[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen: First miniature(s) you used for D&D.

My very first miniature is apparently lost to time. I have looked and looked and cannot find him anywhere. I believe that what happened is this: my first DM and I, as I mentioned yesterday, commonly pooled our spare change to buy minis. I vaguely remember when we went our separate ways we divvied up the minis. Somehow, it appears, I ended up with most of the monsters and none of the characters. I've gone searching on the internet and have found a picture of what I believe was my first purchased miniature, ever. If you read my post yesterday, you'll remember that I said the game store/toy store broke up boxed sets and sold the miniatures individually? Well, this one was a victim of that practice, coming from Grenadier Models' Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #2002-Halflings boxed set. This fellow was known simply as "Swordsman." I seem to remember that the color yellow figured prominently in his paint scheme, and I also think red was in there.

Boy, I wish I still had him.

I've managed to dig up most of my other 30+ year old miniatures, though. My kids, when they asked, "What's in the box, Dad?" and I answered, "Miniatures. 35-year-old metal miniatures..." -- Ooh-ed and Aah-ed. It was a great moment. Here's a few of the old ones.

This miniature was one of my favorites at the time. I'm pretty sure that's why I kept this one. I mean, it was a giant carrying a morningstar, right? How could you go wrong with that? A quick internet search tells me that his actual name is "Hecatron"--Ral Partha 01-067 (Personalities and Things That Go Bump in the Night). Ral Partha included a brief bio on Hecatron in their catalog: "An outcast among giants as a scrawny youth, Hecatron has become feared by giants and humankind alike -- he is one of the few giants alive with the wit and speed to master the arts of war. Encountered in a nonviolent situation, Hecatron is quiet, gruff, and polite. In combat, however, he is a metal-sheathed tornado, never checking morale and avoiding incoming attacks with surprising grace and speed. Hecatron will not change loyalties in a fight for which he has already been been paid, even though he may sympathize with his foes. (His money goes immediately for food and drink.)"

"Cyclops"--Grenadier 8003e (Action Art Series: Mythological Creatures). This was another favorite. I loved the detail and concept of the cyclops carrying a bag of skulls that he used for missile weapons. I've always thought of cyclopes as rock-throwing creatures. I remember thinking what a cool idea it was that this cyclops used the heads of his victims as weapons against future prey.

This one is "Djinn 1"--Ral Partha 01-069a (Personalities and Things That Go Bump in the Night). This one really intrigued me, mostly because of the size of the sword. It was bigger than many of the player character minis. I also liked the massive teeth poking out from his bottom jaw. I remember that he and Hecatron were the two heavy-hitters on my time. I'm pretty sure that the DM had another Djinn with a large sword, but a different sculpt.

That's it for now; I have to save some for a later post, after all.




**Many thanks to the Lost Minis Wiki for the information on the miniatures.**

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Twelve

Day Twelve: First store where you bought your gaming supplies. Does it still exist?

Hammond's Toys & Hobbies.

It's still around, in various forms. By that I mean it's no longer in the same location and their selection and quality has decreased somewhat in the face of box stores. But they're still around and still family-owned. I even worked for them for a while several years back. The place was quiet enough at night that I could actually get some painting done at the front counter.

This was the place that I picked up some of the first metal minis and polyhedral dice I ever owned. My friend (the DM for our skirmish games) and I would pool our cash to pick up minis, Testor paints, and dice. The Armory dice from a few posts ago? Those came from Hammond's. They were a great source of back issues of Dragon and White Dwarf magazines back in the early 2000s. I was able to pick up a boxed set of Rod of Seven Parts at a terrific discount long after it was out of print.

Looking back, though, it's a little frustrating to realize that one of their business models with the lead miniatures was to open and break up boxed sets and sell the individual miniatures at a higher price than they were valued as part of the whole box. Granted, I owned a few miniatures that I likely never would have owned otherwise, but it's still upsetting to think that they were doing this at all.

