A Brief History on the Development and Design of the Planar Cosmology in AD&D

I was reading a good discussion a couple of months ago (in February 2025) about the nomenclature for the power levels of different types of demons over on Dragonsfoot, when the topic veered a bit more planar in focus.  This proved interesting, since it highlighted some inconsistencies between lower-planar monsters' alignments and the planes that they were assigned to within their descriptions in the Monster Manual.

This made me ponder and reflect a bit, after which I realized just how much planar content development in AD&D was compressed into the three-year span from July 1977 to August 1980's release of Deities & Demigods.  There's a little development before, and significant additions afterward, as my planar bibliography demonstrates, but that three-year window is very significant!

Planar Development Timeline, 1977-1980

1. 1977:  Gary Gygax’s first article on the planes appears in "Planes" in The Dragon #8 (July 1977). It introduces the first visual of what will become the Great Wheel, and calls out the new spell Vanish as a means to enter the Ethereal (also spelled as the Etherial in the article, a spelling employed by Tramp in his "Wormy" comic stories).
   
   
   

   

   The Great Rectangle?? - D&D's first planar schematic,
   from The Dragon #8 (July 1977)

   
   
   This planar diagram isn't oriented as we've grown used to seeing it---here, the lower planes are on the left side of the diagram, with The Abyss occupying the traditional location of the Nine Hells, while the devils reside in the traditional location for the Seven Heavens.
   
   As Gary states at the end of that piece, “This writer has used only parts of the system in a limited fashion. It should be tried and tested before adoption.”—so, the planar concepts were in the process of being developed while the Monster Manual was being finalized.  Gary returns to this playtesting focus a few times during this planar development spurt.
   
   
2. The Monster Manual is published in December 1977, and vastly expands the planar monsters without really codifying the planes much at all (as its five-point alignment system demonstrates).  
   
   The five vs. nine alignments is somewhat telling, since one of the aspects that Gary mentioned in the TD#8 article on page 28 is that, "As of this writing I foresee a number of important things arising from the adoption of this system. First, it will cause a careful rethinking of much of the justification for the happenings in the majority of D&D campaigns.... Third, and worst from this writer’s point of view, it will mean that I must revise the whole of D&D to conform to this new notion."
   
   Those revisions were not yet finalized, and clearly not fully-introduced in the MM either,  despite Gary sketching out some of their architectural outlines six months earlier.  
   
   (Aside:  I wonder if the amount of work required to introduce the new planar underpinnings into the system is part of why Gary felt justified to declare AD&D to be a new game significantly different from OD&D).  
   
   
3. 1978 sees some of Steve Marsh's first public writings about the planes in D&D, in his  zine series "Elaikaises' Tower #2" and "Elaikaises' Tower #3" articles in Lords of Chaos #4 (Spring 1978) and #5 (May 1978).
   
   I'll follow-up on these soon, after I reread them in depth and compare them to the material I have from Steve's player characters folder, and to the 1980 TSR memo below.
   
   

4. The Players Handbook reiterate (and reorient!) the Great Wheel with its release in June 1978.  Here, the planes are reoriented to match the positions of the alignments in the original graph from The Strategic Review #6 (February 1976) and in the PHB itself:
   
   
   

   

   Revised planar architecture for AD&D,
   Players Handbook (1978)
   

   
   
   
5. "Elementals and the Philosopher's Stone" by Jeff Swycaffer in The Dragon #27 in July 1978 is directly commented upon by Gary in TD#32 (see below), and begins the wider community-based discussions about the planes in response to Gary's initial outlay of them in TD#8.
   
   

6. D3 Vault of the Drow introduces mezzodaemons and nycadaemons as new creatures---and by implication, daemons as a new type of denizen of the lower planes---at GenCon XI in August 1978.  
   
