tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40462472850227632552024-03-17T20:02:04.055-07:00ZENOPUS ARCHIVESExploring the Underworld of Holmes BasicZenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.comBlogger708125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-82035509267007742472024-03-14T06:02:00.000-07:002024-03-14T06:07:32.830-07:00Erol Otus cover illustration for Playing at the World 2E<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMEdVywevlhR3hobv1J_2ZEClvl8q4eN5yEjDeO8o_udxhZOvm80DgB2tFj2bAU9OvzWCw-f-4w1i2DDZIbOYx77ZCi7JOxt43h0yKeIEmvZmkgtOpxv0ij2PkMl0O3QCw8hSSDaShT7eiGMcZHawqRdecidO93BIVsAZxyya6Gv0OuL9Wu4psZYzoQ5g/s1351/Erol%20Otus%20cover%20for%20PatW%202E.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1351" data-original-width="902" height="680" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMEdVywevlhR3hobv1J_2ZEClvl8q4eN5yEjDeO8o_udxhZOvm80DgB2tFj2bAU9OvzWCw-f-4w1i2DDZIbOYx77ZCi7JOxt43h0yKeIEmvZmkgtOpxv0ij2PkMl0O3QCw8hSSDaShT7eiGMcZHawqRdecidO93BIVsAZxyya6Gv0OuL9Wu4psZYzoQ5g/w454-h680/Erol%20Otus%20cover%20for%20PatW%202E.jpg" width="454" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yesterday <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jimpers.numnum/posts/pfbid02ddZs62VHjLnQ5SV53q3rmzaJuc4EANAviZy3W1bsiF1fVGaRXMzPiyNHmAhRUfedl">on FB</a>, artist Erol Otus shared his original, unadorned illustration for the cover of the first volume of the revised of second edition of <b>Playing at the World </b>by Jon Peterson, due out this July. Per Erol's post, the illustration is meant to call "to mind monochromatic publications from the earlier days like “The Strategic Review” and Fanzines". </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">G</span><span style="font-family: arial;">iven the blue color, might I add the Holmes Basic rulebook to that list?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">See <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2024/03/playing-at-world-revised-edition-out-in.html">my previous post for more info</a> about the revised edition, <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">which can be pre-ordered from Amazon here:</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Playing-World-2E-Invention-Histories/dp/0262548771?crid=1PKKJXMSJJIEA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pNg7lj4hy0SCtKoMcymbK1Q_plTf2x-2zVoCK_DDFXAQ3GVvwlU8MZ0itLwBILj9.KtyPDKqNxg1lGRRN9Y1HtFAGNv9mNteLCbe91kac_3w&dib_tag=se&keywords=playing+at+the+world+2e&qid=1710163710&sprefix=playing+at+the+world+2e%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=zenopus-20&linkId=d395f0208ec365dc5dcb4937d0320609&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" style="color: #213abb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Playing at the World, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: The Invention of D&D</span></a></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-18033931294800154812024-03-11T06:32:00.000-07:002024-03-11T09:59:43.891-07:00Playing at the World revised edition out in JulyWith a cover by Erol Otus!<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH1HNIihRz-XxqsuJPAd17q3UQI_Djni_z6a-G29cT6SgKHB9YflmroNNoFcSUKwTuVdsiu4tq58EEW3utGpJPsaINXBcB_RTutucdWyVw9mAqHehN7MJ12BxLpQKNoONkUE8hy-nwGeJYgdUGpE_rH17eHOKNk3QVist26CUTaJ-5rzYJkzrao4K5H8w/s1500/91yMUa96naL._SL1500_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH1HNIihRz-XxqsuJPAd17q3UQI_Djni_z6a-G29cT6SgKHB9YflmroNNoFcSUKwTuVdsiu4tq58EEW3utGpJPsaINXBcB_RTutucdWyVw9mAqHehN7MJ12BxLpQKNoONkUE8hy-nwGeJYgdUGpE_rH17eHOKNk3QVist26CUTaJ-5rzYJkzrao4K5H8w/w286-h430/91yMUa96naL._SL1500_.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Cover by Erol Otus...!</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Playing at the World</b>, Jon Peterson's 2012 groundbreaking history of the origin of RPGs, has been out of print for a number of years, with secondhand copies going for increasingly higher prices, but <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/11/playing-at-world-second-edition-coming.html">as I reported previously</a> a revised second edition is coming later this year from <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548779/playing-at-the-world-2e/">MIT Press</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The expanded book will now be split into two volumes, with the first one, <i>Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons</i>, coming out on July 30th of this year. Per the publisher info, this volume "distills the story of how the wargaming clubs and fanzines circulating around the upper Midwest in the 1970s culminated in Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s seminal role-playing game, D&D". </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The MIT Press and Amazon pre-order pages have now been updated with the cover art: a fantastic illustration by the legendary old school TSR artist <b>Erol Otus</b> (shown above)*. The first volume is now available for pre-order from Amazon for $29.95, and with a price guarantee:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Playing-World-2E-Invention-Histories/dp/0262548771?crid=1PKKJXMSJJIEA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pNg7lj4hy0SCtKoMcymbK1Q_plTf2x-2zVoCK_DDFXAQ3GVvwlU8MZ0itLwBILj9.KtyPDKqNxg1lGRRN9Y1HtFAGNv9mNteLCbe91kac_3w&dib_tag=se&keywords=playing+at+the+world+2e&qid=1710163710&sprefix=playing+at+the+world+2e%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=zenopus-20&linkId=d395f0208ec365dc5dcb4937d0320609&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">Playing at the World, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: The Invention of D&D</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've pre-ordered it myself.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It will be followed later by <i>Volume 2: The Three Pillars of Role-Playing Games</i>, "a deeper dive into the history of the setting, system, and character of D&D". This appears to correspond to chapters 2-4 of the original edition, which were: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">2: Setting - The Medieval Fantasy Genre; </span>3: System - The Rules of the Game; and 4: Character - Roles and Immersion. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">*Thanks for captainjapan on the OD&D74 forums for this news.</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-16517136166311857112024-03-06T06:15:00.000-08:002024-03-06T06:15:36.513-08:00Scrum Con Preview Video by Little Wars TV<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4YD2sZ8W898?si=Vkll8EGFpb_JFl-k" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>
<p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Just over three weeks until <b>Scrum Con 2024</b>!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Tony Marano of <a href="https://www.littlewarstv.com/">Little Wars TV</a> has made a great preview video for us, with lots of footage from last year; it's a great way to get a feel for what the con is like.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">See <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2024/02/scrum-con-2024-march-29-30-badge.html">my earlier post for more info about the con</a> (dates, location, etc). Badges can be purchased <a href="https://tabletop.events/conventions/scrum-con-20241/badgetypes">here</a> on Tabletop Events.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Tickets sales have been healthy, but there are still plenty of seats left in great games, both RPGs & miniatures wargames. See the event schedule <a href="https://tabletop.events/conventions/scrum-con-20241/schedule#?query=">here</a> (protip: set the "items per page" to 100 to scroll through the whole game list without paging back and forth).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">If you liked <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/12/furiosa-2024-new-trailer.html">my post last fall about playing in a Fury Road game</a>, you can play <a href="https://tabletop.events/conventions/scrum-con-20241/schedule/163">in that game on Friday morning at 10</a> - there are still seats left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">See you there!</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-39204605164526734572024-03-02T14:34:00.000-08:002024-03-02T14:34:39.111-08:00GM's Day Sale at DMs Guild<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwlJHXy4AxNjeevna8CwG1hsFxSSmD4BLPcTwOxXbX9yOdjnVjA1gSKImKLOF1-wXR39XSY5zIXHndT4rxvS-sj4FfxdFvYQKjuBuZEzKN65XehmnntFUggPtTSYRS_wM3TBFO1ksFa7lWAWMui34jnYxyzW_VqjXNlZ6lmBy66b4y-D05_rmUpC0vX8A/s470/Tower%20of%20Zenopus%20screenshot%20copy%20+%20Platinum%20Best%20Seller%20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="368" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwlJHXy4AxNjeevna8CwG1hsFxSSmD4BLPcTwOxXbX9yOdjnVjA1gSKImKLOF1-wXR39XSY5zIXHndT4rxvS-sj4FfxdFvYQKjuBuZEzKN65XehmnntFUggPtTSYRS_wM3TBFO1ksFa7lWAWMui34jnYxyzW_VqjXNlZ6lmBy66b4y-D05_rmUpC0vX8A/w282-h360/Tower%20of%20Zenopus%20screenshot%20copy%20+%20Platinum%20Best%20Seller%20.png" width="282" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><b>DMs Guild</b> and <b>DrivethruRPG</b> are running a GM's Day sale, with products up to 40% off.</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This means that <b>The Ruined Tower of Zenopus</b> is on sale for $1.19 through March 10th.</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Get it here:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/301308/The-Ruined-Tower-of-Zenopus?affiliate_id=53395">The Ruined Tower of Zenopus at DMs Guild</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Most of the classic TSR titles are included in the sale. For example, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic?affiliate_id=53395">the Rules Cyclopedia print print and pdf is $26 instead of $35</a>. Find it here:</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/44/Wizards-of-the-Coast?filters=0_0_44828_44499_0&affiliate_id=53395" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;">Basic/OD&D in PDF</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/44/Wizards-of-the-Coast?filters=0_0_44828_44294_0&affiliate_id=53395" style="background-color: white; color: #888888;"><span style="font-size: large;">Basic/OD&D in Print</span></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/44/Wizards-of-the-Coast?filters=0_0_44829_44499_0&affiliate_id=53395" style="background-color: white; color: #888888;"><span style="font-size: large;">AD&D 1E in PDF</span></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/44/Wizards-of-the-Coast?filters=0_0_44829_44294_0&affiliate_id=53395" style="background-color: white; color: #888888;"><span style="font-size: large;">AD&D 1E in Print</span></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/249987/Gamma-World-1e?manufacturers_id=44&affiliate_id=53395" style="background-color: white; color: #888888;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gamma World 1E in Print</span></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45582_0_0_0_0?affiliate_id=53395" style="background-color: white; color: #888888;"><span style="font-size: large;">OSR Products</span></a></span></div><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-19019569237826240502024-02-29T18:07:00.000-08:002024-03-01T21:00:08.878-08:00Leap Day: Giant Zenopus (New Monster)<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcv7_kGME2_v9KO83HVPmh3ogpc_Nciahcv1Spp3L9hyphenhyphenUqFd_PpVpm6-3d_UUB_eeW1Hi8sFQJB1tvOLqbkd9ptbu_b72KU2BsuxlHq_EEFR6ZTywAcnneN6HPsHBaOTMz7ImXwF9mKuhUfhtWMOsrN2QSTelnYMSFTSATm-TrUO2GBdmutvRF_fm9yJs/s800/Amphibia_and_reptiles_(1901)_(17979163629).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="800" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcv7_kGME2_v9KO83HVPmh3ogpc_Nciahcv1Spp3L9hyphenhyphenUqFd_PpVpm6-3d_UUB_eeW1Hi8sFQJB1tvOLqbkd9ptbu_b72KU2BsuxlHq_EEFR6ZTywAcnneN6HPsHBaOTMz7ImXwF9mKuhUfhtWMOsrN2QSTelnYMSFTSATm-TrUO2GBdmutvRF_fm9yJs/w531-h327/Amphibia_and_reptiles_(1901)_(17979163629).jpg" width="531" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><i>Xenopus laevis</i> from Amphibia and Reptiles by Hans Gadow (1901). <br />Source: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amphibia_and_reptiles_%281901%29_%2817979163629%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Giant Zenopus</b></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Move</i>: 30 feet/turn land; 180 feet/turn swimming</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Hit Dice</i>: 4</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Armor Class</i>: 5</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Treasure Type</i>: incidental</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Alignment</i>: neutral</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Attacks</i>: 1 rake with hindclaws</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Damage</i>: 2d4</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">The giant zenopus, an entirely aquatic frog, can grow to enormous proportions given a sufficiently nutritious diet, with specimens up to ten feet long having been reported. A ravenous scavenger, it will eat anything, locating and shoveling food into its tongueless mouth with strangely sensitive and prehensile hands. A strong swimmer, t</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">he zenopus is known to float motionless with its unblinking eyes just above the water, waiting for the opportunity to leap and grab its prey, raking with the</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"> large claws on its hindfeet as it pulls them under.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">For defense, the skin of the zenopus exudes a slime that makes them extremely slippery (AC 5). Even worse, the slime of 1 in 10 frogs carries a parasitic aquatic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycota">chytrid</a> fungus, and anyone scratched by the claws of such a frog must </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">Save vs Poison or have their skin become infected. A</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">fter 1 week, infection will cause loss of 1d4 hp per day due to the sloughing of skin, unless a </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">Cure Disease</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"> or an anti-fungal poultice (consult a herbalist) is administered.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">The eggs of the giant zenopus are prized by wizards for use in magical research due to their size (6" diameter), fetching 1,000 GP in larger cities. The eggs must be kept wet at all times or will perish. There are rumors that there are secret alchemical methods of cloning the eggs, and even darker tales speak of ways of transforming the egg into a frog that walks upright like a man.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">The only other treasure that might be found is incidental to their behavior; i.e., that which was possessed by their prey.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><b>Notes:</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">---Based on the real world <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_clawed_frog">Xenopus</a>, a frog long used in biological research, and which was presumably J. Eric Holmes' inspiration for the name of Zenopus. The name "Xenopus" means "strange foot" in Greek. The 94th anniversary of Holmes' birth was just a few weeks ago, on February 16th (<a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2021/02/holmes-day-2021.html">Holmes Day</a>).