The greatest memory I have of the store is of the owner. At that time, I thought he had to be over 100 years old. He was ancient. He was also always grouchy. I remember that he seemed to hate kids; ironic, of course, considering he made his living by catering to us snot-nosed brats. But the strongest memory I have is of this man shadowing the kids around the store, making sure no one shoplifted anything. It was comical to watch and admittedly creepy if you were one of the watched-over kids. I suppose it probably helped quell their losses; I know that the store I worked in had a very low merchandise loss ratio. (In one of their now-defunct stores, they replaced Gramps with fake video cameras. Black plastic cameras with a 9-volt battery to run the red "recording" light and a short cable that was stuck up into the drop ceiling.) He wasn't the manager; the manager was invariably one of his family members and was always behind the counter.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Eleven

Day Eleven: First splatbook you begged your DM to approve.

I've said several times that my early days were spent in mostly skirmishing. We had the base set, the core rules so to speak. We didn't need or use anything extra. It wasn't until I started playing 2E AD&D in 2000 that I discovered the joys of splatbooks and supplements. In my case, I decided (on my own) that Boric needed a bit more OOMPH in the divine spell-casting department. Of course, back then--just as with the Dragon Magazine CD-ROM Archive--it was still quite easy to find 2nd Edition AD&D material, even if 3E was appearing on the scene.

So I scrounged around a bit and found these little gems.

The DM took a brief look through these and rapidly accepted and approved them, and some of the choicest spells were then transferred onto 3"x5" cards and carried into adventure in a recipe box. Yep. With these I had enough divine magic to open up a large can of whoop-*** at Moradin's will.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Ten

Day Ten: First gaming magazine you ever bought (Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, etc.)

Technically speaking, the first gaming magazine I ever bought was the Dragon Magazine Archive CD-ROM. I lucked into finding this in early 2000, shortly after it was released. I say "lucked" because it's quickly become a highly sought-after piece of gamerabilia. I still have these and now use Adobe to read them, as the interface is a little buggy on these new-fangled computers. But hey, I still have the first 250 issues for reference, right? I've even used them since changing over to 3.x edition, so they're still useful and helpful. Plus, they're fun to read.

Then there was this, the first actual hardcopy Dragon Magazine that I purchased was this one: Issue #278. Why, you ask?

Because DWARVES, that's why.

I stumbled across this one day walking through one of the (then) local game shops, saw the "Dwarves" headline and I was sold. Yeah, I was still playing 2nd Edition D&D at the time and most of the 3E stuff in the issue wouldn't come in handy for another couple of years. But the issue contained Dwarven language information and sample battle cries. This was the one that prompted me to collect--ultimately--the other 108 issues. Yup. I have all the others. At least, I purchased/subscribed all the others, from 251 on. Double copies on some issues.

Of course, at last count I'm missing about 8 issues somewhere. I suspect a former GM still has some mixed in with his packed-up 3.x stuff. So, now I'm stuck trying to fill holes. Of course, the missing issues are also some of the most popular issues and replacing them is proving to be more than difficult. But it will happen. Oh yes, it will happen.

And it all started with #278.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Nine

Day Nine: First campaign setting (published or homebrew) you played in.

Faerûn. Plain and simple. From day one of the new century onward, that's where we've played, adventured, laughed, cried, lived, and died. Previous to that, as I've said, was largely skirmish miniature play. Post-turn-of-the-century, well, there was the abortive attempt to have the "spouses' game"; that was set in one of the guys' homebrew world. Other than that one failed attempt to deviate from our norm, it's been the land of Drizz't and Elminster.

That being said, however, it's an unwritten rule that none of the "heavies" from the novels or from the campaign setting will actually ever cross paths with any of our parties. We just don't want them in our world, so...they aren't. I know that's one of the common complaints about settings, and Faerûn in particular. We just work our way around that; they're not even mentioned. Canon too, is played with fast and loose. We don't care what's happened in the books or the setting previously unless it directly relates to the adventure at hand, which it seldom does.

