Old Greyhawk Ads

Welcome back readers of Greyhawk nostalgia. I don't have much new to present so let's muse on some old Greyhawk goodness. Yes, let's look at the hype surrounding the World of Greyhawk setting's earliest ads in the pages of my all-time favorite gaming magazine The Dragon.

First up is the ad for the 1980 World of Greyhawk "folio" in the pages of Dragon #39. This is the one that started us off. It's basically the cover of the folio without the TSR logo and strategic ad text thrown in. Just a taste of that map, the shields, drawings of monsters and a castle. Yes, that would've sent me to my local game store!

Personally though, I began my love of Greyhawk a few years later with the Greyhawk boxed set and only got my hands on the Folio many years later. In the issue before this ad, if I recall correctly, Gygax had an article that previewed all the Greyhawk products and projects they had in the works.

This advert is from Dragon #41. The World of Greyhawk Fantasy Figures was one of these projects that Gary teased in store for the Greyhawk setting. He includes a pic of the Folio in the corner as a tie-in. Back then, mini photography wasn't all that so the ads tended to be illustrations of the minis. I literally did not know about this mini line until well after it was cancelled and to this day I have never tried to collect them. I do know that Joe Bloch is an aficionado of this line and has written about them extensively. Shoot over to Greyhawk Grognard and check out these minis. They are primitive by today's standards yes, but they are very grounded in the lore that Greyhawk supplied back in the 80's.

Gygax the wargamer was definitely setting Greyhawk up to be a wargame. Somewhere along the way dungeons became more popular and the wargame aspect was left for later attempts such as Greyhawk Wars or Battlesystem. Either way, if you ran your Greyhawk campaign with these minis then I award you 1,000,000 Greyhawk cool points!


That's all for now. I couldn't find an ad for the 1983 Boxed Set in Dragon Magazine. I know that from 1983-1984 was a steady stream of Greyhawk deity articles so I know the world was popular as ever, maybe they didn't need to advertise such an in-demand product? If anyone can reference a magazine print ad for the boxed set let me know! More nostalgia another day!

Greyhawk Stuff on the Net

Hail Greyhawk gluttons! I've been taking a mental break from my 2E Greyhawk Wars series, so this post we will promote some of the other cool bloggers and authors in the community.

Let's start with the blog Greyhawk Musings and David Leonard as he continues to examine the collective cited sources of Greyhawk history. His latest installment continues the deeply rich background of the Great Kingdom from 300 CY through the Turmoil Between Crowns. This is the era of Zagig, Death Knights and a lot of political intrigue in the east. I've said before, my dream "period piece" of the Flanaess would be a sourcebook on 300-400 CY World of Greyhawk (the other being the Suel-Baklunish Wars). Check out this article HERE.

Next up is the tireless creativity of Joe Bloch over at Greyhawk Grognard. Joe and me have been on the same wavelength it seems, talking about the Pomarj on stream and writing pieces on warfare involving the Iron League. Where we differ is Joe is a fan of miniature gaming rules (he is exploring the Triumph! ruleset), whereas I tend to be lazy and use counter/card abstracts for my campaigns (Warmachine, Greyhawk Wars, Birthright). Joe is very adept at adapting Greyhawk armies to mass combat rules. Check out his article on the Army of Idee. He does his homework when crafting these armies, immersing them in the lore of Greyhawk. Joe is a true wargaming legacy of Gary Gygax.

Over at the blog, From Kuroth's Quill, my friend Allan Grohe is musing on his current Greyhawk campaign and its planar-gate connections. Grodog, who I associate with old school Castle Greyhawk normally, gives a good run down and some graphics on what other worlds and planes he is tying together. It's all quite fascinating world building stuff. We all like to reach beyond the game-world we use. I know I used to do a lot of Planescape and Norse mythical adventures, but Greyhawk was always the core setting. I will be keeping an eye on his campaign moving forward.

Finally, Thomas Kelly over at Greyhawk Stories continues his epic tale of the Hateful Wars with Chapter Fourteen: A Voice in the Dark. If you think a mimic is in this part, you are only partially right. Follow Kristryd and company as the action gets very deadly in the dark tunnels beneath the Lortmil Mountains. Enjoy the latest chapter or if you are just now finding out about the Hateful Wars, go back and read from the beginning. Enjoy!

Wish List: Greyhawk Relaunch

Okay Greyfriends, here's another quick topic I'll throw out until I get some more original content to show you. We all love to wish list when it comes to D&D, Greyhawk and so forth. For all I know I've done this before, but with a fresh, well-rested mind here we go, what would I like to see in a new Greyhawk relaunch in the 5E era:

One caveat is we all know how WotC runs things now, so there is no pretending they'll do a full boxed set treatment with supplemental books each year. Indeed, even most of the good adventures for Greyhawk have already been redone either by anthology or thematically. So let's not pretend they'll do a series of modules either. Oh, but wait a second. This is the World of Greyhawk. Because this isn't just any adventure rehash, maybe there is room here to tweak the normal business model!

5E Guide to the World of Greyhawk: Your regular hardback book with a condensed guide to the nations, history and politics of the Flanaess like in original 80's setting. Plus, the modern approach to players with up to date relevant information for making characters; classes, races, factions, domains, etc. This leaves room for a modest poster map. I know it can be done, check out Curse of Strahd.

