A Return to Greyhawk!

"Behold Greyhawk" by Bruce Brenneise for the new DMG

A few days ago DMs Guild announced that Greyhawk is now available a campaign setting for community content:

This is because the newly revised 5E DMG, out November 11th, includes a 30-page chapter on detailing Greyhawk as a sample setting to show DMs how they can create their own settings. This will include a map of the City of Greyhawk and an updated version of Darlene's famous map of the setting:

Harking back to the Sample Dungeons of yore, the DMG will also contain a chapter of Sample Adventures that are set in Greyhawk.

Watch here for an 18 minute interview with Chris Perkins and James Wyatt about thoughts behind using Greyhawk as a sample campaign setting in the new DMG.

While WOTC may not support this setting any further, allowing it to be added to DMs Guild opens it up to fans who wish to add more content to the setting (albeit only in 5E form).

I don't have any specific plans at the moment for creating Greyhawk content for DMsGuild, but I have updated the Ruined Tower of Zenopus conversion/expansion to tag it as Greyhawk (as opposed to just "nonspecific/any setting"), given that I have an appendix in it on using it with the Ghosts of Saltmarsh, which draws its mini-setting details from Greyhawk.

The new DMG is available for order on Amazon.

Gygax's Yggsburgh (2005) available once again

The front cover of Yggsburgh,
with an illustration by Jeffrey Catherine Jones

If you haven't heard, Gary Gygax's Yggsburgh sandbox campaign setting, originally released in 2005 and withdrawn from sales after he passed away in 2008, is once again available for purchase from Troll Lord Games, following an agreement with the Gygax estate. You can pre-order the hardcover from the TLG site for $65, which also includes an immediate download of the PDF, or you can buy the PDF alone from DrivethruRPG for $19.99:

Yggsburgh Print (pre-order) + PDF 

Yggsburgh PDF only

For those unfamiliar with it, Yggsburgh is a re-casting of Gygax's long-delayed City of Greyhawk project, intended as a setting for exploring the Castle Greyhawk dungeons, here re-christened Castle Zagyg.  

Back in May of 1980, shortly before the initial publication of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, Gary Gygax discussed future releases for the setting in issue 37 of The Dragon, where in his regular column "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", under the title "Greyhawk: The Shape of the World", he estimated that "The City of Greyhawk might make a 1981 publication date, certainly 1982, and about the same time the series which will eventually represent the whole of the Dungeons of Castle Greyhawk will begin". Sadly, neither title ever appeared under Gygax's byline, and became the most infamous of TSR vaporware. 

Decades later, in the early 2000s, Gygax finally started a new project to publish this material, this time under the aegis of TLG's Castles & Crusades RPG. However, only Yggsburgh and the first portion of the Castle Zagyg, titled the Upper Works (2007), were finished and released before Gygax passed away, and the license to publish them was withdrawn.

Yggsburgh is a sprawling 256-page hardcover book, with cover art by the great Jeffrey Catherine Jones, repurposed from the 1972 Avon paperback edition of Nine Princes of Amber by Roger Zelazny. This was the first novel in the Amber series, which was included by Gygax in Appendix N in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979. Originally, the entire series of Castle Zagyg books was slated to feature covers with Jones' classic work from the 1970s.

The book itself is also accompanied by an 8-page hexmap, drafted by Darlene in a style similar to her original maps for the World of Greyhawk, which was tipped into the back cover in the 2005 publication. This depicts an area 50 hexes east-west and 34 hexes north-south, at 1 mile per hex, for a total area of 1,700 square miles:

Players Version of the Yggsburgh Hex Map by Darlene

Rather than just being a high-level gazetteer, Yggsburgh is a big sandbox, which I'd compare to Lenard Lakofka's AD&D module L1 The Secret of Bone Hill. There's a city with 93 described areas, including the famous Green Dragon Inn, and an area map with 48 described locations, and including a number of fully detailed small dungeons, which is often overlooked: 

• Thieves' Underground (13 rooms)
• River King's Tomb (19 rooms)
• The Cursed Mine (14 rooms)
• The Gnome Burrows (25 rooms)
• The Unholy Ringstones (25 encounter areas)

These could easily be extracted and run as one-shots or dropped in other settings. 

