The World of Greyhawk died at TSR in 1993 and afterward was only supported by fan productions such as The Oerth Journal (1995-Present). But when Wizards of the Coast bought D&D from TSR, they also brought back the classic setting. The Return of the Eight (1998), Player's Guide to Greyhawk (1998), and The Adventure Begins (1998) advanced past the Greyhawk Wars era to 591 CY and demarcated a new era of Greyhawk publishing that continued through the 25th anniversary in 1999 and to the end of the AD&D 2e era in 2000.

With the publication of D&D 3e (2000), Wizards decided to take a new tack with Greyhawk. They turned it into the default campaign world for D&D. This meant that it appeared slightly in the core rules, for example offering up a core list of deities. More importantly, it also became the setting for the RPGA's "living" setting, where players across the world could take part in both core modules and regional events, carrying their character from one game to another. Living Greyhawk (2000-2008) thus beecame the center of RPGA play. It premiered at the 2000 Gen Con Game Fair with events such as "Dragonscales at Morningtide", "The Reckoning", and the controversial "core" adventure "River of Blood". Winter Fantasy 2001 then continued the fun with "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil". Living Greyhawk built on the success of the Living City (1987-2003) and would ultimately surpass it, with Living Greyhawk seeing ten times as much play as Raven's Bluff by 2002.

Though the RPGA had their own magazine, Polyhedron (1981-2002), they decided to start up a new periodical for Living Greyhawk, the Living Greyhawk Journal (2000-2002), available to all "guild level" members. It premiered with a short and flimsy Living Greyhawk Journal #0 (August 2000), which was given away with Dragon #274 (August 2000) and likely at the 2000 Gen Con Game Fair as well. Issues #1-4 then followed as subscription items for guild-level RPGAers. Each ran 32 pages and included "Campaign News" about the RPGA, "Dispatches" of setting news, a new set of Greyhawk monsters from Sean K Reynolds, and other original articles about Greyhawk from luminaries such as Gary Holian, Fred Weining, and editor Erik Mona.

Unfortunately, the Living Greyhawk Journal ran into problems with issue #5, originally scheduled as a July 2001 release. Things were increasingly in flux at Wizards of the Coast under the tightening financial grip of Hasbro. The fifth issue was thus completed, but various departments were arguing over who had to pay to print it. As a result, the magazine sat around for about nine months before finally being printed in April 2002, to fulfill the RPGA's obligations to its subscribers.

Meanwhile, the Living Greyhawk Journal wasn't quite dead. After the production (but not publication) of issue #5, it was turned into a department in Dragon magazine, starting with Dragon #290 (December 2001), which contained a section labeled as "Living Greyhawk Journal #6". (That does indeed mean that readers had issues #4 and #6, but not #5 for several months in early 2002.) As a department in Dragon, the "Living Greyhawk Journal" was much shorter, usually running to just two to three articles total. The 'zine continued in a truncated form through Dragon #306 (April 2003), which was labeled as "Living Greyhawk Journal #20". But once more things were changing.

At the end of 2002, Living Greyhawk's player numbers were still climbing, surpassing the player counts from a year earlier. But Wizards of the Coast under Hasbro's leadership was also continuing to cut costs, removing things they saw as liabilities — which would become a long-standing tradition for Hasbro. As a result, in late 2002, Dragon and Dungeon magazine were both licensed out to Paizo Publishing. Dragon #299 (September 2002) marked the changeover. With the connection to the RPGA more tenuous than ever, Living Greyhawk Journal content dropped to just 1 or 2 articles each issue for its last half year with that magazine.

Meanwhile, as yet another cost-cutting measure, Wizards had merged the RPGA's Polyhedron magazine into Dungeon starting with Dungeon #90 (January/February 2002). Even though much of Polyhedron was now focused on the d20 system (originally new games, but later games such as Star Wars and d20 Modern), there was still a bare minimum of RPGA content, and that's probably one reason why Paizo decided to move "Living Greyhawk Journal" to Dungeon Magazine with Dungeon #98 (May 2003), placing it in the Polyhedron section. As it happens, Polyhedron (and later Dungeon) was also overseen by Erik Mona, formerly editor of both Oerth Journal and Living Greyhawk Journal, so there was also a strong editorial interest in the setting.

Unfortunately, Living Greyhawk Journal publication was growing erratic. After appearing bimonthly across its last several issues in Dragon, it became even more irregular in Dungeon. Though the content remained high-quality, Paizo seemed to have locked it down to no more than one to two articles in those issues where it appeared. Then even that came to an end with Dungeon #106 (January 2004), which contained the final Living Greyhawk Journal.

The original plan was to afterward publish individual articles that were "Living Greyhawk Approved", but only one appeared, an article on Hardby in Dungeon #109 (April 2004), which marked the end of periodical publication about Living Greyhawk (though the organized Living Greyhawk play would continue through 2008 and the end of D&D 3e). That's not to say that Mona and Dungeon were done with Greyhawk. They'd just end up producing adventures of their own that didn't have to be approved by the RPGA, chief among them three well-respected adventure paths: "Shackled City" (2003-2004), "Age of Worms" (2005-2006), and "Savage Tide" (2006-2007).

Living Greyhawk Journal Issue Cross-Reference

The first twenty-two issues of Living Greyhawk Journal (#0-21) were all clearly numbered, whether they appeared standalone or as part of another magazine. Three further issues are labeled as "Living Greyhawk Journal" but have no numbers. They've commonly been referred to as #22-24, as is the case here.

The single "Living Greyhawk Approved" article appeared in Dungeon #109 / Polyhedron #168 (April 2004) and is also indexed here.

Obtaining the Magazines

Living Greyhawk #0 was likely printed in the highest quantity since it was a free giveaway. The five subscriber issues of Living Greyhawk Journal (#1-5) were printed in sufficient numbers for subscribers, plus a few hundred extra each. They all sell for low to medium collector's price, but are also available as PDFs from DTRPG. The various issues of Dragon and Dungeon are not currently available electronically, but tend to sell for low collector's prices.

About the Game System

This index covers the World of Greyhawk in articles that are either universal or statted up for D&D 3e (2000). No differentiation is attempted for D&D 3.5e (2003), which overlaps with the very end of the Living Greyhawk Journal run.

About the Contents

This index uses the Living Greyhawk Journal issue numbers for coherency of reference, but "Aka" entries list the magazine that contained the Journal. All of the page numbers refer to the numbers shown at the bottom of the pages. That's the overall page count for everything except Dungeon #98 (Living Greyhawk Journal #21), which uses separate page numbers for Polyhedron and Dungeon. The Living Greyhawk Journal falls within the Polyhedron side of the magazine.

This index is © Copyright 2024 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution. Background image by Darlene, digitized by Zach Henderson & Robert Conley, used under Wizard of the Coast's Fan Content Policy and (for digitized additions) under cc-by-nc-sa 4.0.