It’s a rare privilege, indeed, when one gets invited to share in a little bit of history of the game.
At the end of GaryCon XI recently (take a look at our GaryCon XI page), we were invited to spend time with Ernie Gygax in his home, to photograph some of the great deal of artwork he owns. Most especially, a depiction of Tenser he has, illustrated by S. Todd.

The whole thing began when 2/3 of the seminar panelists from “Celebrating Greyhawk: A Fandom Renaissance” were congregating and chatting together at one of the large public tables near the vendor area and artists’ room. Ernie Gygax happened to meander by and needed to take a load off after having been going all day.
A chair was pulled up for him, and casual conversation was struck up and there were smiles all around. Ernie is a big part of GaryCon, and we love how active he in in the community and industry.

For those who don’t know, back when the game was first being made, Ernie played in his dad’s home game, and many of the characters he and his siblings played ended up becoming notable in Greyhawk lore, and D&D lore in general.

The most notable PC Ernie played then (and continued to play for years), is probably the Archmage Tenser. Though it’s not immediately noticeable to some, “Tenser” is an anagram of “Ernest”! Which is a massive tradition in Greyhawk and Gary’s games to use anagrams of names, or parts of names, to refer to IRL people.

Tenser had many, many adventures wherein he went all over the Flanaess. Another of Ernie’s character’s was only ever referred to as “Erac’s Cousin”. He, too, had many adventures, and was the first ever multi-class character.

A visit to see Tenser

… we were invited to spend time with Ernie Gygax in his home, to photograph some of the […] artwork he owns.

So, during the conversation, we discussed with Ernie a possible art series GHO is considering, consisting of the Circle of Eight and other massively significant figures in the World of Greyhawk, imagined as people in the Industry and from Wizards of the Coast or DnDBeyond. Ernie was asked, at one point, what Tenser looks like. After a moment, he gave a lighthearted shrug and said, “I don’t know. Like me?”
He reminded us that back when the characters were made, they didn’t have drag-and-drop character sheets, or Google to search for photos that might look like our character.

And that’s how the topic of this illustration came up! It’s an image of Tenser, imagined with Ernie as the model for the mage of great renown. Ernie told us about the illustration, and we asked, “Has anyone ever seen this artwork, Ernie?” Without even a pause, he nodded and said, “Sure! People see it all the time, when they come to my house.”
There was a little chuckle before the reply, “No, no … have people seen it? Like, the general public? I can’t even tell you how much fans would love to see what Tenser looks like, to you.”
And so, Ernie traded contact info with us, and the day after the convention we had a wonderful visit with Ernie, who so graciously allowed us to come into his home.

Details of the portrait

There’s a couple of things in the illustration which also refer to Erac’s Cousin – namely the two swords hanging on Tenser’s chair. Those are the pair of vorpal swords Erac’s Cousin quested and searched for so hard and so long.

Also evident in the illustration is the crown Tenser/Ernie is wearing. It’s part of the Regalia of Good or Evil. In later editions, there were two, separate sets of Regalia, but, back then, there was but one and it was an either/or kind of thing. There was much contention with Robilar (Rob Kuntz’ character) about who would ultimately find the prized Regalia first, but, in the end, Tenser ended up wearing it, and became a strong force for Good in the Flanaess.

In the background, a map of the Flanaess can be seen hanging on the wall. Ernie said there’s a lot of artistic license, and many of the items, like the pendant Tenser is holding isn’t anything in particular that he ever had. He did have a couple of magical rings, though, and those are depicted, too … though he didn’t say what they were specifically.

[UPDATE, April 1st, 2019: GHO has subsequently learned that in 1980, Tenser’s rings were said to be a Ring of Protection +3, and a Ring of Human Influence.]

Lastly, the heraldry on the wall is the coat of arms Ernie uses for Castle Celadon, and Nestor’s Folly, in his Hobby Shop Dungeon. (Nestor being another variation on Ernest!) We forgot to ask him if Nestor is an equivalent to Tenser in another game! Darn the missed opportunity!

We’d like to thank Ernie, again, for spending time with us.
It was a wonderful time, even though it was brief. He had a gaming group shortly after, and needed to prepare for game day!
Ernie was friendly and answered any question we had and took time to talk about his projects, and all the other things going on for him, and even gave us a tour of his house. He showed us his miniatures collection, his study, and even some memorabilia from past events and letters from fans.

As we said at the beginning, it’s a rare privilege, indeed, when one gets invited to share in a little bit of history of the game.