Deluxe 5E Guide to the World of Greyhawk Boxed Set: Yes, Wizards does like promoting the higher end products because they know collectors will buy them, and in advance. So why not make a Greyhawk boxed set? It would have the above book, plus bonus features like more maps, or reprints of old fluff books? Don't care, it's a deluxe box. Fill it.

5E Vecna Returns! (Crossover Adventure Event): Here's the draw. In my opinion the arch-lich god of secrets, Vecna is the biggest, best threat to bring back to D&D. This book would be one hardback, or maybe two leaner books like the Tiamat storyline. Doesn't matter. Where it works is that it can start in Greyhawk (preferably the City of Greyhawk for additional maps and fluff). From there, the crossover event is much like what they tried to do in 2E, but with more follow through. Jump next to Planescape, or Faerun, or Ravenloft again if need be. You get to use ALL your previous 5E books with this storyline because Vecna is a multiversal threat. That's right give Vecna an ambition bigger than just one world. He is that crazy evil. Bring the story full circle on Oerth and give the heroes a chance to then defeat Vecna and impact the multiverse and thus the Greyhawk setting permanently by their decisions. It's not much different than could have happened in VL! but the stakes are much bigger.

Greyhawk Minis: Be it Wizkids or GF9, they have been making minis based on iconic Greyhawk NPCs for a long time now. No reason to stop now. May I suggest the entire Circle of Eight and apprentices? That would be eight sets of two minis (3 in Jallarzi's case if you include her familiar). You're welcome.

Dragon+: Standard series of tie-in articles and product advertisements for the current Greyhawk event. Maybe a celebrity interview or two, they could look up David "Zeb" Cook author of Vecna Lives! perhaps?

I'm sure there's other tie-ins I can't think of right now. Boardgames? Unearthed Arcana articles? Eye and Hand of Vecna merch? That's quite a good run. It's enough in my opinion to give Greyhawk some respect and still push the entire line at the same time. And the best part, it opens Greyhawk up to DMsGuild for fans to do all the rest...

Halfling and Gnome Minis

Welcome back, Greyfolk! Today is a quick post as I need to thank Jay Scott and the gang from the Lord Gosumba channel on Twitch for the wonderful minis I won in their most recent Reaper Mini Giveaway drawing. Even as a long time member of the Greyhawk community I'm usually a lurker and don't often expect to win anything on drawings, so imagine my surprise when Jay texts me to say I won that week's prize (I had already fell asleep before the drawing. I just can't hang with those east coast guys). So here's what I got (sorry about the picture quality, my phone is junk):

Not a bad haul eh? I don't think I've owned decent gnome or halfling minis in ages. Mind you I have had plenty of those pre-painted plastic D&D minis, but those are to put it nicely, more functional than fine art. I love the Halfling Cook. He is the ever-present NPC of all fantasy campaigns. What's not to love. I need to name this min, maybe you can help. The naming convention we use for halflings is first and last names must be restaurants. For example: Arby McDonald. Give me some ideas in the comments. As for Deep Gnomes, are these Svirfneblin or are they merely Rock Gnomes who sort of also live underground just not as deep? I'm not sure I can tell the difference from just a mini sculpt. Also, I'm not sure what's a Gnome Hero versus a Gnome Warrior. I mean, if a humble gnome (of any ethnicity) chooses the warrior life, isn't he already a hero to his community? That's how it is for our armed forces IRL. Anyhoo, I've never ever ever had anyone in all my game groups over the years play a Deep Gnome character. I don't believe I've forbade their use, I just don't think they are a household name like Drow so they go unnoticed. For that matter, I've never seen a PC Duergar either. Of course those guys are bad ass, so I'll probably forbid their use while I'm thinking about it. I wonder what sort of adventures Deep Gnomes get into in the UnderOerth? When you live your entire life underground, would you have to play a module like the Drow series or Lost Caverns in reverse? So many questions posed by such simple minis. Good job, Jay, look what you started! This was supposed to be a short post too!

Will I paint there minis, you ask? Eh, probably not. I used to be quite qualified to paint minis, but got burnt out on the grind a few years back. Too much Warhammer and Blood Bowl. On the other hand, they are so small, they couldn't possibly take that long to paint. Then again, all my paints are dried up from neglect, so looks like I may have to rough it with these guys at the game table. Sorry. Last observation, is the Halfling Cook offering a taste of his soup from the pot, or is the big spoon his weapon and he's splashing hot broth in the eyes of his enemy? My guess is a bit of both columns. Thanks again to the fine folks at Lord Gosumba for these minis. It's fun watching and talking with you guys. Also, I hope to see Jay and company soon at GaryCon 2020. Until then happy gaming everyone!

Greyhawk Order of Battle Lists

 Hail Greyhawkers. Today I'm perusing old Dragon mags again, this time delving into Dragon #37 an old issue indeed from May 1980. What makes this issue significant is that this is the release year for the World of Greyhawk setting (Folio). Up to and including this point, Gygax and company had worked up the D&D fanbase with news and tidbits about the RPG setting and that month's From the Sorcerer's Scroll column by Gygax summed up the current state of things, having had some false starts along the way.

Among the many projects promised in this article (some finished in future editions, others forgotten entirely) was the idea for a miniature mass combat rule set to go with a line of minis. Now the minis were indeed made, or perhaps the first run of them. Gygax had grand plans for these products to play out the wars of the World of Greyhawk using the specific troop strengths and types outlined in the Folio (and the revised 1983 Guide), in addition to his battle and troop updates found in later Dragon articles featuring new events of the Flanaess. Gygax in Dragon #37:

"Steve Carpenter of Miniature Figurines Ltd. is currently designing a set of miniatures rules for warfare on the World of Greyhawk. These rules will set forth the orders of battle of the states of the Flanaess and add to the information pertaining to the “World.” At the same time, miniature figurines of the various troops are being assembled, so that details of what various units look like will also be known—say the Overking’s Guards or the Knights of the Hart. In addition to having adventures, campaign participants will soon be able to fight major battles which will affect the course of things. The figure line could eventually number in the hundreds of sets, with possibly a thousand different figures. The initial release will be in the 50-set range, according to Steve. Of course, I’ll be contributing to the miniatures rules, and I’m helping to select figure types. The rules and figures will be significant contributions towards developing the “World,” but more is needed."

What came of the rules is beyond the search of this post, though I imagine Battlesystem and Chainmail 2.0 were later attempts to revive this project albeit without using the rich tapestry of Eastern Oerik as their setting of conflict. Only the failed Greyhawk Wars "board game" even tried to capitalize on all the build-up started by Gygax. A shame. What's further interesting about this article is the bonus content by Gygax detailing some notable NPC's armies. So not only was this "Order of Battle" as Gygax called it, to be about nations and knights, but also wizards and warriors:

"Finally, as a bonus for reading through all of this, you will find same Order of Battle information for certain renowned figures in the World of Greyhawk. They will possibly appear in the general army lists, but then again they might not make it. Either way, you will have the information first."

My guess is they would have been included. In fact, the heraldry on the cover of the Greyhawk Folio includes the green dragon standard of Robilar and the scimitar of Tenser for no other reason, but in the context of a war-game that never came out, these shields make more sense. The lists feature the forces of Bigby, Mordenkainen, Robilar, Tenser and enigmatic Unnamed Erac's Cousin. Each of the entries tease some interesting back-stories as well that dubiously bring the canon history of these characters into doubt.

Bigby for instance has a hidden fortress that is presumably between the Shield Lands and the Bandit Kingdoms. His force of 800+ soldiers sometimes includes either  elves or dwarves. Nowhere else in Greyhawk publication does Bigby sport this kind of might. He is either a shy, quiet mage posing as a merchant in the east or is hanging out in the Wild Coast/Greyhawk City as a Circle of Eight wizard.

Also intriguing is Mordenkainen's sizable cavalry force of 4000 riding into the west (to aid an evil associate no less) and not coming back. So where are they? Did they go to the Obsidian Citadel in the Yatils? No further mention is made in Greyhawk publication to him having these troops. Mordy in later Greyhawk books has plenty of allies and guards but no need for ground cavalry.

Worst yet is Robilar, whose forces make him look entirely capable of the treachery he is involved in during From the Ashes and Rary the Traitor. Robilar is well known for having Otto and Quij the orc as henchmen, but here he also has a 600 strong, lawful evil army, half of which are orcs. Robilar's keep west of Greyhawk is sacked for his misdeeds and the army hides out in the Pomarj region. So that means they are either bandits or perhaps allies of Turrosh Mak/Slave Lords?

One other thought about wizard and warrior armies, the AD&D rules conveniently provided that every "name-level" PC gained a stronghold and attracted followers. This class design was surely meant to emulate and perpetuate the war-game facet of Greyhawk. The practice fell off fast in following editions of D&D of course. Okay, I won't even get into the rest of lists, find the issue and check it out. It's quite a good read, and maybe if you do want to do a war-based Greyhawk campaign, these troop lists will provide you with some inspiration for other special NPC units.

Dragon Magazine #70 Ads

Hail Greyhawkers! It's a lazy day off so I'm gonna have fun. My last post got me thinking more about old Dragon ads and how as a youth I enjoyed looking at those almost as much as the articles or comics. Nowadays gaming ads don't attract me. They're too well made. Boring! Some of these old school ads though were quite humorous in today's light. Okay fellow gamers, let's go back in time and riff through a randomly chosen issue, Dragon Magazine #70 from 1983:

The adventure is indeed mine! This first ad is a full page ad for Basic and Expert D&D (of course TSR will splurge in their own magazine). I love these games, I still own both boxed sets today. What I enjoy is the photo ads of the 80's. So, what they show here is five people (2 girls too, ahead of their time) playing around the tiniest round table ever. This would never fly in today's gamer culture with all our books, dice towers, tablets, cell phones and not to forget, snack and beverages! Also, hey scoot down guys...there's a whole other side of that table you can sit on! ;)

It's a book...

Yeah it sure is, but no thanks. If it's a game, it's one that 11 year-old me could never get into because Basic D&D rules was all the math I could handle. Or maybe I'm just not into sci-fi RPGs. Speaking of which...

1. I'm not a fan of Star Trek as an RPG. (Sorry fans) but hey who wouldn't want to own a starship?
2. The Correspondence Game? Oh man, this is 1983. There is no email, or message boards, or instant messengers. You had to command your space ship through SNAIL MAIL?
Shields up! *licks stamp, seals envelope, walks to mailbox*

 Bahaha, vorpal blade. Snicker-snack. Bandersnatch Leathers. Clever ad. Dice bags have been a hot commodity forever evidently. I also like that they have small and large sizes rated by how many dice they hold. I don't think I've ever seen that as a selling point before. Wait, 4 to 6 weeks for delivery? My dice are gonna be sad until then.

