Virtual NTRPGCon 2021: The Prison of Doom

Mezzo the Unknowable,
pregen for The Prison of Doom

NTRPGCon 2021 was this past weekend, and while I didn't make it there in person this year, I did participate in one virtual game yesterday morning, Jonathan Perkel's The Prison of Doom, a dungeon for Holmes Basic based on one that he originally wrote as a kid back in the 1980s. I've known Jonathan a while; we first met at NTRPGCon in 2016, and then a few years later there he played Boinger the first time I ran In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus, and the last time I attended in person, I played in a DCC game of his. He's also the one who started the Holmes Basic Facebook group, which these days has over 2,000 members, making it the largest community of Holmes fans.

Here is the description of The Prison of Doom from the event listing:

"Long ago, the evil wizard Madrax built a a fearsome prison dungeon into which he could banish any threat to his rule. Will you be the first to escape? 

This game will be played using the classic HOLMES BASIC system with a few house rules. It harkens back to those late 1970s and early 80s adventures where the dungeons didn't really make a lot of sense, but were lots of fun anyway."

The genre of the scenario is dungeon escape, like A4 In the Dungeon of the Slave Lords; but I'll refrain from giving any other spoilers here since he's planning on running this again at future cons, but suffice to say that obstacles were overcome, monsters were meleed, treasure was taken, and Jonathan included a number of Holmesian touches in the dungeon.

For play he used several of my Holmes Ref sheets, including the character sheets for the pregens, and the M-U and Cleric Spell Reference Sheets, all of which can be found on the Holmes Ref page here. Because one attendee was a no-show, I ran two PCs, Mezzo the Unknowable and Lafsit the Battler, with names Jonathan generated from the Holmesian Random Name Generator, also found in automated format in the upper right sidebar of this blog.

Jonathan added a few interesting "house rules" to the Holmes Basic base, which among others included dual wielding if your Dex was over 13, which worked the same as wielding a 2-handed weapon; the light/regular/heavy weapons rules from Blueholme, where light weapons take the worst of 2d6 for damage, and heavy the best of 2d6; and a bonus spell for clerics and magic-users for high prime requisites.

NTRPGCon Bound

I'll be making a short visit to North Texas RPG Con this year, from midday Fri until Sun morning. I'm not running a game myself, as I wasn't sure of my attendance by the submission deadline, but I'm signed up for some fantastic-sounding games:

Friday

A 1975 Castle Greyhawk "deep level" by Rob Kuntz: an OD&D game with 10th+ level characters run by Paul Stormberg of the Collector's Trove and Legends of Wargaming at Gary Con each year. 

"Wow! A chance to play in a high level Dungeons & Dragons adventure by Rob Kuntz in 1975! One of the deepest levels of Greyhawk Castle!"

Zenopus - 40 years later: This is Steve Muchow's sequel to the Zenopus dungeon, which he invited me to play last year. This is his second year running it at the con.

"It's been 40 years since the dungeon of Zenopus has been cleansed. But a new evil arises and Portown seeks brave adventurers to save the town."

* * * * *

Saturday

The Queen of Elfland's Son: a Goodman DCC module run by Jonathan Perkel, who started the Holmes FB group & played Boinger in my game last year.

"This quest will take the heroes to the very borders of Elfland and pit them against the cruelty of the Unseelie Court of Faerie. Will the heroes overcome the machinations of the Queen of Elfland or will they fall victim to the glamours and wiles of Elfland’s malicious nobility?"

80's Heroes vs Monsters Costume Party Chaos: a non-D&D game designed & run by Chris Holmes!

"You are invited to a mysterious costume party with a costume of your favorite hero from Movies-Comics-T.V. Your white limo arrives. ------- You will be playing a new set of combat rules. It will be fun."

Ruins of Mistamere: A sequel/re-imagining of the group adventure from the Mentzer Basic Set using AD&D 1e rules, run by Lloyd Metcalf.