Castle Zagyg and Rob Kuntz's Dark Chateau (2005) are also two of the intended locations in the sandbox, so there is the potential for larger dungeons, although this does make the campaign setting incomplete on its own if you intend to use those.

I've had the original hardback for many years, and it's probably my favorite late-era Gygax product. While I haven't run anything from it yet, I will pick it up every now and then and read a bit. It's sort of a glorious sprawling mess like the original AD&D DMG, but in campaign setting form.

Gygax's "City on the Edge" Greyhawk Adventure

Detail of the World of Greyhawk map by Darlene, showing Veluna west to Zeif
(click on the image for a larger view)

Nearly two decades ago, Gary Gygax wrote the following in a pair of posts on EnWorld:

"...A couple of years back a group from Tennessee visited, and I designed an adventure for them that would indeed take them from Greyhawk all the way west of Zeif, looking for a haunted city there. After eight hours they'd not made it much further than Rel Mord*, so that was the end of the adventure. Pity..."

"...It was indeed a shame thy chaps didn't return as they promised when they left. They brought their own PCs of around 8th level, but one lost a couple of levels to some wights, so they stopped in Rel Mord to have the clerics there restore them.

BTW, I suspect that they didn't come back because their van caught fire and was totally destroyed on the way home. They did save their dice..."

(Obvious typos corrected for readability)

*Likely this was actually Lopolla, as Rel Mord is east of Greyhawk; see below

These comments suggested that Gygax did something rare in his post-TSR years: returned to the actual World of Greyhawk campaign world for an adventure, and not just Castle Greyhawk, which he ran multiple times at conventions and at least one home campaign.As he wrote on EnWorld in 2005: "No, seldom if ever do i run O/AD&D game sessions on the WoG. Once the setting passed from my hands I lost interest in it." And for this game, he didn't just run one of his many older adventures, but actually created a new adventure that further developed the setting, by placing a new adventure location in Zeif. Despite the significance of this, it passed without much notice and has been mostly forgotten for the last two decades.

However, this past week Gene Weigel, who blogs here, found that he had saved an earlier post by Gygax from July 2001, made to another forum since deleted, perhaps lejendary.com. In it, Gygax reveals more about the details of what must be this same adventure, including the mysterious name of the haunted city, The City on the Edge, which predates Zeif itself:

"Most of the group was having a bit of cool refreshment--soda, beer, and a few of those lemon ice drinks with vodka. Four beers or whatever over as many hours is pretty well a wash...room trip or two.

I tried to move things along as much as possible while keeping with requisite roleplay and wandering encounters. The party was traveling west from Veluna City to discover "The City on the Edge" in far-distant Zeif. They had acquired a map, and the 12th level paladin in the group determined to find this lost city, purge it of its evil. A tall order, as I explained it was there when the Bakluni came to Oerik, and it was quickly shunned way back then!

The upshot is that they made Lopolla as noted, traveling with a band of dervishes randomly encountered, most fortuitously for them and me as DM. With the assistance of the Rhennee they made Thornward by river, then trekked over the Penwilds (the hills below the Bramblewood Forest--those further west and south at the foot of the Barrier Peaks being the Pennor Hills/Pennors.

The barrow with the super-specter was in the Bramblewood. Thereafter the party made it to the river hamlet the dervishes knew of, purchased dugout canoes, and went down the Tuflik to Lopolla.

Sadly, it was then near 11 PM and we had to quit--about half-way to the place where the shunned City of the Edge lies on the shore of the Dramidj.

Gary"

(Obvious typos corrected for readability)

You can trace the journey from Veluna to Lopolla that he describes here on the World of Greyhawk map excerpt that I placed at the top of this post.

