The gelatinous cube is an invention of Gary Gygax, and first appeared in the Monster Manual ( 1977 ), rather than being lifted from outside sources and adapted to a roleplaying setting, as were many mythological monsters like the minotaur and dryad.

Although a small adventure entitled ' Temple of the Frog ' was included in the Blackmoor rules supplement in 1975, the first stand-alone D & D module published by TSR was 1978's Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, written by Gygax.

* Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, a 1980 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game written by Gary Gygax

It was written by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer, and is an expansion of an earlier Gygax module, The Village of Hommlet ( TSR, 1979 ).

The adventure module The Village of Hommlet was a 24-page booklet designed by Gary Gygax, and published by TSR in 1979.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a 1980 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game written by Gary Gygax.

Tomb of Horrors is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax for the Dungeons & Dragons ( D & D ) role-playing game.

Dungeonland ( EX1 ) is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons ( D & D ) roleplaying game, written by Gary Gygax for use with the First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ( AD & D ) rules.

The module was written by Gary Gygax and illustrated by Jim Holloway.

The Keep on the Borderlands is a Dungeons & Dragons module by Gary Gygax, first printed in December 1979.

It consists of a thirty-two page booklet with an outer folder ; the module was written by Gary Gygax, with cover art by Jim Roslof and interior illustrations by Erol Otus.

The yochlol was introduced in the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game adventure module, Q1-Queen of the Demonweb Pits ( 1980 ), by David C. Sutherland III with Gary Gygax.

David C. Sutherland III and Gary Gygax designed the module, which was then published in 1980 as a 32-page booklet with a folder of maps.

* The Keep on the Borderlands, a Dungeons & Dragons module by Gary Gygax

** The Lost City of Gaxmoor – adventure module ( Ernie & Luke Gygax with David Moore ) Troll Lord Games, 2002

Against the Giants is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1981 for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game.

Graz ' zt was created by Gary Gygax and first appears in module The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth ( 1982 ), and then appears in the first edition Monster Manual II ( 1983 ), under the demon entry.

* He wrote the adventure module Queen of the Demonweb Pits ( Q1 ) ( with some editing from Gary Gygax ).

In the same year, Gygax created the magazine The Strategic Review with himself as editor, and then he hired Tim Kask to assist in the transition of this magazine into the fantasy periodical The Dragon, with Gygax as writer, columnist, and publisher ( from 1978 to 1981 ).

Later, Brian Blume persuaded Gygax to allow his brother, Kevin Blume, to purchase the shares from Melvin.

Five were written or co-written by Gygax, and the other three were from TSR's United Kingdom division:

In the December 1984 issue, Gygax mentioned clerics of non-human races and indicated that the twenty four demihuman and humanoid deities that had been published in the February – June 1982 issues of Dragon were now permitted in Greyhawk ; this increased the number of Greyhawk deities from fifty to seventy four.

According to Gygax, TSR's stewardship turned Greyhawk into something very different from what he had envisioned.

Gygax's novel Saga of Old City, released in November 1985, and Artifact of Evil, released two months after Gygax's departure from TSR, proved to be popular titles, and in 1987, TSR hired Rose Estes to continue the series, albeit without Gord the Rogue, to whom Gygax had retained all rights.

Written by Carl Sargent and Rik Rose, this was not the city created by Gygax and Kuntz, but a new plan built from references made in previously published material.

Gygax decided he would recreate something like his original thirteen level dungeon, amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes.

Recreating the city was also a challenge ; although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while maintaining the look and feel of his original.

Following yet more work, in 1978 Gygax agreed to publish his world and decided to redevelop Oerth from scratch.

Under the Blumes, the company ran into financial difficulties in 1984, and although Gygax managed to have the Blumes removed from the board of directors, they subsequently sold their shares to company manager Lorraine Williams, who succeeded in forcing Gygax out of the company at the end of 1985.

However, Gygax and TSR published the Mars book without permission from ( or payment to ) the Burroughs estate, and soon after a cease and desist order was issued and Warriors was pulled from distribution.

By the summer of 1975, those duties became complex enough that Gygax himself became a full-time employee of the partnership in order to take them over from Donna Kaye.

Hearing rumors that the Blumes were trying to sell TSR, Gygax returned from Hollywood and discovered the company was in bad financial shape despite healthy sales.

The more recent use of the term lich for a specific type of undead creature originates from the 1976 Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game booklet Eldritch Wizardry, written by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume.

The bulk of the material in the first edition came from the British gaming magazine White Dwarf, rather than being authored by Gary Gygax, the game's creator.

In 1985, as TSR was getting ready to begin work on the AD & D 2nd edition, Gary Gygax stated that he was planning to incorporate material from the Fiend Folio into a revised Monster Manual for the new edition.

However, Gygax resigned from TSR in October 1986, before the second edition was produced.

Gygax developed the adventure from an idea by Alan Lucien, one of his original AD & D playtesters, " and I admit to chuckling evilly as I did so.

According to Gary Gygax ( in an interview with Dungeon # 112 ), the first dungeon crawl was part of a wargame in which the invading force entered the enemy's castle through a former escape tunnel dug from the fortress's dungeon.

The party has also run into various characters from classic D & D adventures and novels, such as Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance, Elminster from the Forgotten Realms, and Count Strahd von Zarovich from Ravenloft, as well as the game's creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

As teenagers Gygax and Kaye designed their own miniatures rules for toy soldiers with a large collection of and figures, and they used " ladyfingers " ( small firecrackers ) to simulate explosions.

Gygax became active in fandom and became involved in play-by-mail Diplomacy games, for which he designed his own variants.

By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all Dungeons & Dragons characters whose names were anagrams or versions of his own name, such as Yrag and Zagyg.

Since WotC still owned the rights to the name Greyhawk, Gygax changed the name of the castle to Castle Zagyg — the reverse homophone of his own name originally ascribed to the mad architect of his original thirteen level dungeon.

By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all D & D characters whose names were anagrams or plays on his own name ( for example, Yrag and Zagyg ).

Gygax designed the adventure both to challenge the skill of expert players in his own campaign, and to test players who boasted of having mighty player characters able to best any challenge.

He constantly needed his own opinions on fandom considered right, and would stalk and argue with anyone who was either famous, or went against him ( including Steve Jackson and Gary Gygax ).