Gygax Magazine?

Crossposted from Greyhawkery, check out this curious news about a Gygax Magazine.

Module Cover Quiz

So you think you know everything about D&D? Prove it and test your knowledge of classic D&D covers! Wizards of the Coast has a pretty fun quiz set up this week with two difficulty levels, Heroic and Epic.


Enjoy!

Explaining the Unexplained: Carl Sargent

Cross-posted from Greyhawkery, take a look into the sagely mind of Carl Sargent before he came to work on Greyhawk, in his parapsychology publication, Explaining the Unexplained (1982).

New Article At Wizards: The Iggwilv-Graz'zt Affair

Crossposted from Greyhawkery, check out this new article in Dragon #414 about the scandalous history of the Witch Queen Iggwilv and her lover the Dark Prince Graz'zt. You will need a D&DI subscription to donwload the entire story, but I've managed to summarize some of the good bits in the linked post. Enjoy!

Postfest: Taverns and Inns of Greyhawk Released

Starting today (Thursday, 5th of July) and every three days following the front page at Canonfire will feature a new article for Postfest XVII: Taverns and Inns of Greyhawk. So remember to checkback in frequently for these new posts and then enjoy reading!

Castle Greyhawk Graphic Novel

Crossposted from Greyhawkery. It's not too late to catch up on Scott Casper's story of young wizards Tenser and Ehlissa along with their guide, the veteran fighter Yrag, as they journey to fame and fortune at the infamous ruins of Castle Greyhawk! 

Postfest XVII Inns & Taverns of Greyhawk

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! This is a rally call for aspring World of Greyhawk fans both veteran and novice to gather behind one banner and pay their fealty to the setting we all know and love by writing a Postfest article for Canonfire!

Where do heroes go to find adventure more often than dungeons? That's right, at Inns and Taverns. The topic, Inns and Taverns of Greyhawk is a popular one that we've covered before. Check the link to read some past entries on the subject.

Once you've got the feel for the format, break out your favorite homebrew tavern and follow this link to the rules on submitting articles to Postfest.

Postfest article submissions are due by June 30th, 2012 so you have plenty of time to think and work on your tavern idea. If you have any questions feel free to comment on this post or on the Canonfire forums.

Postfest XVII: Topic Poll

Rally up Greyhawk fans! Crosslinked from the Canonfire forums, vote or comment on what you think the next Postfest topic should be. Don't be a slouch, if you write just one Greyhawk article this year this could be your opportunity!

Diversions: Crossword Puzzle 7

Wizards keeps putting out these neat crosswords over at their website. There's plenty of Greyhawk references and other old D&D lore to challenge your knowledge. Need to kill some time? Give this a try!

Join the Greytalk Crowd

This one is mainly for our newer members, you are missing out! Every Thursday night (starting around 7 p.m. EST) for as long as Canonfire has been around, Greytalk has been the gathering place for fans of the Greyhawk setting. Join in and discuss your favorite setting and anything else on your mind, with the finest most active members in our online community.

Here is a couple easy ways to reach Greytalk:

IRC users:
irc://irc.otherworlders.org/greytalk

Mibbit:
http://www.otherworlders.org/chat/cf/

Greytalk is sometimes active on other nights (or mornings depending on what side of the globe you are on) so check in time to time, you never know who might be in there. Warning: watch out for zombies! Any questions, direct them to this thread on the CF forums. Talk to you guys later!

Dragon Editorial News: More Greyhawk To Come?

Cross-posted from Greyhawkery, Chris Perkins, head honcho at Dragon Magazine has mentioned that 2012 will be a year devoted to articles about all the classic settings of D&D including the World of Greyhawk.

You can read the editorial here.

Diversions: Crossword Puzzle 3

With so much 5th edition D&D news filling the net, it's time to relax and entertain your brain with another D&D themed crossword puzzle, compliments of Wizards. If you missed the last two puzzles, you can still find links to them here and on Dark Herald's site here.

GO TO PUZZLE

D&D Next (5E) Announced

Alright Canoneers, unless you've been living under a rock you should know this blockbuster news by now. Wizards of the Coast announced this week that they are starting development on the next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons. For more on this story check this blog post by Dark Herald. And for additional information Greyhawk Grognard has some good 5e commentary including a link to an updated list of all D&D Next related facts and quotes.

Feel free to voice your opinions here, on how this affects your game or the future of the World of Greyhawk setting, or check out this thread on the Canonfire! forums.

Hello all!

