Capsule Reviews #3: Long-running Setting Zines

Some of the old D&D settings have very impressive fanzines with large back catalogues - lots of content for the great price of free.

Oerth Journal - for Greyhawk Online - 36 issues.

"Dedicated to the World of Greyhawk, and is written by and for fans. It has been published since 1995. Originally produced by the “Council of Greyhawk”, there have been several Editors and a plethora of different authors and artists who’ve contributed to it. There’s an abundance of great content here, just waiting to be placed in your campaign! There’s many new NPCs, side treks, gods, equipment, and things you may’ve never thought of like the constellations of Greyhawk."

Keeps an old style alive of dense gazetteer, with festival practices, alternative-Oerths, cities and personalities and histories being the standard fare. Chewy lore for Greyhawk, with lots of ideas packed in. Style is a standard double-column, with more art and a stronger 'design' flourishes in the later issues.

4/5 on inspiring fluff
3/5 on useable crunch
3/5 on joy to read

Threshold - The Mystara Magazine on Pandius.com - 29 issues.

"The aims of Threshold magazine:
▪ to provide a venue for community members to present material
▪ to promote the Vaults of Pandius and the material there
▪ to increase the exposure of existing and new articles"

Another gazetteer type with new classes, a bunch of spells, new system rules, tons and tons of setting lore in a really charming layout stuffed with maps and public domain art. Statted for BECMI, this is a very nice zine expanding on the Mystara setting. Weighing in north of 200 pages per issue for recent issues, these are thick slices of content - ideal for anyone using Mystara but rich inspiration for any game. Print-on-demand versions are available if you want to run off your own copies on Lulu.com.

4/5 on inspiring fluff
4/5 on useable crunch
4/5 on joy to read

Footprints - e-zine of the Dragonsfoot forums - 25 issues.

"Footprints, our very own e-zine, is a wealth of material for any Original AD&D campaign, with variant rules, monsters, articles, cartoons and a mini-module in every issue. All original, never before published material, submitted by Dragonsfoot forum members, many of whom have been old-school AD&D fans since well before it was old-school!"

"Variant rules, monsters, articles, cartoons and a mini-module in every issue" - more strongly reminiscent of Knockspell or Fight On! or old Dragon or White Dwarf than a gazetteer. This is a dense zine more geared towards general content like new dungeons, classes and monsters than expanding on a setting. A much wider variety of stuff from more creators and so the look of articles changes from page to the next. Worth checking out as there is almost certainly something inspiring in any given issue.

3/5 on inspiring fluff
5/5 on useable crunch
3/5 on joy to read