"The long lost lord Gygar from castle Mistamere is said to have left behind great treasure and magic, along with the a great reward has been offered for the capture of Bargle who murdered the beloved Aleena.

* * * * *

Also of note in the realm of Holmes Basic, Carl Heyl (DM Carl of Save or Die) is running two sessions of his Discos & Dragons game, which I played in last year at NTRPGCon and again in drop-in form this past March at Gary Con. It's a Holmes/OD&D hexcrawl on the Outdoor Survival board using only minis, dice & other game pieces from the 1970s!

"Good King Gary is being held prisoner in the kingdom to the north. Bad Baron Bart is doing nothing to save him. Join the ranks of Gary's Crusaders to travel the world of AHOS (Avalon Hill Outdoor Survival board) and delve domino dungeons to gather the treasure to pay the ransom and have Good King Gary take back his kingdom!"

Update: I forgot to mention one other Holmes-related game at the con this year, the Necropolis of Nuromen. This was a Blueholme game using a module published for those rules. This game was also run by Jonathan Perkel.

"You have been drawn to the area by rumours of Nuromen the Necromancer and his vast treasure hoard, lost since the fall of his domain of Law’s End."

Holmes Basic Testimonials

2019 update: Today is the 89th anniversary of J. Eric Holmes birthday! Please feel free to add your own testimonial to the comments below.

If you missed it major new addition to the Zenopus Archives site this past year was the addition of a J. Eric Holmes Photo Gallery.

2018 update: This year we celebrate Holmes' birthday in the middle of the 40th anniversary year of Holmes Basic (July 2017-July 2018). As a tribute, I'll be running two session of Return to the Tower of Zenopus at Gary Con in a few weeks (I had to cancel these).

There will also be a "Ruined Tower of Zenopus - 40 years later" event, by a different author, at the North Texas RPGCon this year in June! (this game was played with Chris Holmes in attendance)

And Beyond the Door to Monster Mountain - a Holmes Basic mini-scenario available here - will be run for the second year in a row at Dundracon this coming Sunday.

If you missed it, last July Chris Holmes was on the 3rd season of the short podcast Tell Me About Your Character, talking about his third favorite D&D character (after Boinger and Zereth) in the games he played with his father in the '70s. (this podcast seems to be no longer available)

And since Holmes' birthday last year we've seen a lot of great releases:

Tales of Peril, a gorgeous hardcover compilation of Holmes' stories of the adventures of Boinger the Halfling and Zereth the Elf, debuted at North Texas last June and shortly thereafter was available for direct order from Black Blade Publishing. I've been slowly blogging my way through the book in a series called the Tales of Peril Book Club, although at the moment it is on hiatus while I prep my con scenario.

The Blueholme Journeymanne rulebook was released by Dreamscape Design, and expands the Blueholme Prentice rules up to 20 levels. It is chock-full of evocative art thanks to all of the Holmes fans out there who funded the Kickstarter for the art.

Jon of Appendix M released two issues of his zine Fantastic! Exciting! Imaginative!, which is inspired by the art found in the Holmes Basic rulebook. The content is by various members of the Holmes Basic groups on G+ and Facebook, including one article in each by myself. Join up if you want to contribute to the next one! These can be found at DTRPG: Vol 1 (free pdf) and Vol 2 ($4 pdf).

On Free RPG day I released Holmes Ref 2.0 an expanded compilation of my reference sheets for Holmes Basic referees. I hope to release a further expansion this year.

Each year I bring this post forward and invite you to add new testimonials. I've moved my posts from previous years to an archive page on the Holmes Basic site, but everyone else's comments from previous years remain below. Feel free to comment again if you've commented before.

See also:
Testimonal Thread at OD&D Discussion
Testimonial Thread at Knights & Knaves Alehouse  
Testimonial Thread at Dragonsfoot
Testimonial Thread at the Acaeum

(DTRPG links include this blog's affiliate # which gives us a 5% credit for each purchase)

Player Map for Zenopus Dungeon

Player Map - click for a larger view and/or download

Above is a Player Map for my Return to the Tower of Zenopus game (now retitled In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus) that I ran this past June at North Texas RPG Con. I took the original manuscript map drawn by J. Eric Holmes and removed the letters and the secret passage. Also note that this map doesn't exactly correspond to the dungeon as published, as the TSR cartography added a few empty rooms and rearranged some corridors. In game, this can reflect the inaccuracy of the mapper who made it.