   

7. 1979:  While the barghest wasn’t widely known until its publication with the release of Monster Manual 2 in 1983, it first appeared in The Dragon #26 in June 1979 (and its text remains notably unchanged in MM2), and speaks to Gehenna's inhabitants in a manner consistent with other entries in the MM.
   
   
8. The Dungeon Masters Guide's release at GenCon XII in August 1979 provides some suggestions and guidance on planar matters, but spends far more words on how to convert characters back and forth from AD&D to Boot Hill and Gamma World rather than focusing on the planes themselves, unfortunately.  
   
   
9. Gary’s "Playing On the Other Planes of Existence" in The Dragon #32 in December 1979 talks to night hags, nightmares, daemons, and larva as known dwellers in Hades, codifies the 1979’s DMG guidance on converting BH and GW as parallel worlds in AD&D, and follows up on the ideas of the Greyhawk campaign's short-lived subway excursion into the real world of Earth mentioned in TD#30 (October 1979).
   
   But going forward very little of OD&D's wild and wooly days of "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery" in The Strategic Review #5 (December 1975) or "Faceless Men & Clockwork Monsters" in The Dragon #17 (August 1978) remains in AD&D's planar conceptions.
   
   Gary also responds directly to Jeff Swycaffer's article in TD#27, and concludes with another appeal to the fan base:  "If you have opinions which you wish to share with us, please drop me a line.   Better still, if you have what you believe is an outstanding treatment of one of the planes, why not submit it to TSR's design department?" (page 13).  
   
   
10. 1980:  Ed Greenwood's seminal article, “From the City of Brass… …to Dead Orc Pass… In One Small Step: The Theory and Use of Gates” in The Dragon #37 (May 1980) details  the use of gates as a travel device in the fantasy and science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the works of Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and Philip Jose Farmer, James H. Schmitz, and C. J. Cherryh.  
    
    In that same issue's “Greyhawk: the Shape of the World” article, Gary updates us on the development of the ten elemental planar modules with Steve Marsh---and these are in addition to Skip William’s unpublished Shadowland module set in the Plane of Shadow (Gary opines that “perhaps that should be Quasi-plane of Shadow”) as being outlined in the development department , and Queen of the Demonweb Pits, to be set in the Abyss.  (Gary also provides troop details and notes about high-level PCs and followers from the Greyhawk campaign, and talks to other doomed Greyhawk projects like Castle Greyhawk and the City of Greyhawk).  
    
    Shadowland was actually solicited by TSR at one point, and I had preordered it and later received a refund.  From The Acaeum's Ongoing Research page:
    
    WG7 Shadowlands.  From the Summer 1986 Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog:  "A high-level module set in the World of Greyhawk.  Journey to the perilous Plane of Shadow to rescue Princess Esterilla and confront the master of the plane... where you find yourself an unexpected guest at a wedding where the guests include a lizardman, a catlord, and a mistress of illusion!".  Assigned TSR stock #9184.  Gary Gygax and Skip Williams were collaborating on the project, but it was shelved due to Gygax's lawsuit with TSR.  Gygax has since stated that while Wizards of the Coast has given permission to have the module published, the fact that it will be produced "on spec" (no contract nor advance payment), makes it unlikely that he or Skip will be undertaking the project anytime soon.  The original mention of it is in Dragon Magazine #37, page 10, where it's called "Shadowland".  The mock-up cover scan of this module, featuring the cover artwork from Dragon #58, is here.  Thanks to Christian R. for the scan.  This research item is closed, but will remain here for trivia purposes.
    
    
    

    

    WG7 Shadowlands - unpublished 
    cover artwork by Clyde Caldwell

    
    The WG7 product code was recycled in 1988 for the "joke" version of Castle Greyhawk.
    