<br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">---The concept of breeding frogmen from giant frogs goes back to Dave Arneson's <b>Temple of the Frog</b> adventure found <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17172/od-d-supplement-ii-blackmoor-0e?affiliate_id=53395">in the Blackmoor OD&D supplement</a>. </span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><i></i></span><blockquote><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">"</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;">He has genetically modified the killer frogs to begin breeding frogmen..." --- the Temple of the Frog by Dave Arneson</span></span></i></blockquote><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">And of course frogmen tie-in nicely to Holmes' Dagonites, who as described are more froggy than than fishy. </span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i><blockquote>"...surely your recent encounter with the frog-man should have convinced you of the reality of the Dagonites" --- Murray the Mage, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0917053052/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0917053052&linkCode=as2&tag=zenopus-20&linkId=c7bf5b1cb6ccac46474a747e1e90ec14">The Maze of Peril</a></blockquote></i></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">---I originally drafted this in 2019 in comments to a post made to the late lamented Holmes Basic G+ group, just before G+ was shut down. While I transferred most of the posts from that group to <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-holmes-basic-g-archive.html">an archive blog</a>, this one didn't make it for unknown reasons. But I found it in an XML file I had downloaded and recovered the comments and revised them into this post.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Happy Leap Day!</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><b>See also:</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2012/02/leap-day-giant-toads-in-blue-book.html">Leap Day: Giant Toads in the Blue Book</a></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2012/03/shadow-over-portown.html">Shadow Over Portown</a></span></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-89449292826624075062024-02-27T06:40:00.000-08:002024-02-27T08:40:13.223-08:00Chance & Circumstance blog: On locating a copy of the 1973 Draft of D&D<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jGpH2MU-ekHwB9MhrkY9byP526LTPP8x8bZPQMUVPiZz8N6ZpgySjBrNkiMizJZ80c9W8wUtvsLUFFwr3enProakrce7bt8Tf0IRhM_9cG8Fd-Yu-vbwCLhukOb6MrrwSz5HcQSozcQjLlqvwxiAMcYekgk1vhiwHcYjYExNVOCHnvMRx9EtEd1NNuY/s640/gdnd-1st-cover.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="640" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jGpH2MU-ekHwB9MhrkY9byP526LTPP8x8bZPQMUVPiZz8N6ZpgySjBrNkiMizJZ80c9W8wUtvsLUFFwr3enProakrce7bt8Tf0IRhM_9cG8Fd-Yu-vbwCLhukOb6MrrwSz5HcQSozcQjLlqvwxiAMcYekgk1vhiwHcYjYExNVOCHnvMRx9EtEd1NNuY/s320/gdnd-1st-cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Cover of the 1973 draft <a href="https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2017/07/see-d-draft-at-gen-con-museum.html">shared previously on Playing at the World</a></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-making-of-original-d-1970-1977-from.html">posted here previously</a>, the forthcoming book The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786969857?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=098482b5e727f58d87cc1901b090a74d&camp=1789&creative=9325">which can be pre-ordered here</a>) is set to include a copy of the 1973 draft of original D&D, also known informally as Guidon D&D. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">However, in the meantime researcher Michael Calleia has independently discovered a copy of this draft among the court records of the 1979 Arneson vs. Gygax lawsuit. Head over to his blog, <b>Chance & Circumstance</b>, to read more about this find:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://chanceand.com/2024/02/27/a-journey-through-the-july-1973-draft-and-dds-foundational-saga/">Unveiling the Past: A Journey Through the July 1973 Draft and D&D’s Foundational Saga</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Stay tuned for more from Michael, as he promises a series looking at the draft.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>See also</b>:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-draft-of-od.html"><span>A Draft of OD&D</span></a> (earlier post here)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>For discussion of the draft see</b>:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://odd74.proboards.com/thread/12475/july-73-draft-guidon-thread">OD&D Discussion thread</a> (requires membership to view)</span></p><p><a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/evidence-from-the-arneson-vs-gygax-court-case-including-early-draft-of-d-d-with-notes.702820/"><span style="font-family: arial;">EnWorld Discussion thread</span></a></p><p><br /></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-2926074827433141402024-02-20T07:44:00.000-08:002024-02-20T07:52:27.772-08:00Scrum Con 2024 (March 29-30) Badge Registration now open!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilfpaRghuIE_ifuQiMyijf4CpHmuTtd_T5FY-e47W2YhGPm9DK-XGFOefZ-kmoAWtGkBq1ig3j98_HLmhw4ntGYOpR8e3iwwRLoUMTXDyKlMhTUyoRitlIvLb1651-PkQIomxlOT5s1hR6JwG9Q_rlAC-mV0hRtqd53LCIO-gAXoDvT1v2PnW1OcIE5dk/s1392/scrum-intro.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1392" data-original-width="800" height="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilfpaRghuIE_ifuQiMyijf4CpHmuTtd_T5FY-e47W2YhGPm9DK-XGFOefZ-kmoAWtGkBq1ig3j98_HLmhw4ntGYOpR8e3iwwRLoUMTXDyKlMhTUyoRitlIvLb1651-PkQIomxlOT5s1hR6JwG9Q_rlAC-mV0hRtqd53LCIO-gAXoDvT1v2PnW1OcIE5dk/w312-h542/scrum-intro.png" width="312" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Attention DC metro area gamers</u>: </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Scrum Con </b>is back for another year of games! </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This year, for the first time, it will take place over two days, Friday March 29th and Saturday March 30th. The location is the same as last year (and 2020), in the </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Civic Building in Silver Spring, Maryland. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: arial; white-space-collapse: preserve;">General registration opens today, Monday February 20th, at Tabletop Events:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: arial; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://tabletop.events/conventions/scrum-con-20241"><span style="font-size: large;">Get your Scrum Con 2024 Badge Here</span></a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The standard price this year is $55 for a regular two-day pass, $25 for a Friday-only pass or $35 for a Saturday-only pass. But register right now (until this Thursday, Feb 22nd) and there is an early bird discount of $5 off per day. There is also an $80 VIP option that includes a two-day pass, a t-shirt and swag bag.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As in previous years, Scrum Con strives to offer an even mix of tabletop RPGs and miniatures wargaming. The schedule of games can be perused here:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://tabletop.events/conventions/scrum-con-20241/schedule#?query="><span style="font-size: large;">Scrum Con 2024 schedule of games</span></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In general, there are two slots of games each day, running from 10 AM - 2 PM and 3:30 - 7:30 PM, although there are few games at other times. So you should easily be able to play in two games per day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And as always, sign up with an email address on the mailing list at <a href="http://scrum-con.com">scrum-con.com</a> to stay on top of the latest announcements and updates.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">For an idea of what the games are like, see this post on <a href="https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2023/04/scrum-con-iv-in-your-face.html">the Scrum in Miniature blog with over 400 photos from the 2023 event</a>. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Hope to see you there!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And please help us get the word out by sharing this with anyone who may be interested.</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-67260034984749086632024-02-16T06:12:00.000-08:002024-02-16T06:24:58.070-08:00"How Dungeons & Dragons Started" Video
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PhxVlgehNpc?si=kffZJaJMhHpIXyTH" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The day after I made <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-making-of-original-d-1970-1977-from.html">my previous post rounding up everything we know about</a> <b>The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977</b>, the forthcoming book describing the creation of the <b>original D&D</b> rules, the Dungeons & Dragons channel on YouTube posted an interview with Jason Tondro, a senior designer at WOTC, further detailing the contents. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">It's a long interview (38+ minutes) but well worth the time spent watching it, and Tondro's enthusiasm for the material covered in the book is evident. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">From this interview, it's clear that the book will include the entirety of 2nd Edition Chainmail, the map from Outdoor Survival, the "Guidon D&D" draft from 1973, the first printing of the LBBs (complete with the Tolkien references) from early 1974, and the first three supplements, among much correspondence and magazine articles.</span></span></div><div><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The book can be pre-ordered here at Amazon, with a release date of June 18th:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786969857?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=098482b5e727f58d87cc1901b090a74d&camp=1789&creative=9325" style="color: #213abb; text-decoration-line: none;">The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977</a></span></p></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-2733283897095534382024-02-14T07:28:00.000-08:002024-02-15T09:48:02.214-08:00"The Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977"Everything we know about this upcoming WOTC book<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8FY-Ee7x4jxbukN_u-vMRLI2ZUcE4C7jm2isx_TxU-XJln-u_kth5MnxY85rOK5k1xFL1Sf80lxT4Ht3igJI-KUPk0O-KKz7wqAXCfoY6DE9Y1EOA6mPuirL6kq8G9tv1PU58WtSzc0X93LrzXhy_pBdwBqYFHdc6BiI8PBBQJ4B3sU9xltsJY18m2EI/s1073/The%20Making%20of%20Original%20D&D_Side%20View%202.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="800" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8FY-Ee7x4jxbukN_u-vMRLI2ZUcE4C7jm2isx_TxU-XJln-u_kth5MnxY85rOK5k1xFL1Sf80lxT4Ht3igJI-KUPk0O-KKz7wqAXCfoY6DE9Y1EOA6mPuirL6kq8G9tv1PU58WtSzc0X93LrzXhy_pBdwBqYFHdc6BiI8PBBQJ4B3sU9xltsJY18m2EI/w311-h417/The%20Making%20of%20Original%20D&D_Side%20View%202.png" width="311" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786969857?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=098482b5e727f58d87cc1901b090a74d&camp=1789&creative=9325">The Making of OD&D 1970-1977</a>" promotional book image, <br />showing four ribbon bookmarks!<br /><br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Last December, at a panel at <b>PAX Unplugged</b> called "50 Years of D&D Adventures", <b>Wizards of the Coast</b> announced their new books for 2024, which included a surprising release tied to the 50th anniversary of D&D: <b>The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1976</b> (The panel was </span><span style="font-family: arial;">recorded & is available <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ln78tTLGdU">here</a>; see the 57:20 mark).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigmODfGWKWvJ1gLcRTAOcgYtQoPUjwtS7gR68uRup9egT85dI-gx6guJSDLyjA3xfsKMctYpBeMx0vKwC-w-bbMp8281h-1aZir_CROjMeDYtBYtgcMLchY1wGv7is743NSWyPSo2H8PuuUKZCFzrCs6BuUdR7ktLCVRCbK_8tryFTHCZHzNzvwaLyu3A/s1360/Screen%20Shot%20from%20Pax%20Unplugged%20Preview.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="1360" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigmODfGWKWvJ1gLcRTAOcgYtQoPUjwtS7gR68uRup9egT85dI-gx6guJSDLyjA3xfsKMctYpBeMx0vKwC-w-bbMp8281h-1aZir_CROjMeDYtBYtgcMLchY1wGv7is743NSWyPSo2H8PuuUKZCFzrCs6BuUdR7ktLCVRCbK_8tryFTHCZHzNzvwaLyu3A/w537-h303/Screen%20Shot%20from%20Pax%20Unplugged%20Preview.png" width="537" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>"Sneak Peak" image shown during the panel presentation</span><br /><br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The panel members indicated that the book will be over 500 pages (!), will "a replica of the original Dungeons & Dragons game, page for page", "never-before seen correspondence" between Gygax and Arneson, and historical context by Jon Peterson (of <a href="https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/">Playing at the World</a>). The "Sneak Peek" image appearing on the screen during the presentation shows two page spreads from the book, the one to the left showing the first page of the Fantasy Supplement of Chainmail, and the one to the right showing the title page of OD&D Volume 3, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. And the background</span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> shows a version of <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/megarrys-copy-of-great-kingdom-map.html">the Great Kingdom map</a>, suggesting this may appear in the book as well.</span></span></div><div><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just after this I saw </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Jason Tondro, a WOTC Senior Designer </span><a href="https://www.sageadvice.eu/jason-tondro-leaves-paizo-to-join-wotc-as-senior-designer-on-dd" style="font-family: arial;">who started playing with Holmes Basic</a><span style="font-family: arial;">, and previously worked on the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Deck-Many-Things-66-Card-Reference/dp/0786969172?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=44d82bc17b2b3b82967b447848caa146&camp=1789&creative=9325">Deck of Many Things</a> (which looks interesting), post on FB that he had spent "most of the last six months on it and y’all are in for some surprises". </span></div><div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Then, a few days ago, <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dungeons--dragons-celebrates-50th-anniversary-in-2024-with-more-than-50-million-fans-302059661.html">WOTC provided an updated release schedule</a> that says that the book will come out on June 18th. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Interestingly, the title has now been updated to "1970-1977" in this press release and also the mock-up promotional image shown at the top of this page. Does this change mean that it will discuss Holmes Basic, released in 1977, and edited by J. Eric Holmes from the OD&D booklets?