Founders & Legends

Founders & Legends was held this past weekend in Lake Geneva.  I was able to convince two of my high school buddies to make the pilgrimage, in honor of D&D's 50th.

Celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons

Tomb of Ra-Hotep:

The first game I ran was Alan Lucien's "Tomb of Ra-Hotep", which famously served as the inspiration for Gary Gygax's "Tomb of Horrors".

The players did a great job navigating the hazards of the tomb, and through a combination of luck and skill, were able to defeat the lich!

I plan to post a more detailed writeup, in the days to come.

The Chapel of Silence:

The Chapel of Silence, illustration by Rager Raupp, from Dragon #50 (June, 1981)

I've run "The Chapel of Silence" a couple of times, before.  It's a well-conceived mini-scenario, with some original bits, and a tough boss encounter.

We used pre-generated 3rd level characters from the Holmes Ref 2.0 compilation, available at the Zenopus Archives website, with the addition of a 2nd level witch.

The players came close to disaster in the penultimate encounter, although thanks to good karma, were able to succeed in their quest.

Midnight at Bomour:

Our DM originally ran this adventure at Gen Con XVII in 1984, marking its 40th anniversary at Founders & Legends.

We used the pregens from S4 "The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth", so I got a chance to play Hockerbrecht, the half-elf fighter/magic-user/thief.

We had a great time, and encouraged our DM to consider publishing the scenario.

Caverns of Draconis:

This event was based on the "Caverns of Draconis" adventure, mentioned in Season 2, Episode 14 of NBC's "Community" TV series.

There is an actual "Caverns of Draconis" parody module, published by the Bugbear Brothers in 2021, on which our adventure was based.

I got a chance to play the paladin Duquesne of Clan Duquesne, (and was voted MVP!)

The Tower of Gygax:

Luke Gygax running "The Tower of Gygax"

One of my friends and I were pleasantly surprised to have Luke Gygax run our cohort of eight players through "The Tower of Gygax".

We survived an ambush of gnolls, only to be set upon by four giant spiders (my dwarf made five successful saves vs. poison).

Luke passed the baton to Curtis Cable, who did his best to seal our doom, although we managed to survive!

Seminars

One of the great things about old-school cons are the seminars.  We attended "The Next Wave: From Players to Creators" with Allan Hammack, Ed Greenwood, Erol Otus, and Mike Mearls, and "Ask Elminster Anything" with Ed Greenwood.

Siege of Bodenburg:

A view from the ramparts of the castle.

The highlight of our last day was a chance to play "Seige of Bodenburg", the game that inspired Jeff Perren and Gary Gygax to collaborate on the Chainmail rules.

Given out lack of familiarity with the rules, we were only able to play a few turns, but had lots of fun, nonetheless.

We'll also be attending Gary Con, this weekend, so stay tuned for another update!