Who created the paladin and druid character classes?

[geoffrey]

The paladin was first published in GREYHAWK, which was written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz. Do we know which of those gentlemen created the paladin character class?

The druid character class (as opposed to the cleric/magic-user "druid" in GREYHAWK) was first published in ELDRITCH WIZARDRY, which was written by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume with contributions from a number of others. Do we know which of all these men created the druid character class?

[Deleted]

Since Rob is on this and other boards... why don't you ask HIM?

[Falconer]

Dennis Sustare created the Druid.
Source: grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/06/interview-dennis-sustare.html

As for the Paladin:

No one quite recalls who created the paladin class, but Rob Kuntz is strongly convinced that it was Gary himself because it is “so rigid a PC class; that smacks of Gary’s fiendish wit. Make a character truly extraordinary and make it really tough to play in terms of always having to do the ‘right’ thing, always.” (Hawk & Moor, chapter 26)

[geoffrey]

Interesting. This means that of all the character classes that eventually made their way into the AD&D Players Handbook (cleric, druid, fighter, paladin, ranger, magic-user, illusionist, thief, assassin, monk, and bard), only the following were created by Gary:

cleric (co-created by Dave Arneson)
fighter (co-created by Dave Arneson)
magic-user (co-created by Dave Arneson)
paladin (maybe)

Mike, do you remember if there were many paladins (either as PCs or as NPCs) in Gary's games?

[kenmeister]

I had the pleasure of meeting Dennis Sustarre at NTRPG last year. He told me that the spell "Chariot of Sustarre" was actually named so by Tim Kask as a nice gesture.

[Chainsaw]

May 11, 2016 14:47:00 GMT -6 kenmeister said:

I had the pleasure of meeting Dennis Sustarre at NTRPG last year. He told me that the spell "Chariot of Sustarre" was actually named so by Tim Kask as a nice gesture.

Super good guy, in my experience. I have gamed with him several times in Mythmere's Mythrus Tower games.

[Zenopus]

May 11, 2016 14:20:02 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Interesting. This means that of all the character classes that eventually made their way into the AD&D Players Handbook (cleric, druid, fighter, paladin, ranger, magic-user, illusionist, thief, assassin, monk, and bard), only the following were created by Gary:

cleric (co-created by Dave Arneson)
fighter (co-created by Dave Arneson)
magic-user (co-created by Dave Arneson)
paladin (maybe)

Gygax didn't come up with the idea of the thief class, but the D&D write-up is his own, so you'd have to give him at least a co-creator on that.
Also, isn't the Bard in the PHB significantly different from the one in Dragon?

[Deleted]

Good havard would have to be my fact-checker in this case, but the Blackmoor game featured several paladin-like characters - though I am not sure whether this was after Arneson's stint at TSR. There was a character called "The Blue Rider", who pretty much matches the description of a paladin. Also, there were "Moorkok the Slayer", who could have qualified as an anti-paladin, and "The Flying Monk", who also was way too bloodthirsty for a regular cleric. So, the concept of "holy warrior" was certainly in the FFC, as well.

Druids, as in D&D, were not part of the Arneson games, IIRC. I remember there was a similar class, though, that Arneson imported from Tekumel, IIRC.


By the way, who is that "Kent David Kelly", and what's this "Hawk & Moor" QUINTET of D&D history books, by Hextor?! Looks like he is fairly unpretentious in his approach, but... He also puts his forum name on the title page. Professional researcher, or overenthusiastic fan? Are they books worth a look?

[aldarron]

May 13, 2016 2:54:41 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Good havard would have to be my fact-checker in this case, but the Blackmoor game featured several paladin-like characters - though I am not sure whether this was after Arneson's stint at TSR. There was a character called "The Blue Rider", who pretty much matches the description of a paladin. Also, there were "Moorkok the Slayer", who could have qualified as an anti-paladin, and "The Flying Monk", who also was way too bloodthirsty for a regular cleric. So, the concept of "holy warrior" was certainly in the FFC, as well.

Yeah, the Great Svenny is described as a Palaldin in the FFC, but this is long after the creation of the class in Greyhawk, and Arneson once said it was his favorite class to play.

May 13, 2016 2:54:41 GMT -6 @rafael said:

By the way, who is that "Kent David Kelly", and what's this "Hawk & Moor" QUINTET of D&D history books, by Hextor?! Looks like he is fairly unpretentious in his approach, but... He also puts his forum name on the title page. Professional researcher, or overenthusiastic fan? Are they books worth a look?

