Holmes Day 2025

J. Eric Holmes at his chalkboard game table, contemplating miniatures and notes.
Taken by Tony Bernard for the 1979 L.A. Times article, "Fantasy Life in a Game Without End";
a cropped version appears with the article. Scan of the original photo courtesy Bill Galaxy.

For fans of the Holmes Basic Set, today is notable as it marks the birthday of its editor, J. Eric Holmes. And this year he would have been 95 years old, although sadly we lost him in 2010 at the age of 80.

To mark the occasion, here are some Holmes-ian highlights from the last year:

February

For Leap Day 2024, I shared a new monster inspired by Holmes' Sample Dungeon: the Giant Zenopus.

March

At Gary Con 2024, I ran two games, one of which was a session of the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave, my Ruined Tower of Zenopus-adjacent dungeon. Later in the year I worked on preparing this for publication, although I haven't been able to finish it yet.

April

At our local Scrum Con 2024, I ran the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave again, and also an impromptu fill-in session of the original Ruined Tower of Zenopus sample dungeon, which is always a blast.

May

May saw the publication of 50 Years of D&D, which includes an article, "Doctor Holmes I Presume?' How a California Neurology Professor Penned the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set", co-written by Tony Rowe and yours truly. Read more about the book here: 50 Years of D&D.

June

Pacesetter Games published the Islands of Peril, the latest adaptation of Holmes' original campaign maps and notes, to which I contributed a Foreword discussing the maps and notes on which it was based.

Wizkids promo photo. Source.

July

WizKids released a line of miniatures for the 50th anniversary of D&D, which included the Red Dragon, Blue Wizard and Green Knight from the cover of the Holmes Basic set. I have been somewhat frustrated with the availability of these figures, and haven't written a separate post about them on the blog, although I still might.

August 

I wrote about the return of the OSR zine Fight On #15, with an issue dedicated to Holmes, including an article by myself about how to Holmesify your OSR game.

September

I reviewed a Holmes Basic metal sign available from Ata-Boy via Amazon.

November

I wrote about the Coleman-Rider-Waite Deck tarot card The Tower, and its thematic similarities to the Tower of Zenopus.

December

I shared the "Tower of Xenopus", a writeup by Tony Stroppa of his adaptation of the Sample Dungeon for the Greek mythology-based Mazes & Minotaurs RPG.

January

Looking forward to Gary Con 2025, I wrote about the games I will be running, one of which is The Eye of Arzaz, Holmes' other sample dungeon from his 1981 book Fantasy Role-Playing Games.

 

FIGHT ON fanzine returns with an issue dedicated to J. Eric Holmes!

 

The long dormant OSR zine Fight On! has returned from the crypt with a new issue, #15, dedicated to none other than J. Eric Holmes...! 

Find it on DrivethruRPG (currently PDF only; print is coming) or on Lulu (print or PDF).

For this issue I contributed an article, titled "Ten Ways to Holmesify Your Game", which goes over ten different rules or themes you can use to make your D&D game more "Holmesian". It is accompanied by an illustration by Cameron Hawkey of adventurers tangling with a purple worm.

Other Holmesian content in this issue includes:

• "Holmes Town Heroes" by Tony Rowe (with whom I co-authored an chapter about Holmes in the recent book Fifty Years of D&D), which provides D&D character write-ups for Boinger, Zereth and Murray the Mage from Holmes' stories.

• "Bringing it All Back Holmes": Holmes Basic origin stories from Aron Clark (author of the Holmes & Clark RPG), Grodog and Calithena.

• "Distributary of Darkness" by Alex Zisch expands an area of the Sample Dungeon.

• Two original dungeon maps by J. Eric Holmes that relate to the Maze of Peril (these can also be found in Things Better Left Alone).

• A page of art by Chris Holmes

Plus loads of other content, including a continuation of the long-running Darkness Beneath megadungeon!

All of the Back issues of Fight On are also available, either individually or in compilations (see the links above).

