The "D&D For Beginners" Dungeon Model - Part II

This is the second in a series of posts looking at the dungeon model that Chris Holmes designed for a "Dungeons & Dragons for Beginners" scenario that he and his father ran at Gen Con XII in 1979. The first post is here. All color photography is by Chris Holmes and is posted here with his permission.

In this post we'll look at the three areas in the first row of the dungeon:

The middle room is the same entrance chamber we saw in the first post, but from the opposite side. It's hard to see but doors (behind the archway in this shot) lead to the left and right rooms.

Entrance chamber. Click for a larger view.

The room on the right has brick walls, and two areas. There are bear skin rugs in the corner and a giant battle-axe on the wall. Chris mentioned that the dungeon had an Ogre and Orcs so this was possibly their chamber.

Brick Room. Click for a larger view.

And on the left is a temple chamber, with images painted on one wall.

Temple. Click for a larger view.

This temple also appeared on page 163 Holmes' FRPG book:

Original caption: "Temple of the Bloodstained God. Temple Set by Grenadier. Aztecs by Minifig. Dungeon decor by Chris Holmes, photography by Steve Pyryezstov"

The Grenadier Temple Set is SS07 The Temple, seen here at the Lost Minis Wiki.

Ad for Grenadier SS07. Scan by the Lost Minis Wiki.

Note that the big statue at the top of the stairs seems to have disappeared between the 1981 photo and the more recent photo.

Here's another shot from directly above the entrance, the temple and the small area behind the temple. You can see the doors between rooms more clearly here:

Chris: "The temple had a hidden chamber with a trap door containing real green slime!"
"Here you can see behind the temple the secret room which is a couple inches higher than floor level. It had a trap door which fell into a cup of green slime. Matell actually made green slime as a toy, unrelated to the D&D monster. My green slime trap fooled both groups we played through the dungeon which made me very happy."

Hidden Chamber with Green Slime Trap. Click for a larger view.

The "D&D For Beginners" Dungeon Model

In a recent post I mentioned that J. Eric Holmes and his son Chris ran a game at Gen Con XII in 1979 called "Dungeons & Dragons for Beginners". And for this they used a large 3 by 6-foot dungeon model decorated by Chris. This amazing model still exists and Chris has sent me pictures of it to share.

Essentially the dungeon is a grid with nine sections each about 1 by 2 feet (by my estimate). Some of the sections are further subdivided into multiple areas/rooms. Per Chris, the "rooms were originally covered by pieces of cardboard until their doors were opened".  For transport to Gen Con - then at the University of Wisconsin Parkside - they "boxed up the dungeon and checked it as oversized luggage".

Today we'll just start with the entrance. A staircase leads down to an archway:

This room has actually appeared publicly before: it was used as the setting for two pictures in Holmes' 1981 FRPG book. The first, on page 49, illustrates an encounter in the sample dungeon found in chapter 4:

Original Caption: "In the maze of the minotaur. Figure by Archive, photographic effects by Steve Pyryeztov"

I think the minotaur miniature shown here is actually from Heritage 1351 Minotaurs.

The second appears on page 171, as part of Chapter 11, "Little Metal People". Here you can see several of the same marks on the tiles that appear in the recent photo above:

Original Caption: "Poof! Alkarzotz the sorcerer meets the flaming salamander. Magician figure by Ral Partha, photographic effects by Steve Pyryeztov.

The wizard Alkarzotz is a very early Ral Partha figure, 01-001 Evil Wizard Casting Spell, sculpted by Tom Meier as part of the Fantasy Line. 

Chris says: "I got to assist the photographer the day he took those photos; we all had a lot of fun.  Dad probably paid the photographer more than he ever made off that book but he did get an excellent portrait and I got to see my dungeon in print."