I don't know what Kent's academic background may be, but I highly recommend Hawk and Moore. It is interesting, informative, and very well written in addition to being fair and balanced in it's approach. I believe he has at times he has conflated separate gaming occurrences into a single narrative, but such is the nature of storytelling, and in any case it is a valuable work for it's inspirational qualities alone.

[increment]

May 13, 2016 2:54:41 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Good havard would have to be my fact-checker in this case, but the Blackmoor game featured several paladin-like characters - though I am not sure whether this was after Arneson's stint at TSR. There was a character called "The Blue Rider", who pretty much matches the description of a paladin. Also, there were "Moorkok the Slayer", who could have qualified as an anti-paladin, and "The Flying Monk", who also was way too bloodthirsty for a regular cleric. So, the concept of "holy warrior" was certainly in the FFC, as well.

The Blue Rider wasn't so much a paladin as a character who happened to be a puppet of his own intelligent and overpowered suit of armor.

I don't think there's much use in trying to identify any single inventor of these classes, as virtually all reflect a group effort as far as I can tell. We could single out Dennis as the inventor of the Druid class, though of course Druids had appeared as an NPC "monster" in Greyhawk and there were countless "neutral Cleric" classes circulating in the fan community, some of which were nature-based, prior to the publication of Eldritch Wizardry. Dennis's original draft of the Druid class allow Druids to be of any alignment, and they had Ranger-like tracking abilities. So his credit is for inspiration, just as Steve Marsh is credited in EW for his inspirational role in the creation of psionics, even though the system he contributed to psionics was very different from what Gygax ultimately specified.

The authorship credits of TSR's supplements should be taken very cautiously when it comes to deciding who invented what. Brian Blume was the prime mover behind the Monk class, but that didn't get him an author credit for Blackmoor.

May 13, 2016 2:54:41 GMT -6 @rafael said:

By the way, who is that "Kent David Kelly", and what's this "Hawk & Moor" QUINTET of D&D history books, by Hextor?! Looks like he is fairly unpretentious in his approach, but... He also puts his forum name on the title page. Professional researcher, or overenthusiastic fan? Are they books worth a look?

I am not the right person to pass critical judgment on game history books, but Kent himself describes his method as a "chaotic" approach in contrast to my "lawful" approach, in that he accepts various anecdotes and speculation as fact, while making some attempt to reconcile those with the hard evidence in my own work. From what little I've read, I'd say the results conform to my expectations of what that methodology would yield.

[Deleted]

May 13, 2016 9:53:49 GMT -6 increment said:

The Blue Rider wasn't so much a paladin as a character who happened to be a puppet of his own intelligent and overpowered suit of armor.

Yeah, but isn't that how the paladin type in "Three Hearts, Three Lions" (or was it "The Broken Sword"?), which has often been quoted as an inspiration for D&D, also finds his calling?

Like, IIRC, and the Hawkers might know that better than myself, but I think the main difference between 'Hawk paladins, and others was that Greyhawk had orders of holy warriors pretty early on, while the paladins in other settings acted only as individuals. Something like that.

I don't think there's much use in trying to identify any single inventor of these classes, as virtually all reflect a group effort as far as I can tell.

To be honest, I have the same opinion; while the questions are certainly legit, their answer sets the wrong discourse level. For all that can be proven, it seems the exchange within the gaming groups of note, and within the C&C Society was rather fluid and dynamic, and an individual attribution seems difficult. Like, I think, and this should be the most interesting thing to investigate, on the long run, that there was a certain established discourse, a system of communication, in which signs and messages were understood implicitely. Like, you say "paladin", I think something different than you; but for the groups back then, there seems to have been a general consensus of what those tropes encompassed. That... Semiotic social network? ...Is something that I would love to explore further, some day. Or to see it explored further. (Hint, hint.)

- By the way, completely out of context: The Midkemia group also featured paladins! Ashen-Shugar/Thomas was one!

May 13, 2016 9:53:49 GMT -6 increment said:

I am not the right person to pass critical judgment on game history books, but Kent himself describes his method as a "chaotic" approach in contrast to my "lawful" approach, in that he accepts various anecdotes and speculation as fact, while making some attempt to reconcile those with the hard evidence in my own work. From what little I've read, I'd say the results conform to my expectations of what that methodology would yield.

