I like to try to find positive things to say about the things I post, or at least, I try not to turn posts into weird hate screeds about decades-old products. I don’t really have the energy to screed. But on the other hand, I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about WG9: Gargoyle (1989). I like Dave Dorman’s cover, though. There! A silver lining. Dorman and Karl Story collab pretty good on the interiors too. That’s it, though. Everything else here is bad.

How bad? It’s a “funny” adventure, in the mode of Castle Greyhawk. The villains are two half-orcs named Tom and Jerry. There is an ice cream shop in town. The townsfolk live peaceably with the local gargoyle population, who are very polite and hang their wings up when they go to church. Which is how Tom and Jerry got the opportunity to steal them. The adventure is about getting the stolen gargoyle wings back. I hate this so much.

Why do they have detachable wings? Buckle up, this is exhausting. Some nerds noted that the illustrations for the Gargoyle and the Margoyle, in the Monster Manual and Monster Manual II respectively, lacked wings, and yet, could fly. I would say the gargoyle illustration does have wings, they are just solid black for clarity, but they are there. The margoyle clearly lacks wings in the illustration, though. Anyway, no less a personage than Gary Gygax dignified this kvetch with an essay in Polyhedron, ultimately saying it was a goof and that the monsters do in fact have wings. In a follow-up essay, though, Dave Collins, who would go on to write this adventure, posited that gargoyles can fly and do have wings, but to not denigrate the artists, that the wings are detachable and mainly aid in maneuvering. Basically, for Collins, gargoyles can fly, with or without wings, like Superman, just, worse. And, I have to say, there is some merit to his argument as both the gargoyle entry illustration, and the cool full-pager in the back depict wings in such a way that they do look detachable.

Oh, how I do not like this. But there you have it.