A Section of The Dungeon - 'The Hall of Mystery' - A Section of the Greenlands Dungeon By Don Trunabull From Dragon issue #21

 Back in December 1978 Dragon magazine issue#21 had hit the news stands & there's a Don Trumball dungeon section that's called  THE HALL OF MYSTERY A section deep in the Greenlands Dungeon By Don Turnbull - Cambridge, England. What use is a section of  a dungeon?!  

'The Hall of Mystery' certainly has a ring to it doesn't it? And this is where I think it could be used as a legendary dungeon location that could be dropped into your own own campaigns. And this is where the dungeon has implications within OSR campaigns. 
For a game such as Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg 'The Hall of Mystery' might be one of those legendary locations of Law. A place that has fallen away into the mists of time. The hall has become ancient beyond time as it was the resting place of past kings. And is now the domain of humanoid of Chaos. Because of the dungeon section's connection to the King Arthur legend this is a deadly dungeon even by ACK's standards. 
 

'The Hall of Mystery' is a perfect location to stick a legendary item or artifact within it's confines for ACK's. The dungeon is also useful to add into a Castles & Crusades game as joint dungeon for the campaign to have an Arthurian spin. Mysterious echoes of legendary items that could link to Greyhawk's mysterious ancient past. And possible future all rallies around the C&C connections especially the legendary Mythos books. 

 The Hall of Mystery is another of those dungeons that could be transported into the Lion & Dragon rpg because of it's connection with the Arthurian legends. My own only concern is the fact that the dungeon is quite nasty & dangerous. So 'The Hall of Mystery' has the potential to hide some major Arthurian artifacts from another age. 

The dungeon master would have to replace the traditional TSR monsters with some L&D monsters to make sure that the lethality of the dungeon didn't finish off an entire party. Or don't to keep the deadliness of it intact. 

Giants of Chaos - Giant Chieftains, The Forces of Chaos, & B2 Keep on the Borderlands -ACK's Stormbringer Campaign

Eric Pape's illustration for Lyrics and Old World Idylls by Madison J. Cawein (1907).

"...so King Arthur shook
And headlong flung Sir Accolon. Then took,
Tearing away, that scabbard from his side
And hurled it through the lists, that far and wide
Gulped in the battle breathless. Then, still wroth,
He seized Excalibur; and grasped of both
Wild hands, swung trenchant, and brought glittering down
On rising Accolon. Steel, bone and Brawn
That blow hewed through. Unsettled every sense.
Bathed in a world of blood, his limbs lay tense
A moment, then grew limp, relaxed in death."

(Cawein's "Accolon of Gaul" (1889), p. 285)

Could the B2 The Keep on The Borderland By Gary Gygax have an Arthurian mythological reflection?!  I believe that the keep is near Bedegraine within the Arthurian legends & mythos. Bedegraine wiki entry goes deeper into where & why this important; "Bedegraine is a location featured in some tellings of the Arthurian legend. Its chief importance is as the site of a battle where King Arthur solidifies his reign in a victory over rebel kings.

Bedegraine is first mentioned in the French Prose Merlin, a work eventually incorporated into the Lancelot-Grail cycle.^[1] The Merlin refers to Bedegraine as the chief city of Britain and Carmeliard, the kingdom of Guinevere and Leodegrance, and describes Arthur's victory over the rebels there.^[1] Though his force is outnumbered by the rebels led by King Lot, Arthur carries the day with the secret aid of the French kings Ban and Bors. The rebel kings must retreat to their own territory to fend off Saxon invaders, and eventually recognize Arthur as their rightful overlord.^[1] The Livre d'Artus, a continuation of the Merlin, also mentions Bedegraine and places it on the border between Logres and Cornwall.^[1] "

Rhead, George Wooliscroft & Louis. "Arthur Leading the Charge at Mount Badon" from Tennyson, Alfred. Idylls of the King: Vivien, Elaine, Enid, Guinevere. New York: R. H. Russell, 1898. This picture illustrates the lines from Tennyson's "Lancelot and Elaine" idyll


