Having treat myself to several goodDungeons & Dragonsnovels in a dustup — mainly theoriginal Dragonlance trilogyand R.A. Salvatore’sThe Halfling ’s Gem — in the last few D&D&N columns , I knew that I must pay a price in return . That price was study Artifact of Evil , the second Greyhawk novel by D&D co - creator Gary Gygax , whosefirst Greyhawk bookcurrently ride as the worst entry I ’ve interpret so far . Is Artifact any better ? Yes , but not virtually enough .
Let me begin with the same caveat as last time : you’re able to venerate GaryGygax as the father of all table - top office - diddle games ( and the many , many thing spawned from them ) while still thinking he ’s a piss - poor fabrication author , and I do , because he is . But let ’s depart with what ’s been ameliorate since Saga of Old City , which is mainly that main case Gord the Rogue , first introduced as a microbe - eating , constantly abused slave boy who became a shockingly over - powered paladin / master copy stealer by the end of Saga , is something more akin to a submarine in that he starts fighting with the good guys to stop the forces of wickedness , instead of solely for adventure … finally .
Those forces of evilness let in the furor of the Scarlet Brotherhood , which is hunt for an vicious artifact that can waken the evilest god in all of creation and free him from his prison . Unfortunately , Iuz , a half - demon thaumaturge also wants the king of the artefact for himself to dominate the Earth — drab , Oerth — and sends his minion Obmi the dwarf and a small regular army to find the artifact as well . So there are three factions searching for the titular artifact , two of whom are malefic as heck .
Inset of Artifact of Evil cover by Clyde Caldwell.Image: Wizards of the Coast
despoiler : Obmi does find and successfully bring the artifact back to Iuz , with Gord and his companion chasing him every step of the direction but never catching up to him . The novel ends with wickedness return across the land , and then Gord gets mauled by a wild boar and dies . badly . Gygax ’s determination to make Gord and his fellow hero fail — not break spectacularly , they just do n’t get the job done — genuinely surprise me , while Gord ’s brutal expiry made me laugh out loud . It ’s a bit of fun , which is otherwise in curt supplying in Artifact of Evil .
The big problem , as before , is that Gygax ’s plotting is just a mess . A quest to stop a clump of bad Guy from retrieve a magical item of large power is Fantasy Fiction 101 , and should be straight enough . But Gygax introduce the Scarlet Brotherhood as a cult with hugger-mugger members hiding in even the diminutive of hamlet , only to put down them entirely from the proceedings about a quarter of the agency in , replacing them with Iuz and his minions . Gord and his pals have about a million random armed combat encounters with teras , Iuz ’s army , and more along the way in lieu of an genuine , ongoing tale .
When Gord and the others come back to Oerth , the book break up up some , because it focus on his attempt to stop Obmi from bringing the artefact to Iuz — although this mainly amounts to another slew of battles where Gord and his gang break up off as many foes as they can without being caught . These fights are nothing more than a small showcase for the various case classes , powerfulness , and magic to be found in Dungeons & Dragons , but at least there ’s no deus ex machina to deflower the momentum . There ’s still no ongoing narrative , and certainly no character ontogeny for any of the characters , but at least there ’s a clear-cut goal , which check a major betterment over Old City .
Interior art of Iuz by Jeff Easley. Again, this book hasn’t been reprinted nor is it available as an ebook, so this is what you get.Image: Wizards of the Coast
Gord , as a character , has better moderately marginally as well . He ’s less obnoxious , less dour , and even a bit jovial . Even his casual and not - so - casual misogynism has been chant down , although that does n’t mean it ’s gone . When the first distaff character wanders into the story — a powerful distaff knight named Dierdre — and drops her 2d line of dialogue , Gygax write , “ Gord dislike this brash woman instantly … she was too big , too much like a man , and too garish and certain of herself . ” Later , he confirms he dislikes Diedre because she ’s “ condescending ” to men as if they ’re on her level , rather than acknowledging she’s — possibly — on theirs , and later he publicly announces how much he does n’t desire to have sex with her . Gord still blow . I detest Gord .