The materials that Gygax created for this adventure are not completely lost to time. In a reply to a post Gene made in the Gary Con FB group, Paul Stormberg, Creative Director of the Gygax Archive revealed:

"I did indeed run across the materials for this campaign with maps for Lopolla, the Plains of the Paynims, and details on the City on the Edge and its strange ruler and inhabitants."

So with luck perhaps we will one day learn more about the mysterious City on the Edge, such as why it has its name. Is it merely because it is on the edge of the world (i.e., the Greyhawk map), or is it something more sinister, like the edge of another plane of existence?

Besides just sounding like a fascinating adventure, this work is significant in that it is some of the last development work that Gygax ever did for the World of Greyhawk. To this short list we might add the pseudo-Greyhawk Yggsburgh region for Castle Zagyg.

* * * * *

Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983), which includes Darlene's maps, is available as a pdf from DMs Guild here (affiliate link included).

Superb Owl Sunday

Giant Owl by Darlene

Here's my pick for today's Superb Owl:

 "Giant owls speak their own language ... [t]hese creatures are intelligent and will sometimes befriend other creatures" --- Gary Gygax, from the entry for Giant Owl in the AD&D Monster Manual, 1977

There was no illustration accompanying the Giant Owl entry in the original Monster Manual, but one by Darlene (attributed at the time to Darlene Pekul) was included in the Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979, on page 184 beneath the table for "OUTDOOR RANDOM MONSTER ENCOUNTER TABLES: Arctic Conditions", which includes a Giant Owl among the entries; presumably this represents a Snowy Owl variant.

Find more "Superb Monsters" from the Monster Manual here:

d20 Unexpectedly Intelligent Monsters in the Original Monster Manual

The Tower of Zenopus in Ghosts of Saltmarsh

Ghosts of Saltmarsh alternate cover by N.C. Winters. I like this one more.

Way back in the mists of 2006, on Dragonsfoot I wrote that: 

Another dungeon that could be fit into such a combined setting would be the Zenopus dungeon in the Holmes basic book. It's set in Portown on the coast and also has pirates/sea caves, so I've often thought of having Portown and Saltmarsh be the same. Neither town is described, though, so Restenford could be used for details. (Though I guess it could be a bit much to have one small town with both a haunted house and a ruined wizard's tower.)

I'm certainly not the only one who has had the idea of merging Portown and Saltmarsh. The similar coastal setting and lack of a full description for either town make them a natural fit. While Saltmarsh being described as a "small south-coast English fishing town of the 14th Century and with a population about 2,000" does feel smaller than Portown, a "small but busy city linking the caravan routes from the south to the merchant ships" plying the Northern Sea, it's still an easy merge for the DM building a coastal sandbox setting. In fact, I have run each of these adventures in the last few years in my kids game, and while I kept Saltmarsh separate, I still had it nearby on the same coast as Portown.

Now the Wizards of the Coast have themselves taken advantage of this. Yesterday an eagle-eyed member of the Holmes Basic community over on MeWe, Chris H., reported that he'd spotted the Tower of Zenopus in a flip-thru review of the forthcoming Ghosts of Saltmarsh...! This is the latest hardcover 5E adventure from WOTC, a compilation of conversions of the original AD&D modules U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh*, U2 The Danger at Dunwater, and U3 The Final Enemy** (the pdfs are also available as a discounted bundle), plus four later adventures from Dungeon magazine.

Buy Ghosts of Saltmarsh at Amazon (click on image; links includes my affiliate #):

Ghosts of Saltmarsh on Amazon

In addition to the obvious similarities between Portown and Saltmarsh, I'm also not surprised to see Zenopus turn up in this product because Mike Mearls is credited as one of the co-Lead Designers (along with Kate Welch, interviewed here), and he ran a Return to the Tower of Zenopus this past March at Gary Con, and also tweeted this map, so it was certainly on his radar at the right time.