Mostly we use Faerûn because it's easy. We have a map. We have established regions and cities, cultures and deities. Where canon works, we keep it. Where it doesn't, we toss it. We don't have a lot of time to create our own world(s); we're all forty-somethings with largish families and careers so we don't look a gift horse in the mouth. It actually adds to the flavor; our characters know about Waterdeep because Waterdeep is an infamous location. We know what to expect when we go there, just like someone from our world knows what to expect when they travel to New Jersey. There's some basic knowledge there that helps move the game along. We don't treat it as a closed setting either. If we find something non-Faerûnian that works, we sandwich it in somewhere. We've taken the campaign setting and made it our own.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Eight

Day Eight: First set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?

These are the ones that started it all. They're my oldest and dearest. They're the ones that started the crazy addiction that has grown (nearly) out of control.

In the bottom center are my three remaining dice from the 1981 Basic Set. I don't know where my others have gone over the years. I was sure I still had a d4, but it's nowhere to be found. The two crystal dice on the top left were the first ones I purchased for myself. I had just read The Sword of Shannara, and of course I had to have my own elfstones. (Yeah. I know. But I was young.) Now, of course, I just wish I knew the manufacturer. They have the flattened tops that were common way back when. (Edit: thanks to Kevin over at Dice Collector.com who identified the red and blue d10s as Armory dice. Thanks, Kevin!)

The red and green d6s are from some long-lost board game. These four were the dice I used with Car Wars.

The orange d10? I don't remember it's origins, but I know it's old. Hence, it goes in the +5 Box of Altoid Protection with the other retired gentlemen. (Edit: Again, thanks to Kevin over at Dice Collector.com. He's not sure about the orange, but thinks it may be Armory. Issue: that style has been so copied, he can't be sure. Thanks for the help, Kevin!)

Yeah, you can take that implication as truth: I don't use these any longer. I've heard too many stories of rounded edges and deterioration. I'm too sentimental to really play with these guys. They've earned their rest.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Seven

Day Seven: First D&D product you ever bought. Do you still have it?

Let's see.... I've talked on several occasions about the first D&D product I ever owned. That would be the 1981 Basic Set, otherwise known as Moldvay D&D. Arguably all my knocking on doors and pimping crappy wrapping paper would constitute "buying" and I do still have this box and most of the contents.

However, I choose to be pedantic about it. Most of the "product" I purchased in those early years were miniatures; in fact, other than the copy of B-2: Keep on the Borderlands that came with the Moldvay set, I'm not sure I ever purchased another "module" or adventure for D&D until the turn of the century. Other games? Yes. (Star Frontiers and Car Wars products come first to mind.) But seeing as how the miniatures question is set for next week, I'll hold off on those items until then. Besides, one could argue those weren't truly D&D "products" as they were produced by third parties. Same argument about the dice I bought: produced by third parties. (Leave me alone; I sleep just fine at night with my justification as my pillow.)

So we have to fast forward to the turn of the century as I said. There was a slew of purchases that first year as I tried to get up to speed with 2nd Edition AD&D. But the very first item I purchased was a copy of the 2E AD&D Players Handbook. Well, I suppose it's properly the 2nd Edition AD&D Revised Players Handbook. Y'know, the 1995 version of the book, not the 1989 edition. I still have it and it's in great condition, even though it saw a lot of use that first few years. I must confess... I don't think it's been off the shelf more than a handful of times since the group switched over to 3.x Edition. It certainly hasn't been off the shelf in over three years, that's for sure. But I still have a lot of fond memories associated with it. I even have a second copy, one I purchased for my wife when a couple of us guys from the group were trying to get a "spouses" game started. That one's in even better condition than mine; I think it's only been opened three times.

