Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
Many thanks to Anthony Savini and Cecily Tyler, director-producer and producer (respectively) of the one and only Dungeons & Dragons: A Documentary, for the pics. Thanks also to Bill Meinhardt and Scott Brand. The cycle is part of their incredible D&D collection.
The box front is missing Bobby and Uni, but Strongheart, who appears in only one episode of the cartoon, is front and center. I’m trying to track down the artist.
More on the Power Cycle (“Exciting 3-D Dragon Head”) here.
Yup. I haven’t found one in the package yet, but here’s proof that it exists.
If you thought the D&D big wheel was a myth, think again. Coleco released a series of Power Cycles throughout the ’80s, this one among them, although I’ve never seen it advertised in any catalog. The pictures aren’t great, and the specimen is pretty beat up, but we can see that the cycle is fashioned in the image of—you’ll never guess—a dragon. I’m betting some sticker highlights have fallen off the face and probably the wheels (see what’s left on the nostrils and the wings). I love the colors.
The Elmore art on the back of the seat, from the box cover of the 1983 Basic Set revision, is the go-to image for all the licenses from 1983-1984, and there are three more pieces on the cycle’s dash. The two on the stem are also Elmore, seen here and here. I can’t identify the image on the very top—could be lenticular.
If anyone has an advertisement for the cycle, or pics of one in better shape, please let me know.
A real beauty, presumably sold at The Dungeon Hobby Shop. The dragon illustration is by Bill Hannan, taken from the cover of Dragon #1 (1976) and later used for the cover of TSR’s Days of the Dragon Calendar (1980).
Item sold on eBay a while back for just over 20 bucks.
UPDATE (1/19/15): Thanks to some digging by Zenopus Archives at The Acaeum, Scott Moberly posted the below photo from Gen Con IX (August, 1976) showing Rob Kuntz wearing the shirt. I’ve changed the production/availability date on my post accordingly. (The Dungeon opened in April 1976, and Ernie Gygax confirmed that he remembers the shirt well.) I’ve got a Gen Con XI t-shirt here, by the way.
Ho ho ho. The first shot of the Christmas season comes from Brett Hudoba via Board Game Geek. The big, beautiful Dark Tower box is unforgettable, thanks to artist Bob Pepper. The game—I probably got it in 1983 as well—anchored a corner of my closet for many years.
The AD&D Sword & Dagger Set! In the wild! There were a few other sets, and you can see them all in the 1984 Placo Toys Catalog.
There are two AD&D LJN action figures in the shot: Northlord is guarding the plant, and Strongheart (above the Garfield plush) awaits release from his packaging.
The shirt appears to be homemade, the illustration taken from the Blue Dragon card in TSR’s Dungeon! board game. Ladies and gentlemen, you have entered the presence of the nerd elite.
Oh, and I had a version of that scratchy old chair.
It’s not this incredibly amazing paper model of Prague Castle from the 1970s, but what is? At least it took some imagination to devise (paper craft combined with poster art), and a lot of effort to complete (you’ll see that our first owner did not get very far). And it’s versatile enough to be gaming-relevant, especially for younger players.
Warduke and friends are here, of course, prime for catapulting. There’s even a page of torture devices!
Early in 1984 a group of Wisconsin nerds dressed up in homemade ring mail took several fantasy flyers to the steam tunnels and played “Dungeon Frolf” for two consecutive days and nights. One of the nerds never came back, and it’s Larry Elmore’s fault!
They’re not just cool candles. They’re cool, cool candles. Do they represent the most obnoxiously irrelevant D&D product license ever to come to market, or does that honor go to the AD&D Woodburning Set, also from NSI? Either way, the candles are colorful, fun, and cool times two (times three, even!). I would like to line them up on my desk and light them while listening to First Quest: The Music.
(Images via G-Shop Games/eBay)
One of the most obscure pieces of D&D merchandise from the Gygax era, First Quest: The Music is a soundtrack to, and narration of, an adventure outline printed inside the LP (and cassette). The music is instrumental and electronic, most of it reflecting “the forbidding and grim atmosphere of the plot.” The author of Blogonomicon, where I found most of the images above, uploaded the album to YouTube, and I made a playlist featuring the songs in the order they appear on the LP. Give it a listen here.
I have to admit that I love it all, even the bits that are overdone or amateurish. It’s such a brilliant evocation of the time. If John Carpenter or Tangerine Dream had scored a Dungeons & Dragons film in the ’80s, it might have sounded something like the best parts of First Quest (recorded on better equipment.)
David Miller, who wrote the adventure (“It is not meant to be a cake-walk!”) and a lot of the music, and who appears to be the principle organizer, recalls approaching Gary Gygax about the project in a comment at Blogonomicon.
Greetings – my name is David Miller and I was one of the contributors/organizers of/for/to this album. It was a lot of fun getting it together. As anyone who’s played D&D knows, you can’t really play a loose, free-wheeling game to the constraints of the flow of the tracks but it was a gas, nevertheless. As part of all this I went to Los Angeles and visited E. Gary Gygax to get his blessing and support. He lived (as you might expect) in this weird, large old house that did, in fact, look somewhat spooky. As I knocked on the door I heard the sound of a very large and intimidating dog barking from somewhere inside – that was somewhat unsettling… Eventually Mr. Gygax let me in, listened to the album and he was well into it. He also demonstrated for me a variety of manoeuvers by which one could dispatch a varying quantity of orcs, depending on how they approached you, what armaments they were carrying and what mood they were in […]
[…] There were also First Quest T-Shirts (of which I have a couple, still unwrapped) and other stuff, I’m sure. I was responsible for bringing Valentine Dyall on board, more because I’ve always been a huge Goons fan and he was on those recording from time to time sounding quite menacing even amidst the madness. I’m afraid I wrote his voice-over script, which is, indeed, especially mediocre and I cringe even to this day when I hear it. He deserved much better than that, especially as he passed on soon after…not the most fitting swan song. My belated apologies to him. He hadn’t been getting any work for a long time and I hear he was very grateful for this so I’m glad of that, at least. I would have loved to have met him but was out of town when his recording sessions occurred.
Miller is in a “psychedelic synth pop” band called Expandis, whose first EP, Mystic Man, was released in 1983. Phil Thornton, another contributing artist to First Quest, is also in Expandis. Filmtrax was a small British record label active during the 1980s.
The narrator of the quest is Valentine Dyall (1908-1985), a famous British screen and voice actor well known for his portrayal of the Black Guardian in the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who.
The LP cover art is from Jeff Easley’s Dungeon Masters Guide (1983 printing) cover. The sprawling gatefold art is also by Easley.
2 Warps to Neptune 