Greyhawk Comes To Town - Specter of the Gunmen - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary Session Report Part Seven

Last night I dug deeply into my Cha'alt/Godbound campaign & I did so through the lens of Gary Gygax's Greyhawk and my uncle's old campaign notes. Along with a ton of old issues of 'The Dragon' magazine.



 Sometimes one has to collect their thoughts & look deeply into their own old school materials & in this case it was Gary Gygax's Greyhawk box set. What happens when the influence of Greyhawk comes to small town Arizona? All across the territory of the Arizona wasteland is the war torn Hell that the Cha'alt wave has brought along with the demon worms! The PC's come across Low Star Arizona the perfect looking small town with Elven traders, Dwarven shop owners, & Gnome tinkerers all in their perfect 1880 Earth clothing!? Cars lay abandoned at the edge of town while human  residents use horses & gun slung at their sides. But no one is afraid of the forces of Chaos just outside their door.




When asked why their not afraid the town residents all talk about Murlynd & how he rolled into town with his posse & kicked the crap out of the monsters harrying the town. Under his influence the town is thriving & he continues to show up from time to time. He drifts in speaks with the sheriff & some of the towns folk, & has a drink at the local bar with his posse.  Murlynd first appeared in The Dragon issue #71 & he's straight outta of my Uncle's original campaign notes. Now there's a whole lot of Gary Gygax & Greyhawk back story connected with this NPC hero deity according to the wiki entry & my uncle's notes; "Gary Gygax's childhood friend Don Kaye created Murlynd for the second-ever session of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign in 1972, rolled up on Gygax's kitchen table at the same time as Rob Kuntz's Robilar and Terry Kuntz's Terik.^[1] Gygax later recalled that, in those early days when most players including Gygax himself simply used their own name as a basis for their character's name—Tenser/Ernest, Yrag/Gary—"Murlynd" was the first attempt by a player to make a creative name for a character.^[2] Don Kaye was a fan of the Western genre,^[3] and at one point during the early days of the Greyhawk campaign, Gygax had Murlynd transported to an alternate universe set in the Wild West. When Murlynd was eventually transported back the Greyhawk setting, he sported the Stetson, cowboy boots, Colt revolvers and stereotypical outfit of a cowboy. Although Gygax did not allow the use of gunpowder in his Greyhawk setting, he made a loophole for Kaye by ruling that Murlynd actually carried two "magical wands" that made loud noises and delivered small but deadly missiles.^[4] (Many years later, Gygax created a similar item called "Kaydon's Thunderous Bolters" for the Lejendary Adventures role-playing system. Gygax made it clear that these items fired their six charges using magic, not gunpowder.)^[5]

The game Kaye and Gygax were playing would become D&D, and Kaye would go on to help Gygax start up TSR. In late 1974, Kaye also helped develop the rules for a Western-genre game called Boot Hill. However, Kaye died unexpectedly in 1975. As a tribute to his friend, Gygax published Boot Hill in 1975 in memory of Kaye. In 1983, Gygax would pay additional tribute to Kaye's memory by referencing Murlynd in the published version of EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, which also included the spells Murlynd's ogre and Murlynd's void,^[6] and further highlighted Murlynd in the March 1983 issue of Dragon magazine.^[7] The following year, Gygax paid further tribute to Kaye when he borrowed Murlynd's name for Murlynd's spoon, a magical spoon described in Unearthed Arcana that created a bad-tasting but nutritious gruel when placed in an empty bowl"
"In Gygax's Dragon article, Murlynd was described as a handsome Oeridian male with weathered features, clothed in worn leather and wearing a light-colored hat of a type unfamiliar to the Flanaess. A pencil illustration shows a stereotypical cowboy of the Wild West genre, wearing a Stetson and chaps, and holding two Colt .45 revolvers. His personality is described as aloof and taciturn, though he is quite personable among his allies. Murlynd is described as being dangerous only when provoked by evil beings. In addition to his pistols, which are simply described as a pair of wands in the shape of six shooters that shoot projectiles, Gygax notes that he is also proficient with longsword, battle axe, and crossbow.^[7] However, Gygax describes Murlynd's origins as unknown."

My use of Murlynd & his posse is to highlight the fact that there's more going on this small town then meets the eye.  The fact that a hero deity has taken this small town under his wing highlights that matters cosmic are happening under foot. A Cha'alt stricken world doesn't just need heroes it cries out for em! If Heironeous has taken an interest in this Earth then there's a major problem! Cha'alt is coming more & more undone as time goes on!  The fact that an aspect of the  Egg of Coot is here speaks volumes. 


Add to the fact that this Earth has far more going then meets the eye. There are armies of beastmen roaming the deserts. The beast men forces came straight outta of AX2 Secrets of the Nethercity for the forces of the Egg. I modified them using a combination of the  Cha'alt rule book & the Godbound rpg rule books.

Last week's session highlight's something is very disturbingly wrong in the deserts as the twin suns of Cha'alt keep setting out there in the wastelands against the outline of the black pyramid.