Gord The Rogue - Publication History

Publication History

One of the factors that contributed to the success of the Dragonlance setting when it was published in 1984 was a popular series of concurrent novels by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. Gary Gygax, the developer of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, realized that novels set in Greyhawk could have a similar benefit for his recently published World of Greyhawk boxed set, so he wrote Saga of Old City, the first in a series of novels that would be published under the banner Greyhawk Adventures. The protagonist was Gord the Rogue, and this first novel told of his rise from the Slum Quarters of the city of Greyhawk to become world traveller and thief extraordinaire. The novel was designed to promote sales of the boxed set by providing colourful details about the social customs and peoples of various cities and countries around the Flanaess.

Even before Saga of Old City rolled off the presses in November 1985, Gygax wrote a sequel, Artifact of Evil. He also wrote a short story, At Moonset Blackcat Comes, that appeared in the special 100th issue of Dragon magazine in August 1985. This introduced Gord the Rogue to gamers just before Saga of Old City was scheduled to be released.

However, at the same time, various factions within TSR with different visions of the company's future caused a power struggle, and Gygax was forced out on December 31, 1985. By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all D&D characters whose names were anagrams or plays on his own name (for example, Yrag and Zagyg).

After Gygax left TSR in 1985, he continued to write a few more Gord the Rogue novels, which were published by New Infinities Productions: Sea of Death (1987), City of Hawks (1987), and Come Endless Darkness (1988). In Gygax's absence, however, TSR moved the Greyhawk storyline in new directions that Gygax didn't appreciate, and the line of Greyhawk Adventures novels (without Gord the Rogue) continued to be written by Rose Estes. In a literary declaration that his old world of Oerth was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk and D&D, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, Dance of Demons.