Otherwise , Artifact of Evil has the same problems Saga of Old City had : 1 ) a million right nouns of placement with dead no intimation of what their deal is or what persona , if any , they ’ll flirt in the story ; 2 ) a million character names , almost none of whom have any memorable characteristic to keep them in your straits for more than a few vista ; and 3 ) Page and pages of descriptions of things with as petty dialogue as Gygax can get away with , perhaps because none of his characters are distinguishable from each other in speech or in action . Here ’s the most rank example , after someone ( quite somewhat ) expect Gord to tell everyone where the hell he got his hand on a scroll of banishment :
“ Gord follow , briefly relating a strange encounter in a strange place . ‘ Then , ’ the vernal stealer tell to his comrade , ‘ we learned the extent of our foolishness , for many unexpected and unpleasant things befell us thereafter . ’ ”
Gord kills a fake Obmi and faces a bugbear.Image: Wizards of the Coast
That ’s it . Gord tells an anecdote you do n’t get to get wind . I estimate it ’s not as bad as “ each of them let out fact about the other ” in Old City but humanity , it is n’t dear . Nor is Artifact of Evil .
After Artifact was published , Gygax was thrust out of TSR , the troupe he help make , but take the rights to Gord and his other book characters with them . He then continued Gord ’s tarradiddle for five more novel under the “ Gord the Rogue ” streamer , which cease with Gygax blowing up his variant of the domain of Greyhawk because he was so gall with the direction TSR had taken their interlingual rendition of his beloved crusade scope ( which was nowhere ) . Even in this mortal realm , where I ’ve give my sprightliness to look out spoiled movies and reading big books , reading more about Gord feels like a zero - sum plot to me , so allow ’s say goodbye to the unlikeable agonist and remember him as we last saw him — move around into a o.k. mist of blood by a very raging boar .
Artifact of Evil roll a 5 on a d20 , make it a bit high than Saga of Old City ’s original 4 . But whereas Saga took a -2 penalty for ecumenical unpleasantness and lack of a coherent narration , Artifact stave off it by being mostly okay and kind of having a coherent narrative . However , both leger still earn a -3 penalty for uncalled-for misogyny , so Artifact of Evil ends with a 2 . Not good , but … no . It ’s plainly not unspoiled . If you somehow deal to track a written matter down , stop cut across that copy down like a shot .
Full cover by Caldwell. That’s Deidre on the right, of course.Image: Wizards of the Coast
If you ’re a Greyhawk buff dismayed that I wo n’t be reading any more of Gygax ’s novels , good newsworthiness : generator Rose Estes took over the Greyhawk novels after Gygax ’s release , so I ’ll definitely count into those Gord - free adventures … eventually . Instead , next up for D&D&N is Pool of Radiance , the novelization of the hit 1988 PC game that I ’ve never once played , drop a line by James Ward and Jane Cooper Hong . It ’ll be good to take a dip in some wizard waters to wash all this Greyhawk off me .
Assorted Musings:
If you ’re peculiar to know exactly how much of a Mary Sue ol’ Gord has become by book two , he defeats a light-green Draco by hitting its rider in the read/write head with a individual stone from his sling . When he comes to the Plane of Cats , he bring home the bacon a miniskirt - Olympics against a bunch of were - tigers in every category but racing .
artefact of Evil introduces a band of names I know from regular AD&D Second Edition , chiefly from spells : Melf of Melf ’s Acid Arrow , Tenser of Tenser ’s float Discs , Mordenkainen of Modernkainen ’s Magnificent Mansion . They all show up very concisely , are vaguely helpful , and vanish without display any personality at all .
There is a fiend named Schwartz . Make of that what you will .
Pretty much everyone in both evil junto scheme against each other and themselves , but the inhuman war between Iuz and his devil father Grazz’t takes up a set of veridical estate in the book to very little result . However , Iuz does manage to have his female parent , Iggwilv , and consort , Zuggtmoy , freed to join him in his evil seeking , but can you think this ? Once they arrive , these two women nag poor Iuz to death ! Yes , Iuz overtop literal armies of killers , but Iggwilv manages to snag the artifact from Obmi first and wo n’t give it to Iuz — literally , Iuz , lord of darkness , master of thousands of monsters , whines to himself , she “ wo n’t give it to him”—and now his mommy and gal pal get to tell him just what to do . Dames , amirite ?
Okay , I got ta confess , instead of getting gored to death by a bull , Gord gets teleport to the Plane of Cats because … . look for it … the ring also gives him nine spirit . The book ends with a sexy were - Panthera tigris athwart promising to screw him , so I prefer my end .
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