Yendor

As far as I can recall, the Rogue backstory has never been documented.

I always had at least a foggy idea of what it was in the back of my head. I dunno if it matches with Michael's or Jon's, or if they ever really thought about it.

So here it is in bits and pieces -- probably I'll flesh this out somehow in the novel.

Yendor was a wizard, who once ruled all known lands -- all the Chronicles agree on this. Well, most of the chronicles. There's actually nothing that all the Chronicles agree on, and there's precious little that hangs together even in a majority of them, so really, most of them agreeing on Yendor is pretty impressive. If you think about it.

Yendor's power to rule was insured by his fabled Amulet. Growing weary of constantly having to vaporize beings who tried to hork it, he determined to hide it deep within a vast series of dungeons. He summoned many ferocious beasts to guard his dungeon, and put a number of spells on the dungeon itself as well.

But all of this was thousands of years before Rodney began his quest. Long ago (the Chronicles disagree on exactly how long, but none of them think it was recently), Yendor mysteriously disappeared. The beasts within his dungeon remained, reproduced, went wild. Legend maintains that Yendor's Amulet remains there, deep within the dungeon, and whoever can brave the dungeon and find that amulet will have the same power that Yendor once had -- the power to rule the whole earth.

Which is a lot more power than Rodney wants. Rodney just wants a nice castle with a big hearth. And maybe a princess. But he figures he could sell the amulet to someone for whom ruling the entire world had some appeal.