Fifty Years of D&D: Table of Contents

Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons has been out for two days now, and copies have begun to arrive in the mail. Here you can see my co-author Tony's copy, together with his collection of reference material for the essay we wrote (Tony has one of the best collections anywhere of J. Eric Holmesiana). Read more about our essay and the book both here and on Tony's blog. If you haven't order your copy yet, you can get it here on Amazon:

50 Years of Dungeons & Dragons

And I'm happy to announce that the full Table of Contents can now be found on the MIT Press site here, along with a preview of the first page of each chapter. For convenience, I've copied the ToC over to here & annotated with links to other books by a few of the authors that I'm aware of:

PREFACE - page xi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - page xiii

1. Is This The Golden Age Of Dungeons & Dragons? - page 1
by Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José P. Zagal (co-author of the new Seeing Red: Nintendo's Virtual Boy, also from MIT Press)

Introduction To Designer Vignettes - page 13
by Sam Mannell

FIFTY YEARS OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 
Designer Vignettes I - page 15

2. Fantasy Games At Fifty: An Academic Memoir - page 17
by Gary Alan Fine (author of the 1983 book Shared Fantasy)

3. Exploration And Experience: The Game Changers - page 23
by Jon Peterson (author of The Elusive Shift, Game Wizards, and the forthcoming second edition of Playing at the World).

4. Combat In Dungeons & Dragons: A Short History Of Design Trajectories - page 43
by Evan Torner

5. “Doctor Holmes, I Presume?”: How A California Neurology Professor Penned The First Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set - page 63
by Tony A. Rowe And Zach Howard

6. Reflections On The Open Game License: An Interview With Ryan Dancey - page 79
by Michael Iantorno

7. Playing Custom: A Curious History Of Dungeons & Dragons–Based Digital Games Modifications - page 91
by Mateusz Felczak

8. A Return To The Magic Circle: Dungeons & Dragons And Friendship & Magic Fifty Years On - page 109
by Stephen Webley

INFLUENCING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Designer Vignettes II - page 119

9. “You’re Going To Be Amazing”: The Mercer Effect And Performative Play In Dungeons & Dragons - page 121
by Esther Maccallum-Stewart

10. The Other D&D: Religion(S) In Dungeons & Dragons From Deities & Demigods To Today - page 141
by Adrian Hermann

11. Spelling With Dice: The Role Of Dungeons & Dragons In Contemporary Speculative Fiction 161
by Dimitra Nikolaidou

12. Classrooms And Dragons: Learning From Dungeons & Dragons - page 179
by Premeet Sidhu

13. An Ensemble Of (Role-)Players? Exploring The Influence Of Performance On Dungeons & Dragons - page 197
by David Harris And Josiah Lulham

14. Forging Family Through Queer Dungeons & Dragons - page 211
by Jay Malouf-Grice

CRITICALLY PLAYING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Designer Vignettes III - page 229

15. “Race” And Race: Longitudinal Trends In Dungeons & Dragons Character Creation - page 231
by Amanda Cote And Emily Saidel

16. Hack The Orcs, Loot The Tomb, And Take The Land: Reflections On Settler Colonialism, Indigeneity, And Otherwise Possibilities Of Dungeons & Dragons - page 259
by Daniel Heath Justice

17. Seeking The Unimaginable: Rules, Race, And Adolescent Desire In Dungeons & Dragons - page 275
by Aaron Trammell And Antero Garcia

18. Defamiliarizing Dungeons & Dragons: Playing Out Western Fantasy In Singapore - page 283
by Kellynn Wee

19. Soft Communities And Vicarious Deviance In Dungeons & Dragons - page 301
by Victor Raymond (who blogs at the Sandbox of Doom) and Gary Alan Fine

FUTURES

Designer Vignettes IV - page 323

20. D&D&D&D&D: Imagining Dungeons & Dragons At 150 And Beyond - page 325

by Jonathan Walton

Fifty Years of D&D: Out Today!

