Who has not heard tale of the Mad Mage of Greyhawk? Across the Selintan, three leagues (not more) north of the Free City still stands the three-spired ruin of the great castle. Unfathomable dungeon depths and bewildering mazes the Mad One dug beneath its foundations to hide away his treasures and conceal his sorceries. Many fools searching for treasure and adventure find therein both in full and generous measure, but not so many survive to spend the coin or tell the tale. Forsooth, I count myself among the fools that have ventured into those hazardous depths. I can testify. Indeed, the tales you have heard hitherto tell not the half of it.
Beneath Castle Greyhawk
The mazes beneath the ruins of that place plunge many levels deep, almost, it would seem, to the heart of Oerth. They defy mapping, for as often as a man return, he finds not the same way through the dungeons twice. How many are the treacherous traps and hazards! How many the denizens that make their lairs in those dark places: goblinfok, horrid things, and a full bestiary of all the gods ever fashioned or imagined.
What is more, the whole of it is beset with Zagyg’s magic. He decorated with riddles and puzzles to test a man’s wits. One might come to a door that leads only to more empty stone chambers but find, on passing through the frame of it—Behold! He has stepped into some other place in the dungeon, or some other world altogether.
Not so long ago, a certain colleague of mine, skilled in arts arcane and not wholly unacquainted with peril, Tenser by name, ventured into those labyrinthine vaults with his fellows in pursuit of knowledge and rarities long thought lost. Great indeed was his astonishment when, amid the gems and magicks they bore out from the depths of Castle Greyhawk was found a small mace, a humble shepherd’s crook (so it seemed), albeit now shod with iron and set with gems in silver filagree. Perceiving the signs and tokens and sensing the potent virtue that abode within the wood, wonder turned to awe. No common relic of wizardry, but a holy instrument whose power sprang not of magecraft nor dweomer.
“No geegaw, that! It is a most charmed implement of clerical power, the Crook of Rao!” Tenser spake thus unto me and unto my colleagues when gathered for council. “Devils and demons of the lower worlds shudder at the mention. Fiends flee in terror at the sight! Grave will be our need of it if Iggwilv comes.”
In what manner the holy staff came to that cursed castle, none have fully learned; for relics, like kingdoms, pass by strange turns of fortune. From hand to grasping hand the holy Crook of Rao passed by concealment, barter, and theft, until, at the last, it came into the keeping of the mad mage of Greyhawk, and then to the hand of Tenser.
The Crook is Lost Again
“Say not that ye have lost sight of such a salvation!” spake the circle.
“I say not that we have lost it,” spake Tenser. “Yet neither do we hold it in sure keeping. Attend now to my account of how it was left behind that it might be yet once more recovered in our hour peril. The name of Robilar will not be foreign to your ears, and some perchance have heard tell of his kinsman, Terik. In their fellowship, and with that worthy called Merlynd beside us, we left behind the device in no ordinary place.
“We four explored deep beneath the grim and shattered ruin of Zagyg’s pride. We descended the central shaft to its uttermost reach, and below it found a vast confusion, tier upon tier, winding in darkness and foul vapor, thronged with every manner of monstrous dread. Such ventures were to us as meat and strong drink. Danger our sustenance! Peril our sport! Yet bold appetites may bite more than the mouth will chew. One mighty tunnel, strangely twisted upon itself. The passage was graven throughout with warning glyphs unknown to our reckoning. It beckoned our reckless hearts. Heedless of passing strong dweomer, we went, for such had ever been our wont. In a trice the world was rent from beneath our feet, and we four stood no longer in the underways beneath the ruins, but upon a blackened strand of a grim isle beneath a sweltering heat.”
“Say again, but make the meaning plain and brief,” I objected. “How came you to some grim isle?”
“The plain and the brief of it is just this. My companions and I walked no longer by light of lamp or torch in gloomy dungeon but under hot daytime sun upon some wave-washed shoreland of island tropical! How we came thence we knew not. Passing through some portal unseen, we discovered no familiar place beneath our feet and open sky above our heads. Much was the astonishment,” Tenser explained.
“Ah! Many are the marvels of the Mad Mage,” Mordenkainen, the head of our college, remarked. “Do continue the tale.”
He did continue. “We took counsel and thought to take a certain path if we might find our way back by what steps we had come. But in that place, ebon savages barred every path we deemed worthy. There, upon that ashen shore, steel and spell spoke swiftly. In hard though worthy contest, we overcame them and repulsed the lot of them. Now, observing their flight and believing the way ahead at last to promise escape, we made our way. How grievously wrong our thought! No kindly road to freedom lay ahead, but only reeking jungle and sucking mire haunted by monstrous shapes beyond easy telling—and above them all an ape of prodigious stature, fierce and terrible.”
Isle of the Ape
“An ape, you say?” asked Mordenkainen. “Some monkey or lossel of Armedio Jungle?”
