A Return to What Was....

Having shared with the entire world the sad news of my recent divorce and other depressing events that have taken place in my life in the year 2009, I feel it's only right that I also share with the world the bright moments that I have experienced. At least the ones that concern my adventures with my oldest and truest friends and my old adventuring band.

First, let me tell you about my characters.

Now one must understand that I was young when I started these guys out and at the time, I didn't have much of an imagination when it came to naming my characters.

The leader of my merry band of four, (I'm not robbing Ed Greenwood here, it's just that I had these four characters which I played with for years.)is a fighting man named Prometheus. I had always liked the name but the character had little to do with the Greek God. While he is now a shadow of his AD&D self, he is still the leader of the adventuring company and still has a pretty high opinion of himself. He often introduces himself as an explorer, adventurer and leader of men. He is physically powerful and while not a learned man, he is not witless and tries to use good tactical sense in battle.

He is followed by the magic-user Gandalf. Again, a name we all know well and which I shamelessly robbed from Tolkien but he hardly resembles the wise and courageous wizard portrayed so well by Ian McKellen. He is more like Walter Brennan in Rio Bravo, befuddled, crazed and courageous only because he doesn't know any better.

The third member of the band is a Northman Pagan Priest named Iarwain Ben-Adar. Another name shamelessly taken from Tolkien lore, (The elven name for Tom Bombadil for any who might not know.) He is physically powerful like Prometheus and he is a worshiper of the Norse gods Odin and Thor. He is your typical Viking with long blond hair, blue eyes and a full beard.

The last is a mysterious man from the East named Takamatsu. For any who don't know, Takamatsu was a real guy. He was a Japanese martial arts instructor and is perhaps best known for his teaching of Ninjutsu. (I was a HUGE ninja fan like most guys my age in the early 80's and I just loved the name.) Incidentally, he was also the only AD&D monk character I every rolled up that made it to Grandmaster of Flowers. I must have rolled up at least 15 or 20 monks and like most people that played monks, they all pretty much died horrible and useless deaths.

Now I had retired The Four many years ago but with some encouragement from my friends including the DM, I rolled them up under the OD&D rules and started playing them.

To all of you out there who are not playing with us, may I just say that you have no idea what you are missing! My friend is running one of the most spectacular campaigns I have ever played in my entire life! I am not merely saying that, hoping he will read this blog so I get brownie points either! We have fought through countless zombies and other undead, orcs, goblins and other easily recognized D&D monsters. We have also fought beasts of his own creation including some form of bone golem, a floating undead thing that is somewhere between a ghost and a ghoul and I kid you not, a mechanical beast that looks and acts almost exactly like a Dalek from Dr. Who!

I have been having a BLAST!

While the names may not be all that imaginative, the fun I've been having with these old characters, despite the fact they do not measure up to the PCs I retired long ago and stuck in a crumbling folder, gathering mildew in my basement, I am enjoying playing them again.

There are those that say you can never go back and I have to say they couldn't be more wrong!

Anti-Human