Who am I kidding, I've used zip-lock bags for dice before.

 I know yall have heard of Dragonbone. I never got one of these and I sort of wish I had. For you young bloods, this is the 1983 version of a dice app. I'm sure it works as accurate as a dice app too, which is to say I don't trust them!

At any rate, one year guarantee. Not bad! How many RPG accessories have you ever bought that have a warranty of some sort?

$24.95 ?! In 80's money that is *checks* that is $63.02 ! On second thought, I'm glad I didn't buy Dragonbone.

Oh no SCi-fi RPGs again! Actually, Space Opera ads ran in Dragon as far back as I can remember. Never bought this game, probably never will (though I bet it's more fun than ST or Traveller), but I always admired their sharp black and white ads at the bottom of pages. Very eye catching!
Fantasy Games Unlimited made this game as well as games like Bushido and Villains & Vigilantes.

One thing I have to pause and point out too. Dragon #70 was in the early years of published Greyhawk. 1983 is when the World of Greyhawk boxed set first came out. In the magazine, Gary Gygax and company were doing articles and columns to support the setting such as the Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk. All I wanted to say though is look at that beautiful calligraphy. I can only assume it was done by Darlene herself though I can't find actual credit in the magazine. A shame.

And lastly, there is minis. Dragon Magazine was always stocked full of ads for minis from great companies like Grenadier, Ral Partha, Citadel, etc. I could show you those old models and you'd turn your nose up at their quality compared to today. So instead, I'm showing an ad for a game store called Hobby House that will send you a FREE lead mini for the cost of one catalog which is evidently $1.00 ($2.53 for you millennials)

Lead minis. Ah those were the days before we cared about lead poisoning. We painted our lead minis with lead paint while we drank water from lead lined plumbing. If you are also from this era and still reading my blog, then kudos gamer for surviving long enough to enjoy this retrospective with me!

New D&D Merch

Hola, Greyhawkers! I like Twitter alot and one of the accounts I follow is @Wizards_DnD. Today, the fine folks at Wizards announced the Tomb of Annihilation dice set tin coming out in September. Are you ready to be conquered by Acererak's marketing genius?

This brief post ties into one I had a while back. I have no particular desire to get more dice, though the tin is very snazzy. My initial reaction was, wow, the Great Green Face from Tomb of Horrors is a marketing icon all its own. You can literally put that demon face on any merchandise now and it will sell. There is also a minis, video games and boardgame (with green face standees) tied in to Tomb. Wizards knows how to maximize its properties. Less is more.

Wizards is also getting good at crowd-sourcing ideas. In the same announcement, Wizards asked readers "what other D&D related products you'd love to see themed for future campaigns?" Mind you they aren't asking for what theme you want (anything Greyhawk, duh!). They got that planned years in advance I'm sure. No, they want to know what "merch" you'll most likely buy after tins, minis and boardgames. Ideas posted on Twitter include sensible things like dice bags, leather journals, mugs, DM screens, tokens, dice towers, phone cases and plushies - to cool, crazy ideas like dice jails, chia pets, d20 spin-rings and even a sacrificial dagger. Personally, I think a great green face toilet seat would be fun.

http://nicholaslittleillustration.com/

Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures

Here is an interesting ad I saw in a magazine the other day for something new from WizKids called Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures. You'll probably know why this caught my eye. Nolzur is a Greyhawk wizard personality, perhaps painter, known for his magic item, the Marvelous Pigments. And no I won't rave about Greyhawk being misused, this is a very obscure character. That makes this miniature line cleverly titled in my opinion.

The link will show you these hyper detailed unpainted minis which I am keen to find out if they are like the finecast resin that Gale Force 9 uses for their official D&D minis or are they some kind of 3D printed models? These minis are all generic class and monster types unlike GF9's models which is great for DMs or players who need a specific mini and also paint. Also check out Miniature Market for pricing on preorders.

What is interesting about these minis is the "level-up packs" which are two minis of the same class, a beginner and advanced version. This is a nice concept, again for those who want a character mini they can grow into. I've kind of got out of painting minis so I doubt I'll collect these, but again I saw this ad and just had to share. Enjoy!

Beyond the Flanaess

I was recently asked about my thoughts on the published parts of Oerth that fandom labels "Beyond the Flanaess". In general my super short answer would be that I'm all for it. Exploring beyond the edges of published Greyhawk is indeed one of my interests; hell I've carved a pretty nice niche doing Ull articles and running campaigns and creating maps devoted to the tropical shores of the world. What I'm not crazy about is that official map of Oerth first debuted by Skip Williams in Dragon Magazine Annual #1 and the follow up "development" of parts of this by D&D's failed 2002 Chainmail skirmish game.

This is an old rant, we've lived with the map of Oerth for nearly two decades now so the sting of having my own vision of what Beyond the Flanaess map looks like is almost gone, but it does bear pointing out for posterity that the in-game lore sages spoke about is slightly wrong. Let me try to explain.

The 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set is staged as a meta-plot manuscript and historical simulation of life and politics in the "eastern portion" of the continent Oerik during the Epoch of Magic. Sages like Pluffet Smedger the Elder tell us that the Flanaess is the center of human civilization and indeed with the Suloise and Baklunish empires in dust for a thousand years the center of gravity should be here now. There is high magic, there is hints of civilizations on the edges and barbarian invaders from across the plains, but the setting for the RPG is east Oerik, where euro-centric analogous culture exists. Except once the Dragon Annual map came out, the sages were wrong and the center of the world became all wobbly to a hardcore fan like myself.

