Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon: Requiem, the Final Episode.

If you were a certain age in the 1980's the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon was something you looked forward to every Saturday morning. While most cartoons were composed of one-off episodes, the D&D cartoon had a continuing narrative and character development, in many ways ahead of its time. The cartoon was cut short before the story could be completed. Now fans have cut together using full animation and some original voice acting to create the final episode. From a script written by series writer Michael Reeves. It was fully animated using footage from the series.  The voice acting dialogue came from the DVD radio show released in 2006 by BCI eclipse. 

Original cast member Katie Leigh reprised her role of Sheila. The music was reconstructed from the original series. Some of the voice and music are uneven, but for a fan made production is very well done. 

https://youtu.be/QsNHTnY6HQg

Special thanks to Timothy S. Brannan of http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/ for the heads up.

Castles and Privy Chambers

Page 20 of Booklet 3: Underworld and Wilderness Adventures begins the section on Construction of Castles and Strongholds and goes on to give prices and measurements to various parts of your stronghold most characters could begin building at 9th level.

This was an important part of OD&D not as emphasized in later editions.

I always felt this would have been done better as basic plans: buy a Tower, Stronghold, Mott & Bailey, Keep, Castle, Fortress, or Palace, etc. Then construct additional parts with the characters wealth later on.

In the illustrations in the booklet showing what your character could have constructed an essential part of all castles is missing:  the 'privy chamber', or just 'privy' or 'garderobe'. Other names included the ‘draught’, ‘gong’, ‘siege-house’, ‘neccessarium’, and even ‘Golden Tower’. This was not only a necessary feature, but was also used in deterrence against sieges as they either emptied out into a moat, or directly onto potential attackers.

This also necessitated the services of a person to clean out the privy when it got too full or too foul to bear. This trade was called a Gong Farmer. After the term for "going" (potty).

Gong Farmer

Hit Die: d6
Prime Requisite: Constitution
Alignment: any
Social Status: -2

Gong farmers specialize in waste management. They work primarily at night where they come to a house, dig out all the feces under a privy, and carry it to a dump where it can be recycled as fertilizer and building materials. These men are in high demand. They are only allowed to work at night, build up resistances to diseases, and are required to live far, far away from other people. But they are paid quite well (up to six gold pieces a day), making it worth working chest deep in unspeakable horror.

They Save and Attack as a 1st level Fighting Man.

The Gong Farmer could be used as a pre-adventure career for a character. 

More details here: www.ancient.eu/article/1239/toilets-in-a-medieval-castle/

The Original Dungeoneer RPG

Like many in middle school I started designing my fantasy heartbreaker when I was around 12. Anyone who is a DM becomes a game designer as soon as they start modifying the 'official' rules. One concern I have about the current batch of players of 5e is that they seem to have an even more devotion to the letter of the official rules than any of the 'rules lawyers' from my youth. I know, that's one of those "kids these days..." sentiment from an old man. So as long as they are having fun and exercising their imaginations it is all good.

This game that eventually became the Dungeoneer card game lived most of its life as a pseudo-RPG. I say pseudo because it was always kind of boardgame like in its design philosophy. I didn't know it at the time, I was just trying to make something fun and interesting to play. It very naturally evolved into a card game. Still, I wonder what it would be like to finish that RPG I started back then. A major motivation in becoming an illustrator was so I could illustrate my own games. Looking back at those old drawings is painful as all I see is how to draw them better. But I suppose there is a certain old-school charm to them.

Here is a scanned in page from one of my attempts to actually lay the RPG out with art. I was still enamored with the 3-column layout that was popular in the era of TSR modules that I think started around the time of the first Dragonlance modules. Now I find that format too cramped and ungainly. This was originally laid out back when I was just learning about desktop publishing in Aldus Pagemaker, which Adobe bought and turned into InDesign.

2020

 Not really game or Dungeoneering related, but I made a tshirt, mask, and mug design.

Lots of color options available to suit your taste.

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/14214872-2020?store_id=173700

The Atlas of the Dragonlance World

In 1987 TSR published the Atlas of the Dragonlance World. At the time Dragonlance was at the height of its popularity and dominated the fantasy section of bookstore shelves all across the US. Written and illustrated by Karen Wynn Fonstad who rose to fame with her oustanding Atlas of Middle-Earth, it is a detailed overview of Krynn and the continent of Abanasinia.

Like her other atlasses; Middle-Earth, Forgotten Realms, The Land, & Pern, it is very high quality and lavishly illustrated with brilliant cartography accompanying clear, concise, yet extensive text.

My video review goes into more depth and shows off the beauty of this book. Regardless of what you think about Dragonlance there is no doubt this atlas is a masterpiece of fantasy world building and can be great inspiration for creating your own fantasy world or for running a Dragonlance campaign.

Warduke Sketch

 Just a quick post today. Some rough sketches of everyone's favorite D&D Cartoon character: Warduke.