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The full description from the press release reads:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span></span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"><span>"</span></span><span face="Montserrat, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">The ultimate book showcasing D&D's inception, including Gary Gygax's never-before-seen first draft of D&D written in 1973, a curated collection of published fanzine and magazine articles contribute to D&D's origin story. Each document is introduced, described, and woven i</span><span><span style="background-color: white;">nto the story by one of the game's foremost historians, </span><span class="xn-person" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">Jon Peterson</span><span style="background-color: white;">."</span></span></i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">The "new news" here is that the book will also include a "draft of D&D", which is most likely <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-draft-of-od.html">the draft termed "Guidon D&D"</a> by Peterson, and also contemporary articles. The inclusion of the draft is particularly noteworthy and exciting as this is a document that has never before been shared with the public in its entirety.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">The promo image of the cover shows four ribbon bookmarks in different colors that appear to correspond to sections of the book, which are colored along the bottom of the page in the "Sneak Peek" images, with red corresponding to Chainmail and yellow corresponding to the original D&D volumes.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">I saw <a href="https://x.com/CHofferCBus/status/1757142217632657788?s=20">a post on Twitter</a> that unlike the other forthcoming WOTC books, which will be released in both physical and digital formats, this one will only have a physical release. So unfortunately no pdf option. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="color: #222222;"><br /></div><div style="color: #222222;">So, in summary, we now know the 500 pages of this tome will cover the years 1970-1977, and include at least:</div><div style="color: #222222;"><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">"Gary Gygax's never-before-seen first draft of D&D written in 1973"</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">"a replica of the original Dungeons & Dragons game, page for page"</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">"never-before seen correspondence" between Gygax and Arneson</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">"a curated collection of published fanzine and magazine articles"</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">historical context by Jon Peterson</li></ul></div></span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The book is already available for pre-order at Amazon for $99, but also with a price-drop guarantee:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786969857?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=098482b5e727f58d87cc1901b090a74d&camp=1789&creative=9325">The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've already pre-ordered it myself!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Note that while <a href="The promo image of the cover shows four ribbon bookmarks in different colors that appear to correspond to sections of the book, which are colored along the bottom of the page in the "Sneak Peek" images, with red corresponding to Chainmail and yellow corresponding to the original D&D volumes. So, in summary, we now know the 500 pages of this tome will cover the years 1970-1977, and include at least: "Gary Gygax's never-before-seen first draft of D&D written in 1973" "a replica of the original Dungeons & Dragons game, page for page" "never-before seen correspondence" between Gygax and Arneson "a curated collection of published fanzine and magazine articles" historical context by Jon Peterson">The Art & Arcana Deluxe</a>,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> which is the previous WOTC publication most similar in nature to this one, still has a list price of $125 on Amazon, it is currently for sale for $66. Looking at my records, the price when I pre-ordered it was $100, but with the pre-order price guarantee I got it for $63.50.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><b>Update:</b> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Just out today (2/15/24) is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhxVlgehNpc">a fascinating interview with Jason Tondro</a>, who I quoted above, further detailing the contents of this book. From this it's clear it will include the entirety of 2nd Edition Chainmail, the "Guidon D&D" draft, the first printing of the LBBs (complete with the Tolkien references) and the first three supplements, among much other correspondence and magazine articles. It's a long interview (38+ minutes) but well worth the time spent watching it.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>See also</b>:</span></p><p><a href="https://odd74.proboards.com/thread/16196/original-1970-1977-new-book" style="font-family: arial;">OD&D Discussion thread</a></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=91945&sid=11d436c0064e04e68e7fe82fe916f700">Dragonsfoot discussion thread</a></span></p><p><a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-making-of-original-dungeons-dragons-1970-1977-coming-in-june.702589/" style="font-family: arial;">EnWorld discussion thread</a></p></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-4034092781966171962024-01-23T08:22:00.000-08:002024-01-23T08:22:41.564-08:00Sutherland Dragon mini from Wizkids<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflsX-smUs9_Nlm0JxNj1HikJ1rTNfzicjUzSx_0lJ2Ln2xpc0MDzyA2ow15aGENmR_kRqPccY26vf6apIj9gqqhoIceiPspw0AxGC0uwkxAw-8m6_nXOtKnWbnR4__IF7C7sTj8mLBQeDhhfXljJQD_0fYppGhoUmWRTn-oo4eEuO-DJvPMsvuroPpwg/s1024/ddm33-061_adultreddragon_hdrender_webres_1024x1024.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflsX-smUs9_Nlm0JxNj1HikJ1rTNfzicjUzSx_0lJ2Ln2xpc0MDzyA2ow15aGENmR_kRqPccY26vf6apIj9gqqhoIceiPspw0AxGC0uwkxAw-8m6_nXOtKnWbnR4__IF7C7sTj8mLBQeDhhfXljJQD_0fYppGhoUmWRTn-oo4eEuO-DJvPMsvuroPpwg/w290-h290/ddm33-061_adultreddragon_hdrender_webres_1024x1024.png" width="290" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As part of the 50th anniversary of the publication of D&D occurring this month*, WizKids has announced a Red Dragon mini based on David Sutherland's cover for the Holmes Basic Set, which is available for pre-order now and will be released later this year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Pre-order it here:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://shop.wizkids.com/collections/pre-order-collection/products/d-d-icons-of-the-realms-50th-anniversary-classic-red-dragon-boxed-miniature">WizKids Classic Red Dragon</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The full text from the product page reads:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333e48; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333e48; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"A fiery peril to adventurers of editions, new and old, the red dragon has remained a mainstay of fantasy villainy. Celebrate this classic D&D threat with our new <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary - Classic Red Dragon Boxed Miniature (Set 31)!</em> </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333e48; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This set includes the red dragon as depicted on the cover of the 1977 <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set</em>. The beast among monsters. The tyrant among kings. The dragon among dragons."</span></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333e48; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Thanks to Josh and Leroyd20 on Twitter for a heads up on this release.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">*Specifically, this upcoming weekend per the Playing at the World blog.</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-87168782059262398932024-01-20T04:03:00.000-08:002024-01-21T12:07:26.163-08:00Dice Dragon: Breath Weapon further research<p style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6lUFQcJqpt7uKHcsCYfhw4GR9OHpxehNTfGY6ALxODhsgjZ3SopqhVOLsAHO_ppNkTHnACV1_rA1uz1SvBZOr1V7EdW3-dqCynssdFp0v1_eVO8e4KwPxv012WiTBsh9PkE80sr3YmFm4zi2da1-Q8OOmssLitBxi0xdkweSmB_crCF8s8YXyerJAks/s441/Roslof%20Art%20on%20packaging%20unobscured%20copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6lUFQcJqpt7uKHcsCYfhw4GR9OHpxehNTfGY6ALxODhsgjZ3SopqhVOLsAHO_ppNkTHnACV1_rA1uz1SvBZOr1V7EdW3-dqCynssdFp0v1_eVO8e4KwPxv012WiTBsh9PkE80sr3YmFm4zi2da1-Q8OOmssLitBxi0xdkweSmB_crCF8s8YXyerJAks/s320/Roslof%20Art%20on%20packaging%20unobscured%20copy.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Based on further reports from adventurers collected by the Portown Sage, it is apparent that the <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2021/08/dice-dragon-new-monster.html">Dice Dragon</a> does not only breath faerie fire; rather, that is just one possible effect. The revised bestiary shall now read:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-ff544326-7fff-0282-3c2c-960e57c3efce" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dice dragons defend themselves with a sharp bite or, three times a day, a small puff of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">weird fire</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> at a single target, which does no damage but causes a random effect (unless a save versus breath weapon is made) that lasts for 3d4 turns, as determined by rolling a d12:</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><ol style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Aged Equipment. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">All of the target’s non-magical equipment ages such that the next use causes it to break.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Berserk Grappler</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. The target immediately attempts to grapple the nearest creature other than the dragon, and continues to do so for the duration. </span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Cloud of Darkness. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Emanates from the target in a 30 foot radius, and moves with them.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Contagious De-evolution. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The target, but not their equipment, polymorphs into a small lemur, and anyone who touches the lemur must save or suffer the same.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Enforced Pacifism</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. Any attack made by the target is followed by a round of incapacitating pain and suffering of 1d4 points of damage.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Faerie Fire</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. Outlines the target (+2 to be hit), and then in the next round spreads to all in a 30 foot radius.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Intermittent Beacon</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. Target emits a flash of light that blinds all in a 30 foot radius for 1 turn unless a save is made. This repeats once per turn for the duration.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Magic Absorption. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The power of one spell or magic item, determined randomly, possessed by the target is transferred to the dragon to use. A spell or charged item so affected is lost, but a permanent item will be restored after the duration.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Noxious Stench</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. Emits from the target and is so strong that all within 60 feet must save each round to take any action.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Ravenous Hunger</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. For the duration, the target can do nothing but eat; after eating all their own rations, they will go after that of any others within sight.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Screaming Fear.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;"> Target flees, screaming maniacally, until at least 1000 feet from the dragon, and then screams again for one entire round each turn thereafter.</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Visible Gaseous Form</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">. Target assumes the form of a highly visible purple gas; all items drop to the ground.</span></span></p></li></ol><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Note: This is a revision of a new monster published previously on this blog. I decided that a monster with "Dice" in the title should produce a dice-based random effect. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Also, the revised dragon employs all of the polyhedrals of the TSR Dragon Dice Set: d4 for breath weapon duration, d6 for bite damage; d8 for hit dice; d10 for percentile-based alignment; d12 for breath weapon effect; and d20 for attacks/saves.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="mail-message expanded" id="m#msg-a:r-8663009105077369358" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><div class="mail-message-footer spacer collapsible" style="height: 0px;"></div></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-8571987393703199022023-12-01T11:26:00.000-08:002023-12-01T11:26:15.233-08:00Furiosa (2024): New Trailer<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/XJMuhwVlca4?si=nWXb2vfc7mTueSQU" width="480"></iframe>
