Editing Gary Gygax (section)

=== 2000–2008: Later works and death===
[[File:Gary Gygax and Stephen Chenault at Gen Con 2003.jpg|thumb|right|Gary Gygax at [[Gen Con]] in 2003. He is sitting in the [[Troll Lord Games]] booth with [[Stephen Chenault]].]]

Gygax continued to work on ''Lejendary Adventures'' which he believed was his best work. However, sales were below expectation.<ref name=witwer />{{rp|204}}

[[Stephen Chenault]] and [[Davis Chenault]] of [[Troll Lord Games]] announced on June 11, 2001, that Gygax would be writing supplements for their company.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|378}} Gygax wrote a hardcover book series for Troll Lord known as "Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds", beginning with ''The Canting Crew'' (2002) about the underworld of rogues, and including the game design books ''World Builder'' (2003) and ''Living Fantasy'' (2003) for various different settings.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|379}} Gygax wrote the first four books before taking an advisory role on the series, but the series logo continued to carry his name.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|379}} Troll Lord also published some adventures as a result of their partnership with Gygax, including ''The Hermit'' (2002) which was meant to be an adventure for d20 as well as ''Lejendary Adventures''.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|379}}

Gygax had given an encyclopedic 72,000-word manuscript to Christopher Clark of Hekaforge by 2002 which detailed the setting for the Lejendary Earth, which Clark expanded and split into five books. Hekaforge was only able to publish the first two Lejendary Earth sourcebooks ''Gazetteer'' (2002) and ''Noble Kings and Great Lands'' (2003),<ref name="designers" />{{rp|380}} and the small company was having financial difficulties by 2003. Clark got Troll Lord Games to be their "angel" investor and publish the three remaining ''Lejendary Adventures'' books.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|381}}

[[Necromancer Games]] announced their plans to publish a [[d20 System|d20]] version of the adventure ''Necropolis'' on October 9, 2001. Gygax had originally intended to release this through New Infinities Productions, but GDW published it in 1992 as an adventure for ''Mythus''; ''Gary Gygax's Necropolis'' was published a year later.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|366–367}}

Gygax also performed voiceover narration for cartoons and video games. In 2000, he voiced his own cartoon self for an episode of [[Futurama]] entitled "[[Anthology of Interest I]]"<ref name="TheTimesObit" /><ref name=":0">{{cite episode| title = Anthology of Interest I| episode-link = Anthology of Interest I| series = Futurama| series-link = Futurama| credits = Writers: Rogers, Eric; Keeler, Ken; Cohen, David X. Directors: Loudon, Chris; Moore, Rich | airdate = May 21, 2000 | season = 2 | number = 29}}</ref> which also included the voices of [[Al Gore]], [[Stephen Hawking]], and [[Nichelle Nichols]].<ref name=witwer />{{rp|202}} Gygax also performed as a guest Dungeon Master in the Delera's Tomb quest series of the [[massively multiplayer online role-playing game]] ''[[Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Foster|first=John|date=January 18, 2006|title=Dungeons & Dragons Creators Lend Their Voices to Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach; Legends Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson Sign On For Turbine's Highly Anticipated OG|url=http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060118005745&newsLang=en|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081227015853/http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060118005745&newsLang=en|archive-date=December 27, 2008|access-date=December 17, 2008|publisher=[[Business Wire]]}}</ref>

During his time with TSR, Gygax had often mentioned the mysterious Castle Greyhawk which formed the center of his own home campaign, but he had never published details of the castle. In 2003, he announced that he was again partnering with [[Robert J. Kuntz|Rob Kuntz]] to publish the original details of [[Castle Greyhawk]] and the [[City of Greyhawk]] in six volumes, although the project would use the rules for ''[[Castles and Crusades]]'' rather than ''D&D''. As Gygax wrote in an on-line forum:

{{blockquote|I have laid out a new schematic of castle and dungeon levels based on both my original design of 13 levels plus side adjuncts, and the 'New Greyhawk Castle' that resulted when Rob and I combined our efforts and added a lot of new levels too. From that Rob will draft the level plans for the newest version of the work. Meantime, I am collecting all the most salient feature, encounters, tricks, traps, etc. for inclusion on the various levels. So the end result will be what is essentially the best of our old work in a coherent presentation usable by all DMs, the material having all the known and yet to be discussed features of the original work that are outstanding&nbsp;... I hope."<ref>{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IX, page 81) | publisher = EN World | date = December 15, 2005 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-81.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110614223737/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-81.html | archive-date = June 14, 2011 | url-status = dead }}</ref>}}

[[Wizards of the Coast]] had bought TSR in 1997 and still owned the rights to the name "Greyhawk", so Gygax changed the name of Castle Greyhawk to "Castle Zagyg" and also changed the name of the nearby city to "Yggsburgh", a play on his initials "E.G.G."<ref name=witwer />{{rp|208}}

