'Dungeon & Dragons' Co-Founder's Unpublished Adventures to Become Video Games

A crowdfunding site is teaming up with estate of Gary Gygax to turn some of his unpublished work into video games.

The Gygax Trust, which is run by Gygax's son Alex, announced it would be teaming up with the crowdfunding platform Fig to spearhead an effort to develop some of the revered Dungeons & Dragons' co-founder's work into video game form. The plan calls for Fig and the Gygax Trust to find developers to work on some of the projects and then call on Fig to find crowdsourced investors for the project.

Unlike Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites, Fig has contributors serve as investors who can potentially receive a return on their initial stake on the company.

Gygax was the co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons and many consider him to be one of the founding fathers of the tabletop RPG genre. Gygax either wrote or co-wrote a number of the original Dungeons & Dragons publications, including The Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, Tomb of Horrors, and The Temple of Elemental Evil. Gygax split from the Dungeons & Dragons franchise he created in 1985, but continued to produce new gaming material until his death.

While the Gygax Trust didn't give many details about what projects they hoped to turn into video games, they did note that at least one involved Gygax's fabled home game, which was set in the World of Greyhawk. Although Greyhawk is officially part of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse and couldn't be used without Wizards of the Coast's blessing, it's likely we'll see other unpublished elements from Gygax's original D&D game make some sort of appearance in the games.

VentureBeat also confirmed that the games would not involve Gord the Rogue, a Gygax creation that starred in a number of novels written by Gygax, or the Castle Zagyg, which served as the spiritual successor to Greyhawk and contained floors originally designed for the Castle Greyhawk dungeon.

Gygax remains a major influence on Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop games. The Gygax family hosts an annual GaryCon in his honor and Gygax's Dungeons & Dragons' characters continue to play major roles to this day. Mordenkainen, the wizard character who Gygax liked to play as when he wasn't serving as a DM, will have a prominent role in the upcoming Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes publication.