“Nay. No monkey or lossel unless it be grown colossal! King of all primates, towering above treetops and hilltops. King Oonga, they name him. Indeed, they serve that great king and worship him and pay him obeisance. Fair maidens they present to him like the heathen folk of old tales.
“But I have not summoned the counsel to speak of fantastical beasts. Indeed, of our wandering there I speak little, for it serves not this present matter. Know only that the island (compassed round about by ocean wave) proved perilous beyond measure. Hope dwindled. At the last, in extremity and near despair, we resolved upon what we deemed our sole deliverance. Among the rich store of treasure borne with us when translated thither was a certain amulet of Zagyg, a device of strange and of uncertain virtue. As is known to all the wise, and especially to those of this respected circle, such magicks are seldom invoked without hazard. Yet no other recourse we knew, and we dared not linger in the domains of the ape. Therefore, we spake the word and loosed its power. The dweomer within it leapt into action and bore our persons back into the nether vaults beneath Greyhawk Castle, but that same magic left behind all but our persons. So we returned, stripped of arms, raiment, and treasure alike. Naked as babes from the womb we fell upon the cold stone. There, upon that accursed Isle of the Ape remained the Crook of Rao, and with it all our hard-won spoils.”
“Would that you had spoken of this before need was at hand,” I lamented. “We might have found our way back to that place and retrieved the sacred relic long ago!”
“Indeed. But none among you would have done otherwise, for we are each one of us jealous enough to keep our secrets,” said he.
The Hour of Need
I continued, “But now, the Witch Queen stirs again, and she is much wroth! For her beloved daughter was laid low in the Caverns of Tsojcanth. A mighty summoner is she! If left to work her will, all of those who seek weal and good will soon be slain or enslaved by her hordes. Daemons will stalk Oerth, and blood will drip from black altars. Would that we held the Crook in such evil hour!”
“No matter. Even if we held the artifact now, the coming confrontation will be no certain thing,” Mordenkainen dismissed my concerns. “Let Iggwilv come and balance the scales as she will.”
“Balance? Or tip?” I objected.
“Had we the Crook, at least she would have no demon hordes to serve her,” said Tenser. “Let us return to the Isle of the Ape and retrieve what was left behind. Together we eight can scry it out and devise some mode of conveyance to bear us thither and back.”
“Nay. The Circle will not interfere in the balance,” Mordenkainen objected. “But let us each recommend some fearless hero, mighty warrior, powerful adventurer, arch-mage, clever burglar, high priest, or druid of the Old Faith, from among Those Who Serve who might go in our stead and undertake the quest on this circle’s behalf.”
The Adventurers
Thus were we agreed that six champions should be assembled to take upon them the perilous quest unto the Isle of the Ape. And there were sent forth summons grave and not to be lightly refused through most secret and concealed channels to those adventurers of exalted status beholden to our beckoning.
First came fair Agath of Thrunch, high priest of Celestian, who bears the Amulet of Seven Stars, and is beloved by the all fair folk who look to the lights of heaven. Tenser summoned him from the foothills of the Lortmil Mountains in the Principality of Ulek. None is wiser among men, for he reads the past, the present, and what future may be written int eh stars above like letters in a book.
And from deep in the Dreadwood of Sheldomar there came Reynardia Yargrove of Keoland, the Great Druidess of Obad-Hai whose heart beats as one with the pulse of Green Oerth. All tongues of woodland and faerie folk are known to her, and she is a councilor to King Skotti all these years.
Then was brought the Baron Franz, Lord of Torkeep, brave man of the Shield Lands and sworn servant of Heironeous, in whom unmatched strength and prowess of arms does rest. Yes, that same Baron Franz that today rides with the crusade beneath the banner of our Lady Katarina.
Also answering the call came Rowena of the Silverbrow, Lady Marshal of the rangers of the Vesve Forest who yet wars against the orcs of Iuz among those trees. She is passing fair in all eyes, a daughter of Ehlonna, bearing a keen enchanted axe and enchanted bow of Olvenkind.
To these was added Warnes the Suel Wizard, (now numbered among the Eight), the archmage of Urnst, devotee of Zagyg, clad in a coat black as the night yet glimmering with stars, shod in boots of leaping and striding, and subtle in all arts arcane. To say the truth, I liked him not. But, alas, now he sits in the circle of my colleagues and occupies a place once held by that traitor Rary.
Last was enticed Rakehell Chert, Onwalish thief, guildmaster of Scant, whose much-coveted blade misses not its mark and wounds beyond what healing arts may mend.
These six we summoned to secret rendezvous in Greyhawk City, and from there, to the hidden wave-washed dwelling of Lord Tenser upon Nyr Dyv. There did Tenser receive them, and took them aboard his strange vessel of bronze. Then was the single great blue and silver sail raised and filled, not with common wind, but with the breath magical. So were they borne swiftly over the waters, upon a course unseen, into that dread and demi-plane wherein lies the Isle of the Ape.
Based on Gary Gygax’s Isle of the Ape.
Greyhawk Stories 