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I think it started with watching Lanterns episode 2 last night. That must be it. It got me thinking about cosmic-powered supers, and that ultimately led to Stardust the Super Wizard. This morning I awoke after a dream where I was back in college playing Ali Hakim in a production of Les Miserables that had to be moved to a library after the theater was closed. My college friends were all there, mad at me that I didn't understand how my part fit into the story.
Over coffee, I started thinking about what would happen if Stardust the Super Wizard handed a fragment of his power to a young Peter Parker, gave him one cryptic clue, and then disappeared. You'd end up with Kid Stardust, who believes that with untold power comes untold responsibility.
  

One of the things about Appendix N in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide is that, in the main, the protagonists of the works featured don't really represent the typical PC in the old school mode, at least in the way players first meet them at lowly first level. "You're no heroes" has become a cliched marketing line in newer games wishing to evoke the old school D&D vibe, but the fantasy protagonists of Appendix N are heroes, at least in terms of capabilities. 

In older D&D, characters get by cleverness (player skill) or by luck (die rolls), but even when we first meet them, the likes of Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, Ganelon, and Skafloc are skilled, puissant sorts. One might quibble regarding Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. Tthey are presented in the chronologically earlier but written later Leiber stories "Snow Women" and the "Unholy Grail," as youths, but they seem to be pre-hero (call it 0 level) in those, to me. We are told that Conan, in contrast, was formidable even at a young age: "I was one of the horde that swarmed over the hills. I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was repeated about the council fires."

There is fiction more representative of these early level adventurers perhaps as likely to come to ruin as to succeed, but we don't find it as much in heroic fantasy as in other genres. Fairytales and legends with their less competent protagonists often have heroes escaping by cleverness or luck or Providence --or not escaping and meeting a bad end. Picaresque adventure novels and some novels in the Gothic tradition often have protagonists buffeted from one predicament to another and seldom do they get out of them due to their adventuresome capabilities!

While not as violent as D&D or as some older fairytales, the Oz novels have protagonists engaging in exploration, encountering dangers, and mostly having combat being a fail-state.

This sort of plot where characters either narrow escape (or fail to escape) does show up in fantasy, too. Lord Dunsany (who is in Appendix N) and Clark Ashton Smith have stories of this sort. Mignola and collaborators have created some stories in the style of these two masters in Bowling for Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown and Uri Tupka and the Gods. 

Are there any of the most frequently cited Appendix N authors and works that depict these sort of characters? I think so. Jack Vance with Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga, certainly, and Tolkien's The Hobbit.

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While my Greyhawk series of posts are all just sort of pseudo-encyclopedia entry sort of stuff, they are informed by a certain conception of Greyhawk, at least. I thought it was worth taking a post to outline the works that inform the way I'm presenting and interpreting what I read in the 1980 folio, and other "primary sources." 

As I mentioned, initially thinking of Greyhawk as a more firmly Medieval place was the impetus for this series, but as these things tend to do, my approach has drifted some with time. While my view remains more realistically Medieval elements are nice to bring in, I also don't want to lose site of the Gygaxian Implied Setting Recipe, because at the end of the day, a Greyhawk that feels like Greyhawk (if more rationalized) is more interesting to me than a straight pseudo-history.

Fiction:
Anderson, Poul. The Broken Sword — Fantasy in a historical setting with some science fictional rationalization.
Buehlman, Christopher. Between Two Fires, The Blacktongue Thief  — The first is a horror/fantasy novel in a Medieval setting, full of horrific monsters and historic detail. The latter is a secondary world fantasy in a world with interesting cultural detail and humor.
DeCamp, L. Sprague. The Reluctant King — Humorous fantasy with good worldbuilding. I've opined before about the relationship between De Camp and Gygax.
Chabon, Michael. Gentlemen of the Road — A historical adventuring duo, highlighting some less discussed areas of history like the Khazar Khaganate.Howard, Robert E. Conan series, various historical adventure stories. — Pulpy historic adventure or pseudo-historic adventure, with a sweep of history element. "The Hyborian Age" essay seems to have been a strong influence on Greyhawk's presentation.
Jókai, Mór. Told by the Death's Head — Picaresque adventure.
Leiber, Fritz. Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories — Picaresque-inspired fantasy with the archetypal fantasy city and active gods.
Potocki, Jan. Manuscript Found in the Saragossa  — Stories within stories that mix Gothic, picaresque, and a bit of secret history.
Smith, Clark Ashton. Averoigne stories — Pulpy pseudohistorical fantasy with a lot of atmosphere, humor.

Art by Marie & John Severin
The nonfiction is perhaps less definitive, but it has provided some inspiration to me in the course of the posts I've written so far.
Nonfiction:Armstrong, Dorsey. Powerful Women of the Medieval World (Great Courses) — Vignettes on the lives of some figures of the Middle Ages.Bale, Anthony. A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages — A fairly light, but informative series of examines of the stories of various travelers in the Middle Ages.Devereaux, Bret. "Practical Polytheism," blog series  — A great read on how real polytheism worked.Gies, Francis and Gies, Joseph. Life in a Medieval City — Street level (literally) view of life in the city of Troyes in 1250 CE.Haywood, John. Historical Atlas of the Medieval World — Just the one I happened to have at home.Hoffman-Becking, Dirk. History of the Germans (Podcast) — I particularly found this inspiring regarding the Great Kingdom.Muesse, Mark W. Great World Religions: Hindusim (Great Courses) — useful inspiration for the thinking about the religions of Oerth.Various. Osprey Publishing military books — mostly for the pictures of armors and armor of various cultures/eras.