<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's a lovely day for a new Furiosa trailer!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The eternal <b>George Miller</b> is back with a prequel to 2015's unexpectedly amazing <b>Fury Roa</b>d. I'm not generally a huge fan of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_So_Stories">just-so story</a>" prequels, but I loved Fury Road and have been eagerly anticipating another look at the rebooted, Dark Sun-paletted Mad Maxiverse. And Anna Taylor-Joy, who plays Furiosa this time around, was marvelous in the Queen's Gambit. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY0HpReerEnz3xOo0RFXqLuVyJQ8aMziMxhw7lbn-pVHjvWuGNaLaYS63VWMz-rTuw5NkjaqNLeHf04CQ4fCoR0x_yDiNLFhIb__EHyJA0VlUfAju8i8DIz_gdrxErWj_NyIWjuaR0vsHQHK-XKjqUGJcEDkpIVdhUDXtrJGkwPg-IY2BrQq7pbNblqis/s4000/20231014_184559.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY0HpReerEnz3xOo0RFXqLuVyJQ8aMziMxhw7lbn-pVHjvWuGNaLaYS63VWMz-rTuw5NkjaqNLeHf04CQ4fCoR0x_yDiNLFhIb__EHyJA0VlUfAju8i8DIz_gdrxErWj_NyIWjuaR0vsHQHK-XKjqUGJcEDkpIVdhUDXtrJGkwPg-IY2BrQq7pbNblqis/s320/20231014_184559.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0P5WCz2BmwKXmr9rsRic6ClbppWePKJZ_IdrP5cM_w1YNYGVKPgchBG6OSFmwd3TLgFGx92yMNewCLACvNKDUESo7JyM68krl-t6xgL9BmKFgpgu0m8NEhyJxGnFpB9ZAyC09qonrRxCPPni7YwjeCxOEWgfp1K6f8EFUAt0v4Rf4D05WPAYUkPyU_A/s4000/20231014_202844.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0P5WCz2BmwKXmr9rsRic6ClbppWePKJZ_IdrP5cM_w1YNYGVKPgchBG6OSFmwd3TLgFGx92yMNewCLACvNKDUESo7JyM68krl-t6xgL9BmKFgpgu0m8NEhyJxGnFpB9ZAyC09qonrRxCPPni7YwjeCxOEWgfp1K6f8EFUAt0v4Rf4D05WPAYUkPyU_A/s320/20231014_202844.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm also primed for this, having just recently played in a <b>Scrum Club</b> game based on Fury Road and then re-watched the movie with my son - his first Mad Max!</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The two photos above are from the game, run by Peter Megginson using his <b>What a Lovely Day!</b> miniatures rules, and run previously at <b>Scrum Con</b> (<a href="https://tabletop.events/conventions/scrum-con-2020/schedule/26">here's the 2020 program listing</a>) and many other cons.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ride eternal, shiny and chrome!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-89780321145294710192023-11-27T11:44:00.000-08:002024-03-11T06:46:56.774-07:00Playing at the World: Second Edition coming next year<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81XxFeLSSML._SY385_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="270" height="354" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81XxFeLSSML._SY385_.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Cover of the original printing</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As <a href="https://twitter.com/docetist/status/1728398303111610435?t=F86-XxQMq2cVh1VIXZF-vg&s=19">mentioned recently</a> by author Jon Peterson on X, a second edition of his seminal history of D&D, <b>Playing at the World</b>, is coming out next year, via <b>MIT Press</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">An Amazon pre-order page exists with a date of August 6th, 2024, with both print and digitial options. No cover image is yet available:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Playing-World-2E-Invention-Histories/dp/0262548771?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=35e46dcfefe3e49347e13f80b64e2c68&camp=1789&creative=9325">Playing at the World Pre-Order Page</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Long out of print, second hand copies of the original printing from 2012 regularly fetch over $200. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rather than just a straight reprint, the new edition will be "a pretty pervasive update" per the author, and the Amazon page indicates it will be published in two volumes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>See also</b>:</span></p><p><a href="https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: arial;">Playing at the World blog</span></a></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-6341020005320715152023-11-23T08:29:00.000-08:002023-11-23T08:37:22.630-08:00The Maze of Peril: Auction of Gygax's Manuscript Copy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzs67x9oIEN15WIGzLCDJe8EiLDt5Ydc-fu3gzFs97Xjm9hrZPapxo2cmL295HbfqTI1poMPTfWNgQdzOr9ex6Lw4pjCKRMC5fEItbDjHCI666OPnViH1boefRAIeWwyGBbbuYDjLTUrHD3HHJ493dn6_CJW30RdyzSDGTVbq8_SMSeeHFuVKNfpq41w/s1274/Maze%20of%20Peril%20manuscript%20with%20Gygax%20cover%20letter%20dated%2021%20March%201986.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="1274" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzs67x9oIEN15WIGzLCDJe8EiLDt5Ydc-fu3gzFs97Xjm9hrZPapxo2cmL295HbfqTI1poMPTfWNgQdzOr9ex6Lw4pjCKRMC5fEItbDjHCI666OPnViH1boefRAIeWwyGBbbuYDjLTUrHD3HHJ493dn6_CJW30RdyzSDGTVbq8_SMSeeHFuVKNfpq41w/w530-h318/Maze%20of%20Peril%20manuscript%20with%20Gygax%20cover%20letter%20dated%2021%20March%201986.jpg" width="530" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><i>Typescript draft for the Maze of Peril, along with a reply letter from Gygax<br /></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the most recent round of auctions from the estate of <b>Gary Gygax</b>, I was pleasantly surprised to see an auction for a typed manuscript of Holmes' D&D novel <b>The Maze of Peril</b>, originally published in November 1986 by the venerable independent publisher <b>Space & Time</b>, which was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_and_Time_(magazine)">founded by author Gordon Linzner in the 1960s</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition to the typescript itself, the auction included the mailing envelope from the publisher; a cover letter from the publisher; a copy of a reply letter from Gygax; and a copy of an introduction to the book written by Gygax. This last is the most surprising of all, as t</span><span style="font-family: arial;">he published novel includes Gygax in the dedication ("To Gygax who invented the game") but does not include any sort of introduction, by Gygax or other author.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Together we can gather that the publisher sent the completed typescript to Gygax in March 1986 and requested an introduction to the book, which Gygax wrote and mailed back to the publisher soon after, but for unknown reasons this introduction was not included in the book when it was published in November of that year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Looking in more detail at each item</u>:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">---Of typescript itself, the photos show the cover page, with the title of the book and author's name appearing as on the title page of published book, and with a Shiprock, New Mexico address. Shiprock is part of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and a</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ccording to the author bio accompanying Holmes' short story Martian Twilight (1991, Running Dinosaur Press), he and his wife (also a doctor) lived there for four years while they</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> "worked for the Indian Health Service Hospitals". </span><span style="font-family: arial;">See </span><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2014/06/holmes-on-anti-d-hysteria.html" style="font-family: arial;">this post</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> for a letter to </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Space Gamer magazine that Holmes wrote during this time period.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0KGZZzglJo5xRCt32Tj6iBJiimP_h545jPhD0VuX4eZqWemJdedUkWcVxT-hOc5J3MStHraLlgAtiLfjiH4mZAmFXuxmSSJYHpNHEqkzQHzt06r3W3-l0sQx1Gp45NGuJvX-v5T-5H8fZzbdZ8PfRX5dmK_75LdS45rgvUvS5CmwpiuCDIqbtGXxFW4w/s1173/Maze%20of%20Peril%20manuscript%203.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="1173" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0KGZZzglJo5xRCt32Tj6iBJiimP_h545jPhD0VuX4eZqWemJdedUkWcVxT-hOc5J3MStHraLlgAtiLfjiH4mZAmFXuxmSSJYHpNHEqkzQHzt06r3W3-l0sQx1Gp45NGuJvX-v5T-5H8fZzbdZ8PfRX5dmK_75LdS45rgvUvS5CmwpiuCDIqbtGXxFW4w/w500-h325/Maze%20of%20Peril%20manuscript%203.png" width="500" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The above photo shows a portion of one page of the text of the book, which is part of Chapter 1 (page 10 as published), and matches the text as published.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5P6ijnb_w6NUZx0mfIxAl-IJlPf8jyT-83-XYM31VL0oxGm0DIyR8CwDnq0Nm6z4HlGwV2VAwVJnUFPUHxLj7GyXBamZnIoaxDDhCOFhsQPTCkh1oUUWBhWUTnj4SOsejRDe8oaNDes9KfOLLvrEgPcW3Pn7o5AA0xpwAqT81J1l55ZBVSKF_5JrKSg/s1175/Mailing%20Envelope%20with%20Gygax%20notes.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1175" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5P6ijnb_w6NUZx0mfIxAl-IJlPf8jyT-83-XYM31VL0oxGm0DIyR8CwDnq0Nm6z4HlGwV2VAwVJnUFPUHxLj7GyXBamZnIoaxDDhCOFhsQPTCkh1oUUWBhWUTnj4SOsejRDe8oaNDes9KfOLLvrEgPcW3Pn7o5AA0xpwAqT81J1l55ZBVSKF_5JrKSg/w434-h319/Mailing%20Envelope%20with%20Gygax%20notes.png" width="434" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">---The mailing envelope from Space and Time has a return address of 138 West 70th St, 4B in New York City</span><span style="font-family: arial;">, which is the same address from which I myself ordered a copy of Maze of Peril about 20 years ago. It addressed to Gygax at a PO Box 388 in Lake Geneva. Gygax had been ousted from TSR a little over 6 months previously. For more on this topic, see the article <a href="https://medium.com/@increment/the-ambush-at-sheridan-springs-3a29d07f6836">the Ambush at Sherdian Springs</a> by Jon Peterson, or his book <a href="<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Game-Wizards-Dungeons-Dragons-Histories/dp/0262542951?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=zenopus-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=9d459bf9600161571a46321efdfbc831&camp=1789&creative=9325">Game Wizards</a>">Game Wizards</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Written on the cover of the mailing envelope from Space & Time are the following handwritten notes in pencil: "<i>Copy letter + 5 pp of intro. Origs. to Jani Anderson. File remainder under Holmes, J. Eric"</i>. Thus, it appears Gygax stored all of these papers in this envelope.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLB5c0DLeml24FUqU_6mRaRKUgavLqcBHxpWG3Fy4kcPj5Uimx-fsGV9-xg2GjM-IPHa2EVSjEraksuGdxLAX_HsWaiAGvD3AW8rPRZhdkeFEkjrtBP1e4a-RWP5Tvx9nIY9GPZVejZMTgkp76l82Vc-lJktnOvdK8WZ1z5_2bV2_RnkgpG8TK1h6mVRQ/s1271/Maze%20of%20Peril%20manuscript%202.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1271" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLB5c0DLeml24FUqU_6mRaRKUgavLqcBHxpWG3Fy4kcPj5Uimx-fsGV9-xg2GjM-IPHa2EVSjEraksuGdxLAX_HsWaiAGvD3AW8rPRZhdkeFEkjrtBP1e4a-RWP5Tvx9nIY9GPZVejZMTgkp76l82Vc-lJktnOvdK8WZ1z5_2bV2_RnkgpG8TK1h6mVRQ/w529-h309/Maze%20of%20Peril%20manuscript%202.png" width="529" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">---The letter from Space & Time is mostly obscured in the photos, but it can be seen that it is dated March 15th, 1986.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">---Gygax's return letter is dated March 21st, 1986, and uses a different address, "832 Geneva Street", <a href="https://www.gygaxmemorialfund.org/lgam-14">the history of which is described on the Gygax Memorial Page</a>. The letter </span><span style="font-family: arial;">is addressed to Jani Anderson, </span><a href="https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?24440" style="font-family: arial;">who was an editor at Space & Time</a><span style="font-family: arial;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This letter is visible in full, and the body reads:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Thanks for the note and copy of Eric's manuscript for the captioned. Naturally, I didn't read it for editorial work but for refreshing my memory. I believe the least time I saw it was about two years ago.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>After I wrote the four numbered pages, I thought the whole was a bit too dry, so I added the "insert" paragraph. I envision that becoming the leading portion of the whole.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Having had a couple of books published, I am quite used to the indignities of editorial work. Feel free to do as you wish with the words. The presentation of the Registered Trade Marks of TSR, Inc. is, I believe, legally correct. Do be careful about that. I suggest you consult with a lawyer about usages beyond what I have written. Certainly, I can freely be shown as co-creator of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, or creator of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game. Cover usage might require some acknolwedgement of ownership of the mark(s).</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Please feel free to contact me if I may be of any further assistance.</i></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This suggests Gygax previously saw a copy of the draft around 1984, when he was still at TSR. Holmes was working on the book as early as 1979, as it is mentioned by title in an L.A. Times newspaper article from that year, "Fantasy Life in a Game Without End".</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">One possibility is that concern over trademark usage kept the publisher from using Gygax's introduction, although I note that the book as published uses the D&D trademark on the back cover, and in Holmes' author bio. Another possibility is Gygax's legal tussle with TSR, which was still ongoing in the first half of 1986, per Jon Peterson's article cited above.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Efforts are currently underway to contact Space & Time to see if they </span><span style="font-family: arial;">have any records or memories as to why Gygax's introduction was not used.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Copies of the original printing of Maze of Peril are still available from Space & Time via Amazon. Find the link in the sidebar to this blog or by clicking here:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0917053052/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0917053052&linkCode=as2&tag=zenopus-20&linkId=c7bf5b1cb6ccac46474a747e1e90ec14">Maze of Peril original 1986 printing</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>See also</b>:</span></p><p><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2017/09/tales-of-peril-book-club.html"><span style="font-family: arial;">Tales of Peril Book Club</span></a></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-56593244121297238072023-10-30T06:22:00.003-07:002023-10-30T06:35:27.424-07:00Yggsburgh reprint now shipping<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpPJoJnzX1N2B_G2ZqP22LC9fvnjZKmqkQUR1FEUVAmaKPoHbQ-btzdq9mRWqKiXwXrxsVn8ydHJHiN82aGs44hjsUMm1FnY1nSF0blNW46U8Fq6W8pbR8CcyWSGDa1CwU5S_fmLavc6cSrGVds9madwK0OANvFgVG8HGbt9HgBbGdDWIceLmQfuSKxe8/s807/Yggsburgh%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="807" data-original-width="600" height="537" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpPJoJnzX1N2B_G2ZqP22LC9fvnjZKmqkQUR1FEUVAmaKPoHbQ-btzdq9mRWqKiXwXrxsVn8ydHJHiN82aGs44hjsUMm1FnY1nSF0blNW46U8Fq6W8pbR8CcyWSGDa1CwU5S_fmLavc6cSrGVds9madwK0OANvFgVG8HGbt9HgBbGdDWIceLmQfuSKxe8/w399-h537/Yggsburgh%20cover.jpg" width="399" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Yggsburgh front cover</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Last month, <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/09/gygaxs-yggsburgh-2005-available-once.html">I wrote about the reprint of <b>Yggsburgh</b></a>, the sandbox setting (256 pages...!) written Gary Gygax in 2005 for his <b>Castle Zagyg</b> project (aka <b>Castle Greyhawk</b>). Troll Lord Games recently announced via their mailing list that shipping of orders of the reprint is now in progress, and buyers are reporting that copies are appearing in their mailboxes; see for example the photos posted <a href="https://twitter.com/RetroGamer_Meph/status/1716520544374247504">here</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/EzraGeekyMusing/status/1718695677994418482">here</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">From the photos, we can see that the reprint appears to be the same as the original, but per reports can be distinguished by the label "Second Printing" and 2023 copyright given inside.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As a reminder, you can order the hardcover from the TLG site for $65, which also includes an immediate download of the PDF, or you can buy the PDF alone from <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/451984?affiliate_id=53395">DrivethruRPG</a> for $19.99:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.trolllord.com/tlgstore/?fbclid=IwAR1BuiKY767vjv2EXdcv9FYbzgaoNg47G0mmnaMeP_K5KVuiWEPIERLilMA#!