The Loveshade Family Blog

Gary Gygax, who with Dave Arneson created Dungeons & Dragons which transformed the worlds of both gaming and fantasy, died at age 69.  As Steve Jackson wrote, without Gygax and Arneson, the roleplaying game industry might never have happened, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy likely wouldn't have been made.

Alden and I have a personal interest here.  Years ago Alden got involved in a D & D group, which eventually led em to GURPS in Steve Jackson Games.  Most of es closest friends played one or the other game with em as either player or Game Master (GM).  During a very difficult phase of es life, es weekly GURPS game kept em going.  These also led em to involvement in the Society for Creative Anachronism, which lead to an interest in alternative forms of society, which led to...well, keep reading.

I, Reverend Loveshade, saw the Steve Jackson Games edition of Principia Discordia (the first edition that put the book in bookstores) when it came out in 1994.  Before that I didn't know of the book, but it led me to some very strange places.  Discussing it with my Mum led to my learning that my Mum had been friends as a teenage girl with Luna Wilson, who was murdered at age 15.  Luna was the daughter of Robert Anton Wilson who contributed to the Principia, and who wrote about the Illuminati.  I had learned about the Illuminati through one of Bob Wilson's books, but didn't know of es connection to my mother.  But learning this connection led to my contacting the borderline fringe-mainstream writer whom I grew to call Grandbob.

These various connections came together when I had a vision of doing a book, which became the still evolving Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht.  Alden brought es vision to it, as did Princess Unicornia, Fairy Princess Yoshikyoko, Dr. Sinister Craven, Untroubled Teen and many others.  Each of those mentioned above connected to the book either through fantasy or roleplaying.  It's likely that, without Gary Gygax and all the interconnections made through the creation of D & D, our book would never have happened, and likely neither would Apocrypha Discordia or several other great Discordian works.

Ironically, Gary Gygax died on March 4, which has been called GM Day.

See an Associated Press story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080304/ap_en_ot/obit_gygax and see Steve Jackson's tribute at http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archives.html?y=2008&m=March&d=5

(Alden Loveshade contributed to this report.  Details of photo are at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gary_Gygax_Gen_Con_2007.JPG)

- - - - -

See Dave Arneson goodbye entry at http://loveshade.org/blog/2009/04/dave_arneson_dungeons_dragon_c.html