Gary Con 2022: Day 1

Promo featuring "Beyond the Cosmic Veil" illustration by Doug Kovacs.
See a larger version of the art here on FB.

Last weekend Gary Con returned as an in-person event, after going virtual ("ethereal") for two years due to the pandemic, and was once again held at the enormous Grand Geneva hotel near the town of Lake Geneva, once home to Gary Gygax and TSR. I too returned, attending for my third time in-person, and fifth overall, and running two different D&D scenarios for the first time ever. 

Here are the highlights of my first day, Thursday the 24th, when I joined in three games:

The Tower of Ulission, the first part of an OD&D tournament written by Dave Emigh for Winter War in the 1977, and then later published as a module by Judges Guild in 1979, which was run by Demos, who blogs at the OSR Grimoire. Lots of riddles and problem-solving in this one, as well as combat. There was a heavy Tolkien influence to the under-appreciated Emigh's world-building, including the inclusion of verse (!). Our party finished our mission, but there was a shocking unexpected twist at the end that I've never encountered in a D&D adventure before! Demos, who also goes by paleologos, has an extensive review of the published module over here at Dragonsfoot. I also played in the second round of this tournament, which will covered in my post for Day 3.

Hell's Highway

I like to play miniatures games between RPG sessions for a break, so my next event was Hell's Highway, a Mad Max/Fury Road-inspired miniatures racing game using modded matchbox cars, the rules for which were developed and run at the con by Brad Poikonen. In this scenario we raced between checkpoints on a cloth gameboard covering the entire table, attempting to earn fuel for our tribe while battling with the other contestants. Brad mentioned that they were hoping to run a Kickstarter to produce the game.

Paul Stormberg DMing with his custom screen;
photo by fellow player Jonathan B.

In evening I played in Lost Crypts of the Fire Opal, a fleshed-out version of the Sample Dungeon from the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1979). The expansion and running of the game was done by Paul Stormberg, the maestro who organizes the entire Legends of Wargaming and Legends of Role-playing Game Halls for Gary Con. 

Slepni Svenhaas with character portrait by Jeff Dee

I ran the pre-gen Slepni Svenhaas, a mountain dwarf who was assisting his brother Grupni, also in the party in finding the Fire Opal in hopes of becoming the next king of their kingdom. The party was large and played great, with lots of problem-solving, but we ended abruptly with a near-TPK caused by use of Unseen Servant! We were too clever for our own good. 

This series continues with Day 2 of Gary Con.

Obscure Art Friday: Weighing the Heart of the Dead by Erol Otus

Erol Otus, Weighing the Heart of the Dead. Image source

The above picture is a fantastic full-page illustration by Erol Otus from Deities & Demigods (later retitled Legends & Lore), the fourth AD&D hardcover released in 1980. A tour-de-force of TSR's bullpen of artists at the time, it includes the work of Darlene, Dee, Diesel, Jaquays, Otus, Rosolf, Sutherland and Trampier, and lesser known artists (Eymoth, Jeff Lanners), all together in a single tome. 

But this picture is not in the highly sought after first or second printings that include the Cthulhu & Melnibonean Mythos, and which get the most attention these days. It was only added to the third printing when the Cthulhu & Melnibonean Mythos were removed. Some clues to the change are that Otus' signature includes an "81", which is the year after the book was originally published, and that Jeff Dee illustrated the rest of the Egyptian Mythos.

I'm not sure why TSR added this picture; I thought maybe they needed to fill in a page but by my count those two Mythos total 16 pages, which was exactly the amount removed (reducing the page count from 144 to 128 pages). Perhaps TSR let Otus add it because they were removing his stunning work on the Cthulhu Mythos (which he drew all of), which was his major contribution to the book besides the cover, title page illustration, and a few Non-Human Deities.

I had the version with this picture when I was kid and always liked it; these days I only have the earlier version but at some point realized this picture was not in it. I posted about it a few years ago in the Holmes Basic Community on G+. Per our discussions there, the image is a bit confusingly placed, as it comes on page 43 at the end of the Chinese Mythos, whose last entry is "Yen-Wang-Yeh (judge of the dead)", but the image is clearly illustrating a scene from the Egyptian Mythos, which after removal of the Cthulhu Mythos is placed right after the Chinese Mythos. 

Thoth is pictured in the background, and Anubis  in the foreground, fulfilling his role as "collector of the souls for transportation to the house of the dead", per his entry in the Egyptian Mythos. Curiously, there does not seem to be any further description of the Judgement scene anywhere else in the Egyptian Mythos, including any description of the creature standing behind the scales.

I found the above scan at the Sharktanks tumblr, where they wrote: 

"The Egyptian rite of Judgement from TSR’s “Deities and Demigods” by Erol Otus, 1980.  Still the only artistic depiction of the rite I’ve seen outside of the original hieroglyphs. The Devourer of the Dead is a lot bigger in this version than in the ancient copies I’ve seen."

The Wikipedia entry for the Book of the Dead gives more information, including a picture showing the same entities:

"This detail scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer (c. 1275 BCE), shows the scribe Hunefer's heart being weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth, by the jackal-headed Anubis. The ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart equals exactly the weight of the feather, Hunefer is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If not, he is eaten by the waiting chimeric devouring creature Ammit composed of the deadly crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead."

Obscure Art Friday: Bugbear Chieftain by Jeff Dee

     Here's a Bugbear Chieftain by Jeff Dee, circa 1980. According to the Monster Manual, a chief has "armor class 3, 28-30 hit points, attacking as a 4 hit dice monster, and doing +2 damage". The MM further specifies that bugbears use a range of weapons "from swords to clubs with spikes set in them (morning stars)", fitting with this fellow's sword and morning star. This bugbear wears similar armor (vest & arm pieces) as the one in the main illustration by David Sutherland in the MM. The Chieftain's shield appears wooden, with a knight emblazoned, and slightly damaged - perhaps plundered from a fallen adventurer?

     Like the Drow Captain from last week, this art was a design for a mini in the Grenadier Action Art Set Monsters (8002), 1980, although the sword was lowered, and it was retitled "Bugbear Chief", per the MM:

Bugbear Chief, Grenadier Action Art set Monsters 8002, image from the Lost Minis Wiki

     
     As with the last two pieces in this series, this art work originally surfaced in 2004. The Bugbear Chieftain art was resold on Ebay last November for about $240, along with the written description sheet for the artist to use: