"From Kuroth’s Quill" is grodog's regular design column covering the elements of adventure design (and more-specifically dungeon design, given my interest in that topic). I will also wander through the design of spells and magic items; monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures; PC and NPC classes; planes and pantheons; and likely other topics as well. In the blog, I hope to provide practical examples that will be useful in campaign play, to show theory in action.
CZ Act 1 "Alpha Preview" Map TLG published a Castle Zagyg "Alpha Preview" to CZ1 backers on 2 April 2026, showing one-quarter of The Cellars, level 2 of Castle Zagyg: Castle Zagyg Preview Map of Level 2, The Cellars Included along with the map were 12 pages of keyed encounters, all again labelled as an "Alpha Preview" so that we're ready for any and all typos and other errors in the text and map.…
Black Blade Publishing logo This is a modified version of the announcement that we sent to our OSR publishing friends and partners earlier this month: 9 March 2026 We have unfortunate news to share: we are cancelling the Black Blade Publishing exhibitor booth for Gary Con for the 2026 show. Sharing your books and games with the conventions attendees year in and year out has been an honor, and we…
...or, a Meditation and Reflection on What grodog Likes Best about Playing in AD&D Mega-Dungeons Sean Bean on the futility of finishing Castle Greyhawk If you've not read it, you may want to visit part one in this series first: grodog's Approach to Designing Mega-Dungeons - Part 1: the Maps . If you already read it, I revised it a bit while writing this article, since I'd left a sentence fragment…
...or, a Meditation and Reflection on What grodog Likes Best about Playing in AD&D Mega-Dungeons Introduction This post is my response to a recent discussion of my mapping style and inspirations over on reddit, begun by user SydLonreiro , who asked For my first AD&D dungeon, I would like to map it like Grodog, but I don’t know how to do it. I’m not sure whether he developed a specific method for…
In the original version of the Castle Greyhawk dungeons designed by Gary Gygax, he placed a set of runes that provided hidden guidance for the PCs in why they should delve deeper--- the raison d'etre in the call to adventure. Tenser decrypted the runic clue using read magic ---perhaps the first spell cast in play in OD&D. I've been, alas, unable to refind the quotation I thought I had read many…
Over in /r/osr/ , user acathiadm asked a question about the Egg of Coot : I am doing a take on the Egg of Coot, in Blackmore, Northern Greyhawk. If you have ideas for frozen machinery and alien type things in a D&D world, please share. I am trying to be connect where possible to the work of Arneson. Any links and suggestions would be appreciated (including traps/monstrous encounters.) Happy…
I’m well-overdue for another Greyhawk news roundup , and a recent post by /u/talktoh in /r/Greyhawk prompted me to complete catchup on Greyhawk news for the past several months! This post assembles news items I’ve curated in draft blog posts for awhile now alongside some hot-of-the-presses news that has caught my eye. Memorials The Passing of François Marcela-Froideval Frank Mentzer reported on…
On Friday, 27 June 2025, my copy of Return to Perinthos: A Memorial Dungeon for Jennell Jaquays arrived on my doorstep, the output from the Return to Perinthos: A Memorial Book Fundraiser in the Memory of Jennell Jaquays crowdfundr campaign. Return to Perinthos cover art by Curious Friend Jennell Jaquays portrait artwork by Curious Friend Jennell sadly passed away due to unexpected complications…
...or, Why Does Black Blade Publishing Still Exist? Earlier this year, Jon Hershberger and I met to conduct some Black Blade Publishing 2025 planning, and discussed preparations for GaryCon XVII and North Texas RPG Con , among various and sundry other topics, as is our wont. Black Blade Publishing logo--- yeah, that's us! A Short History of Black Blade Publishing In case you are unfamiliar with…
On tonight's Gabbin #353 "The Top Published Greyhawk Adventures!" show , Jay Scott, Anna Meyer, and Mike Bridges feature Erik Mona, Carlos Lising, and Joe Bloch as guests (with others to be announced during the show) to discuss their favorite Greyhawk modules of all time.* My favorites rankings have slowly evolved over time (two different links there), as I've revisited various classics and my…
I was reading a good discussion a couple of months ago (in February 2025) about the nomenclature for the power levels of different types of demons over on Dragonsfoot , when the topic veered a bit more planar in focus. This proved interesting, since it highlighted some inconsistencies between lower-planar monsters' alignments and the planes that they were assigned to within their descriptions in…
While the blog and I have languished together in torpid stupor for quite some time now, the blog's silence did not originate in or from wordslessness , but for good reasons that I will delve into soon. And in case you missed it, this is not in fact my first post in the past ten months ;) In the meanwhile, we have some catching up to do! The Recent Past and Near Future GaryCon XVII - 18 to 24 March…