Once we had the hastily thrown together pangea-super continent of Oerik and its predictably arranged cultural analogs it removed the biggest mystery of the setting for good, is the Flanaess the only civilized continent in the world? Archmagi and Spelljammers could now easily pick a point on the globe and know with some inclination what's over there. The names and analogs aren't even what bothers me. We know the Flanaess is a patchwork world anyhow. Blackmoor is from Dave Arneson's home world, the Great Kingdom, Duchy of Tenh, Maure Castle. And in later years the Isle of Dread. Very cobbled together, from various authors not just one man's vision. The fact that TSR threw it into an Annual as a curiosity shows it is flimsy canon, but I can live with the placeholder names. It's not like I would had any better ideas. I did have my own vision of Oerth's other continents however and it wasn't a super-continent. Why? Because I based my maps on this inset map in the main guide:

This important map not only showed latitude lines for the first time, but it also showed that the game area of the Flanaess was only half the picture. And we're told this repeatedly, the area to the left of the dotted line is WEST OERIK. Just eyeballing this map you can see the middle is where the former Suel and Baklun empires existed. It's not hard to imagine every to the west of these lands were part of their lands as well, or perhaps ruled by an "orc reich", an archlich or maybe even a Hindu culture. Doesn't matter. West Oerik kinda tapers off the edges and you can either imagine you can sail around them somehow or you can do what TSR did and make them keep going by doubling the area of Oerik. So yes, with the DA#1 map, we now have to believe there is an east Oerik as well as a central, west and maybe even a southwest Oerik. It's huge!

Now when Chainmail was relaunched they used this expansive West Oerik as the fluff setting for their mini factions, you know, the usual medieval Euro-humans, Tolkienish elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. Added to this is the strange fact that Chainmail used the map above, but not really the placeholder names from the DA#1 map. To complicate matters, many of those names were not Gygaxian, but yet another patch for the quilt, an homage to the French graphic novel Black Moon Chronicles by Francois Marcela-Froideval who used to work with TSR. Nevermind all that though. Those map and cultural differences can be duly justified later on by devoted fans and fixed by clever cartographers. It's Oerik and the uncertain center of civilization that grinds my gears.

With the Empire of Lynn/Sundered Empire from Chainmail and its neighboring realms, you have what amounts to a carbon copy Flanaess separated by a string of mountains and deserts. Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes. The World of Greyhawk's post-cataclysm migrations are pretty clear and deliberate. Should a Celestial Imperium be right there in the center of the map where we once had west Oerik or should perhaps an Asian analog continent be across the ocean west of Oerik. This is what I believe was originally intended by Gygax when Oriental Adventures came out in 1985. I remember quite vividly that the intro map in the first adventure for OA's world of Kara-Tur had the PCs, or "gaijin" sailing across an ocean from a west coast to the "far east", as we would in the real world. Last I checked, Kara-Tur is east of Faerun but not directly west of it, yet if you look at the vague west coast of the Oerik inset map, it lines up pretty good with the map in Swords of Daiymo.

Put another way, the DA#1 map pushes an Asia into the middle of two competing Europes. Suddenly the sages of Rel Mord in the Flanaess are very wrong. There is a huge culture not only to the west, but another even farther west than them! There is one more gripe I have about the Oerik super-continent and that is how it affects the poor arab flavored Baklunish nations. Going by the DA#1 map, this rich and vibrant culture that IS part of canon since the beginning is cut off from much of the Flanaess by water due to some icy areas called Hyperboria and the Land of Black Ice. What's a Sinbad-Al Qadim type of sailor to do? He's pretty much trapped by geography unless you figure the two polar masses aren't connected by a land bridge. However, with the smaller Oerik-inset map variation, one can conceivably sail from Zeif for example around west Oerik and arrive up from the southern tropics right in the middle of the Azure Sea with the same nautical effort that explorers had in our history. It's definitely a more scenic route than breaking through ice.

So there you go, I think Beyond the Flanaess has a lot of potential for fan-writers and map makers who want to develop the rest of Oerth, but my only wish is that the main continent had been broken down into something more manageable.

/end rant

Tomb of Horrors Minis Unboxed

It's been two Gen Cons ago, but I've finally got the inclination to put together my Tomb of Horrors mini set by Gale Force Nine. What I should be doing of course is painting my Lolth mini I got from three Gen Cons ago, but we all know that isn't going to happen. I digress.

This set is pretty cool, it's a miniature reproduction of the green cover of S1 The Tomb of Horrors which shows full bodied Acererak facing a cleric with his holy symbol and a fighter the set includes, the "mummy" Acererak, a "true form" Acererak as a floating demi-lich skull, the Fighter, the Cleric and wait...another mummy mini?

Well great, it's supposed to be a female Paladin mini (not depicted on the original ToH cover, but neither is the demi-lich). This mini is pretty cool and I'm positive my friends would love to use that in actual play, so I'll be contacting GF9 about a replacement. Anyhoo, back to the minis.

Assembling these were quite easier than ol' spindly legged Lolth. The demi-lich is skull and base; the cleric is base, body and arms/holy symbol; and the fighter is base, body, sword and a nifty helmet like the Mighty Thor. All easily glued in their designated places. The sculpts are incredible as always and there is little flashing that needs cut off in preparation-though you do need to be careful removing them from the sprue since these resin minis are fragile.

