Sunday, October 30, 2016

Castle Greyhawk: Wizardly Negotiations

Welcome again Greyhawk readers! I'm slacking as usual in promoting the latest work on chapter four in our ongoing Castle Greyhawk graphic novel. Check out page-fifteen to see some intelligent inking by author Scott Casper. On our site you can also check the archives and follow the entire Castle Greyhawk story from the very beginning.


Artist's Commentary: This page was challenging from a composition standpoint. What's essentially just a back and forth between Rary and Ehlissa turned into an exercise in world balloon placement. Rary is a bit wordy let's just say! The other fun design component I did was the open frame column down the middle. I love leaving empty space with the margins and the frames with some added figure overlap from one box to the next using Ehlissa's arms. 

It's not something I intentionally plan on mind you. I start drawing from Scott's script and then see how things develop. Often it's a matter of me running out of room so I let everything meld together and divide it after the fact. Sound like gibberish? Probably is, but if you've tried to piece together a comic page before you'll appreciate what went into this work. :)

That's all for now. Looks like poor Ehlissa isn't getting her way. Rary isn't archmage level yet so he is still wary of people like Erac's Cousin. Who is he anyhow?

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Ready Player One Acererak Art

As I mentioned recently, I'm a bit late to the phenomenal novel Ready Player One. It's a small spoiler, but Greyhawk and the Tomb of Horrors features prominently in the story that is soon to be a movie in the next year I hear. As such, to sate my obsession I found an official site that has been posting photos and fan art. I thought my Greyhawk fans would love to see the old lich Acererak having some fun. Make what you will of the images. If you haven't read the book I highly highly recommend it.
by robotnicc




















by jdelgado

by Robots-in-Love

by evanames


















































by Robots-in-Love
by dead-bl00d

Friday, October 21, 2016

LoreMaps

A week or so ago I saw a link to LoreMaps and their wonderful interactive fantasy maps of Faerun and Game of Thrones. This project is a combination of geotags and linked wiki information, but trust me see it for yourself. It's only going to get more advanced as they go along with search functions and more. I for one am also going to contact them and obviously nominate the World of Greyhawk for their next fantasy map, cause why not?

Update 06/19/2021: It seems this site hasn't added any new maps since I last posted on this. Too bad.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Castle Greyhawk:Thaumaturgist

Welcome back Greyhawk readers! It's high time I get off my butt to promote the latest work on chapter four in our ongoing Castle Greyhawk graphic novel. Check out page-fourteen to see some smart screed by author Scott Casper. On our site you can also check the archives and follow the entire Castle Greyhawk story from the very beginning.


Artist's Commentary: And now we have Rary in the picture, or rather a younger version of the Rary we all know. Side thought, I'm not sure what a thaumaturgist is and I've played D&D for decades.

It's very interesting that Rary is a local wizard to this story in Greyhawk City. I don't know his Gygax campaign origins as well as Scott so I'm sure the precedence is there. I've only ever been familiar with the game setting version where he hails from the Baklunish West and somehow ends up in the Circle of Eight. It will be fun to see where Ehlissa's gambit takes her now that she's consulting a higher level mage (Higher than Tenser I assume). Stay tuned.

Monday, October 10, 2016

80's Nostalgia

Let's talk nostalgia. For many of us who enjoy Greyhawk and D&D, we grew up in the 80's. For this reason I can be awfully sentimental when I read or listen to anything relating to that decade. I have a feeling the 80's is hitting a nostalgic high mark currently.

Who hasn't already read a blog post or new article about the popularity of the show Stranger Things? It touched on a lot of people's nostalgic heart strings and has inspired a new generation or two to go back and see what was so great about "back in the day". Building on this most recent development and working backward, we have long been in an 80's renaissance era with movie franchises like G.I. Joe and Transformers, not to mention innumerable cartoon remakes like Voltron. The list goes on and there is no way I can even touch on it all.

Back to gaming, WotC has been enjoying ever increasing popularity with 5E D&D largely, in my opinion, by catering to the nostalgic fun of older editions and material rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. This effort bleeds into the 90's of course since it concerns the Forgotten Realms, but Ed Greenwood's world does have roots farther back as we all know. With adventures based on Castle Ravenloft and notably Tiamat it would not surprise me one bit to see a remake of the 80's D&D Cartoon.

One last thing, for the last ten plus years, I've closely followed the goings on of D&D and Greyhawk. So imagine my surprise that I just now found out about the 2011 novel, Ready Player One because it has a VERY strong 80's nostalgic vibe. Not to give away the plot, but it references AD&D, Gygax, and Dragon Magazine quite liberally. It also specifically mentions and uses Greyhawk material in its plot more times than all of 4th edition! Author Ernest Cline has to be an old Greyhawk fan! As of writing this I haven't finished the book, but I hear Steven Spielberg the director of my favorite 80's movie of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is making the movie version. Seems fitting.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Luke Gygax on Podcast

Hey guys, I would be remiss if I didn't point out my friends over at the new Trench Monkeys RPG Podcast recently interviewed the famous Luke Gygax and talked a bit with him about GaryCon, Greyhawk and old school D&D. You have got to check this out.