/Castle-Zagyg-Yggsburgh-Campaign-Setting/p/581953275/category=11639170">Yggsburgh Print + PDF</a> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/451984?affiliate_id=53395">Yggsburgh PDF only</a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-86528363634945220762023-10-20T06:51:00.008-07:002023-10-23T08:36:31.854-07:00Troodontoid Statue (New Monster)<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoj3kfkOHmovwfoYKCCW17INSTauYTg4JHbHIh02802G7VfW5xA_YfuXuSsK9KITh0SGAn4KIA0-C3QSn4MNpagpbL4xoFk9qZ0YHfX0uUugooWLw9Fty3sQxx4bUOrFWiAJu49xdy6jXnoxTGBJD5rIIotP1qqj_NCpN_ODBk58Z6lZsHIT8nEWt84Bo/s794/Troodontoid%20Statue.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="655" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoj3kfkOHmovwfoYKCCW17INSTauYTg4JHbHIh02802G7VfW5xA_YfuXuSsK9KITh0SGAn4KIA0-C3QSn4MNpagpbL4xoFk9qZ0YHfX0uUugooWLw9Fty3sQxx4bUOrFWiAJu49xdy6jXnoxTGBJD5rIIotP1qqj_NCpN_ODBk58Z6lZsHIT8nEWt84Bo/s320/Troodontoid%20Statue.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://cdnsciencepub.com/cms/10.1139/cjes-2020-0172/asset/images/large/cjes-2020-0172f9.jpeg">Image Source</a></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><i>T</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><i>his is a new monster for Holmes Basic, one which is featured in <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-forgotten-smugglers-cave-18-green.html#map">Area 18</a> o<span>f </span></i><b style="font-style: italic;">The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave</b><span style="font-style: italic;"> adventure (which is </span><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-forgotten-smugglers-cave-index-of.html" style="color: #213abb; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: none;">indexed here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">).</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">Troodontoid Statue</span></b></span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Move</i>: nil</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Hit Dice</i>: by magic-user level</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Armor Class</i>: 0</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Treasure Type</i>: nil</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Alignment</i>: neutral</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Attacks</i>: spell-casting</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Damage</i>: by spell</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><div dir="auto"> </div><div dir="auto">Aeons ago, with their civilization facing an apocalypse, certain powerful wizards of a race of intelligent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troodontidae">theropods</a> preserved themselves through powerful magics that transformed them into magical statues, which would endure until conditions were more amenable for their return. </div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto">On discovery, a troodontoid statue appears as a humanoid figure, roughly carved but with an observably non-human pointed face with huge eyes. The type of stone cannot be determined and is impervious to ordinary weapons or tools, only suffering damage from magical weapons. Magic cast or focused upon the statue, including <i>Detect Magic</i>, will be absorbed (as if by a <i>Rod of Absorption</i>) without effect and causing the spell to end if already in effect. The first five spell levels that are so absorbed will serve to incrementally awaken the troodontoid shade that dwells within, and the statue will slowly become of noticeably finer quality; i.e., more life-like in appearance.</div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto">Once fully awake, the troodontoid shade within will attempt to communicate telepathically with a spell-caster, although the long-forgotten tongue will be unintelligible unless a <i>Read Languages</i> spell is employed. Through permanent magic, the statue itself will be able to understand the spell-caster. If communication is achieved, the awakened statue will try to bargain for more magic to be cast upon it, for example offering to teach new spells to a magic-user.</div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto">The statue will be equivalent to a 11th to 16th level magic-user (roll 1d6 + 10 to determine), and able to absorb a total number of spell levels equal to a caster of that level. For example, a statue equivalent to a 13th level magic-user can absorb up to 78 spell levels total, and will know and be able to cast any standard spell of levels 1-6 using the levels it has absorbed. If attacked, the statue can defend itself using such spells. It can only use absorbed spell energy for casting; it has no further ability to memorize spells. </div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto">If a magic-user studies with the statue daily, it can teach a new spell in an amount of time equal to one week per spell level (add 25% to the magic-users chance to know, and spells previously failed can be tried again); in exchange, the magic-user must cast one spell level on the statue each day.</div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTaw0LCB2zbBxuKSrJsdG4kmHc9UlecyArXsUrZ8GYC6S9LaY4vKoHCaslqCIWcSEokyww-BYMDFENoss2rdSaln2mTs0mXebfJrsdsDdsfauA3jYO572pM_czZHRS7fZUnuca5NkjQSYZaKAVvAoI99Kurj2DgJqBFXAMdkgOS1hxI8bemWfls_s4WU/s485/Ely%20Kish%20Dinosauroid.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="485" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTaw0LCB2zbBxuKSrJsdG4kmHc9UlecyArXsUrZ8GYC6S9LaY4vKoHCaslqCIWcSEokyww-BYMDFENoss2rdSaln2mTs0mXebfJrsdsDdsfauA3jYO572pM_czZHRS7fZUnuca5NkjQSYZaKAVvAoI99Kurj2DgJqBFXAMdkgOS1hxI8bemWfls_s4WU/s320/Ely%20Kish%20Dinosauroid.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Detail of "Dinosauroid" by Ely Kish. <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/paleoart-with-ely-kish-canadian-museum-of-nature-mus%C3%A9e-canadien-de-la-nature/6QVxqauks3gYgQ?hl=en">Source</a>.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto">The statue will eventually use the absorbed levels to cast strange spells that will allow it grow a new flesh body for the shade to inhabit. The DM can decide whether the reborn troodontoid remains a beneficent mentor or has another, more sinister purpose.</div></span></span></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-84735413241685181682023-09-29T06:09:00.011-07:002023-09-29T10:57:36.068-07:001981 D&D Expert Set now available in POD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6z_VzTir1-14KdQ2pbzEDXb96A3n3UOqLFinVMygth_mq4lgqg6CspbL_qimeLmciofGZJKeS3Y8WlIoVURf3hWtC3fi8tHk5l_iBrE8AV4PSIVC98_DSEoR24Y4NLacWqefnFxP-qmp5voRod3Ctld_5YKCAy9Xb7oYYgrKiZc5PIPGftXKNAt8tIKA/s814/110792.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="619" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6z_VzTir1-14KdQ2pbzEDXb96A3n3UOqLFinVMygth_mq4lgqg6CspbL_qimeLmciofGZJKeS3Y8WlIoVURf3hWtC3fi8tHk5l_iBrE8AV4PSIVC98_DSEoR24Y4NLacWqefnFxP-qmp5voRod3Ctld_5YKCAy9Xb7oYYgrKiZc5PIPGftXKNAt8tIKA/w324-h427/110792.jpg" width="324" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ten years ago, <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/02/expert-set-rulebook-pdf-notes.html">I wrote about the newly released PDF of the 1981 D&D Expert Rules</a> at <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/?site=dtrpg?affiliate_id=53395">DriveThruRPG</a>. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, they've finally added a Print-On-Demand (POD) option for both the Expert Rules and the 1981 verison of the Isle of Dread, the two main components of the 1981 Expert Set (other than dice & crayon). Find them here at DriveThruRPG:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110792/DD-Expert-Set-Rulebook-B-X-ed-Basic?affiliate_id=53395"><span style="font-size: medium;">Click here for the 1981 D&D Expert Rules in Print-on-Demand</span></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17083/X1-The-Isle-of-Dread-Basic?affiliate_id=53395">Click here for the 1981 Isle of Dread module in Print-on-Demand</a></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's not widely known, but production on these rules started out as an expansion to the Holmes Basic rules. </span><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">In March 1980, in Dragon #35, Gygax revealed that:</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><blockquote>"Design is now hard at work on the second boxed D&D game, the Expert Set. It will take players through at least 12th level of experience, tie in the best of the “Original” material, and actually add some new classes, spells, magic, monsters and so on." </blockquote></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">In context, this appeared to be an Expert Set that would complement the Holmes Basic Set. A late 1980 Gateway to Adventure catalog shows the Holmes Basic set side-by-side with an unpictured but soon-to-be-released Expert Set. </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">However, when the Expert Set finally arrived in 1981, it was instead accompanied by an entirely new Basic Set, which replaced the Holmes Basic set (although TSR continued to sell old stock of the rulebook through the Mail Order Hobby Shop until at least 1986). To aid owners of the original Basic rules who did not wish to buy the new Basic rulebook or set, the Cook/Marsh rulebook contained a section on page X4 titled "Using D&D Expert with an early edition of D&D Basic" which began "If your copy of the D&D Basic rules has a blue cover with a picture of a dragon on it, then this section is for you". This section then provides a summary of the "new material found in the 2nd edition of D&D Basic". </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Over <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/zenopusarchives/home/holmes-ref">on the Holmes Ref page</a>, I have a reference sheet with character info bridging Holmes with Cook/Marsh up to sixth level, titled "Holmes Basic / Cook Expert Reference Sheet v1.0".</span></span></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-14557509320585098142023-09-12T14:30:00.002-07:002024-03-01T21:23:16.166-08:00d12 Years of the Zenopus Archives!<a id="tag"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSELN6jEtzZ5oQWvdAlHRuz8ODCzu4kKL2zD26J7MNItR5HZYfD5L03Kt6d18L8E6fO0xfT7Iv1ziQjiUwqAhtqLrQh5ekBLjNc4JRE0SwNZVyCMpzDZ8rL4wC6ojwNfPH5W7KAKqO-qxk68KIxE8PA8C8yR4WcP6Z9fDbhoehq34539VJBYskTTPcfME/s821/Zenopus%20Archives%2012%20years.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="821" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSELN6jEtzZ5oQWvdAlHRuz8ODCzu4kKL2zD26J7MNItR5HZYfD5L03Kt6d18L8E6fO0xfT7Iv1ziQjiUwqAhtqLrQh5ekBLjNc4JRE0SwNZVyCMpzDZ8rL4wC6ojwNfPH5W7KAKqO-qxk68KIxE8PA8C8yR4WcP6Z9fDbhoehq34539VJBYskTTPcfME/w507-h260/Zenopus%20Archives%2012%20years.png" width="507" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This month marks twelve years since I started this blog, with today being the anniversary of <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2011/09/im-going-to-start-posting-updates-to.html">when I first announced I would be posting here</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In celebration of this anniversary, below you will see an autogenerated table of random posts from the past twelve years of this blog. Grad a d12 and roll for one to read. Refresh your browser to see twelve different posts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><u></u></b></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><u><span style="font-size: medium;">Random Zenopus Archives Post (Roll d12)</span></u></b></span></blockquote><p></p><p></p>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><style>
#random-posts img{float:left;margin-right:10px;
width:65px;height:50px;background-color: #F5F5F5;padding: 3px;}
ul#random-posts {list-style-type: none;}
</style>
</span><ul id="random-posts">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><script type="text/javaScript">
var x=1;
var rdp_numposts=12;
var rdp_snippet_length=500;
var rdp_info='yes';
var rdp_comment='Comments';
var rdp_disable='Comments Disabled';
var rdp_current=[];var rdp_total_posts=0;var rdp_current=new Array(rdp_numposts);function totalposts(json){rdp_total_posts=json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t}document.write('<script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&max-results=0&callback=totalposts\"><\/script>');function getvalue(){for(var i=0;i<rdp_numposts;i++){var found=false;var rndValue=get_random();for(var j=0;j<rdp_current.length;j++){if(rdp_current[j]==rndValue){found=true;break}};if(found){i--}else{rdp_current[i]=rndValue}}};function get_random(){var ranNum=1+Math.round(Math.random()*(rdp_total_posts-1));return ranNum};
</script>
<script type="text/javaScript">
function
random_posts(json){for(var i=0;i<rdp_numposts;i++)
{var entry=json.feed.entry[i];var rdp_posttitle=entry.title.$t;if('content'in entry){var rdp_get_snippet=entry.content.$t}else{if('summary'in entry){var rdp_get_snippet=entry.summary.$t}else{var rdp_get_snippet="";}};rdp_get_snippet=rdp_get_snippet.replace(/<[^>]*>/g,"");if(rdp_get_snippet.length<rdp_snippet_length){var rdp_snippet=rdp_get_snippet}else{rdp_get_snippet=rdp_get_snippet.substring(0,rdp_snippet_length);var space=rdp_get_snippet.lastIndexOf(" ");rdp_snippet=rdp_get_snippet.substring(0,space)+"…";};for(var j=0;j<entry.link.length;j++){if('thr$total'in entry){var rdp_commentsNum=entry.thr$total.$t+' '+rdp_comment}else{rdp_commentsNum=rdp_disable};if(entry.link[j].rel=='alternate'){var rdp_posturl=entry.link[j].href;var rdp_postdate=entry.published.$t;if('media$thumbnail'in entry){var rdp_thumb=entry.media$thumbnail.url}else{rdp_thumb="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ogXrOw8kfBdallvNq4zzPQOwR3DiiKjPDkjL_dwY7bBiCa4D0EoMpug-qmaX4e4weh7IRJGBeitMfNLgqdFtJ8RqgSwJD01VHnj6w5P--1D7L5y05BlmkDLBMMODClk/s113-r/Pin%25252B-%25252BSutherland%25252BRed%25252BDragon%25252B2.jpg"}}};
document.write('<li>');
document.write('<img alt="'+rdp_posttitle+'" src="'+rdp_thumb+'"/>');
const y = x++;
document.write(y);
document.write(':')
document.write('<div><a href="'+rdp_posturl+'" rel="nofollow" title="'+rdp_snippet+'">'+rdp_posttitle+'</a></div>');if(rdp_info=='yes'){document.write('<span>'+rdp_postdate.substring(8,10)+'/'+rdp_postdate.substring(5,7)+'/'+rdp_postdate.substring(0,4)+' - '+rdp_commentsNum)+'</span>'}
document.write('<div style="clear:both"></div><br></li>')}};getvalue();for(var i=0;i<rdp_numposts;i++){document.write('<script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&start-index='+rdp_current[i]+'&max-results=1&callback=random_posts\"><\/script>')};
</script>
