Warlock – The Final Chapter

All good things must come to an end, but I was very sad to hear that Warlock, Kobold Press’ Midgard zine, supported via Patreon, was finishing its run after 37 issues, several specials, and 78 lairs.

Warlock has featured articles from Wolfgang Baur, Jeff Grubb, and many other fantastic writers, covering a wide variety of topics from Midgard’s unique cosmology, to fey courts, Baba Yaga, and bearfolk. It’s included locations and lore, NPCs and monsters, magic items, spells, and PC options, and each issue has wonderful black and white artwork from old school artists like Karl Waller (Al-Qadim) and the late Russ Nicholson (Fiend Folio), and newer talents like Justine Jones.

I wrote an article on the Gardens of Carnessa, Legacy of the Unhinged Gardeners, in the first issue, detailed the City of Blue Blocks based on Dyson Logos’ cool map (issue 2), introduced disgraced Red Portal wizard Heknusret the Temerarious as he travelled to the City of Brass (issue 6) and wandered the branches of Yggdrasil the World Tree (issue 9), devised terrifying necrotech boss monsters (issue 15), and wrote about wondrous locales of the Southlands (issue 27). I also wrote five Southlands Lairs, including two Tier 3 adventures set in the Abandoned Lands.

Even though there won’t be any more issues, there is a new Warlock collection, Warlock Grimoire 4, and I was delighted to get the chance to write one last article for it with my friends and fellow Midgard nerds Ben McFarland and Brian Suskind.

We’d talked in the past about a “Midgard’s Greatest Hits” issue of Warlock, featuring articles on topics that we kept being asked about on Facebook and Discord. Top of the list was Misto Cherno, a mobile city ruled by bandit lords on the Rothenian Plain, which featured in a PC background in the Midgard Heroes Handbook but otherwise had very little published lore.

So, we ended up writing Misto Cherno: Treachery in Motion together for the Grimoire back in December last year. I had a lot of fun collaborating with Ben and Brian on the article, coming up with Yerude Dagasi and other key NPCs of the Black City. It was a great way to say goodbye to what has been a fabulous zine.

You can buy Warlock Grimoire 4 and the previous three volumes from Drivethrurpg or the Kobold Press website.

---

If you’d like to keep up to date with my game design work and other posts, please do join my mailing list – there’s a sign up form on the home page and subscribers receive a free Parsantium supplement.