Swords & Wizardry Light - Forum

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Gail Gygax - Says DeSanto Suing for $30M, Says Home Was Trapped to Kill Her, Property Missing, Calling FBI

I've been waiting for an update from Gail Gygax after the DeSanto lawsuit. This WAS NOT what I expected.

Be advised, there are TWO screenshots - one pre-edit and one post edit. Post-edit will be at the end of the post. Wait, now there is yet another edit. Using most current edit.

I'll be going through Gail's post and commenting at points.

Tenkar




Gail Carpenter Gygax
39 mins ·
What is on my mind?@

The 30 million lawsuit Tom DeSanto filed against me in CA, the prestigious producer, lol,DELAYS MY HOPE TO PUBLISH garys original dungeon. An historical work. (Let's all be honest. Gail was never going to let anyone publish anything of Gary's. Simple as that.)

I guess i will be losing our home and Garys dungeon. (wait! this means she KNOWS she violated the agreement with DeSanto)

No one, except my agent has stepped up to defend me. She was fired from APA. TOM deSanto said to me an agent from APA was up on child molestation and basically said they were a third rat agency. (this is a later edit and Wow! But yeah, great agent Gail. She's made you tons of money, right? No?)

My agent is fantastic and I can only say after many years in LA, she is the best. (So fantastic exactly how much of Gary's IP and legacy has been licensed since his death? Do I hear crickets? Why yes I do)

I almost died in 2014 when Luke and Ernie sued me (no Gail, you filed a trademark infringement against them and the new TSR. Actually, it was you that explained to me that you never sued them, but was just protecting YOUR trademark) , and Margaret Weis. Shocking Margaret as Gary was so kind to you.
Et Weis as a board member. Not sure why She was so negative against me other than to gain financial. vControl over the Gygax trademark.. (this is so out of fucking left field I really don't know what to say. I forgot there was a period in time where other than Gail's imediate familty was on the board of the Gygax Memorial Fund)

I believe Tom DeSanto, accordinding to his email wants to strip me of our home and all properties Gary and i were working. On. (wait. Gail was working on this stuff? So, it isn't Gary's legacy but literally Gail's too? Or is this a rewrite of history? As for stripping you of your home I think he just wants the IP before it is too rotten and dirtied to have any worth)

I refuse to attend GarybCon as Luke Gygax is so very negative to me and our much beloved Gen Con due to what i believe are Luke Gygaxes rants with his friends against me. Peter and Gen Con has only been respectful and loving to me and Alexander. (Gail, the attendies of Gary Con are pretty negative about your presence. Gen Con attendies have no clue who you are)

My home has been invaded, there was a trip wire by my back step to kill me and I know what is missing from our home. (This part is fucking insane. Not saying it didn't happen, but its random placement in this wandering missive leads me to believe it didn't happen)

edit - 4th version addition - no screenshot yet:

My stepchildren places a headstone without a body. It reads. E Gary Gygax. Beloved Father and Grandfather. So my step childrens hatred of me is front and center. I was his beloved wife. No respect from them. I was shocked and dismayed when Harold Jog son informed me of this act at Gen Con. I was indeed devastated and bed ridden for two months. (And how many years has the GMF been promising a monument for?)

With NO CONCERN FROM MY STEP CHILDREN. (would you even have allowed them in the door?)

I was Told by Chris Hoffner if i didnt licence GaryCon to him they would run over me. (With what? A car?)

Nice. I created GaryCon in my husbands memory (Can someone with actual knowledge comment on this?). Guess my stepchildren cant share with me and Alex. (Why bring Alex into the mix? He seems to get along ok with his step siblings)

end edit

i can only believe TOM DESANTO AND NEW MYTH entertainment with David Ranes has victomized me. Not sure calling the FBI TOMORROW (oh my fucking God! Somebody get the number to the imaginary FBI from Ken Whitman for her.)

Tom is suing me for $30mil. I asked my stepchildren to help me. Only to get the answer from Luke if i didnt make him branding manager there would be no agreement with his sibblings. What doess that even mean?. He wants control over my 30+ year company. (Yes, he does. Because Luke can make it profitable. But hey, since you don't want Luke or Ernie {allegedly} attached to any of the projects that DeSanto wanted to pitch, because {allegedly} you don't want any of your step children profiting of the rotting IP you control, why would they even return your calls - let alone help you?)

