Greyhawk Deities - Additional Deities

Additional Deities

In February–June 1982, a year before the release of the boxed set, Roger E. Moore had published five articles in Dragon (Issues 58–62) describing deities of the non-human races available to players (elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-orcs) suitable for any generic Dungeons & Dragons campaign. In Issue 71 (March 1983), Gygax indicated that these twenty-four deities were now "Greyhawk legal"; this increased the number of Greyhawk deities from 50 to 74.

In the March 1983 issue (Issue 71) was an article detailing four unique characters of Greyhawk. The first two "quasi-deities"—Heward and Keoghtom—had been created by Gygax as non-player characters (NPCs—characters designed to interact with players). The third, Murlynd, was a character that had been created by Gygax's childhood friend Don Kaye before Kaye's untimely death in 1975. The fourth, a "hero-deity" named Kelanen, was developed to illustrate the "principle of advancement of power".

Heward, Keoghtom, and Murlynd were classified by Gygax as "quasi-deities," defined as "characters who have risen above the status of heroes, but who are not quite demi-gods." Other quasi-deities mentioned, but not detailed, included Daern, Johydee, Nolzur, Quall, and Tuerny. Kelanen was called a "Hero-Deity," defined as "one of the very powerful individuals who might, or might not, be a true deity."

With a few additions or deletions in subsequent versions of the campaign setting, the 50 human gods in the boxed set and most of Moore’s non-human gods would form the core of Greyhawk deities for the next 22 years. However, Gygax’s four quasi-deities would not be mentioned in any official Greyhawk material until 1998.