Maus and Lankhmar

[Havard]

Yepp. Yet, there is a 60s sci-fi novel of the same name by Robert Silverberg that very much fits into the overall tone of the Valley of the Ancients/City of the Gods plot.

Namely, it features humanoid androids, and a Egg-of-Coot-like entity; and, more importantly, it is used as the wharf to a City-of-Gods-like spaceship.

8) 8) 8)

Now, since the tower is not mentioned before DA 3, I think, the big question remains if it was a place that was later dropped in by the TSR staff, or intentionally put there by Dave Arneson - which, for the question about where he drew his inspiration from, is integral, in the end.

There are a few sources to look at for Arneson's pre- DA Module City of the Gods. The FFC mentions various expeditions to the Valley of the Ancients, most ending with disasters.

However, Oerth Journal #6 which recounts Robilar and Mordenkeinen's journey to the City of the Gods does feature several towers:

Surely [The City of Gods] was a sight. All golds and silvers, with towers and buildings of the oddest shapes and hues and sizes. Many towers seemed proportioned the same; but this in no way indicated mundanity, for surely the towers gleamed in morning's sunlight. Metal towers, and hundreds of them! Both Mordenkainen and Robilar muttered a few prayers to the gods of protection as they started along its strange streets. After a moment they stopped before what appeared to be a tower that twisted like a plant to the height of at least a hundred feet above them. Its base penetrated a large chasm in the ground.

I believe that with the exception of a few changes in DA4, David Ritchie kept fairly true to Arneson's notes and only expanded on things that Arneson had handed over to him rather than making up too many new elements.

Where Ritchie becomes visible is perhaps in situations like the Wizards Cabal. It is possible that the Wizards Cabal Arneson imagined was closer to the one in the ZGG version, but since Ritchie only possessed spares notes on what the Cabal actually was, he decided to make them a secret and sinister organization staging the kidnapping of Uther for instance. Ritchie is given a skeleton framework by Arneson and the former fills in the details needed for his modules to work. Unfortunately since neither of the two is among us anymore we will never know for certain.

-Havard