After looking into the previews myself, the area map for Saltmarsh --- drawn by Dyson Logos --- shows the town on the mouth of a river emptying into the Azure Sea. Yes, that's right, they've preserved the Greyhawk location names from the originals! Across this river on a peninsula is a location marked "Tower of Zenopus". Per the map compass, this places the tower generally to the west of Saltmarsh, which fits with Holmes' original description (albeit without an intervening river). The U1 Haunted House is in the other direction along the coast, east of Saltmarsh. 

On the page facing this map is a four-paragraph section titled "Tower of Zenopus", which gives the background for the location --- condensed from the original --- and some brief ideas for encounters found therein. It's much more of an adventure hook than a fleshed out location, and it acknowledges as much by concluding that the details are left for the DM to determine. It would be fairly simple to use a direct 5E conversion of the original dungeon (perhaps adapting my list of Portown rumors to get the PCs over there?). 

As far as I can recall, this is the first time TSR or Wizards has recycled any of the Zenopus content in a later product, and also the first time it has been officially placed in Greyhawk. Also significant is that they've titled it the "Tower of Zenopus", as over the years this has been the most frequently used colloquial name for the originally unnamed adventure. In the new version, just the like original, the tower is a complete ruin and the actual adventure is in the dungeons beneath. As I've written before, this follows the naming convention of Castle Greyhawk, where the dungeons are referred to by the name of the ruined edifice. 

In addition to the Azure Sea, the area map also includes the Hool Marshes to the east of Saltmarsh and the Dreadwood to north, clearly placing it on the original Darlene map from the World of Greyhawk folio or boxed set. Also, the "Geographic Features" section following the Tower of Zenopus mentions the "Kingdom of Keoland", a location going all the way back to the proto-Greyhawk Great Kingdom map.

After some further delving, I realized that this area map in Ghosts of Saltmarsh is simply a direct update of the area map from U2 Danger at Dunwater. All of the major geographical features and even the hexes lines on the map match the placement on the original. 
The original even gave hex numbers for the World of Greyhawk map, with Saltmarsh being located in hex U4-123. So while the new adventure may not be specifically identified as being in Greyhawk, it is easily placeable and usable with that campaign world.

In the image below I've annotated the original U2 map with the new location for the Tower:

*All Drivethrurpg links include my affiliate number.

**I've long suspected that this title is a sneaky pun (spoiler: The Enemy with Fins; i.e. the Sahuagin). I even asked Gygax about it once on DF, and while he claimed no knowledge, we did exchange some fintastic puns.

* * * * *

Jan 2020 Update: I've now released a Fifth Edition (5E) Conversion of the original Tower of Zenopus on DMs Guild, including advice on using it with Ghosts of Saltmarsh. See here.

Return to Gary Con: Day One

I drew a Skull Mountain on the back of my badge since half the time it would flip around

So I made it back to Gary Con!

The first time I went, two years ago, I had great fun playing in games run by former TSR employees or associates (Merle Rasmussen, Dave Megarry, Tom Wham, Dave Wesely) and attending events (Horticultural Hall reception, Charity Auction). This time I leveled up to GM, signing up to run two sessions of my Zenopus Dungeon sequel, In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus. 

I arrived one day earlier this time, on Thursday, flying into the Milwaukee airport. MKE is a nice small airport, and the only one I've ever been to with a used bookstore, and a good one at that, with a bunch of shelves of old SF/Fantasy paperbacks, including many Appendix N authors. I didn't have time to stop there on the way in, but I did on the way out (I'll show what I bought later).

After picking up my rental car, I drove west to Lake Geneva, a pleasant trip on the highway once you get out of the area around the airport. Snow was everywhere unlike two years ago when it was held in late March. As I neared the town on a country road I stopped at a random deli, Shavers, for a sandwich. I looked for cheese curds in the fridge but didn't buy them since I wasn't sure when I would be able to get into the room I was sharing (smart move, as it turned out to be after midnight).

