Where Dreams and Nightmares Come True: Greyhawk Adventures: Saga of Old City by Gary Gygax
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Greyhawk Adventures: Saga of Old City (TSR, October 1985)
Greyhawk…
A cruel city.
A harsh, pitiless city for a young orphan boy with no money and no friends — but plenty of enemies!
Enter the Old City of Greyhawk, that marvelous place where dreams — and nightmares — come true. Travel through the world of Oerth along with Gord, the boy who becomes a man as he fights for his survival in a world of mysterious wizards, fearsome monsters, dour dwarves, and beautiful women.
[Click the images for Greyhawk-sized versions.]
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Interior art for Saga of Old City by Clyde Caldwell
For Oerth is a world where a man’s eyes always watch the shadows… and a man’s hand is always on the hilt of his dagger.
Here, at last, is adventure enough to last a lifetime — perhaps a very short lifetime!
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Gord the Rogue #1: Sea of Death (New Infinities Productions, June 1987). Cover by Jerry Tiritilli
Such fond memories of the Gord the Rogue series, by the incredible Gary Gygax. I think my favorite was Sea of Death. Gary was definitely inspired by his pal, Fritz Lieber, as Gord the Rogue was a lot like The Gray Mouser.
Jeffrey P. Talanian’s last article for Black Gate was a look at the Dragonslayer RPG by Greg Gillespie. Jeffrey is the creator and publisher of the Hyperborea sword-and-sorcery and weird science-fantasy RPG from North Wind Adventures. He was the co-author, with E. Gary Gygax, of the Castle Zagyg releases, including several Yggsburgh city supplements, Castle Zagyg: The East Mark Gazetteer, and Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. Read Gabe Gybing’s interview with Jeffrey here, and follow his latest projects on Facebook and at www.hyperborea.tv.
I have all the Gord the Rogue books.
I have the first two Rose Estes books after they booted Gygax. I don’t know if there were more, but they weren’t that good. I gave up.
I’ve thought about a Gord re-read some day.
Oh. Face-palm. How did I miss that reference for so many years? This certainly gives an additional frame to the “Acts of Gord” website.
I also have fond memories of the Gord books, particularly Sea of Death, although Gygax’ reach for prose stylings sometimes exceeded his grasp, and Gord got increasingly Mary Sue-ish as the series progressed. Wish they’d release them as eBooks — the New Infinities books, at least; I assume the first two TSR books would be trickier to untangle the rights.
I enjoyed aspects of of the Gord books; the first one was a pretty good coming of age story that does a nice job of showing how Gord battled his way from being a beggar on the streets to some wealth & success before hitting the road as an adventurer. When it’s really cooking (for example, the card game scene where a disguised Gord faces off with some luminaries of the city) it’s a rollicking adventure. Other times, it’s less successful and Gygax’s limitations as a writer are a little more exposed. The second one wasn’t bad, but Gygax does a poor job writing women, his lead character only gets more sexist and Mary Sue-ish, and the geopolitics aren’t terrible interesting. Sea Death was pretty good, but things went downhill after that, IMHO.
The Estes Greyhawk books are competently written, but could really be set anywhere, and YMMV on whether you enjoy the comedy aspects of a bumbling barbarian adventurer or some of the weirder cross-species action. I’ve got them all, but haven’t revisited them in a long time. I suspect I wouldn’t be all that excited.
The World of Greyhawk is a delight, but the novels have been a little lacking. Saga of Old City does have some things going for it, and the City of Greyhawk is an interesting one that could easily house a lot of great adventures. It’s a nice reminder that you don’t have to create an entire continent and do all that world-building at once: focusing in on one city can be just as compelling, if not moreso.
I read the whole series. I really enjoyed the first two, but mostly as a tour of world I’d spent so much time gaming in.
I was very amused that the world was destroyed and replaced with a very similar one, but without the ultimate big bad. Not that Gygax was upset with his old company. Nope.
In my opinion Gygax’s best book is “Night Arrant”. It’s a collection of short stories about Gord, and also sometimes includes his friends. Gygax was a much better writer of short stories than novels, and it’s a shame no-one ever told him. Still, his novels are better than a lot of people give them credit for.
“Nightwatch” by Robin Wayne Bailey and “Quag Keep” by Andre Norton are also good Greyhawk books, but aren’t as canon as Gary’s. Also, “Quag Keep” was the very first D&D novel, as it was published right back in 1979.