Circle of Eight - Development

Development

Gary Gygax, in helping to create the game of Dungeons & Dragons, developed a home campaign in and around the City of Greyhawk. He was also a player when his friend Rob Kuntz was the dungeon master, and Gygax created many different characters for the Greyhawk world. At the point where these characters had collectively accumulated both enough wealth that they couldn't easily spend it, and standing armies that rivalled most nations' forces, Gygax gathered all eight of the characters together—Mordenkainen (wizard), Yrag (fighter), Bigby (wizard), Rigby (cleric), Zigby (dwarf), Felnorith (elf), Vram (elf) & Vin (elf)—as the Circle of Eight. Pooling their resources, Gygax had the Eight construct a stronghold in the middle of an evil land so they would not have to travel far to find adventure. After three years of game time, the result was the Obsidian Citadel, a massive and impregnable octagonal castle from which any of the Eight could sally forth in search of adventure.

After Gygax was ousted from TSR in 1985, the company took over creative control of the published Greyhawk setting. In 1988, The City of Greyhawk boxed set by Carl Sargent and Rik Rose remolded Gygax's old "Circle of Eight" into a new plot device. Instead of a group of eight companions belonging to Gygax who sallied forth from an impregnable bastion to fight evil, the Circle became eight wizards led by Mordenkainen (although he was not part of Gygax's original Circle himself). Gygax's own wizard, Mordenkainen, became the head of the Circle, while other wizards from the Greyhawk campaign, made famous from their spells published in the original Players Handbook, became the actual Circle, although several of them had not been particularly powerful characters in the Greyhawk campaign. For instance, Rary was a low-level wizard created by Brian Blume and played only until he reached 3rd-level, at which point Blume retired him, having reached his objective, which was to be able to introduce his character as "Medium Rary". Gygax borrowed the name for the spells Rary's mnemonic enhancer and Rary's telepathic bond. Ironically, the original Rary was never powerful enough to cast either of "his" spells. In addition to Mordenkainen, the seven well-known names were Bigby, Otiluke, Drawmij, Tenser, Nystul, Otto, and Rary, a group which game designer Ken Rolston describes as "a powerful and influential local organization of wizards". The eighth wizard was a new name, the female wizard Jallarzi Sallavarian. The Circle's mandate was to act as neutral referees between Good and Evil, never letting one side or the other gain the upper hand for long. In addition, Sargent & Rose took Gygax's original Obsidian Citadel, repurposed it as Mordenkainen's castle, and placed it in an unspecified location in the Yatil Mountains.

In 1990, TSR decided that the decade-old world of Greyhawk needed to be refreshed, and moved the campaign timeline forward a decade, from 576 CY to 586 CY, in order to provide the setting for a new storyline.

In the Greyhawk Wars, the booklet included with the game, Greyhawk Wars Adventurer's Book, described the war in detail: In 582 CY (six years after Gygax's original setting of 576 CY), a regional conflict started by Iuz gradually widened until it was a war that affected almost every nation in the Flanaess. A peace treaty was finally signed in the city of Greyhawk two years later, which is why the conflict became known as the Greyhawk Wars. On the day of the treaty-signing, Rary—once a minor spellcaster created and then discarded by Brian Blume but now elevated by TSR to the Circle of Eight—attacked his fellow Circle members, aided and abetted by Robilar. After the attack, Tenser and Otiluke were dead, while Robilar and Rary fled to the deserts of the Bright Lands.

A later development of the storyline in 1998 by Roger E. Moore, in the adventure Return of the Eight, filled in the three empty spots in the Circle with Warnes Starcoat, Alhamazad the Wise, and the high elf Theodain Eriason, the Circle's first non-human member, bringing the membership back to Eight.