Gygax Greyhawk Info

[Scott]

Probably saw this on Facebook, but just in case, and to spur discussion:
Found in Paul Stormberg's Reddit thread:

PaulStormberg
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48 minutes ago
Ceronomus asked in another post:

Q: Is there any meaningful material content for systems other than D&D (Cyborg Commando, Dangerous Journeys, etc)?

Yes, Lejendary Adventures and Lejendary Asterougues has some amazing unpublished content, including, sourcebooks, adventures, campaign guides, and complete novels.

Q: Castle Greyhawk - has it been found? My understanding is that no complete copy of Gary's notes is known to exist.

The manuscript for Gary's, unpublished, original home campaign is still extant! Indeed, I have unearthed the original castle manuscript of 22 levels. Also, the larger, expanded castle of 62 levels is also intact and well secured by Gary's widow, Gail Gygax.

Additionally, there are over a dozen alternate levels that were used to change out levels depending on who was playing. In total nearly 100 levels of the castle exist with some 300 pages of keys.

Q: Is there any fiction by Gygax in the stockpile?

Yes! There is a line of short stories about a young boy who becomes the littlest Samurai. There are fantasy sword and sorcery books, including a trilogy of three complete novels. There is a complete sci-fi novel set in a complete setting revolving around an interstellar spaceport. There is even a complete novel for his earliest fantasy work, The Gnome Cache which had the first few chapters serialized in The Dragon back in the mid-1970s!

Q: Raw material, how much are we talking about? A few notebooks, boxes, a tsunami of intellectual works?

A tsunami!

There are some 130 file boxes, scores of map tubes, and several large pieces of artwork and the gorgeous Dungeon Hobby Shop stained glass sign by the late Laura Roslof. The collection comprised of over 15,000 items, where one item could be a complete 300+ page novel manuscript! Indeed the original castle I describe above is but one entry in the massive inventory.

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Ceronomus
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10 minutes ago
Wow....just wow.

[geneweigel]

Sounds good but I'm not sure what the context is, Set up for one of those auctions? That part about working with WOTC sounds scary. Didn't they already do a big poop on TOEE?

[davegibsongreyhawkdm]

Fascinating read through the blog. I am most interested in VOH/TOEE original manuscripts/maps/keys. Hopefully more Nulb & surrounding area details are available? It is also intriguing that all of Dyvers exists!

The savant character class will also be interesting. Too bad it doesn’t sound like the sorcerer class or magic-user specialist sub-classes details are available. I don’t see mention of new uncovered spells or how EGG intended to systematize magic specialization?

Also, I will be interested in EGG’s individual experience point award for classes details, although my closer read of DMG and past EGG blog comments have some details about this already.

Did Paul’s answer to one of the questions imply that the GD series was in fact meant to connect directly to TOEE?

Paul does seem to say that UA as published needs to be modified and brought back into line with the earlier published core.

Adventures such as The Teeth of Barkash Nour & Egyptian underworld will be interesting.

Of course the City of Greyhawk map and the manuscript for Gary’s original home campaign will be amazing, including the original Castle manuscript! I most want to see details of the nine imprisoned demigods as transpired in the campaign that differ from what was related historically! What other secrets regarding his original campaign did EGG keep tucked away? What are the contents expanding Oerik beyond the Flanaess?

[Scott]

I can't even be excited about it at this point. There have been so many disappointments, and I haven't heard anything to make me think Gail is ready to do anything with this stuff. And even if she was, I'd probably be skeptical, based on prior announcements. It is interesting to hear so much of these items do exist, and that's about it.

[geneweigel]

I don't know Gail or really any Gygax but I knew Gary and Gary let HALL OF MANY PANES fly as is with an "its out of my hands" attitude. And I think that might be said for the Castle Zagyg series. If you strip any of those down they should have been an ideal so imagine what Gygax hostiles who aren't under his purview at all will end up with? They'd delete pertinet information to scribble in room for a tiefling stat block.

[GRWelsh]

Paul Stormberg being involved and allowed access to catalogue what exists is promising, because he is reliable and a fan of original D&D and AD&D. I like the way he handled the El Raja Key archive. If we could be allowed to buy scans of the manuscripts and maps, and typed up unabridged texts, that would be ideal. Auctioning off the manuscripts would be another way of getting the unpublished material into public circulation, although that is less preferable. Erik Mona and Paizo might be able to publish some of the fiction, similar to the way they did for INFERNAL SORCERESS.