Ugh, that was cold! The truth is, though, I shared that impression. A nice read, though. That guy, he has a good spirit, and he loves apparently loves what he's doing.

[increment]

May 13, 2016 12:41:30 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Ugh, that was cold!

It wasn't meant to be cold, actually. Different methodologies will yield different results, and no single source is going to provide all the information that people want. The method of 40 Years of Gen Con, for example, was to ask a lot of people who were around at the time what they recalled, and it record it accurately. Even though I think a lot of the assertions people make in that book are provably wrong, I'm still glad that they are preserved - sometimes half-remembered facts about the past can point us to uncover hidden truths. So despite the fact that my own work contradicts much of what is stated about the early GenCons in 40 Years, I still cite it and recommend it.

I reserved my coldness for scholarship that refuses to differentiate speculation and self-aggrandizing autobiographical assertions from actual contemporary evidence. As long as readers are clear what is speculation and what has some evidentiary basis, I am thrilled to hear diverse voices telling these stories.

[MormonYoYoMan]

I don't think Incremental was cold at all. He's meticulously researched nondocumented and poorly remembered incidents and cannot afford, in a true history which will be referenced for - well, forever... He cannot enjoy the chatty and humorous approach of fannish work. Fanzines (almost completely supplanted by Internet stuff) are probably more fun to read, but it's a real pain to sort rumor, weak memories, and innuendoes from fact. The struggles at Alter-Ego are very real, and new facts keep disputing old facts.

[Porphyre]

Three Hearts and Three Lions it is.
Poul Anderson created the Paladin Class . Suppl.1 Greyhahk statted it.

[Deleted]

May 13, 2016 13:28:41 GMT -6 increment said:

May 13, 2016 12:41:30 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Ugh, that was cold!

It wasn't meant to be cold, actually. Different methodologies will yield different results, and no single source is going to provide all the information that people want. The method of 40 Years of Gen Con, for example, was to ask a lot of people who were around at the time what they recalled, and it record it accurately. Even though I think a lot of the assertions people make in that book are provably wrong, I'm still glad that they are preserved - sometimes half-remembered facts about the past can point us to uncover hidden truths. So despite the fact that my own work contradicts much of what is stated about the early GenCons in 40 Years, I still cite it and recommend it.

I reserved my coldness for scholarship that refuses to differentiate speculation and self-aggrandizing autobiographical assertions from actual contemporary evidence. As long as readers are clear what is speculation and what has some evidentiary basis, I am thrilled to hear diverse voices telling these stories.

Ah, okay, I can see that. And, yeah, of course I agree with the second part as well. I am not as scholarly interested in D&D as it might seem, but yeah, the ragefests that so many angry grandpas like to set up because of alleged decades-old personal offenses, they quite annoy me. A book like "Hawk & Moor", in contrast, is so full of enthusiasm and good humor that it seems almost misplaced among all the vitriol that usually accompanies the content-creation debates.

[Deleted]

May 13, 2016 12:41:30 GMT -6 @rafael said:

May 13, 2016 9:53:49 GMT -6 increment said:

The Blue Rider wasn't so much a paladin as a character who happened to be a puppet of his own intelligent and overpowered suit of armor.

Yeah, but isn't that how the paladin type in "Three Hearts, Three Lions" (or was it "The Broken Sword"?), which has often been quoted as an inspiration for D&D, also finds his calling?

No.

[Deleted]

Nobody rolled a Paladin while I was playing with Gary. Considering the difficulty of rolling a 17 or 18 for Charisma when you're rolling 3d6 in order, that's not surprising.

I've had two in my campaign in 44 years. d**n good thing, too, considering how powerful they are.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I indeed misremembered. The second chapter of "Three Hearts, Three Lions" just has Carlsen find a knight's gear and horse, but it's the animal that speaks to him, not his gear.

Here, have a smirk, with the scene. I am not at all into sci-fi, as Anderson wrote it, but... Boy, he could write.

He woke slowly. For a while he lay unaware of more than the pain in his head. Vision came
piecemeal, until he saw that the thing before him was the root of a tree. As he turned over, a thick carpet
of leaves crackled. Earth and moss and moisture made a pungency in his nose.

‘Det var som fanden!’ he muttered, which means, roughly, ‘What the hell!’ He sat up.