 As I previously mentioned, Cairn arrives at the end of spring, so we’ll make things easy and say it’s the first day of summer. It’s about 60 miles from Stonehold (where Cairn is from) to Daggerford, but that’s assuming a straight line. I would think that the primary road would head west from Stonehold to the river, and then follow the river north, crossing at some point to get to Daggerford. I would assume there are several villages and small keeps along the river where the caravan would stop to barter for a day or two - probably stopped ten times, so two days of rest and one day of travel would be thirty days since he left Stonehold. Paid a silver a day for guard duty would put him at the 3 gold he has in pocket, so that all lines up.

I’m going to say that Daggerford is a walled town of about 100 buildings and about 1,200 people. The people are exceedingly superstitious and gossipy. Daggerford was a small fishing village until 70 years ago when the survivors of Trasik arrived, and the village blossomed into a town virtually overnight. The majority of structures are less than 70 years old, but the roughly two dozen older structures stand out in contrast with the newer buildings.   

I had actually written up a bit of information on Daggerford already, so I made a few minor edits to that, but it gives me a foundation to work from. 

The first stop is the tavern. Cairn will spend 1 gold there to get some food and drink, and to see if he can get some information about Trasik (at a minimum) and his uncle (if he gets really lucky).

What is up with Trasik? I guess the first thing to determine is who lived there, and then what happened to it that it’s in ruins… 

Was it humans? Likely. 8. Yes.

Was the purpose of the city mining? Possible. 6. Yes.

Copper mines? 7. No.

Iron? 9. No.

Salt? 3. Yes.

The Salt Mines of Trasik. Has a nice ring to it. 

What happened? 

Dragon Attack? 9. No.

Humanoid Siege? 11. No.

Evil Awakened? 10. No.

Combined event? 3. Yes.

So, the mines started to tap out of salt, deeper excavations opened a portal to the Vale of Eternal Winters, allowing wintry beasts to come through and ravage the town, sending the survivors fleeing. It was rumored that the more powerful salt guilds of the town had amassed great wealth that was lost or left behind, and may still be in these ruins. The town is now enveloped in an unending winter.

Let’s see how much of this Cairn learns. It’s a Mind check (yuck). He gets +1 edge from the gold he spent. I roll a 10 and an 8. Success! He basically learns everything I’ve written above. It is unlikely he also is able to get information about his uncle; I roll a natural 1!

Well then. It turns out that his uncle had made the Blind Basilisk his base of operations, and had reserved a room there permanently (paying 1,000 gold to reserve it ‘for 99 years’). He had made a half dozen successful forays to the ruins until two years ago when he stopped returning. The innkeeper allows him to use the room (since he has provided sufficient evidence that he is the nephew - and he assumes that the uncle is dead at this point).

I’m going to say that the room has a level 2 treasure left therein… I roll terribly, but still decide there must be at least one instance of treasure. There are three things in the chest: 14 gold, a key, and a journal that is written entirely in the dwarven tongue.  I have him trade in his light hammer (gets 1 gold) and buy a medium hammer 4 (8 gold), leaving him with 9 gold. It is likely (if not very likely) that the key is to a chest that the uncle has hidden (containing his actual wealth), and this money was just pocket change he left here. If Cairn trades in his leather armor (getting 2.5 gold), he has enough to buy a ringmail shirt (leaving him with 1 gold and 5 silver). He does all this.

Cairn Torvinson of Clan Thunderforge, Jovial Dwarf Myrmidon 1

Armor 2; Hits 12; Move 60’; Hammer (5) and Shield (2)

Might 4; Mind 1; Reflex 1

Brawler; Fortitude; Two Weapons; Warrior

Ringmail Armor 2; Shield; War Hammer 4; 1 gold, 5 silver

He attacks at +2 with melee weapons, and deals +1 damage. He attacks with both hammer and shield each round. The shield grants +1 edge to armor checks.

The Journal…

I’m going to roll D12 to see how much awesome stuff is in the journal. On a 1, it is mostly personal entries about how he’s feeling, general “I destroyed three skeletons today” entries, and reflections on food or the people of Daggerford. With a 12, there are detailed maps of the ruined town, notes about caverns under the town he has explored, and with a natural 12 details on where he has hidden the chest. 

Dang. I roll a natural 12. Alright then! 

• He learns that Toren had buried the chest at the back of a cave on the opposite side of the river, about a mile upstream. He has a drawing of what the cave looks like. The journal implies that the key is for the chest.

• Toren had found a gap in the north wall of Trasik, and used this to venture in and out of the ruins.

