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Post by grodog on Aug 7, 2022 16:18:31 GMT -5
Some fact-checking:
1. Zagig the Lord Mayor of Greyhawk City became Zagyg the demigod servant to Boccob; this is well-established.
2. Zagy (from the Talisman of Zagy) was, I thought, reported as a brother (perhaps a twin brother?) to Zagig via Gene or Scott (or perhaps Paul); true or false?
3. Xagy (from Queen Ehlissa’s Marvellous Nightengale)vs Zagy: same or different beings?
4. Do we have any references to other possible siblings of Zagig?
Allan.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 8, 2022 7:18:08 GMT -5
"The Dungeon Master" from the cartoon is a version of Zagyg and the other names are versions as well. All are Gary's fictional creative counterparts. Thats all I got.
The golden creative rule for Gary was from his own mouth: "Keep it open with plenty of room for more" so it could be that he has relatives with similar names and also magic-users who used the "Zag" sounding name to deceive. Or that he pretended to be all of them.
The "Ganz" name is Gary's ancestor and he had a quote in German to go with it. As in "... ... ... Ganz" which I did not know what he meant
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 8, 2022 7:25:05 GMT -5
The quote was a response to asking if "Ganz" was a magic-user. Then he said: As in "... ... ... Ganz" and he made it seem the magic enterprise started with Zagyg" alone no long line.
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 8, 2022 14:57:32 GMT -5
This is just speculation on my part, but EGG is well known for using the names of friends, family and himself altered in ways that were clever but not always consistent. The references to Zagy and Xagy in the DMG were prior to the World of Greyhawk being published, at a time when the vast majority of D&D players had no idea who Zagyg was. My guess is that EGG threw them in there to add some mystery and legend, to be determined later or left open for DMs to develop. But notice that in S4, there is more consistency as the magic item was named the Prison of Zagyg and the spelling matched Zagyg in the published Dragon articles on the Gods of the Greyhawk, the World of Greyhawk, etc. By that time, there was more attention being paid to detail and world building, so the naming convention became more consistent.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 8, 2022 15:42:31 GMT -5
I think most Gary characters are wordplays on his name you just have to look hard enough. Even "Gravestone" is from "Ernest Gary". "Gord" is probably one too.
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Post by Scott on Aug 10, 2022 10:12:53 GMT -5
I think Gary got much more credit for intent than what was deserved. He was so 'seat of the pants' and what sounds good in the moment. And when asked about stuff like this his answers were as often as not, what sounds good in the moment, and there really was no intent originally, other than ' I need a name to make this description sound cool'.
I think he was much more concerned with consistency in his home games, but he kept them on a smaller scale. In the published stuff he was like, 'here's a bunch of cool ideas, use what you want'.
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