Touching his head, he felt clotted blood. His mind was still dulled, but he realized that a bullet must have
creased his scalp and knocked him out. A few centimeters lower—He shivered.
But what had happened since? He lay in a forest, by daylight. No one else was around. No sign of
anyone else. His friends must have escaped, carrying him along, and hidden him in this tract. But why had
they removed his clothes and abandoned him?
Stiff, dizzy, mouth dry and evil-tasting, stomach full of hunger, he clutched his head lest it fall in to pieces
and got up. By the rays slanting between the tree trunks he saw the time was late afternoon.
Morning light doesn’t have that peculiar golden quality. Heh! He’d almost slept the clock around. He
sneezed.
Not far off, a brook tinkled through deep sun-flecked shadows. He went over, stooped, and drank
enormously. Afterward he washed his face. The cold water gave him back a little strength. He looked
around and tried to think where he might be. Grib’s Wood?
No, by Heaven. These trees were too big and gnarly and wild: oak, ash, beech, thorn, densely covered
with moss, underbrush tangled between them to form a nearly solid wall. There had been no such area in
Denmark since the Middle Ages.
A squirrel ran like a red fire-streak up a bole. A pair of starlings flew away. Through a rift in the leaf*ge
he saw a hawk hovering, immensely far above. Were any hawks left in his country?
Well, maybe a few, he didn’t know. He looked at his nakedness and wondered groggily what to do
next. If he’d been stripped and left here by his comrades there must be a good reason and he shouldn’t
wander off.

[...]

The animal was gigantic, a stallion the size of a Percheron but with more graceful build, sleek and black
as polished midnight. It was not tethered, though an elaborate fringed pair of reins hung from a headstall
chased with silver and arabesques. On its back was a saddle, high in pommel and cantle, also of
ornamented leather; a sweeping silken blanket, white with an embroidered black eagle; and a bundle of
some kind.
Holger swallowed and approached closer. All right, he thought, so somebody liked to ride around in
such style. ‘Hallo,’ he called. ‘Hallo, is anyone there?’
The horse tossed his flowing mane and whinnied as he neared. A soft nose nuzzled his cheek and the big
hoofs stamped as if to be off. Holger patted the animal—he’d never seen a horse so friendly to
strangers—and looked closer. Engraved in the silver of the headstall was a word in odd, ancient-looking
characters: Papillon.
‘Papillon,’ he said wonderingly. The horse whinnied again, stamped, and dragged at the bridle he had
caught.
‘Papillon, is that your name?’ Holger stroked him. ‘French for butterfly, isn’t it? Fancy calling a chap
your size Butterfly.’
The package behind the saddle caught his attention, and he stepped over for a look. What the devil?
Chain mail!
‘Hallo!’ he called again. ‘Is anyone there? Help!’
A magpie gibed at him.
Staring around, Holger saw a long steel-headed shaft leaned against a tree, with a basket hilt near the
end. A lance, before God, a regular medieval lance. Excitement thuttered in him. His restless life had
made him less painstakingly law-abiding than most of his countrymen, and he didn’t hesitate to untie the
bundle and spread it out. He found quite a bit: a byrnie long enough to reach his knees; a conical
crimson-plumed helmet, visorless but with a noseguard; a dagger; assorted belts and thongs; the quilted
underpadding for armor. Then there were some changes of clothes, consisting of breeches, full-sleeved
shirts, tunics, jerkins, cloaks, and so on. Where the cloth was not coarse, gaily dyed linen, it was silk
trimmed with fur. Going around to the left side of the horse, he wasn’t surprised to find a sword and
shield hung on the breeching. The shield was of conventional heraldic form, about four feet long, and
obviously new. When he took the canvas cover off its surface, which was a thin steel overlay on a
wooden base, he saw a design of three golden lions alternating with three red hearts on a blue
background.

[grodog]

May 18, 2016 19:46:06 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Nobody rolled a Paladin while I was playing with Gary. Considering the difficulty of rolling a 17 or 18 for Charisma when you're rolling 3d6 in order, that's not surprising.

I've had two in my campaign in 44 years. d**n good thing, too, considering how powerful they are.

Mark Ratner's PC Ayelerarch (or perhaps Ayelerach or Eylerach??) was a paladin, and was carried off to The Abyss after he helped to free Fraz'Urb-luu. See "Robilar Remembers Erac’s Cousin" by Robert J. Kuntz and Douglas J. Behringer in Oerth Journal 5 (January 20th 1997; link), and also Gary's Soapbox column in Dragon 320 (summary link). (IIRC I have Mark's PC sheets or file card or something for that character too, from one of Paul's auctions).