</span></ul><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><br /></div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div>And for a list of the highlights of the first ten years, see my earlier post <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2021/09/ten-years-of-zenopus-archives.html">Ten Years of the Zenopus Archives</a>.</div></span>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-4341009742401165392023-09-08T06:13:00.017-07:002023-09-12T06:09:39.493-07:00Gygax's Yggsburgh (2005) available once again<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/86/451984.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="595" height="490" src="https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/86/451984.jpg" width="364" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><i>The front cover of Yggsburgh, <br />with an illustration by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Catherine_Jones">Jeffrey Catherine Jones</a></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">If you haven't heard, Gary Gygax's <b>Yggsburgh </b>sandbox campaign setting, originally released in 2005 and withdrawn from sales after he passed away in 2008, is once again available for purchase from <b>Troll Lord Games</b>, following an agreement with the Gygax estate. You can pre-order the hardcover from the TLG site for $65, which also includes an immediate download of the PDF, or you can buy the PDF alone from <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/451984?affiliate_id=53395">DrivethruRPG</a> for $19.99:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.trolllord.com/tlgstore/?fbclid=IwAR1BuiKY767vjv2EXdcv9FYbzgaoNg47G0mmnaMeP_K5KVuiWEPIERLilMA#!/Castle-Zagyg-Yggsburgh-Campaign-Setting/p/581953275/category=11639170">Yggsburgh Print (pre-order) + PDF</a> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/451984?affiliate_id=53395">Yggsburgh PDF only</a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">For those unfamiliar with it, Yggsburgh is a re-casting of Gygax's long-delayed <b>City of Greyhawk </b>project, intended as a setting for exploring <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2015/03/visualizing-castle-greyhawk.html">the Castle Greyhawk dungeons</a>, here re-christened <b>Castle Zagyg</b>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Back in </span><span style="font-family: arial;">May of 1980, shortly before the initial publication of the <b>World of Greyhawk</b> campaign setting, Gary Gygax discussed future releases for the setting in issue 37</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> of <b>The Dragon, </b>where in his regular column "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", under the title "Greyhawk: The Shape of the World", he estimated that</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> "</span><i style="font-family: arial;">The City of Greyhawk</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> might make a 1981 publication date, certainly 1982, and about the same time the series which will eventually represent the whole of the </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Dungeons of Castle Greyhawk</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> will begin". Sadly, neither title ever appeared under Gygax's byline, and became the most infamous of TSR vaporware. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Decades later, in the early 2000s, Gygax finally started a new project to publish this material, this time under the aegis of TLG's <b>Castles & Crusades RPG</b>. However, only Yggsburgh and the first portion of the Castle Zagyg, titled the <b>Upper Works</b> (2007), were finished and released before Gygax passed away, and the license to publish them was withdrawn.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yggsburgh is a sprawling 256-page hardcover book, with cover art by the great <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Catherine_Jones">Jeffrey Catherine Jones</a>, repurposed from the 1972 Avon paperback edition of <b>Nine Princes of Amber </b>by Roger Zelazny. This was the first novel in the Amber series, which was included by Gygax in Appendix N in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979. Originally, the entire series of Castle Zagyg books was slated to feature covers with Jones' classic work from the 1970s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/2/20/NNPRNCSNMB1972.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="356" height="385" src="https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/2/20/NNPRNCSNMB1972.jpg" width="229" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The book itself is also accompanied by an 8-page hexmap, drafted by <a href="http://darlenetheartist.com/">Darlene</a> in a style similar to her original maps for the World of Greyhawk, which was tipped into the back cover in the 2005 publication. This depicts an area 50 hexes east-west and 34 hexes north-south, at 1 mile per hex, for a total area of 1,700 square miles:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTkhOpe2vMdhfG_bwCBzCNroXMb4AHFtUfVTAdK27rTMGah5c7hD-56qA8hHMijijOEZvHrtEJ1G_67kjPcGx1U8yCZD5wmEVKqahdLRtXSZR5xt8cNF4lAb9ji82Yc5OlnT7U7e-Ws7y1/s720/The+East+Mark.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="720" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTkhOpe2vMdhfG_bwCBzCNroXMb4AHFtUfVTAdK27rTMGah5c7hD-56qA8hHMijijOEZvHrtEJ1G_67kjPcGx1U8yCZD5wmEVKqahdLRtXSZR5xt8cNF4lAb9ji82Yc5OlnT7U7e-Ws7y1/w375-h292/The+East+Mark.jpg" width="375" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Players Version of the Yggsburgh Hex Map by Darlene</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rather than just being a high-level gazetteer, Yggsburgh is a big sandbox, which I'd compare to Lenard Lakofka's AD&D module <b>L1 The Secret of Bone Hill</b>. There's a city with 93 described areas, including the famous Green Dragon Inn, and an area map with 48 described locations, and including </span><span style="font-family: arial;">a number of fully detailed small dungeons, which is often overlooked: </span></p><p></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Thieves' Underground (13 rooms)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">River King's Tomb (19 rooms)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The Cursed Mine (14 rooms)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The Gnome Burrows (25 rooms)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The Unholy Ringstones (25 encounter areas)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">These could easily be extracted and run as one-shots or dropped in other settings. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Castle Zagyg and Rob Kuntz's <b>Dark Chateau </b>(2005) are also two of the intended locations in the sandbox, so there is the potential for larger dungeons, although this does make the campaign setting incomplete on its own if you intend to use those.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've had the original hardback for many years, and it'</span><span style="font-family: arial;">s probably my favorite late-era Gygax product. While I haven't run anything from it yet, I will pick it up every now and then and read a bit. It's sort of a glorious sprawling mess like the original AD&D DMG, but in campaign setting form.</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-31859235912195347392023-08-31T08:10:00.002-07:002023-08-31T08:12:56.829-07:00Corpse Fog (New Monster)<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i>T</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i>his is a new monster for Holmes Basic, one which is featured i</i>n <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-forgotten-smugglers-cave-25-crypt.html">Area 25</a> o<span style="font-style: italic;">f </span><b style="font-style: italic;">The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave</b><span style="font-style: italic;"> adventure (which is </span><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-forgotten-smugglers-cave-index-of.html" style="color: #213abb; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: none;">indexed here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">).</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Corpse Fog</b></span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Move</i>: 90 feet/turn</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Hit Dice</i>: 3</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Armor Class</i>: 5</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Treasure Type</i>: B</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Alignment</i>: neutral</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Attacks</i>: 1 touch</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Damage</i>: 0 plus energy drain</span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A body, when interred near the sea, may become possessed by a form of undead known as the corpse fog. If such a</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> corpse or its burial possessions are disturbed, fog with a greenish cast will begin to issue from its mouth, coalescing in two rounds into a churning humanoid form that will advance on the nearest living creature in an attempt to drain it of its life energy (each hit will drain one life energy level).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Initially having three hit dice, a corpse fog will add one more for each level drained from a character, and this will also add to its hit points (roll randomly for each new hit die). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The corpse fog is immune to normal weapons, and is turned as undead of equivalent hit dice (HD 3 = wight, HD 4 = wraith, etc). A successful result will send the fog back into its corpse. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Destroying a corpse fog will result in a blast of mist that will do 2d6 damage to all within 50 feet (save for half), but will also restore any levels drained by the fog.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-48897679030806167792023-08-23T07:09:00.013-07:002023-09-08T06:13:40.878-07:00Where is L3 Deep Dwarven Delve located?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7MsMO5OiUGTnjWtVzUHsx5xMGgfXHeEciMt2bOWohYRMdYJixamAMkGmRXGO2tmxOtH8ESVK5nPlPfN763v7m7w5oSBaHY9Gt39gDvweQQ6wD6msxJ88rTM0roeAj8_WCojLKrKXaOvcVH61URvjDfgZINhF80bQvXKC0-gorqg1B0RLlzpI0T18dEMA/s832/L1%20Area%20Map.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="832" height="403" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7MsMO5OiUGTnjWtVzUHsx5xMGgfXHeEciMt2bOWohYRMdYJixamAMkGmRXGO2tmxOtH8ESVK5nPlPfN763v7m7w5oSBaHY9Gt39gDvweQQ6wD6msxJ88rTM0roeAj8_WCojLKrKXaOvcVH61URvjDfgZINhF80bQvXKC0-gorqg1B0RLlzpI0T18dEMA/w532-h403/L1%20Area%20Map.png" width="532" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">The Area Map from L1</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/08/l3-deep-dwarven-delve-1979-draft.html">my previous post</a>, I noted that the published version of <b>L3 Deep Dwarven Delve</b> (1997) omits a separate map showing "an aerial view of the mountain and surrounding areas" that the cover of 1979 draft indicated would be included along with maps of the three dungeon levels. In the published module, the map of the first dungeon level does include an outline of the hill at 80 feet, which is the height at which this level is located, and also three surrounding lower topographic lines at 20' increments. This could be considered "an aerial view of the mountain", but there is nothing on it showing "surrounding areas".</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The two earlier entries in the</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> L-series, </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">L1 The Secret of Bone Hill</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"> (1981) and </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">L2 The Assassin's Knot</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"> (1983), each had large area maps. The one in L1, shown above, is drawn in a black & white topographic style similar <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2012/01/adding-dmg-sample-dungeon-to-b2.html">to the famous one</a> in <b>B2 Keep on the Borderlands</b>, but employs hexes rather than squares, and depicts a much larger area, about 28 miles east-west and 17 miles north-south. The map in L2 overlaps with this to the south, but only adds about half as much territory because much of the map is water. Here is a fan-made splice of these two maps, from <a href="https://restenford.blogspot.com/2016/12/garrottenford-map.html">a post on the Restenford Project blog</a>, which may be useful if you are running a Lendore campaign:</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QXxU4ypo36A_G2dnJwlWqOgf68ZUhjAFJcc3p1N9zpPpz8uQUW_qDheZSqBCsQu97z93xlystXoaGkFXohNcGDPVG7zCFGIx_9fZ9HyJXbV9n-xauHkROS08k-4LqyWMLSmNQqkOm-3naWwot8f2BcuGnEBhKIOqpKLBsx_WZrB7PmE1_RyfrYPUkLQ/s977/Restenford%20and%20Garrotten%20area2.bmp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="977" data-original-width="687" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QXxU4ypo36A_G2dnJwlWqOgf68ZUhjAFJcc3p1N9zpPpz8uQUW_qDheZSqBCsQu97z93xlystXoaGkFXohNcGDPVG7zCFGIx_9fZ9HyJXbV9n-xauHkROS08k-4LqyWMLSmNQqkOm-3naWwot8f2BcuGnEBhKIOqpKLBsx_WZrB7PmE1_RyfrYPUkLQ/w359-h510/Restenford%20and%20Garrotten%20area2.bmp" width="359" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Area Map combining the maps from L1 and L2<br /><br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">In contrast to the earlier modules, the content in L3 consists of one large dungeon under a single hill, which means it doesn't necessarily need such a large area map, particularly if its location can be referenced using one of the earlier maps. But L3, in addition to omitting an area map, does not even</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;"> clearly indicate where the Delve is in relation to the maps from L1 and L2...! </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Instead, it keeps the location vague. The "Background" relates that humanoids have been attacking Restenford and Lake Farmin (aka Garrotten), and that after the most recent attack on the former, "a member of the militia, a ranger, tracked the humanoids back to their lair" and thus "[s]omewhere in the dark wilderness nearby lurks a great threat..." (page 3). The module further explains that the town council will </span><span style="font-family: arial;">"provide the directions to the Delve..." (page 4, "Preparing to Play"); and that </span><span style="font-family: arial;">"[t]he Delve resides beneath one of the many hills in the area" (page 7, "External Locale"), which could be almost anywhere on the L1 or L2 maps, each of which depicts numerous peaks, or somewhere off the edge of those.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">To some degree this vagueness may be because the adventure was introduced by means of an event in Lakofka's campaign. In comments on FB, he wrote: "</span><span style="font-family: arial;">L3 starts with the attack on Restenford in 576CY. The party follows the retreating humanoids back to their lair: an ancient Dwarven cave complex" (see </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/40230212669/posts/10156974781082670/?comment_id=10156976583237670&reply_comment_id=10156976620382670">here</a></span><span style="font-family: arial;">); "...</span><span style="font-family: arial;">But the little road to the front door is not obvious. A ranger tracked them and came back to Restenford to report ... He told the adventuring party what to look for and left a token along the road that tells them where he spotted their movement. Once they know the proper peak and the approximate location of the main entrance they should be able to find it" (see <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/1711305718932821/?comment_id=1715446645185395&reply_comment_id=1717113488352044">here</a>); and "</span><span style="font-family: arial;">If it’s too easy to find others will go up and discover the orcs etc" (see <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/1711305718932821?comment_id=1715446645185395&reply_comment_id=1717311264998933">here</a>). So, it's clear that he intended for the Delve, in game, to be a "hidden location" that is not accessible until it is "unlocked" by the attack.