    
11. June 1980 TSR memo from Gary to Steve Marsh (with a cc: to Lawrence Schick) that talks to the size of various non-infinite planes, as well as naming some of the planar projects planned at that time, including Steve's Starstrands and Old Shards adventures, and Skip Williams' Shadowland, alas all unpublished:
    
    
    

    

    June 1980 TSR memo on planar adventures
    being developed by Steve Marsh with Gary Gygax

    
    
    
12. The release of Deities & Demigods in August 1980 at GenCon XIII adds the Para-Elemental Planes and the Plane of Shadow to the planar cosmology, and redraws the Outer Planes as The Great Wheel for the first time: 
    
    
    

    

    The Great Wheel debuts in
    1980's Deities & Demigods

    
    

That’s a lot of moving parts being juggled in planar development work between Gary Gygax, Steve Marsh, Dave Sutherland, and, to a lesser extent, Skip Williams, Frank Mentzer (who helped on the spells and magic items adjustments for Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits), and Rob Kuntz (who designed his own elemental planes and Demonworld for play in his Kalibruhn campaign, and incorporated planar and planetary concepts in Greyhawk).

I will examine some of the beginnings of the planar design process prior to 1977 and its continued expansion after 1980 in the next article in this series.

Allan.

The grodog Thither and Hither and Points Between

While the blog and I have languished together in torpid stupor for quite some time now, the blog's silence did not originate in or from wordslessness, but for good reasons that I will delve into soon.  And in case you missed it, this is not in fact my first post in the past ten months ;)

In the meanwhile, we have some catching up to do!

The Recent Past and Near Future

GaryCon XVII - 18 to 24 March 2025

GaryCon was, as always, a mixture of a lot of work and lot of fun.  The fun, as usual, overweighted the work, which is always a good thing and helps me know that it continues to be worth the effort to attend while juggling our Black Blade Publishing booth, playing games, and catching up with friends:  the balance still tilts the fun to the positive for all three, which is a very good thing indeed.  

GaryCon 17 badge and pins

As always, we appreciate the assistance from Rich Franks and Victor Raymond while running the booth, and from fellow gamers and volunteers in setting it up and tearing it down too.  This year, Gilbert Ganse, and Joe Mac helped us set up and tear down in record time!

This year, I played West End Games' Star Wars d6 game for the first time (and using its first edition, in case that matters):  

Star Wars d6 (West End Games) -
1987 original edition

Star Wars d6 (West End Games) -
1996 revised & expanded 2nd edition

While I own both the 1987 original edition and the 1996 Revised & Expanded 2nd edition (which is, I admit, the default I see in my mind's eye), I've never had the pleasure of playing either version before, and I've never played on the same of the screen in the esteemed company of Handy Haversack and his NYC crew---Ross Peabody, Rob Skarbek, Manny, (and maybe Iain too?), along with Chris Kusel, Jim Lohman, Richard Keene---and the rest of the table of diehard gamers on Saturday night at GaryCon in Bluegnoll's "Star Wars: I Got a Bad Feeling About This" event:

Rumors are quietly circulating of an Imperial admiral wanting to defect, but their identity is a well guarded secret. Alliance Intelligence has sent your group to infiltrate an outer rim Imperial base where an unusual meeting of Imperial Navy, Army and Intelligence officials is under way. A local Hutt Cartel smuggler, receptive to Alliance overtures for assistance, has made for strange bedfellows.

My character---anagrammished from my names as Nallorg Godor---was an outlaw (I didn't fix his name on the PC sheet until after snapping the picture, seemingly, and I didn't think to shoot the PC sheet again at the end of the session either, alas:

grodog's first Star Wars character---
an Outlaw named not-Amos!

David used miniatures and scatter terrain with a 1950s road-atlas-sized-, comb-bound book of SF battlemats that admirably set the scene:

The grodog's first Star Wars game!---
our finale battle!

With three additional pics graciously provided by Handy Haversack:

We had a great time, and many thanks to David for finding room for me in the game, and to Handy and crew for letting me crash their party, quite literally!

