Ernie Gygax on Tenser

[Havard]

https://www.enworld.org/threads/ernie-g ... ry.664380/

Ernie Gygax Shares A Little of Tenser's History

Thread starter Morrus Start date May 18, 2017

Tenser (as in Tenser's Floating Disk) was one of the first Dungeons & Dragons wizards. He was a character played by Gary Gygax's son, Ernest (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest) in a game set in the newly created Castle Greyhawk; later he became an archmage, and was reintroduced as a member of the Circle of Eight in 1989's City of Greyhawk boxed set. He was killed in 1991 during the Greyhawk Wars, and returned to life in 1998's adventure Return of the Eight. Ernie was kind enough to share a little information about the character and his personality.

"Tenser was the first magic user ever in Greyhawk. No books or previous experience existed. The first spell I took was a Read Magic and I used it to read the glyphs above a stairway leading down (level 1 to 2). It told us (Rob, Terry and I) that as you descend into the depths of the Dungeon the encounters will be more difficult but the rewards far grander. At 3rd level when facing off with an Evil 5th level mage I asked to join him and turn to Evil with him. He laughed stripped me naked and released me on the 3rd level to die. I made it to the surface. Took a rock in hand and set an ambush on another low level wandering mage. This stocked me with a new outfit, but I truly missed my now missing paralyzation wand.

Well two levels later I ran into that fellow with my wand again (random wandering encounter table, then a 1 in 6 chance that it would be him andd not another adventurer). Now I had an Elf and a Dwarf and a fireball wand. He had 3 men at arms and 2 first level apprentices. A Mexican standoff occurred. I said and meant it that I would incinerate us all! My followers made the morale throws,his Evil dudes ran. I captured him and then thought of my situation and so I then killed him so that he could never get revenge as I had.

I was always the mapper and would jump into hand to hand if I had no useful spell to throw (Tensers Transformation was created not by me but because of my actions). ALL my characters love magic items and will risk everything to gain them. I only much later turned to Goodness due to an Artifact that to wear and use one must be either Good or Evil (Magic Users Crown). I was the first to hire people to be permanent followers and later when I became 11th level and built a Castle Dad had my followers roll for like/antipathy with each other. So of my 8 level follows only 4 would leave Greyhawk to live with me. The others went off to join Rob and Terry (more of Dads cheating methods to keep game balance instead of allowing me the true dominance my character had so worked for. I was always a fair fellow to my other adventurers (although I would work hard to gain all great items if possible without duress or cheating) and my NPC's not only gained levels but many cool items and were truly treated as family."

Not really Blackmoor related, but I love hearing stories from the original Greyhawk campaign as well as the original Blackmoor one. Especially since Dave Arneson operated on the basis that Gary's campaign existed somewhere in the same game world and vice versa even if it rarely had much of a practical effect.

-Havard