So, while Iuz was imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk, there were several pretenders to his throne -- "...illusionists, demons, and demodands with delusions of grandeur," according to the Greywiki article. Anybody ever done anything with them? I'm sure Iuz's assassins hunted most of them down, but some could still be surviving somewhere. Maybe this could be the subject of a postfest, or another unofficial postfest?
Hmmm...maybe this gave Iuz the idea to impersonate Vatun.
For some reason, I'm envisioning a Greyhawk Comix strip where the priesthood tests a series of Iuz pretenders with Iuz trivia questions. Or maybe Graz'zt is the emcee...I think the question only Iuz could answer (even though it's anachronistic) is to explain the discrepancy between ToEE and WoG timelines. ;)
I think one of them was killed by Princess Julia of Dramidja.
"Why would Iuz need to kidnap a princess? None of this makes sense. I don't believe you're Iuz at all. I think you're just some old has-been magic-user. You can do some illusion and some spells and you can kill me, but you're not Iuz." - Mika-oba, Master Wolf (Rose Estes)
I think one of them was killed by Princess Julia of Dramidja.
"Why would Iuz need to kidnap a princess? None of this makes sense. I don't believe you're Iuz at all. I think you're just some old has-been magic-user. You can do some illusion and some spells and you can kill me, but you're not Iuz." - Mika-oba, Master Wolf (Rose Estes)
I think one of them was killed by Princess Julia of Dramidja.
"Why would Iuz need to kidnap a princess? None of this makes sense. I don't believe you're Iuz at all. I think you're just some old has-been magic-user. You can do some illusion and some spells and you can kill me, but you're not Iuz." - Mika-oba, Master Wolf (Rose Estes)
Can't stop laughing...
Oh, good. It was a joke. I was a bit worried about Rasgon's quoting of Rose Estes as a source of canon...
Either dedication or desperation. If you were a GH gamer in '94-95, you couldn't afford to be choosy. It only took a few months to read the good products, then fans moved on to the Estes novels and started tracking down old magazines on Roger Moore's index.
For some reason, I'm envisioning a Greyhawk Comix strip where the priesthood tests a series of Iuz pretenders with Iuz trivia questions. Or maybe Graz'zt is the emcee...
I want to so bad, the situation is hilarious, but I don't think I have the time and I'm a bit rusty. Someday.
Mortellan, I'm glad it inspired you! Maybe for a holiday special. You're definitely plenty busy without it, what with Castle Greyhawk and the campaigns you run...
For some reason, I'm envisioning a Greyhawk Comix strip where the priesthood tests a series of Iuz pretenders with Iuz trivia questions. Or maybe Graz'zt is the emcee...
I want to so bad, the situation is hilarious, but I don't think I have the time and I'm a bit rusty. Someday.
-Grazzt doesn't look anything like Bob Eubanks.
Tzuggtmoy: "Iuz Number One: If I were an ice cream sundae, what sort of topping would you pour all over me?"
It could be interesting to play with some of the appearances of Iuz in canon and to see if it would be feasible to explain his defeat (or successes?! :D ) because it was a pretender vs. the real Iuz.... _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
"Then, in 505 CY, Iuz vanished, leaving no signs of his whereabouts. His generals and advisers, untrustworthy and despicable to a man, soon set to warring, attempting to carve out a bit of land for themselves once it became certain that their powerful master would not return (something made uncertain on a semiregular basis, as several “false Iuzs” appeared in this period, most often ambitious illusionists or minor fiends with delusions of grandeur)." - The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer
"Within Iuz's own lands, many factions struggled for power when their master left. Tanar'ri and gehreleth came to odds with each other and decided to leave the barren lands to their own fate. Orcs and evil humans began to squabble and fight. Chaos reigned, and the good folk of Furyondy and the Vesve breathed a sigh of relief." - Carl Sargent, Iuz the Evil
"The Farastu, if they are not banished after summoning, delight in setting themselves up as kings of stupid, easily bullied inhabitants of the local plane. The Farastu pursue their promotion as compensation for the servility they must observe in the Lower Planes." - Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix
As part of Iuz's rise to power in 479 CY, the cambion gained the use of a cadre of farastu gehreleths in addition to his demonic allies. With these fiendish servants and enslaved giants Iuz constructed the fortress of Kendragund, and these fiends or fiends like them accompanied him when he conquered Dorakaa some years later.