The mummy mini however gave me a bit of trouble, the body is in two pieces for some reason (at the hips) but I got that down on the base no problem then the arms for some reason wouldn't stay in place, but that was probably me. Overall it looks menacingly cool (I wonder if this mini could have a second career in Blood Bowl?).

I still highly recommend this line of classic minis. Their latest run is demon lords coinciding with D&D's Rage of Demons story line. I've got my Graz'zt and Zuggtmoy already so be ready for another mini unboxing probably year from now!

Update 06/15/2021: I still have not opened Graz'zt and Zuggtmoy. That is all.

Graz'zt and Zuggtmoy Minis

Just saw this on ENWorld the other day. Yup, the first mini ever of Zuggtmoy and new minis of demon lords Graz'zt and Orcus from Gale Force 9. What else can I say about this?

Update: ENWorld has just reported there is a Demogorgon mini and damn it's fantastic looking!

Greyhawk Wish List

Here's a nostalgic post I've been mulling over for some time. As an avid fan and collector of all things setting related, I have nearly everything you'd want to run a Greyhawk campaign. What's left for me to get in this long dry spell? Definitely not minis. Well for one, there is tons of old lead mini sets, Chainmail mini sets and even pre-painted plastic Greyhawk minis, but I have enough minis, so no thanks. Luckily, there is still some quirky merchandise out there that a collector like me might be interested in finding...

Bigby's Tee: This one is a recent creation from a tee shirt contest a couple years past. I could not find it in time for GenCon which irked me but lo and behold its now on ThinkGeek's site. Well done guys. I can easily get this cool tee so let's move on to the rare stuff.

Olidammara's Dice: These are high on my wish list for Greyhawk related stuff. A pair of six-siders with the symbol of Olidammara god of rogues on one face. If you haven't heard of Olid's Dice they are an artifact only seen in 3E's Epic Handbook. There is still a Olid's dice utility on Wizard's archive that may still function too. I'm sure I can find this on Ebay someday, then I'll be able to tempt my friends who can't resist random stuff like the Deck of Many Things. Runner up here would be the Fist of Emirikol another cool D&D die that has some rules attached to it. 

Mini World of Greyhawk Boxed Set: Any one remember these little gems? There was a whole slew of mini books and boxes that came out in the 90's. All I ever collected was the mini DMG. I'd love to know what kind of shrink ray they came up with to reduce everything perfectly including the maps. I'm sure I can acquire the mini boxed set. My best friend has one in fact...;)

Gord Novels: There is several titles of these alternate-Greyhawk Gygax novels floating out there and I already own a couple, but the ones I'm most keen on locating is Come Endless Darkness and Dance of Demons. The last two in the series which also have the most Graz'zt and Tharizdun action I hear. Those two novels shouldn't be too hard to get, but like comic books it's something I'd love to stumble upon and be surprised than chase it down. That's all for now. If anyone has other ideas or even has the items listed above, I'd love to hear about it.

Update 06/09/2021: I now own the Olid Dice and the Gord novels. Still need the mini box set and t-shirt though.

Update 04/07/2022: I got Dance of Demons at GaryCon XIV

New From Wizards: When Armies Clash

When Armies Clash is the latest Unearthed Arcana article from D&D head honcho Mike Mearls. This nine page pdf document is free to download at Wizards. Having read the article a couple times over, but not actually playtested it, I get a feeling this item is still highly experimental and that's why it's been dangled out there early on for the public to peruse. Of course this is the stated goal of the UA articles and so I'm giving the designers a pass on creativity and polish. The game is intended for mass combat using the exact same 5E rules you would for normal encounters (AC, hp, attack, damage, and so on) except scaled up in groups , or"stands" of roughly ten creatures.

The scale chosen for this new "Battlesystem" is key because it incorporates skirmishing units and solo hero involvement. Why? Because it makes sense within the logic of fantasy RPGs that one fighter for example could go toe to toe with ten lesser orcs or one big monster could threaten a small army. Stands are combined into larger units but in general still keep their average stats. Movement and spells are similarly scaled to account for the size of a battlefield. Heroes are given options to lead forces and give orders.

Terrain is handled in a rather easy fashion and mission objectives are touched on as well to give opponents a scoring system in order to see how decisive a victory ends up. The most important addition to these scaled 5E rules is the Check Morale feature which can make or break a battle. Of course solo heroes can try to step in and rally those broken units. All these rules suggestions have the making for good skirmishing battles. I would also hope there's some way to better represent sieges in the rules at a future time.

My take on When Armies Clash? Compared to the old AD&D Battlesystem it's a good start (I still possess all my counters and use them endlessly) though I highly doubt I'll use it in this current form. I wonder how much magic can break this game since 5E spells seem to be frontloaded for damage at lower levels now. I'm also mainly concerned how well 5E rules hold up as you increase the size of regimented units. A small army led by play characters against the Horde of Elemental Evil is fine by these rules. However, I'm biased to large epic battles when it comes to my Greyhawk campaigns since Gygax was originally a wargamer and set up things for conflicts on a continental scale. There is easily more than a dozen battles in Greyhawk canon that involve thousands of soldiers per side. Never mind historical examples of mass combat, a typical trope in fantasy warfare is the vast enemy horde which always seems to be 10,000 strong. That translates to 1000 "stands" in this system. Now whether you use minis or counters, that's rather difficult to present and I'm sure heroes might want to stick to their regiments instead of going it solo.

