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Maldin's Greyhawk

Who is Maldin?

by Denis Tetreault
 Version 1.6

....And what the heck is this site about?

    This site is devoted to providing DM materials from my AD&D campaign for other DM's to use and enjoy. My personal campaign has been raging since 1980. It all began when a friend, Eric Price, who had just bought the Basic D&D boxed set and was trying to figure out the rules, introduced me to the game and took us through B2 Keep on the Borderlands. We quickly converted to AD&D and shortly afterward I took on the mantle of primary, then exclusive, DM..

    Some players have come and gone, and some have remained through all those years... over a hundred player characters, members of  a score of distinct adventuring parties, have passed through the gate of high adventure, some of the originals are still active to this day... But one thing has held true throughout all that time... I've maintained my world as a continuous campaign. Characters have gone on both similar and vastly different quests, but they all exist in the same campaign world with the potential to all interact. Once a specific adventure is run, it is never run again, although other parties have sometimes visited locations and observed the aftermath of a previous party. Some of the lower level parties even work for the higher level parties. This has resulted in a very complex timeline within which all groups are tracked. One group is often affected by the actions of another. As I've moved from university to university, there have been a few groups that were active for only a few short years... but a world history existed for them already when the PC's began their careers, and their actions always affect other groups in the future. Their heroic deeds are neither wasted nor forgotten. In fact, one group's failure may become another group's jumping off point... one group's heroic adventure may become known as legend to another group....

    All this interconnectivity has resulted in a very complicated world, involving many aspects of the AD&D multiverse. Indeed, my campaign is not just a Greyhawk Campaign, but one that spans the multiverse. I currently have groups exploring the Outer Planes through Planescape®, Outer Space through Spelljammer®, and the Underdark (from various sources). But everything is solidly rooted in the World of Greyhawk.

    Players from the early 1980's include Eric and Jon Price, Barry Murray, Dave Dafoe, John Clapp, and Rick Esch (who is still one of my primary players).
    Players from the late 1980's include Steve Speyer, Joe Rush, and Steve LoDuca.
    Players from the 1990's included Ian Colquhoun, Ted and Todd Little, Shannon and Michelle Farrell, Caycee and Mathieu Price, and John Nemko.
    Players from the 2000's include Adrian Forsythe, Paul Kenwood, Johari Pannalal, Nicoli Garner, Arne Sturm, and Sean Crowe.

    Beyond the fact that I've been a Greyhawk DM continuously since 1980, I’ve been fortunate enough to have some small impact on the game and campaign world beyond my own home campaign. I've been online since  "The Dark Years" as a regular on rec.games.frp.dnd (mainly from 1994-1997), and an early member of the GEC Group and the Greytalk list (since 1996). At the latter you'll see me most frequently - if you check out the archives you'll see countless quality posts authored by myself. :-) I was also a periodic poster on Greyhawk-L since its inception, and a very infrequent poster to the LivingGreyhawk list, as well as several Living Greyhawk (LGH) regional lists.

    You'll often see me on the Thursday night Greytalk Chat as "Maldin". I maintain this site, and have been involved with many online projects, such as the Irongate Project (co-founder with Gary Holian), the Canonfire hub-website (with Gary, and several others), Noel ("Watcher") Graham's Pocket Guide project group, as well as many other GH projects with others across the net.

     I am the Greyhawk Adventures Webring ringmaster (once over 50 member sites, but webrings have pretty much gone the way of the dodo), and the Living World of Greyhawk Webring ringmaster (for RPGA Living Greyhawk official websites). As the more modern replacement for those, I am the admin for the Greyhawk Adventures Facebook page. For a while I was a member of the RPGA, but I was one of two official reviewers/fact checkers on the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (by Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Fred Weining, and Sean Reynolds, 192p.) published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000. I designed and produced the RPGA/WotC Living Greyhawk (LG) campaign’s official map for the City of Greyhawk, published as a 2x3 ft poster map insert in the Living Greyhawk Journal Issue #2, and have written a continuing series of articles on the City of Greyhawk with Erik Mona (editor of Dungeon Magazine and the Living Greyhawk Journal). Other design work, some originating from my home campaign, have become part of official published Greyhawk as well. For example, you will now find my original City of Melkot appearing on all official World of Greyhawk maps and in several publications. Gary Holian and I published a co-authored article entitled "Irongate: City of Stairs" in Dragon Magazine issue #351 (Jan. 2007). Extra material cut from that article during editing, can be found amongst the several Irongate Project pages. I am often asked to review Greyhawk works in progress that are heading towards publication. I am currently working on, or advising on, several other LG (and non-LG) projects, some for publication... I have also lent a helping hand (in varying degrees) to several LG triads (Yeomanry, Ket, Keoland and Onnwal). You'll find that my website contains a lot of maps of different styles, and I'm often asked to give mapping advice. A Ph.D degree in Geology, and 30 years of working with, and creating, maps helps me alot with that. Photography is another hobby of mine, and I've exhibited in several art shows and galleries. Check out my photography website if you are interested, at http://tetreault-photography.com.

    But perhaps most importantly... on my rather large bookshelf, I have the Codex of the Infinite Planes. I'm on page 97. :-)

    If you would like to see what some of the movers and shakers of online and official Greyhawk look like, check out these photos from GenCon 2001 held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

    And who exactly is Maldin? He is my own primary player character, started way back in 1980 before I took over the DM duties for our playing group. I've played him on a few rare occasions since then, though usually Rick Esch runs him when Maldin is active. The rest of the time he serves as an NPC for  the more recent playing groups... as idol, mentor, savior, employer, hero, father-figure, sage, pawn-broker, irritant, adversary, tormentor, nemesis, and executioner. A jack-of-all-trades, master of most. ;-)

    When I designed the new official City of Greyhawk map, and wrote the accompanying article series with Erik Mona, I included Maldin and his shop. Now you too can meet him in your own campaign. Drop by some time and say hi!

Official Publications

Fan Community Publications

Guest appearances on livestreams
Special Livestream celebrating the 25th Anniversary of my Maldin’s Greyhawk website

Other Livestreams


 

site map

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This page last modified on March 3, 2024