And so we have come to the end of another year here at Canonfire!. There are many new faces around, and some old ones returning too, and that is plain great to see. Like the phoenix, Greyhawk, and the Greyhawk community, renews itself again and again. Some might not be aware of how immensely Canonfire! has grown since its humble beginnings. Over the years, many people have put in an immeasurable amount of their time and effort into making the site what it is. Many have contributed to the continuing success of Canonfire! this past year, and as I have not made a post like this before, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge, and give thanks to, the Greyhawk community as a whole, as well as the many people who have contributed to Canonfire! over the years(many, but not all, being mentioned HERE).

While all of those people and more have contributed to things behind the scenes, it has been the Greyhawk community itself which has really shined. Even with the demise of Living Greyhawk in December of 2008, the Greyhawk community is more than just barely alive and kicking. Canonfire! is as strong as ever, this past year having had nearly 2.7 million page views, meaning that 2011 has been the busiest year for the site ever. This is ten times the amount of traffic that the site experienced in the year in which this statistic was fully tabulated for the first time, that year being 2002(the site launched in 2001 however). Canonfire! has expanded the most in just the last four years. For me, that pretty much says it all- despite the demise of Living Greyhawk, Greyhawk is not only alive and well, but thriving(not that we don’t also notice how the setting continues to be mined by WotC either). ;)

2011 has been a pretty good year, but there is more yet to come. Here are some of Canonfire!’s plans for the future. There are two main projects that have been in ongoing discussion for a while now that we would really like to jump on and get going for 2012, and recently a third one popped up. Here they are:

• The development of a pictorial Greyhawk product database. What? Canonfire! is a Greyhawk-specific site, and yet it doesn’t have a nice write-up on every single Greyhawk product ever made, and picture of what it looks like?! Insanity!!! Well, Canonfire! does feature a list of most Greyhawk products, but this is one thing we would like to improve upon, and looking at the proposed format for this feature, it looks like literally the entire community will be able to help make it a reality. More on that later as I can pry it out of PSmedger. By all means, PM him about this topic until he has messages overflowing from his Inbox if you wish(squeaky wheel and all). No, really, I do not think he will mind at all. >:D

• Launching a fully realized “Canonfire! Chronicles”(working title) special features format PDF specifically for featuring fully contained Adventures, select Article collections, Postfest! compilations, map collections, and similar things.As a part of getting this put in place, it may be that The Oerth Journal will be re-tasked, similar to what happened with Dragon Magazine when Dungeon Magazine came onto the scene.As such, The Oerth Journal would be more like Dragon Magazine, featuring all of the varied special interest articles that The Oerth Journal has mostly been known for.Lengthy adventures, really large gazetteer-style offerings that literally could stand on their own as a supplement book, and anything not really fitting the format of The Oerth Journal all that well would be relegated to being featured in Canonfire! Chronicles.

There has been much discussion on this, and some conceptual work has also been done, but nothing has been set in stone as of yet. To really get this going, we need as many volunteers with graphic design skills as we can get. Few people can devote a lot of their time to accomplish this, so what we apparently need is many people willing to put in a little bit of time. The more the merrier I say.

• Perhaps expanding the Forums themselves to cater more directly to both Living Greyhawk Regions/Metaregions material, and to general Regional/Metaregional discussion as well. This has only recently been brought up for discussion, but I think that it may be something that people will very much like. Not only would such forums serve as an arena for ongoing discussion and development, but potentially serve as a repository of Living Greyhawk information in general. There are a few important things that need to be taken into consideration with regard to IP, so some more thought needs to go into exactly how this would be handled and what will be allowed, if it gets implemented. Let us know what you think about this idea, and any ideas of your own that you might have, HERE.

So, those are some of our plans for the coming year. As for myself, I will be stepping back a bit from certain managerial aspects of the site, which means that somebody will be coming in to take over some of my duties. We have decided to go with THE lightening rod of controversy, THE biggest bastard of the bunch- Mortellan! I would say that there would be a hazing period, but I guess that has been ongoing since around 2003, so it will just be a continuation of things. Mortellan will be taking over Postfest!, and shortly the posting of submitted Articles. I will still help out as needed, but I will turning my focus more to working on some of the new things we have planned, and hopefully finding some time to write some articles myself again.

One final thing I would like to mention. As it has been in the past, the entire Greyhawk community is encouraged to submit their own articles to Canonfire!, and to The Oerth Journal as well. It seems to be a popular misconception that only the work of a few people is published in The Oerth Journal in particular, but that is simply not true. Anyone can submit their writing to The Oerth Journal, or to Canonfire!, and the same can be said of Canonfire! Chronicles once it is launched. And don’t forget Postfest! too, as that is a great avenue for getting one's feet wet. That's how I started off myself. Little did I know what I was getting myself into, but don't let that put you off from doing so! :D

And so, all the best to your and yours as we head into 2012. Happy New Year to everyone! I am betting 2012 will be a great one...if the world doesn't end. :D

---Cebrion