But can anyone tell me what the heck is going on with that barbarian's arm? I mean, really? Did Jeff Easley have a brain cramp when he got to that part of the man's anatomy? Seriously, it's always bugged me. I would have much preferred if they'd used the same illustration from the 1989 version; I've always liked the warrior-on-warhorse Easley illustration instead.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Six

Day Six: First character death. How did you handle it?

I've discussed this one before too, in passing at least. I have to look back at Urdin Darjyr, my Dream Dwarf Storm Druid. Yeah. Really.

The storm druid was introduced in Dragon Magazine, Issue #328. Instead of focusing on nature and plants, etc., the storm druid looks to the skies, channeling nature's raw, untamed energies. In addition, this particular dwarf was a dream dwarf by race: a sub-race introduced in the 3.5 Races of Stone supplement. From the D&D Wiki page: "Dream dwarves feel the hills slumber beneath them. They see the world as a resting giant of inestimable power, and they are caught in the dreaming. While other dwarves shape metal and stone, dream dwarves contemplate and meditate. Wise and cautious, they understand nature in a way at once similar to and wholly alien to the understanding of druids and shamans of other races." Yep, a dwarven hippie.

Urdin's backstory made him quite interesting and fun to play, while the special druidic class gave him some serious awesome nature-magic firepower. He wielded a pretty wicked dwarven warpike, too. However, if I remember correctly, he was a multi-class nightmare. I think I had a couple levels of fighter and of barbarian to give him some additional oomph feat-wise. If I remember correctly, he'd started out as a fighter, one of Boric's bear-riders. Then he was trapped, alone, in the wilderness for several years which gave him a few levels of barbarian--mostly for the rage ability and a couple others. Then he had levels of storm druid. He had forsaken the worship of Moradin for the worship of nature after he was stuck without shelter during a tremendous thunderstorm.

Ultimately the adventure led Urdin and his compatriots to a small island--Mezeketh Isle--in search of the Jathiman Dagger. The Jathiman dagger is a weapon capable of killing gods and, at least in this campaign, was kept in check by a "curator" whose will and soul kept the dagger's powers from manifesting. He also acts as a physical guard to keep the dagger from being removed from its current location. Urdin died in the fight to keep the dagger out of the hands of the villains. He was resurrected shortly after the battle ended. In an effort to protect the dagger from the world (and vice versa), Urdin took his retirement and sacrificed his freedom by trapping himself on the small island, at least until a replacement could be found. Through a little post-campaign PBEM, he actually became a Death Delver, a Prestige Class that "delves...deeply into the mysteries of death...to better understand and eventually gain some small power over it...and thereby draw strength from his understanding and indomitable courage in the face of it." {Heroes of Horror, Wizards of the Coast, p.93}

In effect...and we said this at the time...by being struck down he became even more powerful. Of course, he can never leave the island to exercise that power.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Five

Day Five: First character to go from 1st level to the highest level possible in a given edition. (Or what's the highest level character you've ever ran?)

My characters didn't last long, back in the day. Mostly because we were easily bored and changed it up far too often. So, once again I'm going to have to jump ahead to my first 21st-century game, Dragon Mountain for the answer to today's question.




I've spoken about him before, my namesake, Boric Glanduum. As I've said before, shortly after the turn of the century, I joined a newly-resurrected group as one of two new players. I was the last one recruited and so was shoe-horned into filling a party need--the cleric. But I made the best of it and rolled up a dwarf. I hadn't played in a LONG time, and certainly had never played 2nd Edition AD&D; I was a NOOB for all intents and purposes. The DM was willing to work with me, though. He and I had a killer backstory woven into the entire campaign. Yeah, it was full of the usual tropes: exiled royalty, stronghold-stolen-by-dragon, magic weapons, etc. You know the type. He put together much of the backstory. I started out as a chosen of Moradin, a High Old One, even, and then advanced from there. During the campaign we had visitations from Moradin's Avatar, I became a Favored of Dumathoin, and lost a clan artifact to a lowly rust monster. Boric spanned 2E, 3E, and then 3.5. He's had several incarnations in 3.5; currently he's 26th level and we're preparing to dust off these epic characters and bring them from retirement.