For this reason my mass combat system of choice has always been the less flashy War Machine rules from the OD&D Companion Set or the card-based but cleverly organized mass combat rules from Birthright. Sure you could scale up stands to 20, 50, 100 men but then you lose the game balance for solo hero or monster combat. Basically it comes down to the story your DM is trying to tell and how much time you want to invest in a major battle. Of course what do I know? I play Warhammer 40k! If anyone tries these rules let me know!

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!

Lolth, Demon Queen of Spiders

Hey Greyhawkers, Gencon is fast approaching and I'm reminded that I have some minis to put together from last year! One is the way awesome D&D Collector's Series limited edition Lolth, Demon Queen of Spiders mini set by Gale Force 9. This is a resin cast model considerable size with a large sturdy base. Follow along, let's see how it goes together...

First off, not too many pieces. Resin minis have a good sculpt, but they are fragile at times so naturally I'm going to break off something I shouldn't. Lolth in drow form is four pieces (base, body, ribbons and pointing hand). Lolth spiderform has a large body, eight legs (labeled left and right 1-4) and an arm that carries a spear. The spear includes two ribbons as well (moe on that later). The base includes a fallen column with a ring set in it. Very cool. Lolth leans on inset points in this base. No problem right?

As you can see putting the drow Lolth together will be easy (I put the hand and back part of her hair and ribbons on later). The column has points that secure it to the main base. Now to figure out the giant spider and those legs. Never an easy project. I assembled a metal figure once of Shelob from Middle Earth RP. Damn thing fell apart on me in no time. I think resin being significantly lighter and with the base having secure points will make this a sturdy figurine.

I quickly found out that the other secure points for the spindly legs onto the spider's torso (thorax?) were not very good. Then there is the issue of balance. Lolth's two front legs are raised in the air meaning the other four legs support all the weight of the rather bulky torso. Fun. I tried to gluing legs on the torso first, but then couldn't get them in the right position on the base. Then (desperately) I tried placing legs on base first and bringing the body into alignment with those. Yeah no good. After gluing my fingers together a few times I took a break and had an ice cream bar. Epiphany! I used a popsicle stick to support the torso while I glued legs into alignment.



 Lolth's legs went into position MUCH easier this way. By the way, there's a notch on the underside of the spider's abdomen that secures to the column. So after getting her front legs on last, I let that dry for a while before tackling the spear arm the next day. It went on fairly easy but then I realized the two ribbons that attach to her spear are all windy and delicate. Advisably I'd try to put those on before attaching to her body next time. At the time of this post I gave up trying. It's a minor detail but as you can see in the first photo of the box it's pretty cool if done right. Maybe tomorrow.





There you have it, Lolth, the Demon Queen of Mini Assembly. Good luck with this one if you ever get the chance. Maybe next year I'll do another demonstration if I ever get around to painting of this monstrosity!

Mortellan's Gencon Recap

 

Crosslinked from the Canonfire Crier blog, here is a summary of some items from Gencon 2013 that may be of interest to the Greyhawk community. Enjoy!

Ring of Five Questions: Chris Pramas

Normally the weekend is a good time to rest, but instead I'm here to bring my fellow Greyhawkers another fine episode of the Ring of Five Questions! Last time out I completed an interview of Living Greyhawk's Eric Menge. Following up on Eric, I now turn the spotlight on another big name in the gaming industry. This developer worked a short but productive stint with Wizards of the Coast including work on D&D 3rd Edition and the Greyhawk setting's Slavers (with Sean K Reynolds). Then in 2000 he set out and forged his own company in Seattle, the award winning Green Ronin, known today for great products like Freeport, Mutants & Masterminds (my favorite) and also Dragon Age RPG and A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. Despite running Green Ronin he still managed to publish several articles in Dragon Magazine for Wizards' short lived Chainmail minis skirmish game, developing the setting for much of Western Oerik. Beyond Wizards and Green Ronin he has also branched out to do work for Games Workshop on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition as well as write for an MMO, Vigil Games' Dark Millennium Online. Not a bad decade! Please welcome into the Ring, Chris Pramas!

Q1. I'm sure you're familiar with the Darlene map. What area of the World of Greyhawk is your favorite?

Chris: I’m fond of the Sheldomar Valley. I’ve more had campaigns in that region than anywhere else in Greyhawk, and in fact it’s where the game I’m running for my family right now is located. I started them in Keoland with the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.
I like it because it’s a good central location. Plenty to do in the valley itself, and you can have characters travel down to the Amedio Jungle, or into the mountains and the Sea of Dust beyond, or up to the Baklunish Basin for some Arabian flavored adventures. Of course, we’ve been playing for months and my PCs are still in Saltmarsh!

Q2. Greyhawk has dozens of deities to choose from, but if you could actually be one of them which one would it be?

Chris: Tempting as it is to say Heironeous, as I do enjoy some righteous ass kicking, I’d get tired of fighting all the time. Really, Delleb is more my speed. Reading, researching, and uncovering forgotten knowledge would be a lot more fun for me in the long term.

Q3. The lands of Western Oerik, featured in your Dragon articles about the Chainmail minis setting, have recently gained new interest in the fan community. What inspirations did you draw from in designing the cultures of the Sundered Empire?

