Of all the unique characters in the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures Game, Mordenkainen the Mage has the longest history. For he was, and still is, the most famous Player Character of the co-creator of the D&D game, Gary Gygax.

Gary says of his arch-mage: “Mordenkainen was my second PC, and I started playing him early in 1974 wanting a magic-user to balance my fighter, Yrag. I still play Mordie now and again in very high-level scenarios where a mage of over 20th level doesn’t over-power the opposition.”

Mordenkainen was Gary’s character in many adventures run by Robert J. Kuntz, Gary’s co-DM in the original Greyhawk game. When he was created, the game was just “Dungeons and Dragons”. There was no thought of editions, the very first D&D set had only just been released – with the only choices of character class being Fighting Man, Magic-User and Cleric. Mordenkainen dates from the very dawn of the D&D game.

Rob Kuntz remembers an early adventure with Dave Arneson (the other creator of the original D&D game) DMing, Rob playing his character Robiliar, and Gary playing Mordenkainen in this article in the Oerth Journal: Journey to the City of the Gods.

Another famous adventure which made it to print in module form was WG5: Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure. It has recently been reprinted as Maure Castle in Dungeon #112. During the course of the adventure, Mordenkainen almost met his end when he was petrified by the cockatrice-feather whip of the Terrible Iron Golem. Thankfully, he was rescued by his friends and allies.

Mordenkainen is known in the World of Greyhawk as the enigmatic leader of the Circle of Eight, a group of wizards dedicated to maintaining balance in the world. The reader can note the many spells named after him in the Player’s Handbook!

Despite having his stats printed in the Rogues Gallery (1980), Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure (1984), and the Epic Level Handbook (2002), to name just three sources, all of those stats are not those of the actual character. Gary says, “The information in the Rogue’s Gallery was quite fallacious, made up im many cases when we refused to give Brian (Blume) our PCs’ stats. Rob respected my wishes and didn’t use Mordie’s actual stats and information (in Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure), and whatever was written thereafter based on those works continues the error.” Will we ever see the actual stats of Mordenkainen?

In many ways, there is actually more than one version of Mordenkainen. One is the version of Gary’s PC, another is the literary creation that was brought into being in novels, sourcebooks and adventures. After Gygax and TSR parted ways in 1985, the Mordenkainen of the official supplements is more inspired by Gygax’s PC, rather than being an accurate description – although Gygax indeed did contribute to the split in his Gord the Rogue novels, where Mordenkainen is attributed with actions he did not take in actual play.

With regard to the current Wizards version of Mordenkainen (as depicted in the Living Greyhawk campaign), one can find more information in this article written by Erik Mona for the Living Greyhawk Journal: The Circle of Eight.

As for the original Mordenkainen, the PC of Gary Gygax, he is rarely played these days, for Gary is more interested in his writing and game-mastering of his Lejendary Adventures RPG. He does have this to say on Mordenkainen most recent adventures: “Mordie’s last two adventures were one where he was accompanying some mid-level characters who got transferred to the Metamorphosis Alpha game’s Starship Warden and another in which two ancient white dragons were awaiting the party. Each of those was about a year apart.”

(Quotations given by Gary Gygax are taken from ENworld’s Q&A with Gary Gygax threads.)