Who is Mordenkainen in Dungeons & Dragons 

"Humility is not a luxery I can afford." -Mordenkainen, 2019

So... Mordenkainen is basically a very powerful cosmic librarian who says he's extremely important because he knows how all the books are organized.

"He has a lot of spells that are all very useful" _Mordenkainen's Sword_

Remember how he was Gygax's character? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

I like to think that, when you're this powerful archmage who gets around - either physically traveling to other worlds or sending agents there - your name is going to get around. As are the spells you invented. In one plane, Mordenkainen tells a local Wizard, "hey, thanks for helping me keep the balance, here's a spell scroll". It's Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound. The wizard scribes it to their spellbook, and goes on their way. That wizard has apprentices who copy from their spellbook, who in turn get copied from later down the line. Other times, the wizard has to get a spell from another wizard, so they agree to hand each other their books, each copying a spell from the other. Still other times, the wizard gets their spellbook stolen by some wily thief with a nose for magic; the wizard had Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound memorized that day, so their put it in a fresh spellbook, while the thief goes off with the original. Maybe that wizard becomes really notable - if only because scholars have access to their spellbook and not any other wizard's - and so their spells become the basis for an entire society's magical curriculum. Whatever the case, over a long enough time period, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound gets around. Even crosses over to other worlds. No one knows where the spell originally came from, any more than folks know who invented the Invisibility or Fireball spells. But it's still early enough that Mordenkainen's name is still attached to the spell, and all learned arcanists know it. People start wondering who this Mordenkainen is and, in lieu of actual facts, come up with their own explanations. A legend pops up, placing Mordenkainen in their world's history, even if the man himself never came there or visited only briefly. Some scholar posits a theory about *A* Mordenkainen native to their world, possibly conflating him with a real historical wizard whose name is unknown (or who stole the name Mordenkainen for the sake of prestige). A theory that is quoted in later writings, but without the key detail that it's a _theory,_ and later scholars treat the story as gospel truth. Until everyone "knows" the story of their world's Mordenkainen, from which the ubiquitous Faithful Hound is named. Then you have the actual Mordenkainen, an archmage that has existed for eons at this point, and has likely forgotten far more than any single person knows. He doesn't remember giving the spell scroll to this or that wizard, or even having come to this or that plane. He has been VERY busy, you see; even a genius like him can't be expected to remember everything. When he arrives at that world and hears tell of "the legendary Mordenkainen" and all the feats he was said to have done, Mordenkainen might say, "well, that certainly _sounds_ like something I would have done, so I'll take your word for it". Mordenkainen's legend grows so large, even HE is not immune to getting swept up in it.

Bigby literally put his hand in Mystras cement, lol. Nice one.

TL;DW: He's kind of an enormous wang rod but he's absolutely right about everything.

Its pretty easy to have your spells in the Players Handbook when you are the character of the author of the players handbook.

"You don't get spells named after you in the Player's Handbook just by being a 10th-level wizard." Medium Rary, anyone?

Really love to hear more of the circle of 8 in 5th edition but there are more than 8 wizards named in spells now 16 in fact.

I have an outline written for the final arc of a homebrew where the Circle Of Eight roam the planes doing their thing, what those things are noone really knows, and they are lead by Mordenkainen (though they are all split up, not roaming as a group.) Strong evil forces who plan to throw the cosmos out of whack will trap him and corrupt the Circle to further these plans. My basic idea for the arc is for the heroes to go around helping/saving the members of the Circle and eventually Mordenkainen himself to thwart the plans of the Big Terrible Baddies

In my group's Curse of Strahd game, I'm playing a Human Wizard who believes she is the reincarnation of Mordenkainen, because the place she grew up in believes that he died when he disappeared and she happened to be born just before it was discovered that Mordenkainen was gone. Sadly, it's CoS, so a lot of that arrogance has been beaten out of her already, but I try to keep it up when meeting new people. Lol

I always like to imagine that Mordenkainen is aware that he’s in a game. If evil wins then the party failed and will start a new campaign. If good wins then there’s nothing left for the players to do so they’ll start a new game. So he’s just always trying to keep the players interested in the game and that is the balance he speaks of

THANK YOU for pronouncing the characters name correctly!! It's a pet peev of mine... Love the Greyhawk setting and have used it for years.

I've always treated it as named spells were new enough that their creators are still known, and useful enough that as powerful wizards travel around the multivese they share them. In the old Dragon magazine there was an ongiong set of articles where Elminster, Mordenkanen, and Raistlin would get together on occasion to talk magic and share spells.