Allan.

[Deleted]

Cool. Okay, that makes one. Although that may have been after 1973 when I went up to Minneapolis.

[geoffrey]

May 22, 2016 15:27:53 GMT -6 grodog said:

May 18, 2016 19:46:06 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Nobody rolled a Paladin while I was playing with Gary. Considering the difficulty of rolling a 17 or 18 for Charisma when you're rolling 3d6 in order, that's not surprising.

I've had two in my campaign in 44 years. d**n good thing, too, considering how powerful they are.

Mark Ratner's PC Ayelerarch (or perhaps Ayelerach or Eylerach??) was a paladin, and was carried off to The Abyss after he helped to free Fraz'Urb-luu. See "Robilar Remembers Erac’s Cousin" by Robert J. Kuntz and Douglas J. Behringer in Oerth Journal 5 (January 20th 1997; link), and also Gary's Soapbox column in Dragon 320 (summary link). (IIRC I have Mark's PC sheets or file card or something for that character too, from one of Paul's auctions).

Allan.

Allan, are you sure that Ayelerach was a paladin? The linked article about encountering Fraz-Urb'luu states at the end: "No description of Ayelerach has ever been published, but he was a 9th level fighter."

[scottenkainen]

May 22, 2016 20:14:33 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Allan.

Allan, are you sure that Ayelerach was a paladin? The linked article about encountering Fraz-Urb'luu states at the end: "No description of Ayelerach has ever been published, but he was a 9th level fighter." [/quote]

If it was the 1975 version of the paladin, both could be true. Rather than being a full class, the paladin was just a set of powers added on to being a fighter, if you met the qualifications.

[Falconer]

Per Ratner via Scotty G., he was a neutral fighter.

[geoffrey]

Thanks for the update, Falconer.

[grodog]

My recollection is that he was originally a paladin and lost the class/abilities, but I've never spoken with Ratner about it.

OK here's what I found on the PC sheet:

==
Ayelarach (N) - Superhero, 67 HP, 165,000 XP, Knight of Great Kingdom, Baron of Wild Coast
S 16, I 12, W 14, C 18, D 18, Ch 13

Sword - Clericsbane - N: special slay clerics, telekinesis, detect gems/traps/evil/good
Ring +3
Prism
2 Handed Swords that is light to wield (from King Rob)
Paper vowing not to bother me signed in blood by Ernie, Terry's Paladin, Don Arndt, and Jim Ward

Another mention states that he was a resident of the Wild Coast, with a White Dragon.
==

So, it seems that Terry had a paladin as well!

[luc]

Wouldn't that CHA indicate that Ayelarach was not a paladin?

[grodog]

An excellent point. He wielded a +5 two-handed holy avenger, per Gary, so my assumption is that he was a paladin based on that. Could be that Gary was mixing up PCs, too.

I'll ping Terry to see what he recalls.

Allan.

[grodog]

May 24, 2016 15:36:06 GMT -6 grodog said:

I'll ping Terry to see what he recalls.

Terry said:

A +5 Holy Avenger, are you kidding? That was later when my paladin and myself were not active. I had one of the first paladins in EGG's Greyhawk Castle Campaign, and one of the first Martial Artists when Gary was testing the D&D rules for the Martial Art class. My paladin was able to build good and I obtained many items. I did have a magic sword, and armor for that matter. Since my inactivity because I began attending the University of Wisconsin, it is difficult acknowledging what Gary might of termed the fantasy weapon. Yet I did learn about the Rod of Lordly Might.

I would guess that the +5 Holy Avenger that was a two-handed sword belonged to Mark Rayner's character. I wanted to be swift in my armor, and I didn't like a sword talking back to me -- ha!

[Stormcrow]

+12 Hackmaster?

[stormberg]

Howdy All,


There were three paladin's that I can recall per Rob, Terry, Arneson, and Gary:

Terik played by Terry Kuntz
Another played by Debbie Nafzigger (perhaps that will jog Mike Mornard's memory)
The Great Svenny played by Greg Svenson in Blackmoor

Ayelerach was never a paladin or a cleric as he is mentioned in one quote. However, he is a neutral fighter that has no love for clerics (due to his sword: Clericsbane).


Futures Bright,

Paul