In addition to playing Star Wars, on Wednesday night I also returned to Greyhawk's Perrenland in Carlos Lising's ongoing The Wolves of St. Cuthbert campaign, which was fun as always.  I really enjoy gaming with this crew, which features a fun mix of heady role-playing, tactical chaos, and Greyhawk shenanigans.

On Friday night, I helped to DM Paul Stormberg's Friday night Legends of Rolepaying tournament.  This year's scenario was a sequel to Allen Hammack's C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness, and was, as usual, quite fun to DM.  The crew at my table (one of 16 tables, for a total count of about 144 players this year) included several folks new to playing AD&D 1e, which is always a treat :D

grodog hard at work,
DMing "Dungeons of the Ghost Tower"

On Sunday night, my business partner Jon Hershberger ran Paul Reiche III's "The Temple of Poseidon" from Dragon Magazine #46 (February 1981) for our Legio V crew of miscreants, which was also fun.  Jon's not only an excellent DM, but he wrangles the Legio crew like a pro!

Jon Hershberger DMing Sunday night's 
Legio V game, "The Temple of Poseidon"

North Texas RPG Con 17 - 4 to 9 June 2025

NTX17 is---from my point-of-view, at least---just around the corner, in particular since free event  registration opens on 15 April 2025 at , a mere 11 days from when I've begun typing these words.  (And it's now one day after registration as I'm reviewing the above words.  So much for timely ;) ).  

Due to the chaos of being of late, I only completed my NTX events submissions very early  on Thursday morning, 3 April 2025.  I'll run three sessions of a new scenario set in my drowic Dark Markets setting:

LEGIO V – Operation: Prism Shards and Unbound Chains

Explore Kiradúvi Mancalënómirond – The Dark Markets, grodog’s new Greyhawk underworld setting:  a flourishing drowic trading hub at the conjunction of subterranean, riverine, and planar travel routes.  In Operation: Prism Shards and Unbound Chains, you are an allied crew of drow minor clan merchants scouring The Undersell—the Dark Markets’ annual secrets auction—to find and rescue a Tormtor turncoat on the run before assassins slay the renegade, or she sells her secrets to the highest bidder.  If you succeed, you will elevate yourselves and your clans in power, and perhaps rise to head new noble houses, while aiding the downfall of the reviled Eilservs-Tormtor coalition; should you fail, your souls will pounded from your bodies by Abyssal goristroi—or worse! 

 

Bring your hex and graph paper, dice, and a Machiavellian dose of paranoid courage!  3rd-5th level pregen drowic PCs will be provided. 

Content Warning:  Gary Gygax’s seminal introduction of the drow to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons portrays their culture and society as chaotic and evil—drow are demon-worshipping villains who actively engage in slavery, torture, and human sacrifice.  The setting in this scenario leverages and extends that baseline depiction into the underworld markets that support and slake their lusts to demonstrate that drow are the antithesis for all that is good in the world:  in both our—real—world, as well as in the World of Greyhawk fantasy game setting.  This includes the pregen PCs and their masters. 

== 

The Lake Geneva Legio V began as a handful of gamers who have attended Gary Con and North Texas RPG Con since their inceptions. We have grown over the past few years to include like-minded individuals united by a respect of Gary Gygax and his legacy. We are the dedicated attendees who love NTX for the camaraderie it establishes, the Game Masters who run games from across the decades, and the committed gamers who spend these four days in a fervor of dice rolling and old-school good times. Although events run as LEGIO V Presents will use a variety of rule systems, our focus is on games authored by Gary and his contemporaries as well as those systems whose designers pay homage to these pioneers. 

My three events run on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 7pm to midnight.  I will likely reprise them at Virtual Greyhawk Con #6 in the fall, as well, in case you missed out on them this time around.  

New Toys and Reviews

A detailed run-down on these must await another follow-up post, but that should also land sooner vs. later.  (I do discuss the Greyhawk-related titles a bit below).  

In the meanwhile, here's my loot-fan from the convention to help tide you over!:

Loot captured at GaryCon by the grodog---
did he level up yet??

