First Expedition to the City of the Gods

In 1980 TSR published Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, possibly inspired by Gygax' experiences in the City of the Gods in 1976. Last year I talked about how the two Greyhawk heroes, Robilar and Mordenkainen almost lost their lives in this deadly place. It wasn't until 1987 that the City of the Gods became accessible to the general D&D fans in module DA3.  However, Dave Arneson had been sending his players to the area since 1974. Dave Arneson's company Zeitgeist Games revisited the location in 2008 as part of their D20 line.

The first expedition to the City of the Gods is mentioned in JG's First Fantasy Campaign. Was the City always a space ship? Visitors from futuristic interstellar civilizations had been visiting Blackmoor since John Snider started his Star Empires campaign in early 1973 placing Blackmoor on his star map. This may have been what first brought the science fantasy twist to Arneson's campaign and may have been the direct inspiration for the City of the Gods.

What we do know is that the City of the Gods was a deadly place. Mordenkainen and Robilar were lucky enough to escape the City alive. The first group exploring the area were not so lucky. The Wizard of the Woods (Pete Gaylord) and a Peshwa Nomad Hero (Dale Norman) lost their lives on this expedition.  Those who did return did not look back.



-Havard

Discussion of this article.

Mordenkainen's adventures in Blackmoor

Although Gary Gygax created Mordenkainen as his first D&D character as late as 1973, I'd like to imagine that the character he played in his first RPG adventure was a sort of Proto-Mordenkainen. This first game I am referring to is of course the Blackmoor game session of the winter of 1972, when Dave Arneson and David Megarry went to Lake Geneva, which I wrote about yesterday.

According to Rob Kuntz, this game included both dungeon adventure and outdoors exploration. From what Kuntz describes, tt seems like the experience must have made a considerable impression on Gary: 

"After the initial Blackmoor adventure events proceeded at a furious pace.  Phone calls to Dave.  Letters exchanged between the two.  During this time EGG noted that he had begun crafting a “dungeon” setting similar to Dave’s Blackmoor. About two weeks after this adventure, Gary handed me a slim manuscript which had been mailed to him by David.  I sat down and read for the first time the rules that David had used during it."

This was of course the beginning of D&D, but it was not the last time for Gygax and Kuntz to play with Arneson as the Dungeon Master. In 1976, those three sat down in TSR's Dungeon Hobby Shop. The two players used their legendary characters Mordenkainen and Robilar. By now, both characters were incredibly powerful and Dave had to limit the number of magical items they were allowed to bring to the table. Their destination was the City of the Gods. Dave Arneson's core group had already made several expeditions to this fabled city, most of which had been disasterous for the player characters. Kuntz and Gygax must have felt confident in their high level characters and played quite recklessly, as Dave Arneson later recalled:

"In this expedition there was a rather indiscriminate and widespread use of lightning bolts which could be observed from a multitude of points throughout the city. The use of such pyrotechnics from a very early stage in the adventure was risky to say the least and was one of the reasons that more and more wandering monsters were encountered thereafter. As the adventurers spent more and more time within the city confines they made little or no attempt to conceal themselves or their activities and so more roving creatures were drawn to their ramblings."
-Dave Arneson, Oerth Journal #6

This lack of caution nearly cost Robilar his life. Fortunately Mordenkainen was able to save his friend and the two were among the few to have survived exploring this deadly place. Details of this adventure can be found in Oerth Journal #6.


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-Havard