more chapters and other contributed works. Greyhawk Stories is your number one location for Greyhawk themed fiction. Enjoy!

Greyhawk A-Z: Magic Swords

Greetings Greyhawkers! Coming off the heels of a very good Legends & Lore show with Joe Bloch from Greyhawk Grognard, I realized I'm behind on posting. This is mainly because I've been plugging away at a Sea Princes article for Oerth Journal. So let's do an easy one, one of my A-Z lists of named magic swords in Greyhawk! The setting has many, many named magic swords and surprisingly I can't find a sword to fit every letter of the alphabet. If I overlooked one, please correct me. In the meantime, I will fill the empty slots with honorable mentions. Let's get started:


Afterglow: The flaming sword of Lendor, god of Time. Not sure why he needs a sword if he can just stop time and stuff. Look at him though, a god of Time who can straight up strangle a chimera with his bare hands!

Blackrazor: The most dangerous, most iconic and THE most evil sword in all D&D. Plucked from White Plume Mountain, Blackrazor currently in use for my Greyhawk home campaign and may very well be the end of it too!

Crowdpleaser: This is the short sword of Nazarn hero-god of gladiators. It is not certain this is a magic sword, but given his ascension, it must be! Also, Nazarn, first seen in Living Greyhawk Journal #3. is the only half-orc deity that I can think of in any publication.

Dreamsinger: One of my favorites. This white-steel sword, tied to bards, is one of the five Blades of Corusk. It is also the one that sets off the adventure to gather them all in Five Shall Be One. In the original module I believe it's a broad sword, but in my own adaptation for 5E I decided to make it a rapier, given the popularity of that weapon in recent editions.

Edge: Speaking of Blades of Corusk, this is one of the five which when combined allegedly allows the owners to summon Vatun the Great-God of the North. *spoilers, it might not* Edge is an extremely sharp bastard sword that can fire daggers from its pommel. Whoever wrote Five Shall Be One must've been a fan of the movie Sword and the Sorceror. 

Fragarach: Known as "the Answerer", this sword from celtic legend, was dropped into Greyhawk lore by Gygax. It has ties to Prince Thrommel, Kelanen and has been copied several times. For more info, check out this comic I did way back on the subject.

Greenswathe: Another Blade of Corusk. I am partial to these swords, so you may see them all in this list. Greenswathe was very unique in that it is a scimitar, it is tied to druids and its a golden blade. It's rather out of place in a module that is about viking barbarians.

Harmonizer: Yes, that's right, another Blade of Corusk. Harmonizer is a confounding weapon though. It's a two-handed sword, but made for thieves/rogues. This is because it's very light. But before you jump for joy, Hamonizer likes to play fair, matching opponents skill. Very un-rogue-like. It's also a Defender blade, so yeah, it's probably my least favorite of the three, because it's a mess to DM.

Incarnadine: So this sword is new to me, I only discovered it in making this list. Incarnadine is from Return to the Tomb of Horrors (Bruce Cordell) and is one of a pair of dragon-slayer long swords that can be found in this sequel. The text says Incarnadine prefers to slay red dragons, which is interesting. I don't recall swords specifying type of dragon, but I kind of do recall arrows of dragon-slaying had to be specific. If anyone can clarify I'd like to know. Also interesting, the adventure says this sword may have additional powers or sentience at the DM discretion. Nice!

Just: because I can't find a "J" sword doesn't mean there isn't one in publication, so give me a comment if you know one. Just for fun I'm gonna name the nine Swords of Answering that are modeled off of Fragarach. Answerer, Rebutter, Concluder, Last-Quip, Replier, Retorter, Scather, Squelcher, Back-Talker. I believe you find these in AD&D Unearthed Arcana, but here is a link showing their alignments.

Kelmar: This is the two-handed blade of Kord, god of Strength. Kord likes to fight monsters so its fitting this is a dragon-slayer. It gets better...Kelmar is a vorpal dragon-slaying sword. Only versus dragons though. Yes even Tiamat! But not Bahamut, he is off limits. And if the wielder of Kelmar doesn't go after the dragon, well screw it, the sword jumps out of the sheath as a Dancing sword and kills on its own! Exciting stuff.

The Sword of Lyons: This magic short sword is from A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords and as I've never ran the module before, it tickled me to discover how cool this blade would be to use in a campaign. It's just a plain +1 sword, but it is always invisible. When in its sheath and carried the owner is invisible. Thus when the blade is used the wielder becomes seen again, but the Sword of Lyons is always invisible. That's wild!

Muspelblindir: This weapon is one you won't see every day. Muspelblindir, possessed by a fire giant in Against the Giants: Liberation of Geoff, is a giant-sized sword of giant slaying. This giant has trust issues I guess? Muspelblindir is a cool name, clearly invoking Muspelheim from norse myth, the text says the sword, whose steel glows like hot coals, is translated to "who slays with fire." Yes indeed!

Nurbilac: Say what? Yeah I never remembered this one either until I did some research. The magic sword Nurbilac comes from an article in Dragon #253, A Treasure Trove of Tomes by my good friend, author and bibliophile, Scott Casper. The article is an original study on literature and historical texts from the World of Greyhawk. the entry on the Historical Reign of Ulek tells of Count Cartair of the County of Ulek and his exploits. In this text he possesses a magic blade named Nurbilac. What does the sword do? We don't find out. But a bard can inspire troops by invoking the story of Cartair and Nurbilac, so that has to count for something.


Omarannin the Laughing Blade: This sword belongs to the famous rogue Rakehell Chert and is featured in Dragon #299. What makes this short sword unique is every hit forces a saving throw or the target busts out laughing like the spell Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Yeah, this one sounds quite fun. I'm gonna bookmark that sword.