^"Bedegraine is an important location in the Vulgate Lancelot, another section of the Lancelot-Grail.^[1] The city, here located on the border of Ireland and Carmelide, serves as one of Arthur's court cities, and becomes the setting of most of the "False Guinevere" episode, in which an impostor usurps the Queen's place and the real Guinevere must flee with Lancelot.^[1] The Battle of Bedegraine episode is an important event in Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, which describes Arthur's defeat of the eleven rebel kings as his final step towards undisputed kingship.^[1] The 13th-century French writer Baudin Butor, who wrote on the legendary kings preceding Arthur, mentions Bedegraine as one of Vortigern's court cities" 

If we get into one monster element that causes chaos within Arthurian myth & literature. And this element has to be the Welsh giants which were at the forefront of causing Camelot lots of destruction & dangerous. 

The Giant by the artist Goya 

In the Welsh literature giants such as the following are very dangerous; "In the Mabinogi of Branwen ferch Llyr, Britain is ruled by the giant Bran the Blessed, who has never been able to fit inside any dwelling. In Culhwch and Olwen, giants feature as antagonists throughout. Ysbaddaden, chief of giants, is the father of Olwen, a beautiful maiden sought by Culhwch fab Cilydd, a cousin of King Arthur's. He is slain at the tale's close by his nephew Goreu fab Custennin,^[2] while Wrnach, another giant, is killed by Cei."  And this is also  concerns Rhitta (or Rhudda) Gawr a very destructive giant; 'A well-known tale concerns Rhitta (or Rhudda) Gawr, a giant who held court in Snowdonia. He marched against warring kings Nyniaw and Peibaw, overwhelmed their armies and took their beards as trophies of his victory and fashioned them into a cap for himself. The twenty-six kings of Britain assembled their armies to destroy Rhitta but were vanquished by the giant, who cut off the kings' beards and fashioned a great cape out of them to protect him from the cold. Sometime later, as Arthur "washed his hands after slaying the red-eyed giant of Cernyw", he received a message from Rhitta, demanding his beard to patch his cloak. Arthur refused, and Rhitta marched south with his armies to claim it from him. In the resulting confrontation, Rhitta is forced to shear his own beard, and retreats "much humbled in stature but much wiser in knowledge". A variant tale claims that after receiving the demands, Arthur marched furiously up to Snowdonia and fought against the giant in a duel, in which he "lifted up his sword and struck Rhitta on the crown of the head a blow so fiercely-wounding, severely-venomous and sternly-smiting that it cut through all his head armour and his skin and his flesh and clove him in twain.",^[3] According to the story, Arthur commands that a cairn be built over his body which forms Gwyddfa Rhudda (Rhita's Cairn). Over the intervening centuries the name of Rhudda was forgotten and Gwyddfa Rhudda became known as Yr Wyddfa."  These giant chieftains are going to be at the head of many of the armies of Chaos something that fits quite nicely with Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg. Especially some of the articles that appeared in the AXIOMS ACK's house organ magazine. 

All of the above fits the Chaos of Chaos area found within B2 & it also fits the general adventure principles found within AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. And if we use B2 Keep on the Borderland as the campaign adventure basis then we have the fact that the Keep is on the outer edge of such a campaign. The Welsh Arthurian legends crossover into Michael Moorcock's Corum books & the fact that humanity as a whole in Athurian legend is barely hanging on. Both against against itself & the forces from Outside. B2 could be seen as one of the great pushes of Chaos against humanity. 

The chaos god thing that we see within AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara reminds me of the Gygax's Tharizdun.  And this is where we see Robert Kuntz's article sited in the OSR Grimoire "The Dark God: Historical Content, Developer Commentary, and an Ode to the Dark God" by Robert J. Kuntz (El Raja Key's Magical Emporium #4, 2003), republished in "Dark Druids" by Robert J. Kuntz (2006, 2015). All of these chaos things are survivors from the first or second great Biblical flood that have survived into Arthurian times. 
And Arthur is perhaps laying the ground work for humanity to move forward. The dark empire of Granbretan would love nothing more then to be able to examine these entities or harness their power. 