Chris: It was a bit tricky because I was trying to design an interesting new setting, but it also had to have all the core elements you expect from D&D. In particular, the minis had to double as generic D&D minis. I had argued that we should keep the separate line of RPG minis we had started in 1999, but my boss did not agree so ours had to serve two purposes.
The most out there thing I was able to do was the People’s State of Mordengard and the influence for this was my own lefty politics. One day I was thinking about how most fantasy settings have traditional kingdoms and empires, but why not something else? Then it occurred to me that dwarves would make great communists and that was the idea that led to Mordengard. The shame of the minis was that I wanted their look to be based on old Soviet propaganda posters. For the reasons outlined above, we had to give them a more generic dwarf style.
For other factions, my choices went no deeper than favorite monsters of mine. I can’t really explain my fondness for gnolls and hobgoblins, but it goes back to my earliest days of playing D&D. So it was only naturally they should figure prominently in the factions. Also, it just made sense to me that the hobgoblins would be the ones to organize the savage humanoids into an effective fighting force.

Q4. You took part in developing the excellent sourcebook Slavers before starting your own company. Did any classic Greyhawk publications influence your work at Green Ronin?

Chris: Oh, sure. In fact, I just finished an essay for Wolfgang Baur that talks about the influence of the Greyhawk folio on me in some depth. When I was designing the World of Freeport for the Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, the folio was my inspiration. To that point, Freeport had always been a city meant to be dropped into the fantasy setting of the GM’s choice. However, many fans wanted to see what an expanded world would look like, so I wrote an optional chapter in that book doing just that. Since I had limited space, I used an updated version of the folio format.

Q5. Pretend for a minute that Green Ronin got the license to reboot Greyhawk. What major change would you make to breathe new life into the setting?

Chris: I would roll the timeline back to 576 and leave it there. I think the setting was not only more interesting then, but it was easier for newbies to get into. All the products that came after the Greyhawk Wars had the unenviable task of trying to summarize a lot of complicated history. That’s a barrier to entry that just doesn’t need to exist. And frankly, if there are going to be world shaking events in Greyhawk, they should be things individual GMs decide to do in their campaigns.
I had this issue when I was designing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition for Games Workshop.  When we were putting the game together, GW was in the midst of this big event called the Storm of Chaos and they wanted the RPG to reflect what had just happened to the Empire. I’d rather have let GMs choose when to set their campaigns. We easily could have done a Storm of Chaos book that showed you how to play through it if you wanted, rather than make it the default setting, but it wasn’t my call to make.

Another Gencon Survived

Well folks, Gencon is over. It's back to the daily grind. I can't say I have much to report from the World of Greyhawk at the event, what with the news of Wizards resurrecting the long neglected Forgotten Realms setting (snark). It wasn't all bad, my time was productive if not memorable.

Canonfire at the RAM Brewery: According to my friends I spent half the convention here. Maybe so. I did Thursday and Saturday night meet-ups here with Greyhawk contributors Baronzemo, Robbastard, Sir Xaris and the TPK Games crew and of course my cohort Valkaun Dain. Food was ate, beer was drank and Greyhawk was discussed. I even managed to talk to a few total strangers who were in town for a different convention and teach them about Gencon. Good times.

Soliciting Interviews: I got a good influx of authors to agree to answering my email interview for the Ring of Five Questions. I had been looking forward to this all year. Stay tuned for these in the hopefully near future.

My Haul: I snagged a copy of Mark Morrison's (aka baronzemo) new module, Stonepick Crossing from the OSR booth. Here I met Tim Kask and narrowly missed seeing Frank Mentzer. Going through various WotC locations I got 4/6 special drow themed dice available. My friends were troopers and got them all. I of course spent an inordinate amount of time around the GamesWorkshop/ Forgeworld booth because basically they are never at Gencon. I improved my weak Skaven army and upgraded my Warhammer 40k army with a badass Biker Boss. Watch out! I also visited the fine folks at Paizo and bought a copy of their new Pathfinder comic book, and a couple supplements from their Skull & Shackles AP for use in my own Greyhawk high seas campaign. It was great catching up with old chat friends Liz Courts and Adam Daigle who both went from lowly Paizo fans to full time henchmen. Lastly I bought the first novel in a new series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman titled Bones of the Dragon. I'm hoping it's as good as their previous work, which coincidentally I had the Dragonlance trilogy on me so I had Weis sign that too.

D&DNext: I played in a quick playtest with two of my friends. I played a rogue thug with 5 h.p. and by all means was a screw up. We didn't play long enough to get a true feel of the system, but on the bright side it was not dependent on a grid to judge the action which is a good sign. Character creation felt like a hybrid of 3.5 and 4e. The jury is still out on this edition since there is 2 more years of playtesting to come. Sheesh!

Podcasting: Last but not least our gaming podcast, Gamerstable was out in force this year (well the guys were moreso than me). They were doing podcast recordings, mingling with industry folk, handing out cards and also Gamerstable shirts like this one...

Yeah, next year is going to be hard to top!

GH Comic #309: The Wizards Two

Is it just me or does  Rautheene
 look like Katy Perry?

Yup, it's yet another Dragon Magazine related comic from the twisted mind of Mortellan. This time we poke some harmless fun at Ed Greenwood and some of his classic articles and characters. Enjoy!

READ THE COMIC HERE