I have to wonder... If we finally got to see all of the maps and keys of the levels of Castle Greyhawk, in multiple versions from the 1970's, would it be disappointing? Or, would it have that same feeling as reading G1 or S1 for the first time? Perhaps a lot of what made the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk special wasn't so much the maps and keys with lists of monsters, traps and treasure, but the way EGG DMed and improvised during play.

Here's a quote from Paul's Q & A:

"Gary was very clear to his wife Gail on how he wanted this to be presented. She is striving to follow his wishes and find the best possible partner in this. Many are eager to be involved and have incredible heart but the effort must be exceptionally professional and of the utmost quality."

I am sure Paul is being diplomatic here, but I doubt EGG's intention was for Gail to sit on it for 11 years after his death! IIRC, EGG already had a plan with Troll Lords to publish it in continuing future installments but that was ended by Gail -- so I don't really see how it can be said she is honoring his wishes.

[geneweigel]

I met Stormberg once in person at that Lake Geneva 2007 con just before Gary died. I don't want to be hypercritical so I'll say it flat. I never hit it off with him. Its not that he was geeky or anything its just he seemed very pragmatic in his outlook. I have to add that his Q&A with Gary (OERTH JOURNAL #12 2002 "Thus Spake Gary Gygax: Ye Secrets of Oerth Revealed") contradicted my Saint Trowbane information so that was a major snag in our interaction.

If it hadn't been for that Q&A I probably would never have had to get into the whole Trowbane thing. It was during the immediate aftermath of that publication that I had briefly mentioned "Trowbane" was "Saint Cuthbert" to Gary according to Gary as fact now. Then Gary explained it more elaborately that it was in the context of no longer developing Greyhawk but there was an original version. He made the remark about the Scourge of Unearth/Hammer of the Dark Dwellers and him being a contemporary of Cuthbert. So I said that is it? And he said its something that was there but it never developed into a final form. So I said I could come up with a version and he said sure and he would help me. So I created the, what I call, "pornographic Greyhawk figure". "Pornographic" in that it looked like the real deal but spiritually dead inside. I had made him out of Frankenstein reflections of other Greyhawk deities so when Gary saw it he was wowed and he had me change the look in tweaks and added more flavor. Then he said throw both our names on it.

So there was obviously a disconnect between me and Stormberg by default but I think for what Paul was doing he needed to be aggressive and for what I was doing I had to be even more aggressive.

That aside, this is, as they say, progress and he should be congratulated for the effort.

[GRWelsh]

Yeah, I vaguely remember the obvious answer being many names in the Gord books were invented as thinly veiled parallels to avoid copyright issues, but the more interesting answer was "why not keep the options open and consider that at least some of these could be entirely different entities?" Sometimes trying to coax a straight answer out of EGG was frustrating, but I get his point! The game is more about keeping mystery, wonder, and creativity alive than writing an encyclopedia.

[foster1941]

Jan 9, 2019 20:50:41 GMT -5 geneweigel said:

I don't know Gail or really any Gygax but I knew Gary and Gary let HALL OF MANY PANES fly as is with an "its out of my hands" attitude. And I think that might be said for the Castle Zagyg series. If you strip any of those down they should have been an ideal so imagine what Gygax hostiles who aren't under his purview at all will end up with? They'd delete pertinet information to scribble in room for a tiefling stat block.

That's my thought as well. I have an all-too-clear vision of Gail Gygax striking a deal with Wizards for the "real" Greyhawk Castle only to have "Legendary Greyhawk Sage" Erik Mona and "Original Greyhawk Player" Skip Williams brought in to edit and redact the material in order to "bring it up to modern standards" (i.e. add in a bunch of tieflings and dragonborn and gnoll bards) and make sure everything in it is consistent with "Greyhawk canon" because the most important thing to Greyhawk Fans will be assuring that this fits seamlessly in with and doesn't contradict any of the important work done by Ward, Cook, Sargent, Moore, Reynolds, etc.

[geneweigel]

Its true the Maure castle add-on was a royal disaster. I couldn't swallow the add-on at all.

[Scott]

I think Paul’s a good guy who does what he can. His involvement with Gygax Games is probably the most positive news I’ve heard from GG in years. It’s still too early to get excited about anything, but I’ll try to keep up in the news.

