More Ancient RPG Items (and Dungeons) From the 1970s Box
I finally had a chance to go through the rest of that box of papers I found Palace of the Vampire Queen in. I discovered a few additional RPG items published in the late 1970s (and, near the bottom of the box, early 1980s): Enfland, The Curse on Hareth, Dwarven Glory, Starfaring, another copy of Tegel Manor, Warlock (a large OD&D variant article published in Spartan Magazine), FEZ 1: Valley of Trees, Legacy, Dungeon Designer's Kit, some non-TSR dungeon geomorphs I don't recognize and a Wee Warriors boardgame called Dragonlord. I've wondered where some of these things have been for years and a couple I don't even remember: Enfland and the small dungeon geomorphs.
The real find, however, was some of my old 1970s dungeon maps and character sheets. Including my attempt to do a huge fortress based loosely on Angband (the Tolkien version, not the modern rogue-like game). This was obviously huge without any attempt to make it realistic. The first level includes huge underground parade grounds for the orc armies -- about 800 feet wide and 2000 feet long and not a support pillar in sight. Most have a 150 foot opening with a ramp up to the surface for the orc units to march out of on their wars of conquest. The next few levels are basically barracks for those orc armies. The same rooms over and over connected with ever larger corridors that eventually lead up to those parade ground rooms.
The first three levels were probably the most BORING I've ever designed as far as exploring is concerned, but they were -- I suppose -- very useful for their original intended purpose. Worse, they were pretty much picked over for treasure, to get to the interesting stuff that hadn't been looted repeatedly over the last few hundred years, one had to find one of the four small and well hidden stairways leading to the fourth level. This is probably the worst dungeon I ever designed. Sadly, I remember putting far too much time into it. Fortunately, most of the stuff I did back in the day was not quite this awful.
June 19, 2010 at 10:24 PM
Randall---
You found quite a haul there: Dwarven Glory, the other DDK (unless you meant DG was the DDK??), and Dragonlord are all Wee Warriors items like PotVQ, and are worth good $$$ if complete. Fez1 VotT is also decent, though not in the same league ($$ so to speak). The Curse on Hareth is from The Companions, and the Warlock variant from Spartan International is also fun (both $).
If the non-TSR geomorphs look like these, then they're from Fantasy Arts Enterprises and were published by Erol Otus in 1979 (which seems possible, given the dates of the other books you found). If that's not right, please do post a pic, as I like geos a lot :D
A nice find, in addition to your own personal stuff---which is always "worth" more in the end when it's relocated :D (something I've done more times than I care to admit...).
Allan.
June 20, 2010 at 12:23 PM
Yes, those are the geomorphs. Thank you for identifying them. The Curse on Hareth was hiding another item, The Cards of Power, another collection of loose pages from The Companions. My wife is working out another cancer fund raiser from these, although I'm insisting on keeping the Spartan magazine with the D&D variant. There should be an announcement on this later today or tomorrow, for those interested in them.
A lot of the old dungeon maps and stuff will be recycled into my current campaign. I guess I don't have the collector gene as this material interests me far more than the old adventure modules. Looking at these old dungeons and character sheets brings back a lot of memories of when I was younger and had a lot more time to draw up and populate huge dungeons, villages, and the like.
The greatest find for me is probably my magically enlarged version of the Park of Obscene Statues for the City-State of the Invincible Overlord with a couple of manors and dungeons hidden in it.
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