Mordenkainen

Mordenkainen

Mordenkainen, as depicted on the cover of Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure (TSR, Inc., 1984)
Game information
Homeland	Yatil Mountains
Gender	Male
Race	Human
Class	Wizard
Alignment	Neutral
Age	80+
Setting	World of Greyhawk

Mordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character only months after the start of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign, and is therefore one of the oldest characters continuously associated with D&D.

Once Gygax was forced out of TSR, Inc., he lost creative control of Mordenkainen. TSR then made Mordenkainen a powerful wizard with strong convictions against moral absolutes, and the leader of the Circle of Eight, a cabal of eight powerful wizards. In fiction associated with the World of Greyhawk, he has played diverse roles as both protagonist and antagonist.

Official publications for the World of Greyhawk sometimes contradict each other regarding Mordenkainen. It is clear, however, that he is an important figure in the fictional history of the Flanaess.

In late 1972, Gary Gygax created Castle Greyhawk and the dungeons beneath it. After a few months of almost non-stop play as the Dungeon Master, Gygax asked one of the players, Rob Kuntz, to become co-Dungeon Master, which would allow Gygax an opportunity to experience the game as a player. Gygax subsequently created several characters, including a 1st-level wizard in early 1973. Gygax was interested in Finnish mythology, and named the wizard Mordenkainen, a portmanteau of the mythical heroes Mordecai and Lemminkäinen.

He was to become Gygax's most famous character, and also his favorite to play. Over several years of gameplay, mainly from 1973 to 1985, Gygax developed the character traits and adventures with which Mordenkainen would become associated, as well as raising the wizard to "twenty-something levels". During this period, Gygax united Mordenkainen with eight of his other characters to form the Circle of Eight. During his lifetime, Gygax never disclosed any of Mordenkainen's original game statistics.