[geneweigel]

I feel like I'm still stuck in the same mode as when I first started talking to Gary and I directly asked him for the maps to Castle Greyhawk and he said it was aimed at eventually being published so it put my view into that mode. My original view was "I want more good D&D/this constant bad D&D makes me pissed" and CG being published seemed like it was a means to that end. I honestly thought it was a superficiality in regards the name and the "world". What mattered was that game sessions were easily good pouring AD&D by Gygax out onto the table even in retreads and stuff by other rpg people was not. Talking to Gary in person was amazing. Him talking about his interactions with the sword & sorcery writers was a big highlight but it was the common talk about aspects of the world that set him apart from hoping you get a good conversation going with someone. I recall someone interrupting him in the smoking lounge to talk about "da Packers game" for a good 20 minutes and as soon as they left from the smoke blowing in their face he picked up right where he left off.

[grodog]

Jan 11, 2019 8:09:37 GMT -5 geneweigel said:

I feel like I'm still stuck in the same mode as when I first started talking to Gary and I directly asked him for the maps to Castle Greyhawk and he said it was aimed at eventually being published so it put my view into that mode. My original view was "I want more good D&D/this constant bad D&D makes me pissed" and CG being published seemed like it was a means to that end.

This is where I see the most potential up-side to Gary's manuscripts being published: more of that Gygaxian design vibe out there means more people playing in that mode, ideally.

I'm hopeful that Paul can deliver more production out of Gygax Games than has been the case since Gary's death, but we'll just have to wait and see I suppose. Having a real website is a nice start, but it's still not a Greyhawk revival even with the cool new map

The other important piece in this puzzle is reconciling Gary's and Rob's creaations within the Castle: if we see only Gary's Original Castle (22 levels) vs. the full Expanded Castle (62 levels) we won't see any of Rob's contributions, which I'd really like to see happen if at all possible.

Jan 11, 2019 8:09:37 GMT -5 geneweigel said:

Talking to Gary in person was amazing. Him talking about his interactions with the sword & sorcery writers was a big highlight but it was the common talk about aspects of the world that set him apart from hoping you get a good conversation going with someone.

Being rooted in the fantasy literature that inspired D&D, instead of being rooted in D&D as so many designs are these days, seems to be one of the most-important distinguishing characteristics of the work by Gary, Rob, Lenard Lakofka, etc. It's firmly grounded, uncut, real stuff---not watered down, not a third-generation copy of a copy.

Allan.

[geneweigel]

Its good even if it does suck. We all just want to look at the maps at this point and anything added in there would be great. I don't think masochist types like Erik Mona can fuck it up too too much when they've already went out there and screwed themselves with their "James Franciscus super fan reboot version of Planet of the Apes where Brent is the only main character" type of emphasis all the fucking time.

If they fuck it up and publish it then I will fix it. Thats all I know.

[GRWelsh]

Something just dawned on me. Gail Gygax is not holding out for an unrealistically big pay day for herself -- I'll bet she wants to set up her son Alex with an ongoing, future business. That's what this is all about. The business plan to publish the rest of the CASTLE ZAGYG levels as scheduled wouldn't have accomplished that. It would have just been a few more checks and that would be it. But setting Alex up as the CEO of his own gaming company built on the reputation and remaining IP of his father could be a going concern.

Maybe this was obvious to everyone else already, and I'm just dense!

Someone should advise Alex the best thing he could do with his father's IP is to become to it what Christopher Tolkien was to J. R. R. Tolkien's IP after his death, and to collaborate with Ernie, Luke, his sisters, Rob and others from the old days as well as modern day 'game historians' like Paul Stormberg, Jon Peterson, and Michael Witwer to put the documents in perspective and add commentary. EGG's legacy is already secure, but this would be an ideal way to publish and archive his remaining IP. One could do this and do the other stuff like video games, movies, etc. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Interview the heck out of everyone still alive from the D&D heyday of the 1970's and 1980's, and gather as many documents from that time as possible, and publish the Dungeons of Castle Greyhawk unabridged yet with commentary, anecdotes and supporting documents. That way it would be preserved as the historical artifact it is, and could be the source of inspiration for generations to come.

[jdw]

Feb 4, 2019 10:22:58 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

... One could do this and do the other stuff like video games, movies, etc. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Interview the heck out of everyone still alive from the D&D heyday of the 1970's and 1980's, and gather as many documents from that time as possible, and publish the Dungeons of Castle Greyhawk unabridged yet with commentary, anecdotes and supporting documents. That way it would be preserved as the historical artifact it is, and could be the source of inspiration for generations to come.

I agree with this completely. I would love to see everything in a preserved archival form (especially T2).