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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grue" data-source="post: 5006338" data-attributes="member: 11989">To be honest, from what I remember reading about the Co8 from the sorcerer's scroll, ToEE, and a few other sources (anecdotal Gygaxian tales and a mish mash of snippets to confuse things), I kinda felt the Co8's neutrality was at least slightly tilted toward evil.  As an fellowship meant to 'maintain a balance', from the tales and actual results of their adventures you see very little of that.  More like typical adventurer shenanigans... except a bit more competitive with one another (from exploration of a new part of the ruins to grabbing the kewl swag first) as well as 'accidentally' releasing horrible evils...at least twice.I'm not sure the Co8 even existed officially in Gygax's campaign, and the format certainly was different from what we see in the published material.  Offhand, I think at least two of the 'full' members were actually henchmen (Otto I'm pretty sure, Riggby the other? whatever) but from the things Gary wrote about Robilar (ToEE, land of black ice, and certain events under Greyhawk Castle including the release of Iuz), while fun-loving I would have never guessed he had 'Good' written anywhere close to that alignment line.Rary the Traitor IMO is the least wonky explanation of how the original Co8 fell apart (apologies to Rob Kuntz, I've read he was a bit unhappy with how he used Robilar but I think it fits better and makes a more interesting setting than 'Robilar sits in his castle getting drunk with his henchmen while Oerth goes to hell'...and the retcon 'evil twin' Robilar is just terrible).  It's not a great supplement but it's not the worst thing put out during the From the Ashes period.  As far as Rary turning evil... I think Sargent's tapout of him as the traitor was probably the best choice (Rary or the 'he's sooo Lawful Good he could snap' Tenser).  First, he was a mind magic specialist mage.  Never trust the mentalist;-).  Second, assuming he looked around at the other material written about the Co8, the actual goals of the membership seemed more focused on gaining experience and amassing kewl lewt...sometimes not exactly cooperating with one another.  Third, Rary was a PC of one of the Blume brothers...;-)</blockquote>

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