Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure

[Merkholz]

This module have long been a favorite of mine due to the many quirky ideas and encounters in it. One thing that always struck me as odd was the following lines:

"He [Eli Tomarast] has been many places, including a long-past visit to the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun some years back, where he was instructed by priests concerning the ways of hidden knowledge as taught by the once-powerful Tharizdun."

Who wrote these lines and why? Was it Kuntz or Mentzer or someone else? Whoever it was must not have read WG4 or at least not read it thoroughly since the last servant (a high priest) died a century ago according to WG4.

Was the intention to create a link to WG4 in order to have a semblance of connectivity? Was it a simple matter of name-dropping? Was the intention to establish the old age of Tomarast? I'm very curious.

[Scott]

I noticed that when I first read the adventure. My guess was it was just Gary being his usual, unconcerned with consistency, self.
If I needed an in-game explanation I would say that the priests he dealt with were not the original priests that inhabited the temple, but some cultists that had discovered it and were trying to revive it, before they were killed or driven off by some monsters.
Of course Tomarast may be really old.

[geneweigel]

I'd say in 1982 Gary was "borrowing" both the S4 map (from 1976) and the deity from Kuntz for WG4 and two years later in 1984 finalized all of the Kuntz adventure pitches into one adventure that he was familiar with already to throw Kuntz a bone because "they would barely let him in the TSR offices to see Gary" in 1983 or so according to the tales.

[grodog]

Rob wrote WG5, not Gary....

[Scott]

According to the module cover, and Gary, it was more of a collaboration. Gary polished what Rob wrote.

[Scott]

Ahh, that was kind of terse, phone tapping on the bus. I know the adventure was Rob's, but I know Gary added to it. Much of the fluff text is in Gary's style. It may be Rob's writing, but based on the writing style I assumed it was EGG.

[geneweigel]

I don't see anything that I disagree with. Gary Gygax superficially put it all together and there is a controversy when shit like that goes down.

Here's how I see it:

Rob's take on Gary's "NEWHAWK" (What we call true Greyhawk [1980 to 1985]) version of "Moor Castle" flavored as Kuntz's "El Raja Keye" locale.

I know the foundation of "Moor Castle" warped into "Maure Castle" then "Maure Castle the placeholder for ERK flavored adventure" then rebooted as "Mauve Castle the town in the novel" (perhaps as it was intended before throwing the bone to Kuntz) but as a fan I can't give Rob anymore free cheese than he deserves.

I think thats fair to say considering the controversy over DEITIES & DEMIGODS production was a few years prior to all that and if the WG module wasn't coherent with established ideas it would have really sounded off in some way so Gary's involvement can't really be marginalized.

[geneweigel]

Sorry, I accidentally wrote "Kuntz's" as "Kunt's" that was not intentional.