I am pleased to report that Tony "Wheggi" Rosten has rejoined our Castle Greyhawk campaign , as he's a good friend. A well-known name among old-school gaming communities, Tony's also my publishing partner in The Twisting Stair , our mega-dungeon design zine, and is the author of the award-winning "Blocks of Quox" puzzle-dungeon adventure published in Fight On Magazine #6 (Summer 2009). He has…
I've been busily working away on various projects since the end of April, including attending the North Texas RPG Con in Dallas from 5-10 June 2024 (and for which I will draft a recap soon!). In the meanwhile, here are some new planar-related magic items (and a couple that aren't, but are related at least thematically, if not topically) that have seen use in my Greyhawk campaigns over the decades.…
GaryCon XVI – Thank YOUs and Swag Continued from Part 1 – Arrival through Founders & Legends and Interregnum Tuesday and from Part 2 - GaryCon XVI – 20-25 March 2024 . Founders & Legends convention logo grodog's Thank YOUs and Appreciations! My attendance at both Founders & Legends and GaryCon was supported by a number of important folks, without some of whom I would literally have not been able…
This is a presently-unfinished map that I designed primarily during the pre-COVID era: The Recessive Gallery Level - map by Allan Grohe (grodog) The map is drawn on 8 spi graph paper, so it represents a fairly large level environment---880' east-west by 640' north-south. That places it solidly among the largest of my dungeon levels, and it's comparable in width to my original design for the first…
Maw of the Beholder is my new magic item inspired by John Popson's wonderful commemorative GaryCon XVI ring. John runs Effincool Miniatures , and makes some excellent figures, including cool dungeon decor and the Court of the Sultana line, amongst many other great pieces! Here are a pair of images of the ring, from John's Facebook photos: GaryCon XVI Commemorative Ring - head-on view, crafted by…
GaryCon XVI – 20-25 March 2024 Continued from Part 1 – Arrival through Founders & Legends and Interregnum Tuesday . With the shift to Wednesday, this required the changing of the badges over from Founders & Legends to GaryCon: The changing of the guard.... Wednesday - 20 March Booth Setup I came into Wednesday having spent the day before hanging out and gaming, rather than driving cross-country,…
I don’t use my Oriental Adventures book super-regularly, but I was very surprised on Saturday to rediscover that the bookmark I had in it was a New Infinities Productions business card from Gary (likely from when I wrote a few letters with Qs about Necropolis and other topics BITD), and that it was signed on the reverse!! New Infinities Productions, Inc. business card from Gary Gygax New…
Part 1 – Arrival through Founders & Legends and Interregnum Tuesday The blog has been quiet of late, in part because I'm still job hunting, and in part because I've simply been busy, both writing/designing and planning for the two conventions, as well as attending and recovering from them, of course! On the writing/designing front, I’ve been building the “Abyssal Rift” scenario since the advent of…
With the No Artpunk 3 contest having just closed submissions, Prince of Nothing outlined his judging principles for some of what distinguishes good high-level adventure designs---and by implication, good high-level play---in his blog post at https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/2023/11/29/nap-rating-high-level-adventures/ (as well as in the posts clarifying and expanding the NAP3 entrance…
Kron Hills, Gnarley Forest, and Dyvers environs - map by grodog Since my last Haruspications in Hardby campaign update in July, the PCs have wrapped up their business in Dyvers (selling some poison-smeared gems liberated from a hidden temple to Nerull in Castle Greyhawk to the Executor of the temple of Nerull in Dyvers---and this turned out far better than I expected!), and are working their way…
It has been a quiet summer for From Kuroth's Quill , and with good reason: for those not already aware, I've been laid off by Amazon Web Services as part of their "return to office" (or RTO) policy, so I've been pretty distracted from Greyhawk and fun in general the past few months. My last day shifted around a bit, but my time with AWS concluded on Wednesday, 27 September, so I've had a couple of…
Good news too hot to wait for a curated update!--- Trent Smith's _The Heroic Legendarium_ is discounted by $10 on the PDF and the hardcover books today (as in Monday, 7 August 2023), since it's the DriveThru Deal of the Day. The savings are definitely worth it: Hardcover MSRP: $29.99 --> Deal price: $19.99 PDF MSRP: $17.99 --> Deal price: $7.20 Hardcover + PDF MSRP: $47.98 --> Deal price $20.09…
Today marks Gary Gygax Day, and what better way to honor Gary and the game he and Dave Arneson, Rob Kuntz, Lenard Lakofka, and so many others created and shaped, than to play AD&D. Without further ado, here are events from one of the current Greyhawk campaigns I DM: The PCs in our online, twice-per-month Castle Greyhawk campaign (AD&D 1e, currently set in the summer of 576 CY) have been delving a…