As I wrote three weeks ago, today is the release date for Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons, a new retrospective compilation published by The MIT Press celebrating the half-centennial of D&D. It includes a chapter that I co-wrote, along with Tony Rowe, about the work of J. Eric Holmes. For more details, see my earlier post, "50 Years of D&D: Forthcoming Book from MIT Press".

The book is now available for regular ordering from various booksellers. Here is the Amazon order page:

50 Years of Dungeons & Dragons

50 Years of D&D: Forthcoming Book from MIT Press

Over the past five years, The MIT Press has curated an impressive series of Game Studies books, including several of great interest to myself and readers of this blog: Appendix N: the Eldritch Roots of Dungeons & Dragons (published by Strange Attractions and distributed by MIT Press), and several by Jon Peterson: The Elusive Shift, Game Wizards, and the forthcoming second edition of Playing at the World. The full list of books in their series can be viewed here.

The latest book in the series, out on May 14th, is Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons, an anthology tied to this year's half-centennial of D&D. It contains various chapters written by the likes of Jon Peterson, Gary Alan Fine (author of Shared Fantasy), and Daniel Justice, and edited by Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter and José P. Zagal, all academics at various universities. 

Having written the above, I find myself a bit stunned to also announce that I was able to contribute to this volume...! 

Specifically, among the contents is a chapter on J. Eric Holmes that I have co-written, along with Tony Rowe of the Cryptic Archivist blog, titled "'Doctor Holmes I Presume?' How a California Neurology Professor Penned the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set".

I haven't seen a physical copy yet, but the book is slated to be a 392-page, 6 by 9 inch papeback with 16 black & white illustrations and the color cover posted above (I'm not sure who the artist is, but I will update this when I find out). I will share the full contents of the book in a future post (Update: the Table of Contents are now posted here).

It's currently available for pre-order on Amazon ($34.99), and with a price drop guarantee:

50 Years of Dungeons & Dragons

And there is also a Kindle version available for $25.99. Other booksellers offering it can be found through the MIT Press page.

Many thanks to Tony for asking if I wanted to work on this with him, submitting the proposal for our chapter, and generally organizing and driving things forward!

See also:

Playing at the World Revised Edition Out in July, with a cover by Erol Otus!

"The Making of OD&D: 1970-1977": Everything We Know About this Book

Update:

Tony has now also written about the book: "Book update: Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons"

50 Years of Dungeons & Dragons: Table of Contents

Playing at the World revised edition out in JulyWith a cover by Erol Otus!

Cover by Erol Otus...!

Playing at the World, 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 as I reported previously a revised second edition is coming later this year from MIT Press. 

The expanded book will now be split into two volumes, with the first one, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons, 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". 

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 Erol Otus (shown above)*. The first volume is now available for pre-order from Amazon for $29.95, and with a price guarantee:

Playing at the World, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: The Invention of D&D

I've pre-ordered it myself.

It will be followed later by Volume 2: The Three Pillars of Role-Playing Games, "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: 2: Setting - The Medieval Fantasy Genre; 3: System - The Rules of the Game; and 4: Character - Roles and Immersion. 

*Thanks for captainjapan on the OD&D74 forums for this news.

Sutherland Dragon mini from Wizkids

 

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.

Pre-order it from Amazon here:

WizKids Classic Red Dragon

The full text from the product page reads:

"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 D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary - Classic Red Dragon Boxed Miniature (Set 31)! 

This set includes the red dragon as depicted on the cover of the 1977 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set. The beast among monsters. The tyrant among kings. The dragon among dragons."

Thanks to Josh and Leroyd20 on Twitter for a heads up on this release.

*Specifically, this upcoming weekend per the Playing at the World blog.

Update:

The Amazon pre-order page indicates that this will be shipping in early August of this year.

d12 Years of the Zenopus Archives!

This month marks twelve years since I started this blog, with today being the anniversary of when I first announced I would be posting here. 