Let me share a few artifacts I've dug from my files about Boric. You can click on the links if you should happen to want to look at full-size PDFs of the documents. First, a little of his backstory (the introductory paragraph was updated as time went by to show some of the later deeds. It also relied heavily upon a Dwarven Lexicon I've built up over time from various TSR and WotC products.

I also came across a copy of the 12th-level version of Boric's Character Sheet, complete with THAC0 chart for his various attacks, both with his ancestral warhammer and with his clan's Rod of Lordly Might (featuring a hammer rather than a mace).

By the way, this chart is what I think of every time someone tries to tell me just how much more complicated 3.x Edition combat is than, say, 2nd Edition combat. It features every possible iteration of each attack, special attack, or power, including certain common buffing spells such as prayer and bless.

I'm All For Freedom of Speech, But...

I noticed this Facebook issue a couple of days ago and reported it to Facebook. Tracy Hickman let me know about it again yesterday and says it more eloquently than I could. Tracy's notice as follows:

5 STEPS TO IMPROVING THE WORLD 30 SECONDS:
(1) Go to this DISGUSTING facebook page and IGNORE its contents.
(2) Click on the 'gear' next to message and select 'Block/Report'/'Submit a Report' / 'Report Gary's Account'
(3) Select 'This timeline is pretending to be someone I know' / 'Pretending to be a celebrity'
(4) Type 'E. Gary Gygax' in the field.
(5) Click 'submit report.'

I honor and respect the man I thought of as my friend -- the man who helped us all remember how to play. You can honor and respect his memory, too, by crushing this TASTELESS IDENTITY THEFT.

I'll throw in my recommendation to do this as well. I'm all for freedom of speech and allowing a person to be as big of a jerk as he wants to be. However, I'll throw this one under the heading of an "inciting to riot" exception to that right. I don't think the guy realizes that there are a lot of people out there who love and/or respect Gary, and there's a lot of those that could put a serious hurt on him for his words. Y'know, if they were incited to riot against him. For his words. Or something.

[From the Mailbag] It's All Tim's Fault, Honey!

A couple weeks ago, Tim over at Gothridge Manor decided to show off his loot from the Troll & Toad Clearance Sale. At the time, it caused great consternation in some corners of the OSR as others dropped by Troll & Toad and promptly dropped their paycheck(s) on clearance items. At the time, I resisted the urge.

Then I gave in.

I dropped more than I expected, because every new web page that I flipped over had something else that I "needed." Plus, I argued with myself, I really need to get the order to a point where the exorbitant shipping is justified. So let me share my loot with you...with the understanding that it's all Tim's fault.

First of all, they had a few Babylon 5 titles to go along with the new Ruleset I picked up over the holidays from Paizo. They had a copy of the ship plans for the G'Quan, a Narn heavy cruiser. This should dovetail nicely with the Earth Force Hyperion plans that came in from Paizo. Plus, I just really love the Narn and am excited to crack this open and see what the ship actually looks like.

The next item they had was a 1st-level adventure: The Cold Equations. The players have to flee a dying passenger liner a day or so out from the station; it looks like it involves the Psi-Corps and corporate intrigue. In looking at it now, it may not be compatible with the ruleset I have. I'll have to really sit down and figure out if that's true. The problem is that there were (apparently) several different versions of the Babylon 5 system published.

The third one evoked a few bad words when I pulled it out of the box and saw the Traveller brand sprayed across the front of the book. I definitely know that this one isn't compatible. This one is a "start up" adventure in which the players are thrust into the middle of an inter-Drazi conflict (hence the title: "The Trouble with Drazi"). At least this may give me some ideas and inspiration for the system I do have. I will hold out that hope, at least.