This includes a host of excellent tomes and wondrous sundries, including:

• A cornucopia of Greyhawk- and Blackmoor-related riches from Rob Kuntz, Lenard Lakofka, Carlos Lising, Will Dvorak, Michael Mossbarger's reproduction of Eric Shook's rendered Castle Greyhawk level 1 map (which he DM'd this year and provided with as a historical handout), Paul Stormberg's tournament (I worked for this one ;) ), and a pile of seven new-to-me, 3e-era Greyhawk novels gifted to me by David "diaglo" Temporado
• New fiction!  From the Goodman Games booth across the aisle, I bought two Gardner Fox novels one of which I didn't already own (One Sword for Love), and grabbed of copy of Kurt "thank you for killing my clone" Winter's debut novel, The Hero's Fall.  
• The latest and greatest from Alex Bates and Shayla Sackinger:  new miniatures (these two resin pieces accompany the huge John Dennet dragon turtle I bought previously, but I apparently forgot to include the new metal goblins I bought too---rats!), the new adventures The Twin Heads of Avarice (a great title!; this is a full module) and The Awful Amber Doom (a one-sheet dungeon|folder-adventure|thingy), and some very yummy birch caramels (which my wife and boys also enjoyed, thanks Alex!)
• And some other curious sundries:
• A nearly-pristine Shure SM57 microphone from David Prata for my older son Ethan, the musician
• On Tyrrany, an all-too-timely gift from Victor Raymond
• A new zine from Noah Davidson, in two different formats; "Welcome to Halishaft" may the title of the zine, or of its introduction, but it looks like a fun project either way!
• A flyer for a new D&D museum being planned by Jim and Debbie Hunton:  see https://museumofdnd.com/ for more information
  
  

Greyhawk News, Both New and Old

I fully intend to catch up on my curated Greyhawk news postings, which by now will be quite out-of-date in most instances, but those that still make the cut will confirm that they were well-worth awaiting:

In the short-term, though, the following news items are definitely worthy of mention:

• The Lenard Lakofka Archive published two new modules at GaryCon:  LAB1 The Lanthorn of Velzarkis (Dan Boggs finished the adventure from Lenard's notes) and RL1 The Ravages of the Mind. 
  
  I've not had a chance to dig into LAB1 yet, but I playtested RL1 when Josh Popp ran it  at Virtual GaryCon #3, in 2002.  
  
  Many thanks to Troy Alleman of Caanibaal Publishing for kindly gifting me a print copy of RL1 at the show!
  
  
• Rob Kuntz's new adventure, Into the Wild Blue Yonder: A Journey Through Blackmoor’s Dark Realm, which he designed for and ran at DaveCon 2 back in the fall of 2024, was published by Griff and Chris, The Fellowship of the Thing crew behind the excellent Secrets of Blackmoor documentary.  
  
  Unfortunately I missed Rob's first visit to the USA since his departure a decade ago, but I hope to catch up with him when he returns next :D
  
  
• Trent "TFoster" Smith just published his new campaign, Brink of Calamity via his Storm Fetish Productions publishing imprint.  (My print copy arrived finally on 16 April 2025!).  
  
  In the sandbox style of Griffin Mountain, Brink of Calamity is set in and around Warnell (Narwell in the Wild Coast of Greyhawk).  I'd hoped to playtest some of its scenarios in my current Greyhawk campaign, but the PCs' excursions to Dyvers didn't lead to entanglements I expected, so that opportunity didn't arise quite yet!  
  
  Trent also has the new campaign book available in a bundle with his Heroic Legendarium book, which we've been using for a few years now in the current campaign:  we have both a single-classed bard and a savant among the PCs.  
  
  
• I finally met William “Giantstomp” Dvorak, and he graciously gave me a copy of his Wicked Studios' Ravensrook sourcebook, and provided several copies to share with other Greyhawk fans who came by the booth, too!
  