So i start a new jouney to make sure my husbands works are brought forward. I am disappointed Hasbro WOTC will not return my emails. (Not surprising at all. Why would they want to be associated with a raving lunatic at this point? Oh, whatever happened to the monies you received from the PDF and POD sales of the reprints of the core AD&D books that WotC has been sending you for the past few years?)

I WANT garys original dungeon i. With HIS original rules. Dungeons and Dragons. (oh my. wait, are you saying you want WotC's IP and TM regarding Original and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Do tell us how that will work out?)

I hope i have support for this historical moment. (how is it historic? what kind of support are you asking for?)

Mrs. E. Gary Gygax (this is how Gail signed PM's to me in Nov / Dec of 2015 when she was threatening me with legal action. When she was trying to give me dirt on the family, she signed it Gail Gygax. Makes you wonder...)

I will love him until the day i die. He was a truly special man. I was so honored to be married to him.

I'm fucking exhausted. The last two edits happened as I was writing this. I expect more. I hope someone close to Gail see's what is happening and gets her the help she obviously needs. Tenkar

Latest edit:


33 comments:

  1. That first post reads like someone who really needs help. It really did read almost Whitman-esqe with all the poor sentence structures and wild comments.

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    1. “Almost Whitman-esque.” Whitman’s writing is actually better.

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  2. There’s a lot going on here and all of it brings me great sadness. It reminds me of the (very public) Zappa family feud of recent times (FZ’s second wife was also named Gail, coincidentally).

    The initial post has more than just typos - it has all the hallmarks of someone who is under the influence of substances or alcohol.
    I truly wish all members of the Gygax family peace.

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    1. That's exactly what I was thinking. Like she was drunk and distraught at the same time.

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  3. Did Ken Whitman ghostwtite this? Conspiracies, misspellings, and "I'm the victim here" mentality.

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  4. This is scary/sad reading. I really hope the family can figure something out, my wife's grandmother had some moments that sounded like this.

    I think it might be time to let bygones pass Tenkar, it doesn't become you at this point imho.

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    1. I'm going to quote myself:

      "I hope someone close to Gail see's what is happening and gets her the help she obviously needs."

      Now, I had NINE PMs bringing this to my attention. Is it newsworthy? Yes. Do the lies and inconsistencies need to be pointed out? I think so.

      Do I expect Gail to try and do a "Ken Whitman" and claim hardship, mental health., stolen / missing / destroyed items to derail the $30M lawsuit against her? I didn't expect that, but if this were an attempt, its not half bad...

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    2. Oh I wasn't questioning posting it, it is (sadly) very newsworthy. I just felt that some of the snark of the past wouldn't be cool going forward. Imho, ymmv.

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  5. Is it possible she has dementia? The writing seems disjointed and almost nonsensical.

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    1. If she does it is in the very early stages. Later stages the person is almost unrecognizable. Source: my mom has it.

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    2. I'm sorry to hear about your mom. From what I understand, it is a difficult disease. Hugs and strength to you.

      With regard to Gail, she posted again. It saddens me that she tries to sully my friends' names.

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    3. I knew I'd lost her when she stopped being able to remember who I was, got combative, etc. It's OK.

      IDK what to say about Gail though. She's had more than ample opportunity in the last ten years to do something positive with Gary's IP, including partnering with WotC to get Greyhawk material Gary wrote published and she's squandered every opportunity.

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  6. Gail's used up and discarded partners over the decade since Gary's passing but if she thinks that Tom DeSanto is another palooka she can shove aside with a weepy internet posting and then move on to the next sucker, she's dead wrong. DeSanto is a major player in Hollywood, and her dark fantasies about losing her house and her belongings as well as Gary's IP will absolutely without a doubt come 100% true. He can pay the attorney fees and drop a team of lawyers on her that can and will set up shop in Lake County as long as it takes to strip her down to her wallet and driver's license and walk away with everything Gary ever wrote for less than what DeSanto paid for a day's catering while scouting locations for a Transformers movie shoot. She has, to paraphrase Ned Beatty in Network, tampered with the primal forces of nature, on this one. There's no coming back from this one. Tom DeSanto isn't some schmuck with dreams of running a game convention or writing a D&D module. He wanted or wants the Gygax IP to wring movie ideas and other things out of, and now he has it lock, stock and barrel. By kicking off whatever started that post she's already lost it all. All I can hope is that she gets the help she so obviously desperately needs now.

