| Game background | |
|---|---|
| Title(s) | The White Paladin |
| Home plane | Special, see below |
| Power level | Hero-deity |
| Alignment | Lawful Good |
| Portfolio | Magical technology |
| Domains | Good, Knowledge, Law |
| Superior | Heironeous |
| Design details | |
In the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Murlynd is a minor deity. He began as a player character created by Gary Gygax's closest friend Don Kaye in 1972 for the second-ever session of the game that would become D&D. Kaye continued to play Murlynd in Gygax's nascent Greyhawk campaign, developing him as a crossover between swords & sorcery D&D and the Wild West. After Kaye's unexpected death in 1975, Gygax subsequently created a tribute to his friend by highlighting Murlynd as one of the unique characters of the world of Greyhawk. In later editions of D&D, Murlynd was elevated to deityhood, becoming the Oeridian god of Magical Technology.
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Gary Gygax's childhood friend Don Kaye created Murlynd for the second-ever session of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign in 1972, rolled up on Gygax's kitchen table at the same time as Rob Kuntz's Robilar and Terry Kuntz's Terik.[1] Gygax later recalled that "Murlynd" was the first attempt by a player to make a creative name for a character; in the early days, most players—including Gygax himself—simply used their own name as a basis for their character's name. (Tenser = Ernest, Yrag = Gary, etc.)[2] In the early days of D&D, cross-pollination with other fictional "universes" was common[3], and in one of these sessions, Gygax transported Murlynd to America's Wild West, a setting that Kaye loved.[4] When Murlynd eventually returned to the world of Greyhawk, he brought his six-shooters back with him. Although Gygax did not allow the use of gunpowder in his Greyhawk setting, he made a loophole for Kaye by ruling that Murlynd actually carried two "magical wands" that made loud noises and delivered small but deadly missiles.[5]
The game Kaye and Gygax were playing would become D&D, and Kaye would go on to help Gygax start up TSR; however, Kaye died unexpectedly in 1975. As a tribute to his friend, Gygax highlighted Murlynd in the March 1983 issue of Dragon magazine.[6] The following year, Gygax paid further tribute to Kaye when he borrowed Murlynd's name for two spells in Unearthed Arcana, Murlynd's ogre and Murlynd's void, as well as for Murlynd's spoon, a magical spoon that created a bad-tasting but nutritious gruel when placed in an empty bowl.[7]
When Gygax was forced out of TSR in 1985, he lost control of most characters he had used in TSR material, including Murlynd. However, other than one brief references to him in the 1988 adventure The Throne of Bloodstone,[8] TSR did not make use of the Murlynd character. (He was also mentioned in passing in Carl Sargent's sourcebook Ivid the Undying, but TSR killed that project just before publication, later releasing it as a computer file.[9]) Murlynd was not mentioned again in official material until Wizards of the Coast bought TSR and wrote a new storyline for Greyhawk. In Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins (1998), Murlynd was recast as the Oeridian god of Magical Technology,[10] and was also mentioned in the sourcebook Slavers (2000).[11]
In Gygax's Dragon article, Murlynd was described as a handsome Oeridian male with weathered features, clothed in worn leather and wearing a light-colored hat of a type unfamiliar to the Flanaess. A pencil illustration shows a stereotypical cowboy of the Wild West genre, wearing a Stetson and chaps, and holding two Colt .45 revolvers. His personality is described as aloof and taciturn, though he is quite personable among his allies. Murlynd is described as being dangerous only when provoked by evil beings. In addition to his pistols, which are simply described as a pair of strange, hand-held weapons that emit powerful projectiles, and which Murlynd refers to as "45's," "six shooters," and "hog legs", Gygax notes that he is also proficient with longsword, battle axe, and crossbow.[6] However, Gygax describes Murlynd's origins as unknown.
After an absence from all TSR material after Gygax's ouster from the company, the character was re-created as the deity of Magical Technology in WotC's new development of the Greyhawk campaign setting, Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins. His new deityhood is described in detail:
Although Murlynd did not appear in any D&D material published by Wizards of the Coast for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, he was listed as a deity in RPGA's massively shared Living Greyhawk campaign that ran from 2000–2008.[12]
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