  I love helping other Greyhawk fans find books and resources for their games, and several of the folks who walked off with Will's book hadn't been aware of his work yet :D 
  
  
• Vince Garcia continues to publish his monthly zine Gary World in the files section of the First Edition AD&D (Gygaxian AD&D) Facebook group.  The group is private, so you'll need to request membership to join, and Vince publishes the zine PDFs to the files section for a week or so, then removes them.  But they're worth the wait!
  
  

The Crews:  They Keep Me Going

The gatherings of friends and my immediate and extended "gamer family" at GaryCon remind me of how much I love the company of fellow gamers.  I had planned to take more pictures while wandering around the con, the exhibitor hall, in my games, and of games that caught my eye, but I did little photoging, as seems usual these past few years....

I enjoyed wonderful, but always too-short, conversations this year with Doug Waltman, Erik Mona, John O'Neill, Jon Peterson, Matt Finch and Suzy Moseby (including the almost-conversation on Monday morning, had we only known!), and Jay Scott:  they refract among my memories throughout the con.  Longer and deeper ones with Victor Raymond, Paul Stormberg and Doug Behringer, Carlos Lising and Jeremy Breazeale, and Kit at GreyhawkOnline rise above the haze, demanding follow-up....

L to R:  Keith Sloan, grodog, and
Tony "Wheggi" Rosten

I was an unexpected delight to discover and meet Rick Meints at the Chaosium booth---we've corresponded together on YSDC, The Acaeum, and Facebook for years, but this was the first time we met.  I was somewhat dazed from my walk through the hall at the time, but we managed through that.  Rick graciously gifted me a Chaosium 50th anniversary pin, which will I will proudly add to my badge lanyard for North Texas in June :D

Thank You!

My thanks to Luke and Bouchura Gygax, Josh Popp, Dave Conant, Gilbert Ganse, and the innumerable volunteers who bring GaryCon to life each year.  You're keeping the flame alive, and the con vibrant and filled with fun! 

To Rich Franks and Victor Raymond for helping out in the booth so that Jon and I could step away from it, and Joe Mac and [another kind person I've lost track of in my hazy memory :( ] for their help in packing up the booth on Sunday.

To the many friends from online forums, discords servers, publishers, communities, previous  conventions, and the games I've played in and DM'd who I look forward to catching up with each year:  you are why I keep coming back!

Allan.

Enter Stage Left - Agutha, the Glimmering Sister of Pholtus

I am pleased to report that Tony "Wheggi" Rosten has rejoined our Castle Greyhawk campaign, as he's a good friend.  A well-known name among old-school gaming communities, Tony's also my publishing partner in The Twisting Stair, our mega-dungeon design zine, and is the author of the award-winning "Blocks of Quox" puzzle-dungeon adventure published in Fight On Magazine #6 (Summer 2009).  He has several other excellent adventures that I hope to see published one day, too!

Sister Agutha

Since Tony wasn't able to find the character sheet for his old PC cleric, Moraine (a level 2 Cleric of St. Cuthbert), he created a new one---The Glimmering Sister, Agutha.  A redoubtable 4th level cleric of Pholtus, Agutha joined the campaign the the deus ex machina of divine intervention (a slightly-classier replacement of our now-standard "chump gate" option that we learned about from friends at GaryCon many years ago):

Agutha, the Glimmering Sister of Pholtus --
artwork by Tony Rosten for his PC

Last night, Haj and Sister Agutha encountered a greater shedu via the agency of the WM charts!---a roll of 31 on the 1e DMG's Temperate Forest/Wilderness tables results in an airborne ki-rin, lammasu, or shedu, which I then selected via a die roll extrapolated to allow the possibility that the encounter might add other powerhouse do-gooders to the mix---a greater lammasu or greater shedu, along with creatures like the foo dog/lion, hollyphant, or phoenix.  In the end, the dice indicated they met a greater shedu:

Shedu, by David C. Sutherland III, from 
the 1e Monster Manual (TSR, 1977)

The greater shedu looked like that picture, just bigger.  Standing 12' tall at the shoulder, the size of a minivan with a 30-40' wingspan.  