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But note that while Lakofka didn't want players to find the Delve early, he also didn't intend for the published module to keep it completely hidden from the DM, as evidenced by his original 1979 intention to include an area map, and also more recent comments: "I looked at L3. There is no area map. I would not miss something that basic. But TSR did. The entrance is up 80 feet and the hill at that point is around 2,000 feet. The height of the entire hill is not given" (see </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/1711305718932821/?comment_id=1711574155572644" style="font-family: arial;">here</a><span style="font-family: arial;">). (Note that on review there's nothing in L3 stating the hill is 2,000 feet high at the entrance; in fact, it clearly states, "The main entrance is some 80 feet above ground level and cannot be seen from the base of the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">hill" (page 7)).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The lack of a specific location poses some problems for actual play as part of a campaign. In what direction do you tell the players they are headed? What do you do once they get there and want to leave and then return? </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Or what if you want to include it as a hidden but possibly findable location in the Lendore sandbox from the get-go?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmsI0MbX6UkCcNur6AbpBN6zsvXpfpuzuU8FY4R5I-Qh-u6fVj0lCm4utAQtYINfaWOJgFi9j1KiLSa7W4sGwGJm8f52AjYVqVyrklHmDA-D5eAFPGyTPuulNQwrLhE2IMBfVImAN-lLi1cNokiA6SOiJSuOLOHZ7LB1GXYMzY5VkVGVMiTK7YImhY1mw/s960/Garden-Guardian%20Peak%20location%20of%20L3%20elevation%20rotated.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmsI0MbX6UkCcNur6AbpBN6zsvXpfpuzuU8FY4R5I-Qh-u6fVj0lCm4utAQtYINfaWOJgFi9j1KiLSa7W4sGwGJm8f52AjYVqVyrklHmDA-D5eAFPGyTPuulNQwrLhE2IMBfVImAN-lLi1cNokiA6SOiJSuOLOHZ7LB1GXYMzY5VkVGVMiTK7YImhY1mw/w486-h365/Garden-Guardian%20Peak%20location%20of%20L3%20elevation%20rotated.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Lakofka's aerial map for L3</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Fortunately, in 2018, Lakofka found among his papers </span><span style="font-family: arial;">a draft of the aerial map of the exterior of the Delve, and shared this on FB, where he </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/1711305718932821/?comment_id=1711574155572644&reply_comment_id=1715448418518551" style="font-family: arial;">wrote:</a></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">"And I found the real location! Guardian Peak. On the L1 map it’s labeled Garden Peak!!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The map he shared, shown above, is possibly the exterior map referred to in the 1979 draft, or a later drafting of it, as to me it looks like something drawn on a computer program in the 1980s. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">It's not an area map like in the earlier modules, just an immediate location map showing the exterior of the hill up to its peak at 3,145 feet, and with topographic lines at 500 foot intervals. It shows the two entrances to the dungeon, each at 2,000 feet as referenced in Lakofka's quote above, rather than at the 80 feet indicated in the module (and which means that TSR most likely did not have a copy of this map when they produced L3). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It also depicts the "Humanoid Trail" leading to Entrance A, which Lakofka referenced in one of the above quotes. The published module instead describes this singular trail in the plural, describing that "[t]</span><span style="font-family: arial;">he humanoid </span><span style="font-family: arial;">trails leading from the front gate (entrance A) are </span><span style="font-family: arial;">well hidden. At ground level, the trails can be </span><span style="font-family: arial;">found only by inspection and are not obvious to </span><span style="font-family: arial;">casual searchers". </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Most crucially, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">there is a label added to the map in pencil reading, "</span><b style="font-family: arial;">Garden Peak aka Guardian Peak</b><span style="font-family: arial;">". If you look at the L1 area map at the top of this page you will see a Garden Peak near the upper center. The reason for the dual names is that while the peak is labeled Garden on the L1 map, the text of the module refers to it as Guardian (page 8). Lakofka's comment quoted above implies that Guardian is the correct name. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">In a game, one might use both names if Garden is assumed to be a corruption of the earlier name, Guardian.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There is a discrepancy in the contour lines shown on the aerial map of Guardian, which are at 500 foot increments, and the map in L1, which the key indicates are at 400 foot increments. When he found the map, Lakofka noted this discrepancy, and issued a correction: "Based on the L1 map these elevations are incorrect. The contour lines should be 400 not 500. The very top contour line should be eliminated. So the A [and] B entrances should be on the 1600 foot line and the peak 2145 not 3145" (see <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/1711305718932821/?comment_id=1715446645185395&reply_comment_id=1716827685047291">here</a>). The L1 map shows only five contour lines between the river and the peak of Garden, so this correction does allow the Guardian map to fit in better. Even adjusting for this, the shape of the contour lines on the Guardian map don't quite match the ones on the L1 map, but are close enough to use. If using this map, make sure to note the direction of north on the Guardian map; it should be turned to line up with the map in L1.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In retrospect, Garden/Guardian Peak is a good location for the Delve, as there are no encounters or areas of interest that are specifically tied to it in L1. It's referenced a single time in the text of the module (page 8), where it is simply given as part of a list of locations, also including Lark Hill, High Top, Low Point and Reddy Forest, that are described as potential sites for encounters with NPCs: "These sites are often used as campgrounds by travelers, and for the purpose of this module they will be sites for special encounters. Other hills and forests may also be added to this list if the DM desires". The text goes on to describe four NPCs that can be encountered in these areas, about 1/3 of the time a random encounter in indicated. While it's a bit difficult to believe that a lone NPC could safely camp on Guardian if it is home to the large force of humanoids found in the Delve, but it is easy enough to remove Guardian from this list and make it more desolate. The module further describes these peaks as "grass-covered, with bushes and rock outcroppings every 50 to 300 feet. Small stands of trees are quite common. The larger copses are shown on the map", which fits well with the aerial map shown above, although there should be one "larger copse" at the north end of the map.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In conclusion, this unearthed treasure provides us with a specific location for the Delve in relation to the other L-series locations. The dungeon in L3 is very</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> linear, but clearly situating it in the L1 Area Map helps to give it more of a feel as just another location in the sandbox.</span></p></div>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-33668306842243117932023-08-03T12:19:00.016-07:002023-08-03T21:34:50.671-07:00L3 Deep Dwarven Delve: 1979 draft<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgK3hRXljgOUYZ2RMlnUfN68yMn0YT3JmKyxIl1OndBPj8nGSkR1VRmUdA0TbmrLtY67iRHsVzkKl9hjR72LtE8DgVlz93EMwbxr69840R-sA664yaLwcOpN-QFmE_V38RjQCF5Gr8Nm_QweGHt_dsUwMtnxeAbOiKUxAitAz0J5aPmnwIJfkZz7cNuaE/s920/Deep%20Dwarven%20Delve%20Final%20Correction%20Copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="690" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgK3hRXljgOUYZ2RMlnUfN68yMn0YT3JmKyxIl1OndBPj8nGSkR1VRmUdA0TbmrLtY67iRHsVzkKl9hjR72LtE8DgVlz93EMwbxr69840R-sA664yaLwcOpN-QFmE_V38RjQCF5Gr8Nm_QweGHt_dsUwMtnxeAbOiKUxAitAz0J5aPmnwIJfkZz7cNuaE/w357-h476/Deep%20Dwarven%20Delve%20Final%20Correction%20Copy.jpg" width="357" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Lakofka's photo of the vintage typescript draft for L3</span></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The late <b>Lenard Lakofka</b> is probably best remembered for his long-running, detailed-oriented column in Dragon magazine, <b>Leomund's Tiny Hut</b> (1979-1986), and for writing the classic AD&D modules <b>L1 The Secret of Bone Hill</b> (1981) and <b>L2 The Assassin's Knot</b> (1983). The former is innovative as a small sandbox, the latter as a murder mystery, and they were drawn from the adventures he ran in his home campaign set in the <b>Lendore Isles</b>, which were later incorporated</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> by </span><b style="font-family: arial;">Gary Gygax</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> into the </span><b style="font-family: arial;">World of Greyhawk </b><span style="font-family: arial;">(1980). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">No further L-coded modules appeared during the era of 1st Edition AD&D, and thus for many years that was it for the series, as far as gamers knew. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">However, after ownership of D&D passed from TSR to Wizards of Coast, they surprised us by publishing a third installment for the 25th anniversary of D&D. Specifically, the 1999 Silver Anniversary Collector's set included the module</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Dwarven_Delve" style="font-family: arial;">L3 Deep Dwarven Delve</a>, <span style="font-family: arial;">touted on its cover as "the last 1st Edition AD&D adventure ever to be published!", because it "lain unseen and forgotten in the TSR design vault for twenty years". </span><span style="font-family: arial;">However, as </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Shannon Appelcline reports on </span><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/111269/L3-Deep-Dwarven-Delve-1e?affiliate_id=53395" style="font-family: arial;">the DriveThruRPG page for the product</a><span style="font-family: arial;">, this story may only be considered accurate if you expansively include Lakofka's home as part of "the TSR design vault":</span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">"[Sean K. Reynolds of WOTC] said that all of TSR's copies of the adventure had been "lost or destroyed" over the years. The adventure (apparently) resurfaced only when Lakofka found a copy around his house and sent it to Roger E. Moore in 1997 ... [who] then passed the adventure on to Reynolds in 1998."</span></div></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Furthermore, as Appelcline explains, even after the original was located, publishing it was not without snags: </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"> </span></p><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">"[Wizards] thought [Delve] needed "depth and clarification" to bring it up to modern AD&D standards. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lakofka was happy to oblige and produced a new version of his adventure… which Wizards again lost. Lakofka says that he didn't hear about the loss until after "Delve" was published, by which time a number of Wizards developers had stepped in to do the required expansion for the adventure ... </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Lakofka says that "Delve" is about 80% comprised of material he'd turned in two decades earlier."</span></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The reception to L3 was somewhat mixed. While most were grateful for another AD&D module, especially one that written during the original era, some were disappointed that it wasn't as innovative as Lakofka's earlier modules, being a rather linear dungeon crawl. And being a limited edition, copies became increasingly expensive over the years, although <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/111269/L3-Deep-Dwarven-Delve-1e?affiliate_id=53395">now you can get an inexpensive pdf or print-on-demand copy</a> from DriveThruRPG. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In the years after L3 was published, Lakofka became active in D&D circles again, eventually releasing more Lendore material through Dragonsfoot, including <a href="https://www.dragonsfoot.org/fe/#FEAD13"><b>L4 Devilspawn</b> and </a><b><a href="https://www.dragonsfoot.org/fe/#FEAD13">L5 The Kroten Campaign</a>.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another twenty years had passed when, in 2018, Lakofka once again located in his house a copy of the draft for L3, in a formatted typescript, and posted a photo of it (shown above) <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghmaps/posts/1711305718932821/?comment_id=1715457001851026">in a comment</a> to a FB group, the Flanaess Geographical Society.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's exciting to see this typescript draft, particularly because the cover is</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> laid out in vintage TSR format. I don't recall ever seeing a draft of this type </span><span style="font-family: arial;">for any other TSR module. And with "FINAL CORRECTION COPY" written across the top, it suggests that at one point someone (Lakofka? a TSR editor?) considered it close to finished.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">While his photo only shows the cover page and a small portion of one interior page, there are still interesting details to be</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> gleaned:</span> </div><div> </div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote>---The title is "The Deep Dwarven Delve", which became just "Deep Dwarven Delve" as published, although the interior text still refers to it by the original title in several places. </blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">---The cover has a copyright date is 1979 and uses the <a href="https://www.acaeum.com/library/logos.html">TSR Wizard Logo</a>.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> Lakofka ran Deep Dwarven Delve at Gen Con 12 in August 1979, <a href="http://tomeoftreasures.com/tot_convention/tot_gen_con_pages/tot_convention_gencon_xii.htm">according to the program book</a>, indicating that the adventure had taken shape by mid-1979. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">While the draft's 1979 date could just indicate when it was originally written, the Wizard Logo was phased out in 1980, and L1 employs TSR's next logo, the Face Logo. This suggests that this draft, which must have been prepared by an editor at TSR, actually does date to 1979 or 1980.