There was a short story in Gord the Rogue: Night Arrant (1987) called THE FIVE DRAGON BOWL which included Biff the halfling from Greyhawk Adventures: Artifact of Evil(1987). There was a cleric of Pholtus called Poztif (a play on Serten Ernie's character?) and Melf's cousin Silverthorn. Gord and company encountered Maegus Yeo an oriental wizard in a shop, etc.,etc., etc. Was there a game story behind all this?
Sadly no. Although the Gord dtory with Keek is actually based on game play. Although I am pretty sure that my Dad fudged some stuff :x
So Melf didn't even HAVE a cousin Silverthorn? WHO ARE YOU?!? Seriously, Iit seems it was so but you know I just had to ask. I've been following that since the 80's! In the early 90's I wrote these Greyhawk notes from the books looking for stuff that would have no longer made it into print for D&D. The part about all the characters (Melf included) working for Mordenkainen probably never hit the table either.
That's a side of Iuz I would have happily never pondered. "Is that Zagyg's Needle in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"
Actually Silverthorn was my sister Heidi's character. So that is a real character. And yes Melf did actually swear vassalage to Mordenkainen and was a member of the Red Rampart Guard. :ugeek: Melf never encountered Iuz face to face. He is a god and would have likely utterly destroyed him :shock:
That reminds me, I used to have players swear allegiance to this evil lich guy and they would get a free magic ring with a skull on it and no one ever refused. "Hey! Look a free magic ring!" Of course, once they took it they never invoked the power of the ring and I'm still waiting...
Let me guess... its yet another elaborate three-tiered organization that we never got to see the details of along the lines of: The Cabal The Circle of 8 The Circles of Iuz The Circles of Each Archdruid The Greyhawk Patricians The Golden Dawn The Horned Society The Rosy Cruciform The Scarlet Brotherhood
Pretty much right on the nose. This was Mordenkainen's "palace guard" so to speak. If he sent out the alert I was to teleport back to his tower (with several floors of successive nets so if you came low or high you would not suffer damage). I am not sure who all was in the red rampart guard, but I am sure they were all 9th level or higher. Ernie and Rob might have some more info on Mordie and his castle. Melf was maxed out at 11/13 and that was after I used a wish to get my strength from 17 to 18 (82) and two wishes to get 10% each wish for a total of a 19 strength and a Tome of Intelligence to get to 19 intel and an Ioun stone that added one level of M-U. (The way I got the tome is a great story that occurred at the end of Tsojcanth and also obtained the Spear of Zagyg) I entered into his service so I could get training in M-U and it was also a good DM device to send me on adventures too. Dad was tough when it came to demi-human limitations and on the training in order to level. Training was very costly and it was hard to find mentors at higher levels.
Ah, perhaps it was lke a prototype of the Circle of Eight that appeared in the novels and modules (not the all wizard version from after Gary but his version in the novels and modules which was a mixed assortment with character class branches.).
