Gygax originally wrote the novels and short stories to promote his World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
One of the factors that contributed to the success of the Dragonlance setting when it was published in 1984 was a popular series of concurrent novels by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis.
The protagonist was Gord the Rogue, and this first novel told of his rise from the Slum Quarter of the city of Greyhawk to become world traveller and thief extraordinaire.
The novel was designed to promote sales of the boxed set by providing colourful details about the social customs and peoples of various cities and countries in a region called the Flanaess.
Shannon Appelcline noted that "Gygax introduced Gord in Dragon #100 (August 1985) in a story called “At Moonset Blackcat Comes.” The first novel, Saga of Old City (1985) appeared a couple of months later.
"[2]: 326 Appelcline noted that "Gygax's Gord the Rogue appeared a few times after New Infinities disappeared, once in White Wolf 's Pawn of Chaos: Tales of the Eternal Champion (1996) and once in Paizo Publishing's Dragon Magazine #344 (2006).
"[2]: 331 Appelcline also noted that in 2006 "Troll Lord Games revealed that they had licensed Gygax's Gord the Rogue novels, previously published by TSR and New Infinities Productions.
[5] After Gygax left TSR in 1985, he continued to write a few more Gord the Rogue novels, which were published by New Infinities Productions: Sea of Death (1987), Night Arrant (1987), City of Hawks (1987), Come Endless Darkness (1988), and Dance of Demons (1988).
Gord begins his career with less than heroic motives, but early mentors Gellor the bard and druid Curley Greenleaf continually steer him toward honorable ends.
The series, originally designed to provide some social and descriptive details about Gygax's Greyhawk campaign world that he had not been able to fit into the limited space of either the 1980 folio edition or the 1983 boxed set, were written in a pulp swords and sorcery style reminiscent of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser short stories.
It starts in Gord's childhood, and ends with his triumphant return to Greyhawk City as a young man and master thief.
Leda and Gord part at the end of the book as she returns to the Abyss, impersonating Eclavdra in Graz'zt's service for the sake of higher ideals.
Dance of Demons is the finale, in which Gord and Gellor enter the Abyss on a mission from the world's most powerful forces of Balance, to retrieve the remaining Theorparts.
Dave Langford, reviewing Artifact of Evil in the April 1986 edition of White Dwarf (Issue 78), was critical of Gygax's writing ability, saying, "At the first glimpse within, my soul was purged by the brutalities visited upon the English language."