Gygax's Characters

[NerdHut]

Since today marks ten years since Gary Gygax passed away, I've been thinking about his characters a bit.

I know Gygax had very little collaboration with WotC, so any adapation of his PCs that they produced wouldn't be built by him. But I was wondering if any of his characters were presented with stats in 3rd/3.5 edition D&D, and if so, where? Failing that, does anyone know where to find those characters in earlier editions, assuming they were published then.

[hamishspence]

I'm not certain but I think Mordenkainen or Robilar or both, were either his, or those of one of the party members in his earliest games. Both are statted in 3.0's Epic Handbook.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Robilar and Mordenkainen are in the ELH, but their stats have approximately nothing to do with what Gygax played, as they were statted without his input, by people who (I think, based on their approximate age) were not in his games, for an edition that did not exist at the time of play. As far as I know, he never gave anyone access to his character sheets, so Mordenkainen and Robilar are currently of unknown statistics.

[Darrin]

I'm not certain but I think Mordenkainen or Robilar or both, were either his, or those of one of the party members in his earliest games. Both are statted in 3.0's Epic Handbook.

Robilar was Rob Kunz's character. Most of the players in Gary's games took their own names and transposed them to create their character names, or were puns of some sort.

Tenser = Ernest transposed, Ernie Gygax's character.
Robilar = Rob Kuntz's fighter.
Terik = Terry Kunz, abbreviated "Teri K."
Murlynd = Don Kaye's character, apparently the first player to name his character as something more creative than his name.
Yrag = Gary spelled backwards, his first character, a fighter.
Mordenkainen = Gary's wizard (name was portmenteau'd out of Finnish mythology)
Drawmij = Jim Ward spelled backwards.
Rary = Brian Blume's wizard, who only reached 3rd level, at which point he could be called "Medium Rary".

Stats have been published for Mordenkainen, Robilar, and other notable characters in various editions, but according to Gygax they had nothing to do with the original character sheets. Mordenkainen, for example, has been published in The Rogues Gallery (1980), Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, (1984), City of Greyhawk (1989), and the ELH (2002). They were created for different publications for different reasons, and the character's abilities were tailored to fit editorial rather than historical needs. The character abilities change significantly from source to source as the backstory on the Circle of Eight and Greyhawk's history was modified to adapt to new sourcebooks and new editions.