In celebration of this anniversary, below you will see an autogenerated table of random posts from the past twelve years of this blog. Grab a d12 and roll for one to read. And then refresh your browser to see twelve different posts. 

Random Zenopus Archives Post (Roll d12)

And for a list of the highlights of the first ten years, see my earlier post Ten Years of the Zenopus Archives.

Blue Flame, Tiny Stars by Stephen Wendell

 

Arriving in the mail the day before yesterday was my comp copy of Blue Flame, Tiny Stars, a memoir of experiencing D&D for the first time by Stephen Wendell, who blogs over at Donjon Lands. In fact, this book started life as a series of posts over on that blog.

Get your copy here in PDF or POD:

Blue Flame, Tiny Stars at DrivethruRPG

Before publication, Stephen provided me with a copy of the compiled text for review, and here is the blurb that I provided him with after reading it:

“I greatly enjoyed Blue Flame, Tiny Stars, Stephen Wendell’s charming memoir of his discovery of Dungeons & Dragons in the early 1980s. It holds a particular fascination for me, as Stephen starts with the same version of the D&D Basic Set in the same year as myself. I recommend this book not just to fans of ‘Holmes Basic’ but to anyone who enjoys playing Dungeons & Dragons. The author’s clear prose captures the excitement of those early, half-remembered adventures when everything about the game was new and awe-inspiring.”

Now that I have the final product in hand, I can see that the document that I read has been turned into a beautiful book featuring a homage cover to Sutherland's original cover art, and other illustrations within by Stephen. It is about 30 pages long and zine-sized, and I am looking forward to reading again in this format.

Fear of a Black Dragon podcast: Tower of Zenopus

 

Fear of a Black Dragon is a long-running podcast covering FRPG adventures and settings, with a focus on both the old school and the modern. The latest episode is dedicated to none other than the Tower of Zenopus, aka the Sample Dungeon from the Holmes Basic rulebook. Find it here:

Fear of a Black Dragon: The Tower of Zenopus

I've listened to the episode & enjoyed it; they do a great job covering why the adventure has remained a fan favorite among old school D&D enthusiasts. The second half is directed to what elements to include in a sample adventure in a RPG rulebook, so may be of more general interest.

The Zenopus Archives itself gets a shout-out near the end of the show as "weirdly obsessively fascinating", which suggests I am doing something right thing here. In that vein, I left two comments on the page for the episode, and I will add a few more here:

• The podcast mentions that Gygax toned down the spider in the dungeon in the 1978 version of the rulebook (which is the 2nd edition). While this is true, it happened only after an initial ratcheting up of the spider's lethality. In Holmes' manuscript, the giant spider has but a single HD, which was changed to 6 HD (!) for the first publication in July 1977. The revised version in 1978 scales this back to 4+4 HD, in line with the Monster Manual, which had come out in the intervening year. You can read about this in more detail in Part 49 of the Holmes Manuscript series. 

• The podcast also mentions the dagger hidden in the abdomen of the spider. This is not in Holmes' manuscript, so was added to the published version, presumably by Gygax, who was fond of concealed treasures.

You can find other recordings of interest, mostly audio but a few video, on the Zenopus Archives site here.

Gary Gygax Day 2022

Graphic by Jim Wampler

Happy Gary Gygax Day 2022!

As I don't have a new post ready, I'll highlight one I made a few months ago:

Gygax's "City on the Edge" Adventure: post-TSR Greyhawk development

See also these previous posts that I made for Gary Gygax Day:

2021: d20 Unexpectedly Intelligent Monsters in the Monster Manual (1977)

2020: First Adventures in Dungeoneering

2018: Gygax's Dungeon Delving Play Reports

2012: Obscure Art Friday: "Chainmail" by Gygax

Holmes' Pellucidar Novels to be Reprinted

 

In my last post, I featured an episode of a podcast on which Chris Holmes was a guest, and where he made an exciting announcement: his father's two novels set in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar setting are going to be reprinted later this summer by the ERB Inc, as part of their new "Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe" line. 