The Keep on The Borderlands of Realities - Law, Chaos, & the Holy Grail In ACK's Stormbringer

 Let's once again step onto the moonbeam paths of the Holy Grail & Chaos with continuing our discussion of The Fisher Kings & the Michael Moorcock mythos of Law & Chaos right from here. This brings everything home with  Adventurer, Conqueror, King Heroic Fantasy  Handbook. And ACK's makes a perfect alternative rpg to create an alternative Stormbringer rpg campaign. And this dove tails into the legends of the Holy Grail & the Fisher King. 

So what does any of this have to do with Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon's 'Tragic Millenium' Europe?! The Dark Empire of Granbretan (the name given to what was once Great Britain) is engaged in a campaign to collect any & all items or artifacts of power super science or otherwise. And we know that 'the Dark Empire's super science had  deeply dived into the realm of 'time travel' and alternative dimensions. They have zero reason not to dip into an alternative dimension or two to retrieve items of myth & legend. 
And this includes the Arthurian mythos items. The Molten Sulfur blog includes an interesting but brief overview of such items here. 

One such item which has appeared over & over again is the 'Bleeding Lance' which according the Fisher King's Wiki entry; "The bleeding lance has taken numerous forms throughout the Arthurian literature chronology. In the earlier appearances of the lance, it is not represented as a Christian symbol, but morphs into one over time. In Perceval and Parzival, the lance is described as having "barbaric properties" which are difficult to associate with Christian influence.^[6] Chretien describes his lance with "marvelous destructive powers", which holds a closer connection to the malignant weapons of Celtic origin.^[7] In Chretien's Perceval, the lance takes on a dark and almost evil persona^[7] and also seems to overshadow the Grail, which if this was a Christian story would be rather odd.^[8] Wolfram's tale also treated the lance in a similar dark manner. In Parzival, the lance is "poisonous" which contrasts sharply with the general trend of healing Christian themes. This lance is plunged into the Fisher King's wound at different times to continue his pain, for having sought forbidden love.^[6] This lance is considered significant because it is most often associated directly with the wound of the Fisher King, which is demonstrated both in Chretien's and Eschenbach's versions of the tale.^[9]

The more recent writings have the lance presented in the Fisher King's castle with Christian theology. More specifically, it is supposed to be the lance that pierced Jesus Christ while on the cross. This is seen in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In Malory's version the Fisher King is healed with the blood from the lance, signifying it as a good, holy, Christian object. In Corbenic we see the procession at the Fisher King's feast, featuring heavily on the Holy Grail, which is a strong Christian artifact. It can be extrapolated that in the same procession, the accompanying lance is the lance that pierced Jesus Christ." 

If the  Dark Empire of Granbretan gets ahold of the Lance?! Then Arthurian England could be in serious  trouble. But the Sword of the Fisher King is even more dread of an item; "The sword is commonly thought to be a gift from the Fisher King to Perceval. This is then followed by Perceval's cousin's prophecy that the sword will break at a crucial moment. In two cases, the writers tell us that Perceval broke the sword: in Eschenbach, it fails him in his battle against his half-brother at the end of Parzival; and Gerbert de Montreuil describes how he shatters it on the gates of the "Earthly Paradise".^[10] The adventure of the broken sword is a theme originally introduced by Chretien, who intended it as a symbol of Perceval's imperfections as a knight.^[11] The major example for his imperfection is that Perceval refused to ask about the Grail. This concept of punishment is also seen in Eschenbach's tale where Perceval is told: "your uncle gave you a sword, too, by which you have been granted since your eloquent mouth unfortunately voiced no question there."^[12] The sword remains as a plot device to both remind Perceval of how he failed to ask the healing question and as a physical reminder of the existence of "Munsalvaesche" (Eschenbach's name for Corbenic)." 

What does this have to do with D&D?! A bit of everything there was when I was in college a piece of Arthurian artwork that looks exactly like B2  The Keep on the Borderlands By Gary Gygax's famous module Keep.  For many years I've been searching the interwebs for that piece of artwork. 

