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    Adapting for Greyhawk
    After a long hiatus due to a massive series of changes in my life offline in the last three years (including, among other things, the passing of my best friend and long-time AD&D party member in early 2017, my wedding in 2018, and the weddings of two immediate family members in 2019), I'm finally back and in creative form once more.

    Despite the downtime, I haven't been a total sluggard. I've been updating the Adventurer's Atlas over the last few years to include as much Living Greyhawk material as I could locate references for, including political divisions, adventures sites and new settlements, as well as adding dozens of new pieces of heraldry created over the last eight years and, last but not least, updating the majority of the text labels to use Darlene's Greyhawk Gothic font.

    My current project here on Canonfire! is working on the second of a four part article series that adapts generic AD&D adventures from numerous sources for use on Oerth. This particular project is putting my geographic Greyhawk-fu to work and draws from both Dungeon & Dragon magazine, as well multiple first and second edition published works.

    Once I have these articles finished, its time to get back into the saddle for the QMG series. I still have all of the work done previously on the module, as well as several new additions that are in progress. After seeing Len Lakofka's success in releasing L4 and L5 as fan works, I have finally gotten the inspiration back to tackle completing some of my own module projects.

    QMG2 currently stands as follows:

    - Basic module's plot and adventure sites determination - completed
    - Introduction, Parts 1 and 2 of the adventure (Veluna to the Vesve to Crockport) - completed
    - Part 3 is 85% done - the entire City of Crockport is complete, including a fully detailed key, adventure locations and NPC's. Travel north along the shores of the Whystil to Gerenkzerung is 90% finished - maps and keys are done, but a few text descriptions still need final form. Once that is done and polished, this section of the adventure is complete.
    - Part 4, wherein the party re-enters the Vesve to explore some new locations is currently underway. Two maps (one outdoor location and one dungeon) are complete and keyed. Point form descriptions of the encounters with monsters exist, but need some serious fleshing out.
    - Parts 5 through 7, which takes the party north through the Vesve and on into the lands of the Wolf Nomads, are still in the early design phase. I have plotting and basic characterization done but still need to spend some serious creative time here.
    - Appendices, including major NPCs, new magical items and source material credits are in progress and will update as the adventure unfolds.

    Still quite a bit to go, but the end is definitely reachable, especially after parts three and four get finished.

    After that comes QMG3, the final module of the series, which will plunge the PC's deep into the Cold Marshes to finally face down Murq and his abominations...

    Finally, the time off due to the Canadian country-wide lock down for COVID-19 was used fruitfully. One completed smaller project is the creation of new heraldry and an updated map last month for Mortellan's Ull over at Greyhawkery.

    So, here I am. Time to dig in and get to work!
    Posted: 06-26-2020 05:25 pm
    Greyhawk Adventurer's Atlas
    Now here's a fun one. I've had a project on the fire for the last 10 years or so. In 2002 I set out to create a visual campaign and adventure plotter using maps of Greyhawk. It's finally getting to a place where I will be releasing it's current form online through CF. One version of this actually made it online to Harvester's Heroes, up until that site went down a year or two ago. (Thanks very much for the encouragement and hosting Father Kagan, wherever you are today.)

    As it stands, the updated atlas combines all the published adventure locales from 1st and 2nd edition AD&D as well as all the Dungeon and Dragon Magazine adventures from Editions 1 to 3. I haven't touch on the Living Greyhawk adventures simply because I don't have access to them, with only one exception in the Thillonrian.

    The whole thing clocks in at 12 separate parts, loosely grouped by Flanaess geographical regions. It will also have a fully updated Greyhawk by Level campaign index, a second version sorted by country and finally an exhaustive links collection. There are also tips on researching dead thinks through  the Wayback Machine, Reocities and Oocities. And just to tie things in to my previous journal post, I am also using the heraldry mentioned previously.

    I'm not certain how the folks at CF want to handle posting the atlas - they may choose to put it up all at once or to post a piece at a time. Whatever works, I'm good with. There is some time to sort things out, because, as of this writing, I am finishing up part 5 of 12. 7 more to go, plus appendixes.

    Well, back to map making...
    Posted: 07-26-2012 04:45 pm
    Heraldic Heresy
       After much to-ing and fro-ing, I settled down on a project to keep me occupied while I wait for the proofreaders to get through the latest draft of QMG2. I have started cooking up heraldry for various 576 CY-era Flanaess states, groups and individuals that need it. This in addition to getting good quality copies whomped up for the originals given in the World of Greyhawk boxed set and From the Ashes.

    To date, I currently have the following done:
    1. The remainder of the Bandit Kingdoms. These have already been uploaded here to CF in a map I created for the 576 CY Bandit Kingdoms Gazetteer and also as individual files for use by players and DM's alike.
    2. All the Rovers tribes and fighting societies listed Gary Gygax's "News of the Flanaess" from Dragon 56.
    3. Crests for Bigby, Mordenkainen, the Circle of eight and the Citadel of Eight based on posts made by Gary at Rob Kuntz's old Yuku site and over at ENWorld.
    4. A crest for the Knights of Luna, based on that organization's  description in From the Ashes. 
    5. A crest for the Perrenland House of Haldus. This one is a bit obscure - it comes from a series of TSRT trading cards (not the Spellfire cards, mind you) that covered all the various AD&D campaign worlds. A friend of mine has a near complete set which he added to our group gaming collection a few years back. The heradic devices were shown on the shield and tabard of a Greyhawk knight named Kramer Haldus whose noble family is based out Traft in Perrenland.
    6. Lastly, I have run up crests for the 8 noble houses and 16 merchant clans from the descriptions given in D3 - Vault of the Drow.

       I think I might release the last few items as a Player's Aid pack that DM's can use to help illustrate the various medallions encountered in that module. I'm also looking at scouring the other older modules for heraldic and symbol-based items that can be adapted to add to my expanding personal collection. As for the rest, I'll upload whatever I can that doesn't violate copyright/falls within fair use rules.

    Between this and QMG2, I've certainly been a busy little 'Hawker in the last few months...
    Posted: 01-13-2012 10:40 pm