The final Babylon 5 title is a sourcebook covering the Zocalo, the merchant/shopping area on the station. After being burned with "The Trouble with Drazi," I need to sit down with this one and review compatibility. It's an interesting little read, though, including some species-specific weapons, things to buy, connections to make, and so forth.

Now, Tim could try and argue that the Babylon 5 titles are not his fault because I was already on the hunt for those game materials. These next few are certainly his fault, because he brought them to my attention. Because of that, and because I'm weak-willed, I lay these directly at his feet. Well, figuratively. After all, he already has copies and they may get ruined with all the snow and water on the ground.

The first one is a monster manual from Expeditious Retreat Press entitled "Monster Geographica: Underground." I also wanted the other one Tim grabbed up that dealt with marsh and swamp monsters, but I guess I pondered my purchases for too long and it was sold out. Like Tim, I love me some monster manuals: you can never have too many.

Next up is a level 4-7 adventure from Fast Forward Entertainment entitled, "Temple of the Troll God." The adventure promises full-color maps and an introductory portion of the adventure online; unfortunately, the website no longer exists. I'll have to do some checking around to see if these bonus materials exist anywhere else.

Another title from Fast Forward, this one by none other than James Ward himself. "Slave Pits of the Goblin King" also boasts free maps and bonus adventure stuff online. Maybe this material will be easier to track down if I can track down contact info for James Ward. We'll have to see; it may not be worth the effort.

The final Fast Forward title, also by James Ward, is "Demonic Lairs"--a collection of homes of ten powerful demons and devils. I had to grab this one because, hey, LAIRS.

Troll & Toad was getting rid of a bunch of their magazines as well. They had a good stack of Dragon magazines, and quite a few earlier issues. Since I have the digital versions up through Issue #250 on my Dragon CDs, my collection starts with #251. I subscribed starting with #279 through the death of the print run. Somewhere, however, I've developed holes in my collection. Fortunately, they had one that I was missing: #278. This one I know was borrowed by a guy in my group that wanted to start his own group with a couple of the guys from the group and their wives. The campaign lasted exactly one session and I've never seen the magazine again. Needless to say I was happy to see this one for sale, especially on clearance.

And the final "book" purchase for this order was the one issue of Autoduel they had. I've never owned a copy of Autoduel before; I've never even held it in my hands. I may be addicted now; I may just need to try and track down all of the issues (even though my brain tells me it would be pricey). Just flipping through it brought back fond memories of playing Car Wars. That still remains one of my fondest set of gaming memories, Car Wars.

Then there were the dice. Yes, Tim's fault again. He alerted me to the fact that they were selling off dice on clearance as well. The first set I grabbed up were a set of Crystal Caste Ancient Red. (I love the little spring-loaded latched boxes, although the latch never seems to be very secure.

Like Tim, I like me some odd and unusual dice. (Note: the Lego minifig is there for scale. These are some odd size dice!) Two of them are Chinese character dice: one shows numbers 7-12 to go with the 1-6 d6 I already own and one shows the characters for the words for each number 1-10. Also shown is a d10 showing geometric shapes; I thought this would be perfect for random dungeon design. Simply roll the die to get the shape of the next room, hallway, or structure.

Again, there's my Lego Centurion (non-Battlestar Galactica Ancient Rome version) for scale. These dice are "rock, paper, scissor" dice. I bought two so that it would keep both parties in a "rock, paper, scissor" contest on an even keel and remove any possibility (OK, most possibilities) of cheating from the game. Yeah, I know you could just play "rock, paper, scissors" but LOOK DICE!

Finally, my King Emeralds. These things are massive for regular polyhedrals. I have some d30s and a couple d20s that are this size already. When I saw that it was a complete 7-die polyhedral set, I just had to jump on them. Especially for $3.13. You read that right. I don't know that I've ever purchased a set of 7 dice for that price (other than the Ancient Red shown above that were $2.36).

As far as prices on the other stuff above, all of the books were priced at 49¢, except for the "Demonic Lairs" title which was $1.99. The magazines were 99¢ and 86¢ respectively.