If a wizard is strong enough to alter the weave itself, does that make him a suitable Warlock patron candidate?

"Keeping the balance" is a great excuse to do any evil you like. "It's not like I really want to do this horrible thing, I HAVE to do it to keep the balance".

I've had this lingering idea that Mordenkainen has this network of Horizon Walker rangers zooming all over the planes, doing odd jobs for him. Was going to make a Horizon Walker who is this overworked employee of his, who is fed up with being sent into dangerous places by him.

There is one thing that Mordenkainen could learn from Jim Darkmagic: The royalty component.

I love these types of videos and hope you do more!

Outside of the flavor, wasn't this an original character from Gygax's own home games, along with Tenser and Bigsby? For whom the floating disc and Hand respectively came from? (Sorry if I butchered the spelling)

I absolutely love the idea of running Mord like Big Tech, mord "I'm just the platform, I'm not responsible for how people use the platform."

This is absolutely great how he uses Mordenkainen. The gems! Hahaha

Love when players just trust quest givers as well. Makes it easy for characters if they have ulterior motives

It’d be interesting to reintroduce Elminster. It’d be great to have him involved in 5e more.

I miss the Happy Fun Hours with Mike Mearls.

I love things dealing with the cosmos and gods. I was a bit disappointed in some of the lore changes in Mordenkenian's Tome of Foes though (since this is about Mord) at least in regards to some elf and drow lore (which I have gone into detail about elsewhere lol). But cosmic stuff always interests me. Gods, souls, the afterlife, the workings of the cosmos...love that stuff.

i was actually reading about this dude earlier, neat

"Everybody wanna eat nobody wanna fix a plate" - Mordenkainen after losing his job, 2020

Adam Savage-looking Mike Mearls is HAWT!

Dndbeyond, great video! Enjoy your Friday! 💯🙏🙌

Essentially the Red Reddington of D&D

Be anyone from learned on history in Toril: You keep the cosmic Balance? So you're Ao?

MIKE! YOU'RE BACK!

Re: "What would be so bad if the angels 👼🏾 from Mt. Celestia just went down to the Lower Planes and cleaned house?" In other words, what would be so bad if good defeated evil to that extent? Take a look at the city of Istar on the world of Krynn. It was a city run by a cleric of good. He was so obsessed with making good win over evil, that he executed or enslaved evil creatures and people. He also had the hubris to claim that he was better than Paladine (a variant of Bahamut, deity of good dragons 🐉), the deity of goodness. This angered the deities so much (since he wasn't "just some guy" making this claim, he was a powerful and influential leader), that they sent a massive meteor upon the city, destroying it and much of the surrounding countryside. This became known as The Cataclysm. A disgraced Solamnic Knight of the Rose 🌹, Lord Soth, was given a divine quest that could've saved himself from damnation: to stop the Hierophant cleric if Istar. Because Lord Soth decided to turn his back on everything, he was damned and because a death knight.

Anybody know if that adventure Mearls mentioned with Arkhan was recorded?

Wasn't it the Council of Eight that basically did all the balance act stuff with Mordenkainen at the lead? The old Dragon Magazine had that piece that featured Elminster, Mordenkainen and some other wizard of note...usually rotating I think. That gives a good take on their personalities.

Question: what dimension does the rope trip go to and where does M. Magnificent Mansion reside? The transitive planes or a demiplane? I've honestly never had an explanation

“Idk mord, it really doesn’t feel like you’re doing a whole lot, are you sure you’re that important” “It’s because you didn’t notice my actions, that I know I’m doing a great job, what you want me to wait for the world to go to shit before I do something about it.”

cosmic police... he's a green lantern!! ;)

So the spell name is integral to its casting? That's interesting, one would initially think that the spell would be discovered and then named based on its effects. But instead to cast a spell you must know its name.

I would like one episode about Melf!

Mordenkainen is to Todd as Superman is to Clark Kent. Add glasses for disguise.

Mordenkainen sound like the kind of quest giver that I normally associate with Hags: do some seemingly good task but the quest giver need one specific and seemingly inconspicuous thing that the PCs usually don’t ask too much questions about.

My man Mike was on fire in this video

more greyhawk please ❤🤞

Mordenkainen is ROLLING IN HIS GRAAAVE!!!

Using Gygax's character to make players think outside of the box... Brilliant.

Mordenkainen is also a good friend of Elminster and Ed Greenwood.

Greyhawk Power !

I’ve always thought of characters like Mordenkainen, Melf, Bigby, etc we’re far more esoteric. Powerful wizards from a time long forgotten, spread across the world that very little is known about.

