Having handled myself to a number of good Dungeons & Dragons novels in a row—primarily the authentic Dragonlance trilogy and R.A. Salvatore’s The Halfling’s Gem—in the previous couple of D&D&N columns, I knew that I have to pay a value in return. That value was studying Artifact of Evil, the second Greyhawk novel by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, whose first Greyhawk guide at the moment sits because the worst entry I’ve learn to this point. Is Artifact any higher? Yes, however not almost sufficient.

Let me start with the identical caveat as final time: You can venerate Gary
Gygax as the daddy of all table-top role-playing video games (and the various, many issues spawned from them) whereas nonetheless considering he’s a piss-poor fiction writer, and I do, as a result of he’s. But let’s begin with what’s been improved since Saga of Old City, which is especially that fundamental character Gord the Rogue, first launched as a bug-eating, consistently abused slave boy who turned a surprisingly over-powered fighter/grasp thief by the top of Saga, is one thing extra akin to a hero in that he begins preventing with the great guys to cease the forces of evil, as a substitute of solely for journey… finally.

Those forces of evil embrace the cult of the Scarlet Brotherhood, which is attempting to find an evil artifact that may awaken the evilest god in all of creation and free him from his jail. Unfortunately, Iuz, a half-demon wizard additionally needs the ability of the artifact for himself to rule the Earth—sorry, Oerth—and sends his minion Obmi the dwarf and a small military to seek out the artifact as nicely. So there are three factions trying to find the titular artifact, two of whom are evil as heck.

Spoiler: Obmi does discover and efficiently deliver the artifact again to Iuz, with Gord and his companions chasing him each step of the best way however by no means catching as much as him. The novel ends with darkness falling throughout the land, after which Gord will get mauled by a wild boar and dies. Seriously. Gygax’s choice to make Gord and his fellow heroes fail—not fail spectacularly, they simply don’t get the job achieved—genuinely shocked me, whereas Gord’s brutal loss of life made me snicker out loud. It’s a little bit of enjoyable, which is in any other case in brief provide in Artifact of Evil.

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The largest drawback, as earlier than, is that Gygax’s plotting is only a mess. A quest to cease a bunch of unhealthy guys from retrieving a magical merchandise of nice energy is Fantasy Fiction 101, and ought to be easy sufficient. But Gygax introduces the Scarlet Brotherhood as a cult with secret members hiding in even the tiniest of villages, solely to drop them totally from the proceedings a couple of quarter of the manner in, changing them with Iuz and his minions. Gord and his friends have about one million random fight encounters with monsters, Iuz’s military, and extra alongside the best way in lieu of an precise, ongoing narrative.

Their largest encounter—in measurement, at any price—is with the Lovecraftian horror known as Putriptoq. In order, right here’s how this goes: one among Gord’s social gathering senses the monstrous creature is forward. Gord has a random thought and appears into his magical bag of holding and pulls out a scroll which simply so occurs to include the magic spell “Banishment,” the precise factor he occurs to want to do away with Lovecraftian horrors he can’t in any other case battle. Putriptoq arrives and Gord casts the spell he’s had in his arms for lower than a minute; the one twist is that Gord inexplicably ad-libs just a little little bit of the spell and finally ends up getting himself and his social gathering transported to a airplane dominated by some kind of cat god. It can be a enjoyable diversion if it didn’t exist solely so Master Cat can inform Gord he’s been carrying a hoop that may flip him right into a were-panther. By the best way, Putriptoq doesn’t play a component in the remainder of the guide.

When Gord and the others return to Oerth, the guide picks up some, as a result of it focuses on his try to cease Obmi from bringing the artifact to Iuz—though this primarily quantities to a different slew of battles the place Gord and his crew choose off as many foes as they will with out being caught. These fights are nothing greater than a small showcase for the varied character courses, powers, and magic to be present in Dungeons & Dragons, however at the least there’s no deus ex machina to destroy the momentum. There’s nonetheless no ongoing narrative, and definitely no character improvement for any of the characters, however at the least there’s a transparent aim, which marks a significant enchancment over Old City.

Gord, as a personality, has improved considerably marginally as nicely. He’s much less obnoxious, much less dour, and even a bit jovial. Even his informal and not-so-casual misogyny has been toned down, though that doesn’t imply it’s gone. When the primary feminine character wanders into the narrative—a strong feminine knight named Dierdre—and drops her second line of dialogue, Gygax writes, “Gord disliked this brash woman instantly… she was too big, too much like a man, and too loud and sure of herself.” Later, he confirms he dislikes Diedre as a result of she’s “condescending” to males as in the event that they’re on her degree, quite than acknowledging she’s—presumably—on theirs, and later he publicly declares how a lot he doesn’t need to have intercourse together with her. Gord nonetheless sucks. I hate Gord.