Map of the Keep, from module B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands" (1980).  Scale: one square equals 10 feet

According to the OSR Grimoire blog there are any number of variant keeps. And this what we recently used as the Fisher King's abode. But who would be villainous enough to leak the location of the 'Broken Lance' & one of the two Fisher King swords?!  Why the queen of Light & Darkness of course who has an instinctive in disrupting the Holy Grail's role in the planes. All of this ties back into Original Dungeons & Dragon's Greyhawk's magic section where there are several minor details that will be worked into our campaign coming up. 

The Forces of Law & Chaos - The Battle of Brown's Hill Wargame Session Report

"Here in an excerpt from the Battle Report Gary Gygax submitted back in 1971 to Don Featherstone's Wargamer's Newsletter:

Having run across an old map I had drawn of a mythical continent, complete with many fantastic inhabitants, I decided to use it as the basis for a game. Lake Geneva was to play host to the Madison, Wisconsin, group so I got busy. The "Situation" was described as follows:

East of the Desert of Sorrow stretches the nearly unbroken barrier of forbidding mountains. Furthest south, dipping into the place where the Gnyxyg Sea meets The Ocean, they are called Mountains of Bitter Cold. At the place where the Broken Land joins them they become known as the Home of Dragons, and it is somewhere within their vast area that is hidden the Cave of Shifting Runes. Furthest north they are known as the Giant Mountains, due not to the stature of their peaks — albeit this is undiminished, but rather for the creatures who inhabit the labyrinthine caverns therein. A spur of the chain turns first eastward, then circles north again, to en­close the hidden and unwholesome valley of Lake Iuz. The lesser peaks of the spur are the Dwarfrealm.

On the coast north of the Giant Mountains are the lands called Drearshore, and the peninsula of Lands End. It was from here that Chaos armed its host, swarmed into the Valley of Iuz, and began to harry the Dwarves, causing them to flee southwards into the Brown Hills and bringing news of the massing evil, to the men of the Old Kingdom. From the town of Yon to the city of Hither the news travelled, and the paladins at Great Keep were called forth by the Count of Aerll. All of Law was to meet in solemn council at the hamlet of Lea. In a short time the men of the Meadow­lands were joined by a band of the warlike elves from the wood near the Cairnstones, as well as a large band of horsemen from beyond the Silent Forest, the eastern border of all the land.

The encampment of the Count was made in the Cloverfields, between Lea and the Brown Hills. It was here that intelligence reached him that the Hordes of Chaos had debouched from the pass at the headwaters of the Darkling River, skirted the Marshes of Oozing Slime, and now were only a few days from him. Despite the fact that only three-quarters of his forces had been marshalled, the Count marched at once due west across the narrow waist of hills, and took up a strong position to await the enemy."

From the Collectors Trove.com website The Battle of Brown's Hill Battle Report Available Right Here  

If there was ever a point where the proto Greyhawk campaign setting was born then it was definitely 'The Battle of Brown's Hill'! This was the predecessor to Gary Gygax's 'B2 Keep on The Borderlands' which I learned about through the OSR Grimoire blog here.  

 If there was an unofficial start to the world of Greyhawk setting I'd probably say that it would be the The Battle of Brown Hills, which Gygax submitted as a battle report to Wargamer's Newsletter  was published in issue #116 (November, 1971). I'm thinking that 'The Battle of The Brown Hills's is the precursor battle between the forces of Law & Chaos within the Realms. There's more here from the OSR Grimoire blog on 'B2 Keep on The Borderlands'; While an important perspective, the later module B5 "Horror on the Hill" (1983) makes a better case for this argument.  By comparison, the near apocalyptic setting described in the background for module B2 presents an endangered civilization under siege:

The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populace, rape its riches, and steal its treasures. If it were not for a stout few, many in the Realm would indeed fall prey to the evil which surrounds them. Yet, there are always certain exceptional and brave members of humanity, as well as similar individuals among its allies - dwarves, elves, and halflings - who rise above the common level and join battle to stave off the darkness which would otherwise overwhelm the land. Bold adventurers from the Realm set off for the Borderlands to seek their fortune. It is these adventurers who, provided they survive the challenge, carry the battle to the enemy. Such adventurers meet the forces of Chaos in a testing ground where only the fittest will return to relate the tale. Here, these individuals will become skilled in their profession, be it fighter or magic-user, cleric or thief. They will be tried in the fire of combat, those who return, hardened and more fit. True, some few who do survive the process will turn from Law and good and serve the masters of Chaos, but most will remain faithful and ready to fight chaos wherever it threatens to infect the Realm.

from B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands" "

This very much feels like the same sort of a set up that we not only see in Chainmail but the type of a battle set up that echoes through Original Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I : Greyhawk. 

"The Battle of Brown Hills." The battle is between the forces of Chaos, led by the warlock Huldor ap Skree, and those of Law, led by Count Aerll. Which begs the question, "Did the forces of Law at the Keep on the Borderlands actually gone because of the events of the 'Battle of Brown Hill'?! " And this also brings The Battle of Brown Hill back into Arthurian mythological focus. With a pre Greyhawk campaign setting are the forces chaos related to Poul Anderson's pseudo Celtic Chaos mythological forces !?! Ancient OSR theorists say, ' yes '. And on Grognardia there's a comment by  SlerotinJune 5, 2012 at 2:54 PM; 

"Aha!  This explains why you can find so many magical swords lying around in the Flanaess.  No one thinks to look for them after battles."

What's so interesting about that?! Well given the fact that magical swords play such a high point in both the Moorcock & Poul Anderson Law Vs Chaos Sword & Sorcery fictional mythologies this point isn't lost. Now there's also the fact that Arthurian literature a well as  legend & lore has significant humanoid races playing the enemies or allies as the forces of chaos. Then it makes sense that the evil Fey would also play such a significant part for Chaos. And these factors also plug back into Michael Moorcock's Corum series of books where the Celtic mythologies play such a significant part of in the war between Law & Chaos. But what does this have to do with the Adventurer, Conqueror, King?! Everything actually. 

ACK's forces of Chaos are the giants, humanoid races, & the orcs all a deep part of both Poul Anderson's Sword & Sorcery & the Battle of Brown's Hill. Everything comes full circle. 

And these forces in ACK's become a full on threat within AX3 Capital of the Borderlands a supplement that mimics both late Roman Empire & the world of the 'Battle of Brown's Hill'.

 

And I believe that this has been done as a homage to Gary Gygax's B2 Keep on the Borderlands. But if we squint really hard then we get a much better understanding in the implied struggle between Law & Chaos in ACK's. There's a far deeper Strombringer aspect coming up. 

Adventurer, Conqueror, King Along The Moonbeam Roads - Greyhawk to Greyhawk - The Queen of Air & Darkness

 Sometimes campaigns take on a life of their own & this Adventurer, Conqueror, King Heroic Fantasy  Handbook . And in this case its been the fact that we've been discussing using some pretty esoteric  resources  including  Original Dungeons & Dragons  Supplement I Greyhawk. Because this blog entry picks up right from here. 

There are several reasons for this including the use of the Gate spell & its uses with the powers of Law & Chaos; "Gate: Employment of this spell opens a cosmic portal and allows an ultra-powerful being (such as Odin, Crom, Set, Cthulhu, the Shining One, a demi-god, or whatever) to come to this plane. It is recommended that the user of this spell have a highly valid reason for summoning such aid. The name of the being desired must be called when the spell is cast. There is a 95% chance that the called being will come, 5% chance for some other being coming instead. There is also a 5% chance that whatever shows up will simply return immediately after observing the situation."  
And this brings up the OSR Grimoire's blog entry on Gary Gygax's 'Keep on the Borderlands' and the module's place within the struggle with the force Law & Chaos; "The Realm:

Much has been written suggesting the American frontier as the ideological framework behind D&D in general, and "The Keep on the Borderlands" in particular, (see comments for this post from Grognardia as far back as 2008, as well as this post from Blog of Holding in 2016).