Holmes' books include Mahars of Pellucidar, originally published by ACE books in 1976 and out-of-print ever since, and its sequel Red Axe of Pellucidar, which was written after Mahars but canceled by the ERB estate and thus never before available in an authorized publication (unauthorized copies have circulated at fan conventions).

Find the pre-order page here on the ERB website

The cover art for each has been done by Richard Hescox, a veteran illustrator of sci-fi and fantasy with credits stretching back to the '70s, and a frontispiece illustration has been provided by Chris Holmes.

Each book also includes bonus written material: a foreword by Chris Holmes, and a bonus story set in one of ERB's worlds by another author.

Each book is available in three different formats: paperback; hardcover; or a limited edition hardcover signed by Chris Holmes. I've pre-ordered the latter for myself.

Pre-orders also include a bonus trading card while supplies last.

It's great to finally have these available again (Mahars) or for the first time (Red Axe)!

Chris Holmes on the This Ol' Dungeon Podcast

 

While I was at Philmont, Chris Holmes alerted me that he would be appearing on an upcoming episode of the This Ol' Dungeon Podcast. The episode, number 22, is out now and can be found here:

Episode 22: Chris Holmes and the Tower of Zenopus

Here is the teaser for the episode: 

"This episode we are joined by Chris Holmes: artist, writer, hobby game designer, and all-around renaissance man.  Chris recounts his father's, John Eric Holmes, creation of the original D&D basic boxset as well as telling us about his own "made for the con" game designs-that he does as a way to express his interests and creativity.  He tells about an up-coming re-release of his father's Pellucidar books and hangs with us for the This Ol' Dungeon segment where we revisit "The Tower of Zenopus" - also known as the sample dungeon from the Holmes D&D boxset.  So, hang with us for another great episode!"

I've listened to it and enjoyed hearing Chris relate a few anecdotes about his father that I hadn't heard before as well an extensive critique of the Zenopus dungeon.

Links to other podcasts that Chris has appeared on previously can be found on the Podcasts page on the Zenopus Archives site.

Ten Years of the Zenopus Archives

Ten years ago today, I made the first post to this blog, "What lies in the (undiscovered) deeper levels where Zenopus met his doom?", which was titled after Holmes' question in the coda to the Sample Dungeon. It was essentially just a teaser post, with just two links, both still active: one to the Zenopus Archives site, which was already under construction, and one to the Holmes Basic subforum on ODD74. But soon after that I started to post regularly, which ballooned to 65 posts in the last four months of 2011, and then 130 the next year, a pace that I have not kept up with since. But I have kept at it, and now it's ten years later, which is almost three times as long as the original era of Holmes Basic, and I have no plans for stopping.

 Source

TSR celebrated their 10th Anniversary with a Collector's Set, so I'm doing the same with 10 years of highlights, a sort of "Collector's Set" for the Zenopus Archives:

2011

Holmes on Tolkien

Caves of Chaos Revealed

2012

Warlock or How to Play D&D without playing D&D?

How Zenopus Met His Doom 

2013

The Cthulhu Mythos in D&D in the 1970s

Holmes Manuscript Series

2014

20 Backgrounds for OD&D

Fearsome Monsters

2015

Visualizing Castle Greyhawk

Beyond the Door to Monster Mountain

2016

Con Report for NTRPGCon 2016

Gygaxian Orc Tribes

2017

Holmes Ref 2.0

Tales of Peril Book Club

2018

Gygax's "Dungeon Delving" Playtest Reports

The J. Eric Holmes Photo Gallery

2019

The Holmes Basic G+ Community Archive

In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus at Gary Con

The Master's Lair, A Play Report

2020 

Release of The Ruined Tower of Zenopus 

In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus at Scrum Con

2021

d20 Unexpectedly Intelligent Monsters in the Monster Manual

Holmes Basic Cover Art: Exhibited!