You can use this for the original dungeon, perhaps with brand new players who have never mapped before or if you have limited session time. Or with any sequel or other dungeon using the same map. In my con game it represents the efforts of earlier adventurers, 40 years prior.

Skull Mountain Variant by Darlene

At North Texas RPG Con last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Darlene, an artist for TSR who did the original World of Greyhawk maps in the 1983 boxed set. I asked her to sign my original copy of the WoG Glossography, one of the books from the set. I picked this because part of her beautiful map is shown on the cover, but she relayed that she had also designed the graphics. She stared at title page for a few seconds, remembering her work.

In addition I bought a copy of her 1982 card game, Jasmine: The Battle for the Mid-Realm, which you can see here on BGG. On the bottom side of the clear box for the game I spied a Skull Mountain-esque picture I'd never seen before on one of the cards. See above.

Darlene has a page about Idshoii on her blog, which verifies that it's not just a castle, but a carving at the top of a mountain:

"Ildshoii Castle, carved from shiny black obsidian rock, rose high above a crown of volcanos. The dark castle was the domain of Melantha, the ruler of Medrylthorn ..."

Update: Here is Darlene's own intro page for the game:

JASMINE: The Battle for the Mid-Realm Collector Card Game

Tales of Peril - Front Matter

This post is part of the Tales of Peril Book Club, indexed here.

Previously I looked at the dust jacket for Tales of Peril. Here, I'll cover the "front matter" - all of the sections before the main content. I'll go over these briefly since I want to get to the actual stories, and because Allan covered a lot of this material in the previews on his blog, which are linked to below.

Signature Page - each copy of the first edition (200 numbered copies, plus comp copies for contributors) contains a page signed by Chris Holmes, Allan Grohe and myself. Allan has a picture of the signed page for copy #1 here. I had fun signing these pages in person together with Chris and Allan at the North Texas RPG Con in 2016 when we participated in a reading and discussion panel, which Allan has archived here. The signed pages were then bound into the books during printing.

Title Page - this uses the same evocative font for "Tales of Peril" as on the cover, which I believe is Perigord Regular.

Copyright Info - one page (v), the first numbered page.

Credits - one page (vi), a formal list of the contributors to the content and production. 

Thanks - one page (vii), acknowledgement of the work of various contributors and others who helped make the book possible.

Table of Contents - two pages (viii-ix). Allan shared the list of contents here. The chapters of Maze of Peril are listed out separately, a nice addition not found in the original printing. 

List of Illustration and Artwork - two pages (x-xi). Allan shared the list here. In addition to the covers by Ian Baggley, the interior art is primarily by Chris Holmes, with one story reprinting artwork by the late Jim Roslof from Dragon Magazine.

Introduction by Allan Grohe, two pages (xii-xiii). Allan gives an overview of Holmes' career, and discusses the organization of the tales in the book. These follow the development of the characters Boinger and Zereth, and so begin with the tale that chronicles their earliest adventures - the Maze of Peril. Allan briefly describes the non-fiction material in the book, and the work of the artists. Near the end, Allan teases a possible follow-up project: "Eric's cache of original manuscripts and campaign materials ... If Tales of Peril is well-received, these may be published in the future". There is a wealth of material here, I've personally seen more than a hundred images from this material, much of it hand-drawn maps by Holmes for adventures he mentioned in his writings!

Bonus content: Allan recently shared his Holmes Basic origin story, originally written up for an early draft of this introduction.

Onward to the Tales!

Tales of Peril in print!

Tales of Peril at the Black Blade booth. Photo by Allan Grohe.