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">---It refers to "one part of a four-part series", whereas the published version, which has different cover text, states that it was "[w]ritten as the concluding adventure of the "L" series". This suggests that Lakofka not only wrote this draft of L3 written in 1979, but also conceived that the series would include an L4 at the time. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">WOTC in the '90s</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> omitted any mention of further unfinished work, possibly because they wanted to seem like they were bringing the L-series to a conclusion.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">---The reference to "three level maps" matches the published version, but the "aerial view of the mountain and surrounding areas", does not. Either this was never finished, lost, or omitted by WOTC.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> And this is a big omission, because there's no indication in L3 as to where exactly it is located on the memorable area maps found in L1 and L2. As Lakofka wrote on FB: "i looked at L3. there is no area map. i would not miss something that basic. But TSR did".</span> </blockquote><blockquote>---It also mentions "monster rosters", and the published module does, in fact, contain a section titled "Rosters" on pages 5-7, which has a list of monsters for each of the three levels of the dungeon. </blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">---It recommends characters of levels 2-6, with approximately 40 levels total, whereas the published module suggests 6-10 characters of levels 3-6, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">average 4, with about 35 total levels and no more than 45 (page 4).</span> </blockquote><blockquote>---The small portion of the interior page shown in the photo contains text that is close to the same material as published, with a few minor changes. The original reads:</blockquote></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-family: arial;">NOTES FOR THE DUNGEON MASTER</span></b> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The Deep Dwarven Delve can be played at two levels; first as an orc stronghold (level one), and second as a hidden treasure store and place of great evil (levels two and three). The upper level of the Delve is filled with orcs, bugbears, ogres, trolls an a magic-user. They do not know of the.......................................first level of the Delve</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This was changed on page 4 of the published module to:</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><b style="font-family: arial;">PREPARING TO PLAY</b> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Deep Dwarven Delve can be played as two linked adventures; first as a humanoid stronghold (Level One), and second as a hidden treasure store and place of great evil (Levels Two and Three).</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(the heading "NOTES FOR THE DM" was moved to page 3, after the Background)</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial;">---The last sentence in the original paragraph exactly describes the composition of monsters found in the "First Level Roster" on page 5 as published. This suggests the types of monsters on the first level were not changed from draft to publication.</span></div></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Lakofka later indicated he was preparing a comparison document between the two versions, but unfortunately ended up putting it aside when he moved, and never got back to it or shared what he had completed. He did, however, make the comment that "TSR decided to change the final encounter in the Delve (along with a few minor changes in other encounters)" (</span><a href="TSR decided to change the final encounter in the Delve (along with a few minor changes in other encounters)" style="font-family: arial;">here on FB</a><span style="font-family: arial;">), which together with the details gathered from the draft cover page suggests that overall, the published version of L3 is not too dissimilar to what he original drafted in 1979.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In future posts, I will take a look at where L3 should be located on the L1 area map, and also what Lakofka intended for the original final encounter of L3.</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-68231709342373121002023-08-01T08:35:00.002-07:002023-08-01T08:37:08.212-07:00STAR SCHLOCK KS Final Hours!<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJjk6hYNtk7Rul4t0s_-B0vroo1AtgGBzTWMXnCse01VX_ubp-HSZxj4U1QD_QjytzHp1agqvqN3AndTh7tcWP51Ttl7-69iGZH4Xw-DYvHIR3x2MuoqX5cb_oaIgmkhRTkZ67Zb_a9GiaWc6DUsn-FH-IWJdnNj6D4G1GFJIE8x4nfyP6oiJorqc_tM/s1551/80b9404353d7caf5e9092917611157aa_original%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1551" data-original-width="670" height="523" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJjk6hYNtk7Rul4t0s_-B0vroo1AtgGBzTWMXnCse01VX_ubp-HSZxj4U1QD_QjytzHp1agqvqN3AndTh7tcWP51Ttl7-69iGZH4Xw-DYvHIR3x2MuoqX5cb_oaIgmkhRTkZ67Zb_a9GiaWc6DUsn-FH-IWJdnNj6D4G1GFJIE8x4nfyP6oiJorqc_tM/w226-h523/80b9404353d7caf5e9092917611157aa_original%20(1).jpg" width="226" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The kickstarter for the <b>STAR SCHLOCK Battle Game</b>, which I featured in <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/07/star-schlock-battle-game-kickstarter.html">my previous post</a>, ends this evening. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Based on all of the stretch goals that have been unlocked so far, a $95 Recruit pledge will get you the game plus at least 25 metal minis!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Find it here:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/star-schlock-astros/star-schlock-battle-game-miniatures-and-skirmish-rules" style="background-color: white; color: #3243ff; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Star Schlock Battle Game</span></a></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-23716587702175401392023-07-25T16:39:00.003-07:002023-07-25T16:44:07.512-07:00STAR SCHLOCK Battle Game (Kickstarter)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/634/560/2f107538802ccd85cc1cf44d770639c6_original.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.0.2&w=680&fit=max&v=1689519983&gif-q=50&q=92&s=f8a02407fe10afd908b2dfd09fe3d9a8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="670" height="411" src="https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/634/560/2f107538802ccd85cc1cf44d770639c6_original.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.0.2&w=680&fit=max&v=1689519983&gif-q=50&q=92&s=f8a02407fe10afd908b2dfd09fe3d9a8" width="503" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Scrum Club</b> member John S., who blogs over at the <a href="http://1000footgeneral.blogspot.com/">1000 Foot General</a>, is currently running <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/star-schlock-astros/star-schlock-battle-game-miniatures-and-skirmish-rules">a kickstarter for his skirmish miniatures game</a>, <b>Star Schlock</b>. As the tagline in the graphic says, this game is inspired by the tropes and aesthetics of all of those sci-fi shows and movies we loved as kids - Trek, Planet of the Apes, Buck Rogers, SW, etc. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've pledged for the "Recruit" level, which supplies the <b>Star Schlock Battle Game</b> set, including the rulebooks, dice, cards, organizing consoles, and tokens for playing the game, plus a starter set of 12 pewter minis (unpainted) - 6 each of Space Apes and Explorer Corps. Higher pledges levels include more minis. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">It's already blown way past its funding goal, with all sorts of bonuses for different pledge levels being unlocked.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/534/024/4f668b1de2b98ce8d722a413c20afe94_original.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.0.2&w=680&fit=max&v=1688694328&gif-q=50&q=92&s=9bbc591599f54ffd3e2774e5cbfaa0a5" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="219" data-original-width="670" height="149" src="https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/534/024/4f668b1de2b98ce8d722a413c20afe94_original.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.0.2&w=680&fit=max&v=1688694328&gif-q=50&q=92&s=9bbc591599f54ffd3e2774e5cbfaa0a5" width="456" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Space Apes vs Explorer Corps</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It's running for about one more week; find it here:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/star-schlock-astros/star-schlock-battle-game-miniatures-and-skirmish-rules">Star Schlock Battle Game</a></span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4046247285022763255.post-6438429861415129782023-07-23T10:59:00.005-07:002023-07-23T11:25:30.146-07:0050 Years of Text Games by Aaron A. Reed (new book)<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSmQPGNoeWNNoreP7cWYVTY-BjUBpC3-z5t65VK-d8ejaCOwYZ-tJDVVc8xrgAto6O3LWEJZM3v8tPCi3EmsaPtlAb2vh5qOneHL4qO1WNgQTVaMVKhnLB2-XAFH23e9Zu4LzwG0dAOuGRLSYzQgdQjdgGQu1JTvq0RlWJlkq9Cz2duCux5Gc2Anw4e0/s3060/20230722_231254.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3060" data-original-width="2723" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSmQPGNoeWNNoreP7cWYVTY-BjUBpC3-z5t65VK-d8ejaCOwYZ-tJDVVc8xrgAto6O3LWEJZM3v8tPCi3EmsaPtlAb2vh5qOneHL4qO1WNgQTVaMVKhnLB2-XAFH23e9Zu4LzwG0dAOuGRLSYzQgdQjdgGQu1JTvq0RlWJlkq9Cz2duCux5Gc2Anw4e0/w343-h385/20230722_231254.jpg" width="343" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">My copy of 50 Years of Text Games, which arrived recently</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It was a memorable evening in the early '80s when I first encountered text-based computer games. While staying over at my friend Eric's house, his mom took us into her work place, which I think was a Motorola office, after business hours. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">She left us to ourselves in an office with a computer </span><span style="font-family: arial;">connected to </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter" style="font-family: arial;">a teleprinter</a> <span style="font-family: arial;">that printed out everything that we typed and that it outputted,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> which I never encountered again</span><span style="font-family: arial;">. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Eric already knew some of the games: a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(1971_video_game)">Star Trek one</a> where you controlled the Enterprise, which we played briefly, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure">Adventure</a>, which really struck a chord as we were already heavily into D&D. Eric got us past a few early obstacles, like the snake, that he knew about before we got stuck. Then we went to another office where two guys were also playing Adventure, like a scene out of AMC's </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2VUew3ZO20" style="font-family: arial;">Halt and Catch Fire</a><span style="font-family: arial;">, on a computer with a monitor. They let us watch, and based on my D&D knowledge, I suggested trying to burn the troll with the lamp oil, but it didn't work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Without a computer at home I didn't get to play Adventure, or any text game, again for a number of years, but eventually we got a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_1000">Tandy 1000 SL</a>, and I bought <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork">Zork</a> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">at </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Usk26GjpQ" style="font-family: arial;">Babbage's in the local mall</a> <span style="font-family: arial;">after playing it at another kid's house and recognizing it was very similar to Adventure. Zork then led me to the myriad other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infocom">Infocom</a> titles, like Planetfall, the Lurking Horror and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, only some of which I was able finish. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I even tracked down Adventure by sending away for a shareware/freeware floppy disk that also included another simplistic D&D-inspired text game, </span><a href="https://eamon.wiki/The_Beginners_Cave" style="font-family: arial;">The Beginner's Cave</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_(video_game)">Wonderful World of Eamon</a> system. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">These were the only text-based games that I encountered back in the '80s, and a</span><span style="font-family: arial;">fter that I've only briefly played them, but always remembered the genre fondly and have been inspired by it when designing challenges for D&D adventures, like </span><a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-forgotten-smugglers-cave-index-of.html" style="font-family: arial;">the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave</a><span style="font-family: arial;">, which contains <a href="https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-forgotten-smugglers-cave-13-twisty.html#map">an area like the maze of the twisty little passages</a> in Adventure.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now I just received a new book, <b>50 Years of Text Games</b>, by Aaron A. Reed, that provides great context for my early adventures in text, and also shows how they've continued on over the years, and developed in different ways. S</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ubtitled "from Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon and everything ... in between", it profiles one important game for each year from 1971 to 2019, stretching over 600 pages (!). </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The book started as a blog that was run throughout the year of 2021, and the posts are archived <a href="https://if50.substack.com/archive">here</a> for anyone interested. I </span><span style="font-family: arial;">picked up my hardcopy via <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aaronareed/50-years-of-text-games?fbclid=IwAR0_N4dWfmoYoVrO05s_md3KXM4zOBOnSjE6uGCn5DvHPoi3Lisu2qzVqXQ">a subsequent kickstarter</a>, which I believe is now sold out, but a digital version is still available.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've already read a few sections, including the intro to the 1970s and the entry for the ground-breaking </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea_(video_game)" style="font-family: arial;">Galatea</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> (2000), and am enjoying the clear prose, and am looking forward to reading more. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">One takeway, also gleaned from following the <a href="Renga in Blue">Renga in Blue</a> blog, is that there were far more text-based games produced back in the 70s and 80s than I ever realized.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>See also</b>: The <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/">Renga in Blue</a>, where the author is attempting to play every text adventure game by year of release.</span></p>Zenopus Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.com1