• He had a lair in Trasik - he found a house with a hidden cellar, and used the cellar as a place to rest and recover. He had taken extra measures to hide the cellar entrance, and in the several months the journal covers, he had made dozens of forays into the town.

• His most recent entries were about the ‘frozen portal’, and how he had discovered a way past it. His final entry suggests he was attempting to get through the portal.

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on August 22, 1985.

Detective Comics #556: Moench and Colan/Smith continue their story from this month's Batman. It's very much set under the red skies of the Crisis, but it's not labelled as a crossover. We find out, as Night Slayer keeps murdering them, that the False Face Society leftovers hadn't actually been working with Nocturna yet--but as of this issue, she takes command. 
Robin tries to tell her how he feels and lean on her for support, but Nocturna is preoccupied with what's happening to the night skies. However, when Batman tracks her down after an encounter with Night Slayer, she makes time for a kiss. Meanwhile, Bullock reveals to Commissioner Gordon his theory that the current Robin isn't the original (something Gordon had noticed as well) but is actually Nocturna's son!
In the Green Arrow backup, we get back to the story by Cavalieri and Moore that had been left dangling. Ollie agrees to help Onyx battle Lars, a renegade monk at the monastery where Ollie himself once trained, who has killed the Exalted Master and taken over. Ollie recalls a run in he had with Lars when they were both students, where the guy confided that he sought a "wisdom key" that would unlock the power of an ancient book. As soon as Green Arrow and Onyx arrive at the monastery, they are confronted by Lars's goons. 
All-Star Squadron #51: A Crisis crossover, but that bit only amounts to a cameo, really. The Thomases and Clark/Jones/Coletta have the passing of Harbinger and Firebrand give Mr. Mind a way to find Earth--or at least an Earth. That leads to the events of this issue, where Hourman and Dr. Fate arrive at the JSA brownstone to find most of their team members missing and Hawkgirl a captive of a group of former JSA-member villains banded together as the Monster Society of Evil. This group is the brainchild of Mr. Mind, who came to Earth to meet his hero Charlie McCarthy only to find out he was just a puppet. He then decided to meet his other heroes the JSA, and when he could find them, he decided to be a super-villain. 
Hourman, Dr. Fate, Hawkgirl, and late arriver Sandy battle the likes of Oom the Mighty, Ramulus, Mr. Who and Nyola. Unfortunately, they're going to need more help to defeat them. Elsewhere, Liberty Belle and Johnny Quick have apparently fallen through the reverse of the portal Mr. Mind came through and find themselves facing Captain Marvel.

Nathaniel Dusk II #2: MacGregor and Colan pick up just at last issues cliffhanger. Dusk survives the falling unicorn statue, but the gunman who shot at Cranston gets away. As Dusk continues his job of trying to keep Cranston out of trouble, he gets the idea that the older man knows who is trying to kill him and is playing some dangerous game. Amanda's stepfather leans on Dusk to drop the case, and her husband takes him flying. He gets another piece of the puzzle when he finds out Cranston borrowed a camera from Amanda and that he visited her new family on the one day he slipped Dusk's surveillance. 
Before he can put any of this together, a drive-by with a tommy gun seems to take Cranston's life. This leads to one of those (for me) jarring aspects of the story, where it moves from conventional detective story to 80s action. Dusk pursues the shooter. The getaway car gets wrecked, and the shooter takes a bus. The issue ends with Dusk on top of the bus as the shooter blows holes in the roof trying to ventilate the detective, too.

Omega Men Annual #2: Klein and host of artists (including McManus, Colon, Smith, Giffen, and O'Neil) give us Primus's backstory, the events leading up to his marriage to Kalista and the founding of the Omega Men, his apparent death in the Spider Guild war, and how he came to be bonded with Artin. When she has heard the whole story Kalista accepts that this being is indeed her husband (at least in part) and the two reconcile. This issue pretty much closes the gap between the previous run and the time jump when Klein took over.

V #10: After all the setup and schemes last issue, it resolves pretty quickly. The mayor reveals herself to our heroes as one of the Visitors but tells them she is actually a triple agent and on their side. She gives them a device that can extend the New York winter, keeping the red dust active and at least postponing a renewed invasion. They're overheard, though, and the mayor is captured, interrogated, and executed. Still, the resistance has the device. Big, bad Walter sent to kill Donovan, gets in a fight with him, but before things resolve he's killed by friendly fire from an overzealous Visitor fighter. The device works, spring is forestalled, and our heroes return to L.A., presumably assuming the nascent New York resistance they were starting up can take care of itself. 

World's Finest #321: Cavalieri and Delbo pit our heroes against the Atom villain, Chronos. Coerced by the mysterious Powerbroker, Chronos uses time travel in a plot to destroy Batman. After sending Superman off chasing bombs in the timestream, Chronos forces Batman to journey to the past and watch his parents get murdered--or save them and alter history. Batman resists the temptation to save his parents, using the experience of again reliving their deaths to strengthen his crimefighting resolve, and he's rescued by Superman. Chronos, in a desperate attempt to evade capture, uses his time machine to become one with the timestream.

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