Tales of Peril: the Complete Boinger & Zereth Stories of John Eric Holmes is in print! 

This long-awaited compilation is making its debut this week at the North Texas RPG Con, where it is available at the booth of the publisher, Black Blade Publishing. Above is a photo of the books taken by Allan Grohe, the book's editor. After the con it will be available for mail order, per Allan here.

Until that time you can view a series of previews of the book that Allan has posted on his new blog, From Kuroth's Quill:

Tales of Peril - Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and sample art: Wereshark by Chris Holmes

Back Cover Art by Ian Baggley

Front Cover Art by Ian Baggley

NTRPG Con 2016 Report

It's been about a month since I attended North Texas RPG Con (aka NTRPGCon) 2016, my first ever multi-day con. I had a fantastic time, and here's my brief report.

On Saturday morning I participated in the Holmes Reading/Discussion with Chris Holmes and Allan Grohe (aka grodog, co-publisher of Black Blade Publishing). At 9 AM, it was an early slot with only 8 registered attendees, but more showed up (15-20?). A comfortable number for the small room. There were some technical difficulties: Allan had a set of slides and the Con provided a projector but there was no connecting cord, and there was a live feed but afterwards I noticed the camera was pointing the wrong direction. 

However, Allan recorded the audio on his phone (starting a few minutes late, after Chris Holmes had introduced himself), and it's now available on his website now (think of it as a podcast), along with the slides and handouts we provided:

John Eric Holmes Reading and Panel Discussion

In addition, I played in five great games: two Friday, two Saturday and one Sunday.

(1) The Misty Isles of the Eld - written/run by Chris Kutalik

The teaser from the convention program: "Come bring the fight to those fiendish space elves, the Eld. Players will explore a point crawl of a weird fantasy, extra planar island searching for a flying monument and fragments of a shattered god".

This game was drawn from Chris' new publication, Misty Isles of the Eld. Chris Holmes was also playing in this game, and I met him in person for the first time at the table. Since he was playing, Chris K. prepared some special pre-gens. Thus, I came to be playing a Wereshark thief by the name of "The Son of Ondrj", who met a brutal end, impaled by 5 or 6 Eld simultaneously. Then I picked up another pre-gen: Zereth the Elf!

I like getting copies of adventures that I've played through, so after the game I bought one of the brand new copies of Misty Isles, which Chris signed, "Killed Before Your Time".

(2) grodog's Castle Greyhawk - Enchanted Orchards of the Arimol, written/run by Allan Grohe (grodog).

The teaser: "Play test grodog's next Castle Greyhawk dungeon level, GC-02 Enchanted Orchards of the Arimol ... an extra planar sub-level accessible from GC-01 Iounic Caverns"

Here our group tested out this adventure with higher level AD&D characters than Allan had run previously. The star of the evening was the Druid, who ferried us around on a Chariot of Sustarre and took out the BBG with a Feeblemind spell and a failed saving throw of 1!

(3) Death on the Mssuma River - written/run by Victor Raymond. 

The teaser: "An item of great antiquity has been stolen from a noble clanhouse in the city of Jakalla, rumor has it that the burglar is proceeding north on the Mssuma River, headed for Bey Su "the Beauteous" he capital of Tsolyanu, the Empire of the Petal Throne. You have been hired to retrieve the precious item and return it to its rightful owner, preferably without bloodshed, but by force if necessary! This is an event for newcomers to the World of Tekumel, as originally published by TSR in 1975!"

This was a "Death on the Nile" style murder-mystery. We had a large group (10?) but it worked beautifully for the investigative mission. Also, we were in one of the private "boardrooms", which were great for immersion; while you lose a bit of the con atmosphere it's more like playing a game at someone's house.

Chris Holmes also played in this, and we were the only two non-humans in the party, who were all members of the same clan. I was a Shen warrior hired by the clan, and he played a Pe Choi. During the climactic battle my Shen experienced the temporal stasis produced by an "Excellent Ruby Eye". Victor was a long-time player in M.A.R. Barker's games and knows Tekumel as if he had lived there - because he did.