While an important perspective, the later module B5 "Horror on the Hill" (1983) makes a better case for this argument.  By comparison, the near apocalyptic setting described in the background for module B2 presents an endangered civilization under siege:

The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populace, rape its riches, and steal its treasures. If it were not for a stout few, many in the Realm would indeed fall prey to the evil which surrounds them. Yet, there are always certain exceptional and brave members of humanity, as well as similar individuals among its allies - dwarves, elves, and halflings - who rise above the common level and join battle to stave off the darkness which would otherwise overwhelm the land. Bold adventurers from the Realm set off for the Borderlands to seek their fortune. It is these adventurers who, provided they survive the challenge, carry the battle to the enemy. Such adventurers meet the forces of Chaos in a testing ground where only the fittest will return to relate the tale. Here, these individuals will become skilled in their profession, be it fighter or magic-user, cleric or thief. They will be tried in the fire of combat, those who return, hardened and more fit. True, some few who do survive the process will turn from Law and good and serve the masters of Chaos, but most will remain faithful and ready to fight chaos wherever it threatens to infect the Realm.

from B2 "The Keep on the Borderlands"

The conflict between Law and Chaos described above is an example of the influence of Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series on the implicit cosmology of the original D&D game." 

But what does this have to do with the Holy Grail & the Fisher Kings?! Well a bit of everything really. The connection between 'The Realm' & Greyawk's campaign setting is deep. This is especially true of one of Greyhawk's Fey queens 'the so called Queen of Air & Darkness whose played the villain in numerous campaigns of ours especially our Stormbringer campaigns. Where her Fey were a major source of contention for our player's PC's. And all of this comes back to the fact that 'The Queen of Air & Darkness' came from ;" The name comes from the title of T. H. White's Arthurian novel The Queen of Air and Darkness, the second volume in his work The Once and Future King."  And this ties into the mythos of Poul Anderson's Law & Chaos as well as other fantasy authors; "

In White's novel, the queen of the title is King Arthur's half-sister Morgause. She is an amateur witch who enchants the young king into sleeping with her, producing the traitorous child Mordred.

"The Queen of Air and Darkness" is also a short story by Poul Anderson which plays on fairy mythology in a science fiction setting.

The Queen of Air and Darkness also appears as the Queen of the Unseelie Court in fiction such as Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry series and Emma Bull's War For the Oaks"  
Her Fey forces of darkness will be in evidence coming up; "The Queen of Air and Darkness is blamed with the creation of all evil fey races, including quicklings and spriggans" 

Adventurer, Conqueror, King Along The Moonbeam Roads - The Grail & Beyond

 So today I had a get together with some of my fellow DM's for the next leg of the Winter campaign & we've been talking about Adventurer, Conqueror, King. Or more to the point the ACK's Heroic Fantasy Handbook. And there's been some hemming & hawing about doing an ACK's Stormbringer campaign. Now today's blog entry is going to pick up right from our last one. 

In the past it hasn't been Stormbringer that's been the focus of our Stormbringer rpg campaigns. But instead Arthurian legend & the Holy Grail have taken centerstage. And according to the Stormbringer Wiki there's a Moorcock explanation that underpins quite a few of the author's series; "The Holy Grail is a cosmic archetype that manifests most often as a jeweled, golden chalice. The Holy Grail could be anything. It could be a cup, a helmet, or an entire universe. The truth of the holy grail is that it is a manifestation of the Moonbeam Roads, the Runestaff and the Spammer Gain. It is the key to the Multiverse, and is therefore also called the cure for the World's Pain, for it unlocks ultimate freedom. The Von Bek family is bound to the Grail and they are its keepers and its seekers."
All of this is a part of the Warhound & the World's Pain 

We've had agents of both Law & Chaos work with Von Bek's in the past & now the fact is that Chaos has been stirring in the wastelands again. If your not familiar with the wastelands of Arthurian legend here's the wiki entry on it; "The Wasteland is a Celtic motif that ties the barrenness of a land with a curse that must be lifted by a hero. It occurs in Irish mythology and French Grail romances, and hints of it may be found in the Welsh Mabinogion.