There was a pile of plastic miniature goodness in the box as well. In an effort (too late) of keeping this post picture-light, I won't post individual pictures of the minis. Maybe I'll keep that for another post later in the week/month.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Four

Day Four: First dragon your character slew (or some other powerful monster).

Kobolds.

Yeah, you read that right. Kobolds. No doubt you were expecting to hear about the ancient red dragon that we slew, or the lucky crits I rolled on the half-fiendish fire giant. Instead, I give you: Kobolds.

Don't click away from the blog in disgust just yet, though. Let me explain.

This was back in my first 21st-century campaign, the DM was running Dragon Mountain for us. Now, since that time I've never once picked up the actual adventure to see what it was actually like, partly because I have fond memories of the entire campaign that I don't want to ruin. I say this as a preface because I genuinely don't know what was in the adventure as written and what was added by the DM. That's important because this particular DM was a fairly Evil Rat Bastard DM.

Nothing, I repeat nothing was normal. Stats were played with, traps enhanced. We even discovered--too late--that one of the NPCs he sent with us was actually the ancient red dragon we were trying to kill. Well, he filled the lower part of Dragon Mountain with kobold minions. And they were tough. And wily. They were almost Tucker Kobold-tough in their own way.

The biggest problem with them? They swarmed. On at least two different occasions we nearly lost players to the swarming kobolds of Dragon Mountain. The leader of them all turned out to be a polymorphed fire giant.

So, imagine my horror when my cleric (I wish I remembered what level he was at that point) kicked open a door and found upwards of 20 kobolds in a small room--a joint barracks/dining hall was how it was described. I was all alone. The kobolds all looked up in the same motion and locked eyes. I could have easily died in the next few rounds. So, I did the only thing I could think of: I threw my Hammer of Moradin (the only real magic item I had throughout that campaign)--a Rune hammer--and activated the fire rune. Then I slammed the door.

The dice were with me. I maxed out the damage roll from the massive fireball created by the rune activation. On top of that, and something I didn't know and hadn't bothered to ask, was that there were barrels of accelerant--moonshine in this case--stored in the room. My cleric actually took damage from the encounter. The resultant blast blew the door off its hinges and threw me across the hall into a stone wall, squashed between the door and the wall. But it also incinerated Every. Single. Last. Kobold. In the room. Did some significant damage to the walls and structural integrity of the room, even. Suffice it to say there was no treasure (or furniture, for that matter) to be found in the wreckage. The DM never did disclose to us whether I'd incinerated anything important.

But we all agreed: it was worth it. The guys in the group still talk about the event.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Three

Day Three: First dungeon you explored as a player-character or ran as a DM.

I'm going to take advantage of this one and play a two-fer.

Back in the day, I don't know that we ever actually ran a "module" or a dungeon that had a name. Mostly it was creating characters, painting miniatures badly, and staging battles and skirmishes between the miniatures. So, I'm going to fast forward to the re-birth in 2000. The DM put together the group of players, and gave us all detailed (I'm talking REALLY detailed) backstories that tied us all into some part of the adventure, including story hooks and motivations. Then he put together a modified version of TSR's Dragon Mountain, plopped it down in Faerûn where we could find it and where it tied in with our various backstories. Then we were off and running. That campaign ran for...oh, probably three years. For the climax, the DM dug out of storage and assembled the only Red Dragon of Krynn (vinyl) miniature I've ever seen in the flesh.

(BTW, it's real and it's spectacular.) Wizards of the Coast put out a Colossal Red Dragon. They tried to make it spectacular. And yeah, it's cool. I don't like how they squeezed it all onto one square base. It doesn't have the awe-inspiring pose that the vinyl miniature did. And then, I've seen them side-by-side. No comparison. None at all. If I had a choice, the vinyl miniature from "Screamin'" would definitely be my go-to red dragon of choice. Putting that old girl on the table is a real pee-in-your-pants moment for your players. The picture here really doesn't do it justice.