(4) AdLiD ("Ad-Lib Dungeon") - improvised by Frank Mentzer on the spot.

The teaser: "You decide what monsters and treasures will be found... and Frank creates an adventure on the spot. Anything can happen!".

Frank runs this game periodically. He give out notecards before the game and each player writes down something to be encountered during the game. If I thought about this more beforehand I would've written "Bargle". On the spot all I could muster was "H.P. Lovecraft". Thus our group encountering H.P. himself, complete with bat wings and tentacles, as the BBG. One of the other players in this game was a grandson of Bob Bledsaw, founder of Judges Guild, and I chatted with him during the break.

(5) Professor Monkey vs the Friends of Entropy written/run by Steve Winter. 

The teaser: "Professor Monkey's radium-powered lab represent everything the Friends of Entropy despise: science, machinery, and being alive. To no one's surprise, a volcano of trouble erupts when the..." 

From what I gather, Steve runs a Professor Monkey Gamma World game every year. The PCs all work for the Professor, who outfits them with gear. We spent the first hour creating characters. I ended up with a 5-meter-long (!) mutant fox. We zipped about a hex map, investigating different points of interest and trying to root out the Friends of Entropy, one of the original GW Cryptic Alliances.

Steve has a previous Professor Monkey adventure available as a free pdf on his blog.

After the game I asked Steve about the original Holmes Basic Set art, which he had reported was found in a crate by WOTC a few years ago. He said he believes it is now hanging in a safe location in the WOTC offices.

* * * * *

I was also able to chat with former TSR artists Diesel (aka DSL aka David S. Laforce) and Jeff Dee. I had them both sign a copy of the module A1 that I bought from Diesel. They were the original artists for the cover (Dee) and title page (Diesel) of A1.

Reminder: Holmes Panel at NTRPG Con this Saturday

A reminder: if you are at the NTRPG Con this weekend, there will be a J. Eric Holmes appreciation event on Saturday morning at 9 AM CDT (GMT -05:00), at the Centreport Meeting Room - Table 2. The panel will consist of Chris Holmes (son of Eric), Allan Grohe of Black Blade, publisher of the forthcoming Tales of Peril compilation of Holmes' D&D fiction, and myself. 

Before the event, you may wish to listen to Chris Holmes' recent interview on the Save or Die podcast.

There are still plenty of open seats left for the seminar, and if you are at the Con you don't need to be registered for this session to attend. 

Also, if you are not attending the Con, I believe the event will be livestreamed (and hopefully recorded, as well). I'll update date this post with info once I find out more.

I'll be at con this weekend from Fri morning to Sun evening, and besides the seminar I will be playing in a variety of games. Hope to see you there!

Update:

The NTRPG Con Live Streams are up for today. I believe Camera 1 is in the Centreport Room where the Holmes Panel will be on Sat.

Per Doug Rhea on Facebook:
"Streams are up. Info below.
Camera 1 URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ntrpgcon - Special Events
Camera 2 URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ntrpgcon2 - Special Guest Games
Camera 3 URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ntrpgcon3 - Random Games
Camera 4 URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ntrpgcon-camera4 - Doug’s Random Stream
Camera 5 URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ntrpgcon5 - Con Overview
Please SHARE these links on your favorite forums so as many people know where to catch a glimpse of one of the most awesome Old School RPG cons out there!!!"

Here is a schedule to go with the links: http://ntrpgcon.com/NTRPGCon-2016-Games.html

Holmes Panel at NTRPG Con 2016

If you are going to the North Texas RPG Convention (NTRPG Con) this June, registration begins tonight at midnight in the Texas time zone (Central Standard Time).

I'll be going to this con for the first time this year, and will be participating in a Holmes panel/reading/seminar/Q&A with Chris Holmes and Allan Grohe (aka grodog on various forums). The event is listed as part of the NTRPG Con schedule, Saturday June 4th at 9 AM. There doesn't seem to be a direct link, but I've posted a screen shot of the listing above. If you go to the Event List and search for "Holmes", you should find it.

