Arneson reference in Temple of Elemental Evil

[Havard]

Over on Facebook, someone wrote

I read the intro articles. The first thing I find really interesting is that Rannos Davi is an anagram for Dave Arneson, and that the Trader was his character in the office campaign. For me, that means Rannos Davi is from Blackmoor.

The discussion refers to the Goodman Games edition of Temple of Elemental Evil. 

I assume Rannos Davi was also part of the original Temple of Elemental Evil. Do we know if Gary playtested the adventure with Dave Arneson as one of the players?

-Havard

[Rafael]

The character's name is actually Rannos Davl, RANNOS DAVL, "L" not "i". "Rawnos Dawl" in the video game, IIRC.

The character *could in theory* be an unfriendly dig at Arneson, but what I remember from the module does not seem to point in that direction, and the supposed anagram is a stretch, and probably based on the error I mention above.
He's honestly a pretty random NPC, and he and his partner Gremag go all in style with the other evil-doers in the story.

[Havard]

The character's name is actually Rannos Davl, RANNOS DAVL, "L" not "i". "Rawnos Dawl" in the video game, IIRC.

The character *could in theory* be an unfriendly dig at Arneson, but what I remember from the module does not seem to point in that direction, and the supposed anagram is a stretch, and probably based on the error I mention above.
He's honestly a pretty random NPC, and he and his partner Gremag go all in style with the other evil-doers in the story.

Could be a dig, but possibly just a reference? Did the character originate in T1 Homlet (1979) or Temple of Elemental Evil (1985)? In 1985 I think there could be less of a reason to have it as a negative thing. And since most of ToEE was written by Frank Mentzer, could it be based on a play test character that Dave used for playtesting the dungeons years prior?


-Havard

[Rafael]

Could be, of course, but, to be honest, I don't see it. - Rannos and Gremag already appear in "The Village of Hommlet", but unless I'm missing some integral piece of information, connecting them to Blackmoor seems like a stretch. - Especially in ToEE, there are elements (no pun intended) that allow for a closer proximity to Blackmoor. The Elemental Cult could well be connected to Zugzul, the demon at the bottom of the dungeon could well be connected to Tekumel/The Afridhi. If there was a possibl Blackmoor connection, then I would look for it there.

As to a possible reference to a playtest - is Frank still active on the web? Would be nice to ask him just this.

[Yaztromo]

As to a possible reference to a playtest - is Frank still active on the web? Would be nice to ask him just this.

Great idea!