Otherwise, Artifact of Evil has the identical issues Saga of Old City had: 1) one million correct nouns of areas with completely no hints of what their deal is or what function, if any, they’ll play within the story; 2) one million character names, virtually none of whom have any memorable traits to maintain them in your head for quite a lot of scenes; and 3) pages and pages of descriptions of issues with as little dialogue as Gygax can get away with, presumably as a result of none of his characters are distinguishable from one another in speech or in motion. Here’s essentially the most egregious instance, after somebody (fairly fairly) asks Gord to inform everybody the place the hell he bought his arms on a scroll of banishment:

“Gord complied, briefly relating a strange encounter in a strange place. ‘Then,’ the young thief said to his comrade, ‘we learned the extent of our folly, for many unexpected and unpleasant things befell us thereafter.’”

That’s it. Gord tells an anecdote you don’t get to listen to. I assume it’s not as unhealthy as “each of them discovered facts about the other” in Old City however man, it isn’t good. Nor is Artifact of Evil.

After Artifact was revealed, Gygax was pressured out of TSR, the corporate he helped create, however took the rights to Gord and his different guide characters with them. He then continued Gord’s story for 5 extra novels underneath the “Gord the Rogue” banner, which ended with Gygax blowing up his model of the world of Greyhawk as a result of he was so irked with the route TSR had taken their model of his beloved marketing campaign setting (which was nowhere). Even on this mortal realm, the place I’ve devoted my life to watching unhealthy motion pictures and studying unhealthy books, studying extra about Gord seems like a zero-sum sport to me, so let’s say goodbye to the unlikeable protagonist and keep in mind him as we final noticed him—became a high-quality mist of blood by a really offended boar.

Artifact of Evil rolls a 5 on a d20, making it a bit increased than Saga of Old City’s authentic 4. But whereas Saga took a -2 penalty for normal unpleasantness and lack of a coherent narrative, Artifact avoids it by being largely okay and form of having a coherent narrative. However, each books nonetheless earn a -3 penalty for pointless misogyny, so Artifact of Evil ends with a 2. Not good, however… no. It’s merely not good. If you by some means handle to trace a replica down, cease monitoring that replicate down instantly.

If you’re a Greyhawk fan dismayed that I received’t be studying any extra of Gygax’s novels, excellent news: author Rose Estes took over the Greyhawk novels after Gygax’s departure, so I’ll positively look into these Gord-free adventures… finally. Instead, subsequent up for D&D&N is Pool of Radiance, the novelization of the hit 1988 PC sport that I’ve by no means as soon as performed, written by James Ward and Jane Cooper Hong. It’ll be good to take a dip in some magical waters to scrub all this Greyhawk off me.

Assorted Musings:

• If you’re curious to know precisely how a lot of a Mary Sue ol’ Gord has turn into by guide two, he defeats a inexperienced dragon by hitting its rider within the head with a single stone from his sling. When he involves the Plane of Cats, he wins a mini-Olympics in opposition to a bunch of were-tigers in each class however racing.
• Artifact of Evil introduces a whole lot of names I do know from common AD&D Second Edition, primarily from spells: Melf of Melf’s Acid Arrow, Tenser of Tenser’s Floating Discs, Mordenkainen of Modernkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. They all present up very briefly, are vaguely useful, and disappear with out exhibiting any character in any respect.
• There is a demon named Schwartz. Make of that what you’ll.
• Pretty a lot everybody in each evil factions schemes in opposition to one another and themselves, however the chilly warfare between Iuz and his demon father Grazz’t takes up a whole lot of actual property within the guide to little or no consequence. However, Iuz does handle to have his mom, Iggwilv, and consort, Zuggtmoy, freed to hitch him in his evil quest, however are you able to consider this? Once they arrive, these two girls nag poor Iuz to loss of life! Yes, Iuz instructions literal armies of killers, however Iggwilv manages to snag the artifact from Obmi first and received’t give it to Iuz—actually, Iuz, lord of darkness, grasp of hundreds of monsters, whines to himself, she “won’t give it to him”—and now his mother and gal pal get to inform him precisely what to do. Dames, amirite?
• Okay, I gotta confess, as a substitute of getting gored to loss of life by a bull, Gord will get teleported to the Plane of Cats as a result of…. anticipate it… the ring additionally provides him 9 lives. The guide ends with a horny were-tiger obliquely promising to screw him, so I want my ending.

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