Pillars of Heaven: Are a set of swords mentioned in LGJ #3 regarding Kelanen along with his acquiring Fragarach from an alien god. I'm not sure of the context of these swords and if Fragarach is one of the Pillars, but the text says Kelanen found the resting place of three of the Pillars of Heaven, implying there are more than three of them! If so, what are the other swords? Was Sureguard and Swiftdoom two of the Pillars? Or, perhaps they are the Blades of Corusk? So many swords!!!

Q: Why does Quaal not have a sword named after him? Just tokens? Ah well here's an article I did on the Sword of Kas.


Red Light of Hades: This is the sword of Pyremius god of murder and fire. It might be the coolest sounding sword name in all Greyhawk. What does it do? Well first it sheds a reddish light, so it lives up to the name. Second, it's a +5 sword that only Pyremius can hold. Impressive. The best ability however is if it hits a paladin that character must make a saving throw of lose all their paladin powers. I repeat, lose all paladin powers. Worse yet, it takes a Wish and an Atonement spell to get the powers back. Man, Pyremius can murder your career too!

Sureguard & Swiftdoom: Mentioned earlier, I can't ever separate these two swords since they are my favorite sentient blades and best friends of Kelanen, hero-god of swords. One is a frost-brand, the other a flame-tongue. Kelanen and his swords used to be some of my favorite comics to do back in the day. Check it out.

Tensers Sword of Deadly Strikes:  Tenser is a wizard whose spell theme indicates he feels inferior to all the fighters he hangs out with. His named sword of Deadly Strikes is just one of MANY combat items created in the module Return of the Eight. This one is particularly potent for when the command word is spoken it deals maximum damage each first strike, for 1d6+3 rounds. That would be a nice one to convert from 2E to 5E.

Umbra: Remember Incarnadine from earlier? Well Umbra is the sister long sword of dragon-slaying from Return to the Tomb of Horrors. Umbra likes to kill black dragons though. Much like its mate, this sword may have additional powers. I may just skip this module and steal the pair of swords for my campaign!

Vilharian: Now this is a sword that somehow slipped past me over the years. Detailed in LGJ #4, Vilharian is an ancient Suel weapon that managed to find its way over to the Flanaess after the cataclysm and was lost in a duel versus Kelanen himself. Then it changed hands, once being lost in the swamp during the Siege of Westkeep and again lost in the sea Battle of Jetsom Island. This is an intelligent, wizard-bane +5 sword that also protects from fire and ice, and why not, controls the weather as well! Pretty powerful...

Xan Yae: the Lady of Perfection from the Baklunish pantheon, has a pair of falchions with no names, but a very strange set of properties. One, they are knife sized but can grow to 3-feet in length at her will. Also in keeping with her balance aspect in battle, one blade is +6 while the other is +1 then the modifiers gradually shift each round from +5 to +2 until they are +1/+6 and then all over again. Never mind that she has five bare hand attacks that do 6d6 damage. The falchions are for show. 

You: probably know a sword that starts with a "Y" but I'm not finding anything good. So instead let's finish off the five Blades of Corusk. One of my faves is Stalker, the long sword meant for rangers. This blade has many powers that make the PC stealthier and better at being a ranger, like handling canines. Oh yes, and the blade itself has a quirky shadowy aura when you stare at it too long. Fun!

Z: I'm out of gas at this point. If anyone has some swords they want to nominate feel free to use the comment section. This was fun when I started, but turned into quite an exercise. Until next time everyone! 

Greyhawkery Statistics

Heya loyal readers of Greyhawkery. So here's a different subject. Let's look at the Blogger stats for Greyhawkery, cause I'm coming up on some milestones and I'd like to share with my audience.

First of all this will be my 891st published post. Nine away from 900! With my posting schedule of twice a week, I don't think I'll make it to 1000 this year though. On the other hand, I did just hit my 1000th comment on the blog. Thank you to all my friends and readers who have chimed in for support, discussion and at times corrections! Keep up the good work.

 I've been doing Greyhawkery since fall of 2010. In that roughly nine plus year span, I have had 1.26 MILLION page views. I'm not sure what the average is, but last month I had 12,000 page views. My all-time record though was in July 2016 when I had 53,000 page views in a month.

My most popular post of all-time by far was 5E Greyhawk Deities which doesn't surprise me. Strange enough, my top 3 includes the Sword of Kas Through the Editions and DM Reflections on Potion Miscibility.

My top search keyword associated with the site interestingly is "Oliphant" because of this post from 2011 about a mini-game called Elefant Hunt in Dragon Magazine. Also, besides Google as my top referral for traffic, I owe alot of my modest success and longevity to Joe Bloch at Greyhawk Grognard. Thanks pal, I hope I've been able to send some eyeballs back in your direction over the years!

That's about it. I'm not looking for fame or anything, but it is nice to see I got a following to keep me afloat. More Greyhawk next time!

Update 06/27/2021: Well folks, now looking back from 1000 posts, it was nice to see I kept an eye on these stats. As of June 2021, I have 1.5 million page views, but 2016 is still my highest single month. Even my final month on the blog didn't get close to that surge. Weird. 

Greyhawk Stories: The Hateful Wars

Greetings Greyhawkers. I'd be remiss if I didn't promote the wonderful new fiction posted by super-fan author Thomas Kelly at Greyhawk Stories! Mr. Kelly's epic story is aptly titled The Hateful Wars, the Saga of Kristryd Olinsdotter. The Hateful Wars is regarded as a defining event in the World of Greyhawk setting yet until now, little detail was actually known or published about this period of war. Join in each week as Greyhawk Stories brings a new chapter of the tale to life for the first time!

Start with the prelude, Something Wicked then check out chapter one, Ehlonna's Blessing. Enjoy!