When Iuz was imprisoned in 505 CY, the demons and gehreleths turned on one another almost immediately, with the vastly outnumbered gehreleths (mostly farastu) fleeing to Carceri and most of the demons departing soon after as their masters found better uses for them than ruling over the desolate northern Flanaess.
Still, some remained...
Fazzle: One of the first fiends to claim dominion over Iuz's former lands was the farastu gehreleth Fazzle. After his shator master, who had ruled Kendragund in Iuz's name, was torn apart by babau, Fazzle hid in the dungeons beneath the castle until the other fiends departed the plane, at which point he emerged to take over. In early 506 CY, Fazzle led a pair of chimerae, a handful of hill giants, and nearly a hundred Urzun orcs to occupy Dorakaa. Enshrouding himself with a hooded cloak that concealed all of his body and face except for his long, terrible reddish claws, Fazzle announced to the cowed inhabitants of the city that he was Iuz returned. With the aid of his cloak, invisibility magics, and conjured mists, Fazzle managed to keep his true visage hidden from the city's population (who had mostly never seen Iuz close up in any case) for over a year, transforming Dorakaa into his own personal prison camp before he was exposed and slain in personal combat with the wizard Zargle.
"Once, this land was nearly mine. I held it in thrall and squeezed it tight. Nearly, nearly, was it mine. Then other forces rose up, conspired against me and broke my hold, but never, never have I forgotten. I pledged that I would return and take back what is mine." - the false Iuz, in Rose Estes' novel Master Wolf.
Of course, it was Rose Estes' intention that this was the true Iuz, but I believe that the mention of false Iuzes in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer was a deliberate attempt to retcon that. If you assume the Iuz in that novel was an imposter (as Mika-oba himself suggests), the novel makes a lot more sense and could even be considered canon.
So here (with a proposed name of my own invention) is a possible history of this false Iuz.
Zargle Bloodrune: A human illusionist from the Bandit Kingdoms, Zargle was a member of Iuz's Lesser Boneheart in 505 CY, when his master unexpectedly vanished. After publicly unmasking and defeating the farastu Fazzle in 507 CY, he gained control over Dorokaa and Iuz's cult-in-absentia. Using his powers of illusion to take on Iuz's demonic guise and blood sacrifices from his fervent cultists, Zargle successfully impersonated the cambion for nearly a decade, using blood magic to augment his powers and retard his aging.
After shepherding Iuz's young cult from a disenchanted army to an institution in the North, Zargle was driven from power in 517 CY by Harguul, a nabassu demon who had originally been a minion of Pazuzu before he was lent by his master to serve in Iuz's armies. Since Iuz's disappearance, Harguul had roamed the North as a rogue, consuming souls and slowly building in power. With the aid of his growing cadre of ghoul minions and orc and human bootlicks, Harguul established a cult of his own. When he deemed the time right, Harguul and his cult moved brazenly into Dorakaa, and from the city's undercity he spread the word that Zargle was a false Iuz while Harguul was the true Iuz returned, gathering his faithful before he purged the city of the pretender. In Fireseek of 517 CY, Zargle fled the city after his inner circle of minions was decimated by fanatic assassins serving Harguul.
Zargle fled into the Howling Hills, where he built up a following among the local humanoids, particularly kobolds. From his base there (with alleged ventures into other planes of existence, where he gained the patronage of the demon Maelfesh) he prolonged his pathetic life by raiding the lands of the Wolf Nomads and brewing potions of longevity from the blood of his nomad victims. Later in the century, but prior to the return of the genuine Iuz in 570 CY, Zargle hatched a plan by which he hoped to gain enough power to regain control of Dorakaa and more besides. With the aid of a stone carved from the rare magical mineral dramadine and the blood of a virgin princess, he would grant himself immortality and the powers of a true demon. Unfortunately for him, the princess was not as she appeared, and he died from the magical feedback from a disrupted spell.
Others: It is difficult to say how many others claimed the name and mantle of Iuz in the next few decades after Zargle's exile, as they all pretended to be the same being. The scarred, black-skinned orog Farz ruled for a time, as did Harguul's rival, the nabassu Morguul, and the bulezau Zorja, the Baklunish exile Arezu, and the barghest Vynx before the city's government stabilized under the control of Iuz's priesthood.
Almost all of this, save for the direct quotes, was invented by me just now.
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