I'll be playing in a bunch of games at the con as well, and hope to meet some other Holmes fans while I'm there.

Tales of Peril - Teaser

I've been authorized to share the following teaser for an exciting compilation 
to be released in a few months:

BLACK BLADE PUBLISHING’S NEW PRODUCT LINEUP

Tales of Peril - The Complete Boinger and Zereth Stories of John Eric
Holmes - edited by Allan T. Grohe Jr. 

Tales of Peril is Black Blade’s first foray into publishing fiction,
and collects all of the Boinger and Zereth dungeon adventure stories
written by John Eric Holmes (best known for editing the first Basic
Set in 1977). Featuring the novella The Maze of Peril, eight other
short stories, and Holmes’ seminal article “Confessions of a Dungeon
Master”. Allan Grohe, Chris Holmes, and Zach Howard contribute
introductions and the annotated Holmes bibliography. Coming in June
2015.

(From the back cover of Black Blade Publishing's reprint of 
Rob Kuntz's module CAS2 Tower of Blood)

More info to follow in the upcoming weeks.

Update:
Per Allan Grohe on OD&D Discussion, publication has been rescheduled for a later date:
"We slowed down the production process when it became clear that we wouldn't make it to print in time for NTX [North Texas RPG Con]. That'll allow us to complete the book properly, instead of risking its quality by rushing the book to press for the con."

Chris Holmes at NTRPGcon

where he played EPT with Jeff Dee and others, and other games.
See this post from the DM (Victor Raymond) at his blog The Sandbox of Doom:

http://sandboxofdoom.blogspot.com/2012/06/off-to-texas-part-two.html

And a report from a player in the game is here at Rather Gamey:
http://rathergamey.blogspot.com/2012/06/ntrpg-con-2012-day-three.html 

Photo of the game by Allan Grohe (grodog)

It was just over 30 years ago (Nov '81) that Eric Holmes reviewed EPT in his FRPG book:
Holmes on Empire of the Petal Throne

Chris illustrated many of his father's early D&D articles for Alarums & Excursions and The Dragon, including "Lost Civilizations: Fantasy Supplement for Source of the Nile" in issue #24 and "Trollshead" (a Boinger & Zereth story) in issue #31. That issue also has a picture of Eric and Chris talking to Tim Kask, editor of the The Dragon, at Gen Con XII in 1978. Tim also attended NTRPGCon this year (as he has for the past few), and ran several games.

8/5/12 update:
Following up on Allan's comment below, here's some more info on Chris' game from The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope Blog:
"Allan Grohe introduced me to Chris Holmes, son of J. Eric Holmes, who turned out was one of my fellow cavemen in “Expect the Unexpected” [Jeff Dee's Cavemaster scenario] and we got to playtest Chris’ board game of “Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Zombies vs. Monkeys” (or something like that). The Ninjas won, but not before proving that if you really want to playtest the beejezus out of a game, Allan and I will put it through its paces."

Palace of the Vampire Queen - limited NTRPGCon reprint

As posted at the Acaeum:

"V2 Palace of the Vampire Queen is now available for purchase at pacesettergames.com for a very limited time from June 8, 2012 and June 10, 2012 to coincide with the fourth annual North Texas RPG Convention. V2 includes the complete contents of the original Palace of the Vampire Queen by Peter Kerestan. The new module includes a forward the original designer, Peter Kerestan. Additionally, a full AD&D conversion is included with room descriptions.

This special module was designed exclusively to support the North Texas RPG Convention which is dedicated to old school games. The print run is 200 copies and they are all individually numbered. A portion of all sales proceeds will be used to support the North Texas RPG Con."

Available for purchase on-line here: ($29/copy)

http://www.pacesettergames.com/v2paofvaqu.html

Palace of the Vampire Queen (1976) was the first stand-alone module published for Dungeons & Dragons. For more on its printing history, see the POTVQ page at the Acaeum.