Professor Why
| Greyhawk Character | |
| Professor Why | |
|---|---|
| Homeland | Castle Greyhawk |
| Gender | Male |
| Race | Halfling |
| Age | Unknown |
| Class | Cleric 5 |
| Alignment | Chaotic good |
Professor Why, also abbreviated "Prof. Why," was a halfling traveler who, in the company of two stunningly beautiful women and a blink dog in armor, alighted for a time in the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk while on the run from Baba Yaga, from whom he implies he stole the technology for his machine, the CURDIS (or "Chronically Unable to Reach Destination in Silence"), a travelling machine he uses (but cannot control perfectly). He was described as having curly hair, which he covered with a floppy hat and wearing an over-long scarf.
Home
Prof. Why appears on the fifth dungeon level, where characters from roleplaying games other than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons have been combined with local AD&D creatures due to the meddling of a cabal of evil wizards.
History
After accidentally summoning a whole library of games, the wizardly cabal fed the texts to whatever ravenous monsters happened to be nearby. Enhanced by forbidden magics, the RPGs altered the minds of the creatures who ate them, making them behave as if they were characters in those games. Once the wizards are defeated, the creatures behave like natives of Oerth again.
Prof. Why is evidently a luckless halfling who ate a Doctor Who Roleplaying Game rulebook; alternatively, he may have been transported to the dungeon level by the Random Monster Generator, in which case he may legitimately be from another world.
Publication History
Professor Why only appears in the parody module Castle Greyhawk.
Creative Origins
"Prof. Why" is a parody of the titular character of the long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who. The description matches up with the fourth (and most recognizable, at least until 2005) incarnation, played by Tom Baker. The "blink dog in armor" is apparently a reference to the Doctor's robot dog, K-9. The two women seem not to be referring to any of the Doctor's known companions, but more to the writers' habit of pairing the Doctor with attractive women (such as Sarah Jane Smith or Tegan Jovanka) as companions. The blue box known as the CURDIS is a reference to the TARDIS (or "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space"), the police-box-shaped time machine from the show, and which may be the genesis of the parody's acronym, as each appearance of the TARDIS is accompanied by a grinding noise.
Bibliography
- Breault, Mike, ed. Castle Greyhawk. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1988.
