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Luck. Well that's a long story of "turn around is fair play."

Robilar was trapped in GH Castle, as a 3rd level, He had run from a wight who'd come out behind him
forward, unfortunately, into an unmapped cell area. Another wight came out in front of him. Well...
Just then EGG's former wife flung open the door to Gary's study where we were playing and started screaming
about how much of waste it had been over the past weeks of playing this game, and other not so nice interjections to the point where EGG was given a head-ache. He looked at me, knowing full well that I woiuld neer survive two wights, picked up a die and said: "If it's a 1 or 2, this has all been a dream." He tossed the die: "2". Mary Gygax didn't know it then, but she inadvertently saved Robilar.

In the Dark Druids adventure I returned the favor for Jim Ward, who had lost _everything_. We were at my old house on Madison Street (two houses down from where Gary now lives today, in fact) and everything had gone wrong for Jim, mostly because of his unrelenting greedy attitude, but also due to the toughness of the adventure. I handed him the die, told him the Robilar story, and said, "On a 1 or 2, this has been a dream. And you get to throw it at least." He rubbed it between his mits making all kinds of ritualistic gyrations and blew on it, and with a yelp hurled it upwards where it impacted with the ceiling and then fell to the floor: "2".

And so was Bombadil saved by the Goddess of Luck, who I always assumed had worked through Mary Gygax... : )
--Robilar

Before EGG codified the gods there was St. Cuthbert and the Blinding Light Faith and Norse Gods. We also had the Lovecraft
stuff represented through the Elder Gods, though not many folks attached themselves to gods or made big deals out of them in the earlt adventures. Robilar really only mentioned Odin once or twice; Mornard's Gronan as well as Ratners's Ayelerach both sowre by Crom, but not much else. I suppose when GDg&H came out in 1976 is when folks started taking interest in this part of the game. Demi-humans not being prevlent as players, I can't really remember assigning such information to them. There was a flse god sect--Roloc--in the city, the temple of the elder gods outside the city, but only the myths of greek and norse to really sustain the folks playing. Erac's cousin called on Zeus for suuccor, onlky to be ingnored, a we all know, so that part of the game then was just not codified yet, though EGG was working on it (the 9), and I was giving it some views (Mandarin, Roloc, the Elder Gods). So... I guess that dwarves and elves would have gravitated towards Norsian gods, like Odin and Frey respectively.

Of course my ideas about Greyhawk gods--or gods in general--for dwarves differ quite a bit from established norms, as I do see dwarves much more as a non-Tolkienish race as later presented in D&D and more as the earth spirits represented in Germanic/Icelandic mythology. My conception of world races differ greatly from the typical racial and geographical borders and norms established by most "Fantasy World" structures anyway. I am less into the idea settled and fully explored worlds than into the mysterious, young, unexplored, unknown and unquantifiable. That is, if there is one race known, that means (to me in creating worlds) that there should be two or three more unknown. If there is 5,000 miles explored, then there should be 50,000 unexplored; if we know of 2 great wizards, there are 20 more we don't know of (and I am speaking of enire race knowledge pools, not single PCs or sage guilds, etc). My preferences for many reasons, of course.

A little off topic for the ending of this all, but maybe we can start another discussion based off of this...

Rob

I said former wife, which was Mary. Gary remarried many years ago.

Rob

A six sider in each case; in Jim's case a larger than normal clear green one which thunked pretty heftily against the ceiling and floor...

Rob