To woo a hireling into service, characters are expected to post notices at inns and taverns, send messengers to distant lands, or frequent public places. "The elf will check out the hollow sound, one of us will sort through the refuse, each trunk will be opened, and the remaining two will each guard a door, listening to get an advance warning if anything approaches." These are just a couple of the of the early tasks performed by the individuals who gathered each Sunday afternoon in our comic book store Comics Legends and Lore. Soon the action would intensify and the players would embark upon imaginary adventures playing Dungeons and Dragons. On March 4, Gary Gygax, one of the creators of Dungeons and Dragons, died at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He was 69. Gary Gygax may not be a household name, but Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) remains the best-known and best-selling role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than $1 billion in book and equipment sales.
Gygax's November, 1973 description of this new concept in social interaction reads like a sales presentation:
- While it is possible to play a single game, unrelated to any other game events past or future, it is the campaign for which these rules are designed. It is relatively simple to set up a fantasy campaign, and better still, it will cost almost nothing. In fact you will not even need miniature figures, although their occasional employment is recommended for real spectacle when battles are fought. A quick glance at the Equipment section of this booklet will reveal just how little is required. The most extensive requirement is time. The campaign referee will have to have sufficient time to meet the demands of his players, he will have to devote a number of hours to laying out the maps of his "dungeons" and upper terrain before the affair begins.
The most extensive requirement is time. The most primal form of D&D actually appeared three years earlier, as a fifteen-page "Fantasy Supplement" in the back of Chainmail, a medieval miniatures wargame written by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. This version contains only six spells, which were expanded to 20 in later prints. Chainmail introduced many concepts that have endured through all editions of Dungeons & Dragons, including monsters like elementals and the chromatic dragons and spells like fireball, lightning bolt, and polymorph. Magical swords and arrows appear for the first time, as does the concept of dividing creatures by their philosophical alignment to law and chaos. Yet, despite these creative innovations, Chainmail is not a role-playing game, but rather a set of brief rules specifically meant to be used to simulate battles between large numbers of creatures.
In Dungeons and Dragons, instead of simply playing against each other on a board as was the custom with wargames, players worked together, with the rules being laid down and the adventure being created by one person, the Dungeon Master, who ran the game and kept order. Dungeons and Dragons is a game that focuses on social interaction and imagination, with players breathlessly waiting to see the outcome of a roll of the dice, or listening spellbound as the Dungeon Master describes their world and actions. D&D's three rulebooks covered the spells, equipment, monsters, and combat system necessary to run a campaign centered around exploration of a giant dungeon.
For more on Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons see: Send messengers to distant lands.
The creature, called Swamp Thing, was originally conceived as Alec Holland mutating into a vegetable-like creature, a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man". However, under writer Alan Moore, Swamp Thing was reinvented as an elemental entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, with Holland's memory and personality intact. He is described as "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland."
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing had a profound effect on mainstream comic books, being the first horror comic to approach the genre from a literary point of view since the EC horror comics of the 1950's, and broadened the scope of the series to include ecological and spiritual concerns while retaining its horror-fantasy roots.
Waldo County, situated in mid-coast Maine along scenic Penobscot Bay, has genuine New England character evidenced by working port towns and quaint rural villages. Visitors are awed by the area's unspoiled beauty. From striking coastal views to sweeping mountain vistas, dramatic natural settings abound. In addition great care has been taken to preserve and refurbish numerous historic landmarks, homes and buildings. Consequently, the Maine of yesteryear is still found here.
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