The Articles of Dragon: "Greyhawk's World"

In my younger days, I was a big fan of The World of Greyhawk setting, for reasons I've discussed in other posts on this blog. Sometime during 1982, probably starting with the appearance of "The Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk" series, there was a significant uptick in the amount of Greyhawk material in the pages of Dragon. I loved this, of course, as I was eager to learn more not just about Greyhawk but also perhaps the direction Gary Gygax was planning to take AD&D, as rumors of an expansion first began to circulate. Just as each new character class or collection of spells provided hints about where AD&D might be headed, so too did his elaborations on the Greyhawk setting (or so I thought anyway).

Consequently, when issue #71 (March 1983) came out, I was pleased to see that it included multiple articles penned by Gygax, two of which specifically dealt with Greyhawk. While one was simply another installment of deities and demigods, another presented something adjacent but nevertheless slightly different. Entitled "Greyhawk's World," the article presented three "quasi-deities" and one "hero-deity" – entirely new concepts for AD&D, as Gygax himself explains at the start of the article.

Gygax defines a "quasi-deity" as "above the status of important characters, by and large, but not quite demigods." Included in this class are "personages" such as Daern, Heward, Johydee, Keoghtom, Murlynd, Nolzur, and Quaal, all of whose names should be familiar to anyone who's read the Dungeon Masters Guide, because they're associated with various magic items and artifacts (Heward mystical organ, Keoghtom's ointment, etc.). Some of these characters were once player characters and are now retired from adventuring in the usual sense. For the most part, "their exalted status moves them in other realms," but they may occasionally become involved in more mundane matters, hence Gygax's description of three of them in this issue: Heward, Keoghtom, and Murlynd.

Heward is a high-level bard named for Hugh Burdick, Gygax's cousin. Whether Burdick ever actually played Heward or D&D, I don't know, but I am sure my better informed readers can provide that information. Keoghtom possesses high levels in multiple classes – cleric, magic-user, illusionist, monk, bard – and is an homage to Gygax's deceased childhood friend, Tom Keogh. Murlynd is the former character of another deceased of Gygax, Don Kaye, who was also one of the original founders of Tactical Studies Rules. Of the three, Murlynd was the one who most interested me, because, in addition to having levels as a paladin, magic-user, and illusionist, he was also "typically clad in garments of another time and world, that of 'the Old West'." Murlynd also carried a pair of six-shooters that nevertheless worked in the Greyhawk setting, despite their otherworldly technological nature.

In addition to the three aforementioned characters, Gygax presents a fourth, Kelanen "the Prince of Swords," whom he calls a "hero-deity." A hero-deity would seem to be a step closer to true demigod-hood, given that "some who live by the sword pay him homage." Like the quasi-deities, Kelanen possesses high levels in multiple classes, in addition to having a number of unique magic items and special abilities that set him apart from mere mortals. Unlike the three quasi-deities, Kelanen is more reclusive and singularly devoted to his narrow interests. He's also neutral in alignment – the others are all good – and dedicated to "balance."

When I first read this article, I was instantly taken with it, primarily because it provided some additional details about the high-level NPCs of the World of Greyhawk. I, of course, recognized the names of Heward and Keoghtom right away, while Murlynd and Kelanen were unknown to me. Of the two, Murlynd caught my attention, because of his cowboy-like appearance and his use of firearms, something that, up to that point, was quite uncommon in AD&D, outside of oddities like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I found Murlynd simultaneously appealing and repellant – appealing because who doesn't find the idea of a magic-using cowboy cool and repellant because I was a terrible stick in the mud generally opposed to genre bending. I preferred to color within the lines, even in my fantasy.

The other aspect of the article that I found compelling was one that Gygax didn't much develop. He mentions offhandedly that 

Using these three as guidelines, it should not prove too difficult for the DM to act to bring very special "retired" player characters, and possibly some of your most successful NPCs too, into the realm of the quasi-deity. By means of dual-class work, special situations, successful quests, and the completion of defined tasks, the former PCs can be elevated to the new status. 

Gygax provides no details of precisely how to handle this, leaving up to each Dungeon Master to adjudicate, which strikes me as wise and probably a better approach then what we got in the Immortals Rules. Though I never took this up in any of my own campaigns, I was intrigued by the idea, as well as by the implication that perhaps, in the future, AD&D might carve out more space for high-level characters. High-level play is one of those things that's always existed in theory, but it's never, in my experience anyway, been all that satisfying – just more levels, more hit points, more spells, etc. without any real purpose beyond it. Maybe that's an inherent flaw in the structure of D&D itself, I don't know. From time to time, though, I caught glimmers of something more than that in Gygax's Dragon columns. I'll be sure to point out what I'm talking about in future "The Articles of Dragon" posts.