Once at the hotel I checked in to Gary Con registration (behind Erol Otus...!) and picked up my GM folder and black GM cup. This year's cup design features a stylized Aboleth, a Lovecraftian monster that first appeared in I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City:

Gary Con XI cups. Source: Gary Con FB group?

My first event was a card game, Jasmine: Battle for the Mid-Realm, run by its creator Darlene, perhaps best known in D&D circles for drawing the legendary World of Greyhawk maps. She did all illustrations for this criminally overlooked game herself, and released it in 1982. I featured one of the cards on my blog last summer. The story elements of the game tie into her comic strip of the same name that ran in Dragon magazine.

Playing Jasmine: Battle for the Mid-Realm 

Darlene is still has original copies of the game for sale, and I picked one up from her last June at at the North Texas RPG Con, but hadn't had a chance to play it, so I thought this would be a nice way to learn the game. The game is for 2-4 players and has four factions, and I chose the one for Jasmine:

The Jasmine Faction. Source: BGG, photo by Hawklord

Each turn you can rearrange your faction cards between battlefield and fortress stacks, and they stay there until your next turn. You draw a random card from the deck and then take an action, which can involve playing a card or attacking another player the cards in your battlefield stack. It was quite fun, and our game featured lots of twists and turns. Despite losing Jasmine to death near the beginning of the game, I managed to bring her back and somehow ended up winning the game...!

Also playing in this game was Paleologos who I've corresponded with for years on Dragonsfoot and by email. Astute readers may remember that he designed my go to map for Portown. We also played in each other games and generally had a great time chatting throughout the weekend.

The Harrison Ford lineup. Source: me

After dinner I missed my scheduled evening game due to a time mix-up on my part, but was luckily able to jump into my pal Scott's Savage Worlds game. Scott always comes up with great concepts for his con games, and this one did not disappoint. In "Harrison Ford's Theatre", every player takes on the role of a Harrison Ford character from a different movie. I was Richard Kimble and joined Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard, Jack Ryan and the Air Force One president as we traveled from scene to scene from the movies trying to figure out why were all together (edit: for this game, since we had an extra player he added Alexei Vostrikov, the captain from K-19: The Widowmaker). It was a lot of fun, with a great group of players who got into character (one wore an Indiana Jones fedora). If you are wondering about the cards in the pictures, they are used for initiative in Savage Worlds. 

The Harrison Fords in the Death Star Detention Block! Source: me

Next up --- Day Two, Part One: first Zenopus game!

Skull Mountain Variant by Darlene

At North Texas RPG Con last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Darlene, an artist for TSR who did the original World of Greyhawk maps in the 1983 boxed set. I asked her to sign my original copy of the WoG Glossography, one of the books from the set. I picked this because part of her beautiful map is shown on the cover, but she relayed that she had also designed the graphics. She stared at title page for a few seconds, remembering her work.

In addition I bought a copy of her 1982 card game, Jasmine: The Battle for the Mid-Realm, which you can see here on BGG. On the bottom side of the clear box for the game I spied a Skull Mountain-esque picture I'd never seen before on one of the cards. See above.

Darlene has a page about Idshoii on her blog, which verifies that it's not just a castle, but a carving at the top of a mountain:

"Ildshoii Castle, carved from shiny black obsidian rock, rose high above a crown of volcanos. The dark castle was the domain of Melantha, the ruler of Medrylthorn ..."

Update: Here is Darlene's own intro page for the game:

JASMINE: The Battle for the Mid-Realm Collector Card Game

Obscure TSR art related to B1-B3

Dragonsfoot member paleologos recently made some interesting posts about obscure TSR art:

The original Trampier version of the B1 cover (published in Polyhedron #5)

A castle by Erol Otus (from Polyhedron #1) that resembles his picture of The Keep on the back of B2

Art from the French version of B3 by Darlene (I've never seen these pictures before)