On a Mission from God

Named Zabbukhani, Herald of the Sun Resplendent, the greater shedu was specifically searching for Sister Agutha, in order to deliver to her (and as it turns out, Haj too, since he was in her company) a divine message from Pholtus:

Greetings!  Fear not, sister in Law!
Attend:  absorb Revelation.
Accept:  reflect Illumination.

Gaze sunward, above:
Protect the rays. 

Trees open, spread wide gates—eclipse looms.
Will and power words dispel the dark.
Searing light can stem Woe’s flood tide.

This new message (and the PC accompanying it!) represents an escalation, perhaps, in the activity in the campaign after the rescue and revelation of The Prophecy of the Six and the Twelve from a couple of years ago (in real-life; in-game, only XX months have passed).  The PCs discovered some additional information about it while seeking divine guidance from Wee Jas in Hardby, but with Agutha's introduction, this is (in my view, at least) stepping up the divine engagement.   We'll see what the party thinks soon, since Agutha hasn't yet met the rest of the PCs yet, just Haj. 

And of course it's curious and interesting and that it's Haj that Agutha met first, since he's one of the two assassins in the party, actively worships Nerull, the Reaper (but don't fear him ;) ), and serves the Horned Socitety....  Helps keep things interesting! :D

Pholtus - Some Ponderings from grodog

Tony's creation of Agutha introduces the second PC associated with Pholtus into our campaign---the first was a female paladin played back at the dawn of the game by Anthony Huso and named Vivien Asquith.  She was a hard-drinking paladin of The Blinding Light. 

Now Pholtus is not a god who I've played with a lot, so he's remained a bit of a caricatured blank slate to date.  I always liked Jim Holloway's depiction of Pholtus from Dragon Magazine #68 (December 1982), but the god itself---for better or for worse---hadn't particularly engaged my attention or creativity over the years*:

Pholtus, from Dragon Magazine #68
(December 1982) by Jim Holloway

Tony's decision to place Agutha's faith in Pholtus offered an opportunity to ratchet up some of the focus in the campaign, and for me to explore a bit into Pholtus.  We had some recent discussions at Canonfire! that in turn inspired my design noodlings.  

The Illumine, A Divine Envoy Sacred to Pholtus

Through her doctrinal training, Agutha recognized the form of the message as divinely-inspired, an illumine (sometimes called an octillum or an octiveal):

• its eight lines represent a number sacred to Pholtus; eight is the number of syllables in the first and third stanza's lines, as well the number of syllables in their lines
• the first line is a traditional greeting, to set the worshipper at ease with the divine messenger and attention being visited upon them
• the second and third lines offer guidance and/or imperatives from Pholtus, that tie to the message's purpose and focus, and will help its recipient to understand how to unravel its meaning
• the central two-line envoy represents the heart of the divine message, which receives special emphasis through more-direct communication:  
• its lines are four syllables each; together they total eight 
• they divide the message into two halves:  the fourth line applies with emphasis to the first stanza, while the fifth line applies to the second
• together both lines embody the divine heart and command of the message, and provide the key that unlocks the meaning of the whole
• the third stanza warns of complications, threats, and dangers that the envoy and first stanza are intended to address; they are the obstacles that must be discerned through reflection and revelation, revealed by exposure to the light, and overcome through the application of faith, light, obedience, and hewing to the straight and inflexible rigor of order and goodness

The numerology of the message will gain additional significance based on its form:  here the message is divided into three stanzas of 3, 2, and 3 lines each.  So the numbers 2 and 3 are part of Pholtus' mysteries, along with 8.   (And note that 2^3 = 8 too!).   There are five known "wandering stars" in Oerth's cosmology, so 5 will likely be a component in this celestial schema too.  