My headcanon is that Mordenkainen's "allies" are just alternate timelines of himself He knows of the many variations of the material planes Which is why he's a 10th level wizard yet has a 7th level spell named after him

Mordenkainen is my favorite of the Archmages.

The mad mage.

Nobody knows his name, so I decided to name him "Gary" in one of my campaign, "Gary, just like my father" he said

He is the archivist from The Gods of Egypt basically. #ripchadwick

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be...

So what you're telling me is Mordenkainen is Thanos.

I always just assumed the spells were named that by the people who made them. Like a trade mark.

He back

Mordenkainen is essentially the Rick Sanchez of D&D.

People in the comments are acting like Gygax is an unknown never credited before man, that they personally discovered. Everyone more or less knows that most of the absurdly powerful characters in dnd history that keep popping up, usually have something to do with Gygax.

Good is what is best for everyone. Evil is what is best for me. Mordenkainen is what is best for everyone and me.

When is Wizards returning to Greyhawk with a Campaign Setting book? 'tis time...and I can see you continue to be obsessed with it...just like us!

Murdy-Gurdy!

Sooo He’s like Rick from Rick n morty. Well ricks like him

What's with the weird choice of video subjects? Lolol

So was that suggesting there is only one Mordenkainen and he is in the same world as Mystra (i.e. the Forgotten Realms) but not Eberron? I have always imagined that there were "versions" of the famous Greyhawk characters (Mordenkainen, Bigby, Robilar, Vecna, Rary, Tenser, Serten, Tharizdun, etc.) in every world's history whether or not still living during the campaign.

Todd legitimately *IS* Mordenkainen on an Undercover Boss mission. Look at that goatee!

The ring of 5

But, more than anything... where's DISJUNCTION?

so he's Doctor Strange

But who watches Mordenkainen?

Where is his state block?

Basically just tony stark but a liiiiil bit more selfish

Mordenkainen is Doctor Who of D&D

Lol St. Cuthbert...

He's rolling in his grave

In my setting, Mordenkainen is only right because if there was no conflict, we couldn't play D&D! The world must have evil to slay.

We need a more Balanced Sorcerer class. As the class has been nerfed since 3.5.

So then at the beginning HE DID make mistakes, perhaps even catastrophic mistakes? Balance What???

will the real slim shady please stand up?

So basically he's a conman trying to sell you The tiger repellant rock

I thought Harper's get the Balance. And "balances" folks like Mordenkainen. Is the Harper's in 5th?

Is Mordenkainen finnish?

They never actually say who he is...

WTF is his full name!! All I wanted to know!!!

Simply amazing that the guy that invented Mordenkainen's Disjunction, is the same guy who came up with Mordenkainen's Sword..... But just for fun, I am guessing the later was the brain child of some creative at WotC who has clearly never played the game before, and thought hey how can I nerf a decent spell into uselessness!?!?! lol

Is mordenkainen a lich?

SPOILER FOR CURSE OF STRAHD How is Mordenkainen gonna enforce cosmic balance when he's getting bodied by Strahd?

Mordenkainen is basically Nick Fury

Remember Gygax and what you are doing to his Character. Atleast some credit should of been given. This had really bugged me!

lol I laughed my ass off when I was running Curse of Strahd and Mordenkainen was beaten by Strahd and he had went crazy and couldn't get out of the demi plane lol.

Nope. This stuff is just Mike's weird head canon. Mordy's name either isn't on those spells in my worlds, and all manner of spellcrafters have spells named after them. Genereally we use the simpler versions of spells, though.

You can really tell nobody in this video has real experience with 1e, where some of this stuff was better known. They basically make-up/alter stuff at this point.

Mordenkainen is afraid of the world toppling over So he's the D&D equivalent of a flat-Earther

8 and a half minutes of talking about Mordenkainen and co and not one mention that Mordenkainen was Gary Gygax' PC, and that Bigby and the rest were the PCs of his friends and co-founders. It takes 10 seconds and it's a valuable piece of DnD historical context.

Again, a failure to separate Law, Good, Chaos, and Evil. A Lawful Evil would not just randomly harm the innocent, what you described was Chaotic Evil.

"Who is Mordenkainen?" Someone you should have kept with the canon of Greyhawk!!!! WOTC, please stop pilfering icons from Greyhawk and canonizing them into your messed up FR timeline. It completely muddies the waters of your D&D universe.

Good job not crediting Gary Gygax with the fact it was his PLAYER CHARACTER that TSR stole from him. THIS VIDEO is the most arrogant thing you've heard in DnD.