Back in December, I ordered myself a copy of the AD&D Dragonlance Adventures as a birthday present for myself. Since the seller only did domestic shipping, I had to wait until I visited here to get it. Been reading it in short bursts when I have time.
It's not the best copy, pretty beat up, but it was only $20 or so. I'll have thoughts on Krynn coming soon(ish).
The real story I want to tell tonight is that I met with my second cousin and his wife two weeks ago. They're a generation older than me, and their son was one of my best friends growing up. He died of cancer when he was only 20, during my senior year of college. They mentioned that they still had a lot of his old gaming stuff in their home, and that I was welcome to have any of it that I wanted.
I stopped by a week later and found some long lost treasures. There weren't any of his old character sheets or dungeon notes, and if there had been, I most likely would have gotten really emotional looking through them. A lot of his gaming collection is probably now in the hands of one of his brothers. But I did get some gems. Another copy of the 1E PHB, a Mentzer Basic DM's Guidebook, both books of the Immortals box set (which I had only in PDF form until now), Unearthed Arcana (which I also only had in PDF form and almost ordered instead of DLA back in December!), and his old crayon-fill TSR dice (minus a d6, plus a few other d6s from other games). Also, there are the cards and some tokens from Tom Wham's Mertwig's Maze.
This is some unearthed treasure that I will cherish for a long time. I have so many fond memories from elementary through high school playing D&D, Star Frontiers, and other games with him, not to mention the usual stuff kids did back in the 80's and 90's. People knock nostalgia, but this trip has been full of it, and it's really recharged my gaming batteries.
I'll have some updates on gaming with my sons soon, too. Some cool developments there as well.
Wow...what a find! That pile looks very similar to one my group would have put together back in the mid-late 80s.
ReplyDeleteI picked up that same DL hardcover a while back, but I think I might have sold it (if not, it's buried in some plastic crate of 2E stuff I keep for "research purposes"). I was very disappointed by the stats it used for certain characters that contradict the way they were portrayed in the novels.
[of course, some of the later novels contradict the way the characters are portrayed in the novels. It would be nice if more people strove for consistency sometimes...]
Happy belated birthday, man. Enjoy your time with your family!
I'm sorry you lost your best friend and he was only 20. My gosh.
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