Other messages may be delivered as a single eight-line stanza, and some may feature rhyme regular schemes or repetitions of words---perhaps to be modelled on the troilet form; we'll see.... 

Noodling on the Faiths and Mechanics for Pholtine Clerics

Prior to writing Agutha's message, I began brainstorming some developmental ideas for Pholtine clerics, thinking through options inspired from the Canonfire! discussions as well as the areas of focus for the campaign around twins, light/darkness/shadow, prophecy/divination/revelation, etc.:

The Tenets of Pholtine Faiths

Holloway's Pholtus illustration always appeared somewhat androgynous to my eye, so I like the idea of the god being more nebulous in gender, or both genders perhaps

• this then paired with the idea of splitting the god's roles up between sun vs. moon among the faithful, and perhaps flipping their traditional genderings, like Tolkien did with the Maiar who guide them in The Silmarillion:  sun = female, moon = male
• perhaps many Pholtine sects emphasize the larger, monthly moon Luna vs. the smaller quarterly moon, Celene; while later editions changed his focus to moons in plural, as originally published he was the god of the sun and the moon (which also makes me wonder if adding a second moon in the mix was a late-stage addition to the setting, perhaps)

I've also begun to toy with the idea that Pholtus absorbed/merged the sun goddess and moon god when one of them was all-but slain in the past, which accounts in part for there being no dedicated moon god among Greyhawk’s core pantheons. Perhaps they were in love/lovers, perhaps they were brother and sister, or even twins.  That may also account for the androgyny vibe in Holloway’s illustration. 

Other noodlings on spheres of influence for Pholtus include:  

• the concept of Light in general vs. the heavenly bodies as the source of light; this would be Holloway‘s traditional androgynously male illustration of Pholtus from Dragon #68; options include the Blinding Light, the Resolute Light, the Light of Revelation, or whatever 
• the concept of cosmic law and order in particular as it applies to the movements of the heavenly bodies and the inner planes (as well as the Astral, as the bridging plane between inner and outer, also tied to the moons and silver), emphasizing the Positive Martial Plane as the ultimate source of light for the multiverse; think akin to Moorcock’s Law vs. Chaos; 
• this would likely put such sects into conflict with Celestian's clergy
• this would also espouse a heliocentric view of Oerth’s solar system, which is deemed a radical concept among all good-thinking peoples of the world ;)
  
  

Greyhawk's Pholtus Clerics and AD&D Mechanics

Pholtine 4th level clerics gain access to an additional spell usable 1/day, which per the boxed set is dispel darkness.  I might tweak that spell based on faith/deital flavor selections above, but it fits well with the general themes for Pholtus (and the campaign).  

At 8th level, they gain glow, and I can see other spells like starshine, moonbeam, sunray, and perhaps faerie fire, infravision, and ultravision being added to their spell lists (or the class  gaining these at higher levels as permanent abilities).  

At 12th level, high priests and priestesses access reflect.  As part of the "blinding light" idea, I like the focus of this spell but I've also considered stripping the 11th level power from clerics of Heironeous---their energy bolt drawn from the Positive Material Plane---and providing it to Pholtine clerics instead, which seems apt, and perhaps combining it with the reflect power (or making it a fourth power).  We'll see....

Allan.

* For a particularly interesting look at a higher-level Pholtite** high priest, I recommend reading about Henri, from Jason Zavoda's "Nosnra's Saga" serial novella set in Greyhawk, and more specifically in Gary Gygax's G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.  The link takes you to his 2020 revisions to that story, and leads with the most-recent post which is its ending, but it's a fun read, particularly if you're familiar with the original adventure.  

** While I generally prefer Pholtine as the adjectival form of Pholtus, I'm sure there are sects of Pholtus that use Pholtite (and perhaps Pholtusian, too)!