An example from Irish literature occurs in the Echtrae Airt meic Cuinn (Echtra, or adventure in the Otherworld, of Art mac Cuinn). Recorded in the 14th century but likely taken from an older oral tradition, Echtrae Airt meic Cuinn is nominally about Art, though the adventures of his father Conn of the Hundred Battles take up the first part of the narrative. Conn is High King of Ireland, but his land turns to waste when he marries the wicked Bé Chuma, an unacceptable action for the king. He searches for a way to restore his country by sailing towards the mystical western lands, and eventually washes up on an island inhabited by the niece of the sea god Manannan and her husband. He attends an otherworldly banquet, and when he returns his wife is banished, presumably lifting the curse.

In the Arthurian Grail material, the Wasteland's condition is usually tied to the impotence of its leader. Often the infirmity is preceded by some form of the Dolorous Stroke, in which the king is injured tragically for his sins but kept alive by the Grail. In Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail, the Fisher King has been wounded in a misfortune that is not revealed in the incomplete text, and his land suffers with him. He can be healed only if the hero Perceval asks the appropriate question about whom the Grail serves, but warned against talking too much, Perceval remains silent. In the First Continuation of Chrétien's work, the anonymous author recounts how Gawain partially heals the land, but is not destined to complete the restoration. Over the course of time romances place less emphasis on the Wasteland and more on the king's wound. In the Lancelot-Grail Cycle the link between the devastated land and the wounded king is not absolute, and in the Post-Vulgate Cycle much more emphasis is placed on King Pellehan's injury by Sir Balin than on the devastation this causes to his kingdom." 

The Grail itself is quite safe but the other items associated with it have been missing for a long time. The Shroud of Turin, the spear of Longinus, & the swords of the Fisher Kings.  The swords are powerful artifacts of Law lost in the land of legend?! They've floated in & out of our campaigns for years beyond the reach of the player's PC's. Several of our high level ACK's PC's over the years have retired to Fairyland to rule over kingdoms of dreams. But now there's been rumbles among the players that they should be questing for the Fisher King's Swords. Such powerful items along with the Grail regalia should not fall into the hands of one of the lords of Chaos.

And this brings things back to the Wasteland of Arthurian legend being equivalent to the wilderness of original Dungeons & Dragons. Within original Dungeons & Dragons Volume Three Underworld & Wilderness Adventures page 14 -15; "THE WILDERNESS: The so-called Wilderness really consists of unexplored land, cities and castles, not to mention the area immediately surrounding the castle (ruined or otherwise) which housed the dungeons. The referee must do several things in order to conduct wilderness adventure games. First, he must have a ground level map of his dungeons, a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town or village closest to the dungeons (where adventruers will be most likely to base themselves). 14 "Blackmoor" is a village of small size (a one-horse town), while "Grayhawk" is a large city. Both have maps with streets and buildings indicated, and players can have town adventures roaming around the bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples, and so on. Venture into the Thieves' Quarter only at your own risk! The terrain beyond the immediate surroundings of the dungeon area should be unknown to all but the referee. Off-hand adventures in the wilderness are made on the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL playing board (explained below). Exploratory journies, such as expeditions to find land suitable for a castle or in search of some legendary treasure are handled in an entirely different manner." 
And this unexplored wilderness becomes a part of the multiverse as PC's trip along the moonbeam roads. 

What are the moonbeam roads?! Well according to the Multiversal wiki; "

The Moonbeam Roads are the ethereal pathways through the Multiverse, leading between universes, from world to world.

The roads pass through the Higher Worlds, and run between the universes. A traveler upon the Moonbeams can percieve the entire Multiverse around them.

The Moonbeam Roads are a manifestation of the Holy Grail and therefore also a manifestation of the Runestaff and the Spammer Gain." Time & again we've used to carve out pieces & universe  for our player's PC's to take over across the multiverse.