The scale of the project was enormous. By the time that Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on their original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed 50 levels of complex passages with thousands of rooms and traps, plus plans for the city of Yggsburgh and encounter areas outside the castle and city. All of this would be too much to fit into the proposed six volumes, so Gygax decided that he would compress the castle dungeons into 13 levels, the size of his original Castle Greyhawk in 1973,<ref>Gygax: "The whole of the combined material Rob and I put together would be far too large for publication, 50 levels or so. What I have done is gone back to my original design of more modest scope, because I doubt the work will need to accommodate groups of 20 PCs delving on a daily basis."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IV, Page 9) | publisher = EN World | date = November 2, 2003 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120319232836/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | archive-date = March 19, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref> by amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes.<ref>Gygax: "The original upper and lower parts of Castle Greyhawk changed many times over the years they were in active use. What we will do is to take the best of the lot and put that into a detailed format usable by anyone."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IV, Page 9) | publisher = EN World | date = November 2, 2003 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120319232836/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | archive-date = March 19, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref> However, neither Gygax nor Kuntz had kept comprehensive plans because they had often made up details of play sessions on the spot.<ref>Gygax: "I did indeed create details for the PC party on the spot, adding whatever seemed appropriate, and as Rob played and learned from me, he did the same, and when we were actively co-DMing we could often create some really exciting material on the spot, if you will."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IX, page 81) | publisher = EN World | date = December 15, 2005 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-81.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110614223737/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-81.html | archive-date = June 14, 2011 | url-status = dead }}</ref> They usually just scribbled a quick map as they played, with cursory notes about monsters, treasures, and traps.<ref>Gygax: "As Rob learned from me, he too DMed by the proverbial seat of the pants method. A single line of notes for an encounter was sufficient for either of us to detail a lengthy description, action, dialog, tricks or traps, and all the rest."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IV, Page 9) | publisher = EN World | date = November 2, 2003 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120319232836/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | archive-date = March 19, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref> These sketchy maps had contained just enough detail that the two could ensure that their independent work would dovetail. All of these old notes now had to be deciphered, 25-year old memories dredged up as to what had happened in each room, and a decision made whether to keep or discard each new piece.<ref>Gygax: "What our challenge is going to be is to cull the extraneous, take the best, and re-create the details we made up on the spot. Of course the most famous things will be there, along with most of the best parts that are not well-known through story and word of mouth."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IV, Page 9) | publisher = EN World | date = November 2, 2003 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120319232836/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | archive-date = March 19, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref> Recreating the city too would be a challenge. Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, but all of his previously published work on it was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of it from scratch while still maintaining the "look and feel" of his original.<ref>Gygax: "Yggsburgh was a pain in the rump to write because I wanted to include as much detail as possible for the GM interested in using it as a campaign base. So there are sections on history, costume, monetary system and economy of the area, and complete descriptions of the town, its main locations, and the outstanding geographical areas all with encounters or suggestions for same."{{cite web| title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part VII, Page 23)| publisher = EN World| date = February 18, 2005| url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/104817-gary-gygax-q-part-vii-23.html| access-date = March 15, 2009| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110614223800/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/104817-gary-gygax-q-part-vii-23.html| archive-date = June 14, 2011| url-status = dead}}</ref>

Due to creative differences, Kuntz backed out of the project but created an adventure module that would be published at the same time as Gygax's first book.<ref>Gygax: "Rob has finished his add on module, but I have not been up to doing the work needed to create the upper works of the castle proper, let alone the dungeon levels below them."{{cite web| title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part VII, Page 23)| publisher = EN World| date = February 18, 2005| url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/104817-gary-gygax-q-part-vii-23.html| access-date = March 15, 2009| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110614223800/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/104817-gary-gygax-q-part-vii-23.html| archive-date = June 14, 2011| url-status = dead}}</ref> Gygax continued to put Castle Zagyg together on his own, but this came to a complete halt when he had a serious stroke in April 2004 and then another one a few weeks later.<ref name=witwer />{{rp|211}} He returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output reduced from 14-hour work days to only one or two hours per day.<ref>Gygax: "the problem is that I tire out after about an hour."{{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part IV, Page 9) | publisher = EN World | date = November 2, 2003 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | access-date = March 15, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120319232836/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/57832-gary-gygax-q-part-iv-9.html | archive-date = March 19, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref> ''Castle Zagyg Part I: Yggsburgh'' finally appeared in 2005, the first book in the six-book series.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|381}} Later that year, Troll Lord Games also published ''Castle Zagyg: Dark Chateau'' (2005), the adventure module written for the Yggsburgh setting by Rob Kuntz.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|381}} Jeff Talanian assisted in creating the dungeon, which was ultimately published in the limited edition release ''CZ9: The East Marks Gazetteer'' (2007).<ref name="designers" />{{rp|381}}

That same year, Gygax was diagnosed with a potentially deadly [[abdominal aortic aneurysm]]. Doctors concurred that surgery was needed, but their estimates of success varied from 50-percent to 90-percent. Gygax came to believe that he would likely die on the operating table, and he refused to consider surgery, although he realized that a rupture of the aneurysm would be fatal.<ref name = witwer />{{rp|216}} In one concession to his condition, he switched from cigarettes, which he had smoked since high school, to cigars.<ref name=witwer />{{rp|212}}

It was not until 2008 that Gygax was able to finish the second of six volumes entitled ''Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works'', which described details of the castle above ground. The next two volumes were supposed to detail the dungeons beneath Castle Zagyg, but Gygax died in March 2008 before they could be written. His widow Gail had formed the new company Gygax Games, and the company withdrew all of the Gygax licenses from Troll Lord<ref name="designers" />{{rp|382}} and from Hekaforge three months after he died.<ref name="designers" />{{rp|381}}