The Lost, Lost City of the Elders (AKA 1+1 ≠ 2)

The Lost, Lost City of the Elders (AKA 1+1 ≠ 2)

Why oh why do people continue to speculate upon something I created so many years ago for personal play?  I mean.  I still live as an author, then should not such speculation upon its eventual publication, if at all, be considered my province?  Is this the price creators and their creations “pay” for not serving up the goods, the objects in whatever appropriate or inappropriate fashion as deduced by consumers?  Is this trammeling of mere mentions of it in passing, some play sessions of it at conventions, seed enough to disgorge a faintly guessed at simulacra in order to placate or otherwise assuage an emptiness felt only by those who believe they deserve such satiation, even at the cost of exacting payment from the work itself, and thereby making the creator’s charge a mere mockery of object-driven minds, an anecdote whipped on by the unsatisfied needs of the hack or, worse, the addict?

Peace I say!  No bequeathal has been made, no sacrifice offered, in all, that was not my own and of my sweat.  No counterfeit that, no matter the gauge one might attempt to refit such history with in order to watch the resulting illusion bounce to and fro.  And to what end?  A name.  That is all it would be.  Just a name.  It would lack the very substance that I clothed it in, would mock the nurturing that I sustained it with, and thus would be meritless except for what could be derived from a name.

Faint recompense even for the greedy, or for each self-appointed steward of the "Cult of the Entitled."

Would we now turn over stones just to smash them?  Is this what history, whether that be Greyhawk’s, or my own, deserves?  Such a footnote would read more like a tombstone inscription:  “Here stands defaced that which still lives...”

Peace I say again!  Scratching errantly at the past only dirties and bloodies one’s hands...  Patience in the future, whatever the outcome, cleanses them with dignity...