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  7. She publicly does everything she can to strip her step sons of everything they had with their father... Then has a fit that they won't support her... I can't believe she's at all well at this point. Nobody with an iota of sanity can spitefully attack two men for using their family name and then expect them to come running in her time of need.

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  8. This is genuinely sad news. I'm not a fan of what has been done with Gygax IP (nothing), and what happened to Gygax magazine effort.

    But this is way too much.

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  9. I had some psychology in high school (I went to a school that prepared us for teaching). So, while not being a psychologist or psychiatrist, I am quite certain to have the tools to say that mrs. Gygax needs the latter.
    Is there something like "Mandatory Psychiatric Treatment" for those who represent a danger to themselves, in USA?
    Because I can't rule out that she will /actually/ hurt herself just to demonstrate that her life is threatened.

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    1. You have to be considered a threat to your self or others then they hold you for 72 hours and if everything appears normal they have to release. I have an uncle with a severe disorder that they keep having to let out.

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  10. I know Chris Hofner and he would never in a million years deliberately threaten anyone with physical harm( He's far to smart for that). He put alot of work in Gary Con in the early days, and has ported what learned into his own Con (Nexus) and has long left Gary Con behind.

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  11. Elise came up the idea and started the whole process of Gary Con as a perhaps a single event to allow the family a chance to be in the Love of those who so honor and enjoy the D&D game. Elise has always enjoyed being in the limelight as her advertising photos for TSR is a prime example. Then Luke saw that this would involve far more than just a family picnic and that a real organization needed to be generated around the end of Gary Con II. So as Cindy picked out from fathers multiple choices to the family Dungeons & Dragons. The eldest daughter Elise who was "Daddy's Little Girl" would have to be involved in and in fact came up with the idea of a convention to honor her beloved father. All of us including Alex are important elements that is the Gygax family and especially the males are all complete and total gamers, be it often different selections for the favorites. I find going to all conventions and talking about and running games in the style of play that I learned at "Gary's Greyhawk" setting is an honor as well as Grand Fun. As someone who used to enjoy around a liter of bourbon a day and other materials common to the 1980's. It seems that someone is back into addiction (at the minimum) and with the health issues needs rescuing if possible.

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    1. Crazy how this game has become a cursed heirloom in some ways, or perhaps just a lens that magnifies the dysfunction of a certain individual. Gary Con is a truly magical place with the "seat of honor" and the sandbox all set up, not to mention the original artwork on display for the DMG et. al. My personal thanks ALL you Gygax kids for making Gary Con happen.

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  12. Thanks again for keeping us posted on the various goings on.

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  13. Reads like a rumor table written by someone possessed by Lorraine Williams!

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  14. Wow! This post found its way onto my Google news feed.

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  15. Overall I'm optimistic that Gary's legacy will continue, be increasingly celebrated, and stronger than ever over time. But this. . .whether alcohol induced and/or paranoid delusion/dementia, I think it is obvious that the poster should seek guidance/professional help. IMO empathy is called for - mental health issues can strike anyone.

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  16. What's amazing is that this rant has been up on facebook over 24 hours now. She's either getting shit legal advice, or no legal advice. Either way, she's done in this industry.

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  17. I can't wait until she says that she was hacked.

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  18. Little people fighting over the legacy of a god (not the god, but a god). Very sad.

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  19. Tripwires on her stairs? Methinks she has spent a little too long in the world of adventure gaming.

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  20. So if DeSanto wins the Gygax IP, what does that mean for table-top RPGs? Will we ever see any of it in game form, or just in the movies?

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    1. Right now, we aren't seeing it in any form, so why quibble?

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  21. This is more ludicrous than it appears.

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  22. This shit is bananas. B A N A N A S.

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