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Werebear by Dave Trampier from the original Monster Manual (1977) |
An update to a post I wrote last fall, not long after I started the blog:
I was re-reading Holmes' Adventure of the Giant Chameleon (A&E #14, Aug '76) and noticed a Beorning character in the first paragraph, "shifting nervously from human form and back again". This tale is a story from Holmes' games with his sons, so this shows he had a player running a werebear PC (presumably lawful) at least once. Thus, all of the exotic classes he mentioned in the Blue Book are now accounted for: centaurs, samurai and werebears.
If you look closely at the mention of the Green Dragon Inn at the start of the Sample Dungeon, you'll see it described as "human and non-humans from all over the globe meet here". Notably that's "non-humans" rather than demi-humans. In Maze of Peril, Holmes also has a Green Dragon Inn, where a centaur shows up, and at least one serpentman is mentioned in passing. One of the Boinger and Zereth short stories in Dragon also has a noblewoman with a lizardman guard in the same town. Overall, this gives the Green Dragon Inn, and Holmes' campaign, a "Creature Cantina" feel. Very different from Gygax's preferences elaborated in the 1E DMG.
Looking back on the post, I didn't mention where a samurai character could be found. Zatushigi the samurai appears in the party with Boinger and Zereth in the Adventure of the Lost City, Part I (A&E #17, Nov '76).
This is an excellent bit of research. I just don't have the Holmes material or the knowledge of OD&D or the Holmes basic set to be able to delve into it myself.
ReplyDeleteI will be transcribing that Holmes article from Alarums&Excursions #14 (as well as the comments about it in following issues if I can), though tonight I am working on transcribing an article about Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Castle adventure from GenCon IX.