Back to the story.... That was the first real dungeon I'd played as a PC. For the other part of the question, the first dungeon I ran as a DM was a little side adventure I threw together a couple years ago to give the then-DM a chance to rest for a couple of sessions and unwind by playing a PC for a change. I ran out of time and fell back on a little freebie that Wizards of the Coast published, a little thing called "Start at the End." The idea is that you run into the dragon at the very start of the dungeon, and then various other inhabitants as the PCs work their way through the various caverns. Xorn, bodak, and other various nasties lie in wait for the players; I modified it throwing in some small critters and molds of my own as well. Now that I think about it, this was, in fact, the site of the first PC to die at my hands as a DM. The then-DM was playing an elven rogue and was scouting ahead of the rest of the party. He turned a corner, came face to face with a bodak, and promptly failed his saving throw. BAM! Dead elf. I loved every minute of it. Immediately texted my wife the news that I was no longer a "virgin DM." The group still laughs about that moment.

Unfortunately, it appears that, although WotC still has the base article online about this free adventure, they've actually removed the content (as they have with most of their 3.5 content) from their website, so the link is apparently broken. Fortunately, I think I downloaded the adventure back then and saved it on one of my various drives somewhere. Maybe someday I'll stumble across it and pull it out again.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Two

Day Two: First person who you introduced to D&D. Which edition? Their first character?

I've wracked my brain, sure that I had introduced someone to D&D back in my childhood. The only names I can come up with were jocks who would have had no interest in playing or kids like me that already were playing. Same in high school: everyone that I would have introduced were already playing.

Fast forward to the 21st century, when I picked up the dice again. There was a relative newbie in the group. I know he'd played Robotech before, but I cannot remember if this was the first time he'd played (and so would qualify as my first introduced, as I was a part of the group that introduced him).

So, I think I have to count my oldest four children as the first person people I introduced to D&D. As I've written before, I used the D&D 3.5 Beginner's Box to introduce them and used those pre-generated characters as their first characters.

Cast of Characters
Lanin: elf wizard (17-year-old daughter)
Carn: human rogue (15-year-old daughter)
Regdar: human fighter (13-year-old son)
Dothal: dwarven cleric (9-year-old son)

[From the Mailbag] Racial Equality

My mother has spent most of this week in the hospital, so my mind has been preoccupied and not with blogging. So...I was remiss in showing off a little something that came in the mail this week. Oddly, I waited nearly two weeks for the box to come from Arizona to Utah. I'd devolve into a little rant about the USPS, but this is neither the time nor the place. Sufficient to say, I waited, I waited, and now I have these four beauties to add to my shelf.

Sorry about the picture quality. All I had was my cell phone and a migraine.

I purchased Races of Stone years ago, when it was first released. Since then, I hadn't seen much need to pick up either Races of the Wild or Races of Destiny. And frankly, I didn't know that Races of the Dragon even existed. I also had a copy of Dungeonscape that was a friend-of-a-friend's copy on a third-hand lending for the past several years. Obviously it needs to go back to the original owner...when I get around to it....

So, when I saw these three pop up for sale on an acquaintance's Facebook page, I had to ask about them. Things like that get snapped up quickly, y'know. And when he offered me the price of $50 for the lot, including shipping? Well, of course I had to say yes. That's $120 worth of books, not counting the shipping for that weight, for only $50. Even my wife was impressed.

Now, if I could just find a couple 3.5 Players' Handbooks for a reasonable price. I'd like a couple copies for my kids to be able to thumb through. Those, however, are dear and rare out in the 'net for the small amount of searching I've done. [Aside: If any of my readers out there have one or know of someone who has a 3.5 PHB in good shape who wants to part with it for a reasonable price, please let me know. Or if you see one in a thrift store, second-hand store, or used bookstore, (and it's at a good price) please consider grabbing it for me. Seriously. Let's talk cold hard cash. End aside.]