Movie - El Cid, medieval

 1961

Charlton Heston. 

Medieval Spain. Castles. Knight tyoe armor. Hoods. The costumes seem about half right. Armor is pretty good but might have fake chainmail (it doesn’t flow or hang feom ppl like it should).

Dnd names

 Hate-field

Hetchfield

Blackpool

Greyrun

Greatriver

Ideas from beCmi and Vietnam war

 Viet war, wow, the snake traps in tunnels, the Rattan plant (wait a minute vines) with mega spikes, elephant grass hiding death large and small… https://www.newsbreak.com/war-history-online-1745274/3958900142501-the-natural-and-hidden-dangers-lurking-in-the-vietnam-jungle-that-targeted-american-soldiers

Here is Rob Robvoski Turner’s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xubdVMdMkYk

Ideas from Liminal Spaces review

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ADjnuKqS09I&t=1144s

Commenter says -

The evil things that plague the Night Land

(The sky is always dark, black pyramid, cycoplean monstrosities)

The Country When Comes the Great Laughter

The Thing that Turns the Doorways in the Night

The Thing That Nods

The Spinning Tree

The Black Mounds

The Slayers

The Silent Ones

AND they say “Voice in the Night” was basis for Japan movie Matango (mushroom ppl).

Also he is an appendix n guy, who also wrote “House on the Borderland”… that’s how we gor the D&D “Keep on the Borderlands” eh? https://appendixnbookclub.com/tag/william-hope-hodgson/

Against the Cult of the Reptile God; Nonplussed - Language

 'Reptile God is a fun one, good GM, i like it. We magically put a group of 3 lizard hybrids to sleep when they tracked us underground. Then we charmed the one survivor of those 3, lizard-hybrid-friend gave us info so we could find our captured friend. Upstairs in the bad Inn. 

Nonplussed. What a funny word. Two opposite meanings, what's up with that? Here's what Merriam Webster says: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonplussed

1: unsure about what to say, think, or do : perplexed

2. chiefly US : not bothered, surprised, or impressed by something

Note: The use of nonplussed to mean "unimpressed" is an Americanism that has become increasingly common in recent decades and now appears frequently in published writing. It apparently arose from confusion over the meaning of nonplussed in ambiguous contexts, and it continues to be widely regarded as an error.

One of the things that most vexes language purists … is when the meaning of a word changes over time. For example, it appears that the traditional sense of the word nonplussed, "bewildered and at a loss as to what to think," is slowly giving way to a new (and opposite) sense: "unfazed." Even experienced writers are using the new sense.—Paul McFedries

D&d color artists, portraits; Jeff Easley, etc.

*old novel covers awesome https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wXeoeuTOB78&t=306s

*Daniel Horne has the giant skel in snow vs lady https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3r2F7Ddlyck at time 2:37 from Dragon mag 126  

* Michael Whelan did dragonriders of pern, Elric https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sUyNUoipTHs&t=335s

*Douglas Beekman https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xrsc75kUE

And time 9:20 portrait for mage. 

* Clyde Caldwell https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=onlLu4dafwU

• See time 14:45 Dead Easy, is Nola  

*Jeff Easley has great 2e stuff https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvxbVkFPcEY

Look at these black tips on claws and horns at 1:20 the “Dragon of Flame 1984”.

And this one IS a black dragon cuz it is in a swamp, from the Basic Rules Cyclopedia:

Reading , The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance

Reading this now. 

How to pronounce Cugel? I went with the same as  “Cudgel” that is “kud jul” at first because it seemed appropriate since ppl claim the character is dimwitted. 

This site says nobody knows and many fans have their own way… some claim Vance says koo-gul (which would NOT follow 1950 American school pronunciation teachings if my mom is anybody to go by— “koo jul” would be the way via 1959s standards) but seems like others disagree there was ever a comcensus - https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/jackvance/viewtopic.php?p=47180#p47180

One thign I’m not surprised at the “ai” in names likely being pronounced as a long “a” like “ay”.

 And this passage in The Green Pearl, spoken by Tatzel, is a strong hint at the pronunciation of "Aillas": "Your name is 'Halis' or 'Ailish' or something of the sort." The first guess shot down my original inclination to pronounce it "Eye-las". In retrospect, it has also called into question my pronunciation of Tschai, Vaidro and (I shudder) Nai the Hever.

Ad&d influences

Pg. 9 pickled homunculus

Pg. 9 “libram”… this site says jack vance made it up and d&d further spread the word https://infiniteprobability.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/libram/

Tomb of Horrors influence on Dark Souls games

 The arch of mist… look at the doorway thing to the left of the gianthead (the green devil head w the shere of annihilation). That misty doorway looks A LOT like the misty doors to boss fights in Dark Souls games.  Related or not? The Grognardia site hints at the very end of his article that the misty arch is an unfair deadly thing… interesting. 

Oh, I also read that the Jack Vance books influenced the Dark Souls guy. There is a picture with i think the game maker posing with Jack Vance. 

Gooflinggoogling , cant find the picture… it was in a youtube i saw recently… i guess it is real. But if  found a great website forum discussing Jack Vance h and other good scifi here  https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/567903/

Hey look at the Hildebrandt bros art from 1979 of a big devil head on a wall!!!!!!!! Who was first see video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RBDsIFs091Y&t=214s  At time 3:33, called GORTA THE WITCH, 1979. Note Tomb of Horros was sold in 1978, so Erol Otus was first to draw or paint it, huh? 

Results so far

 Kid beat the fire salamanders and the drow turned Glabrezu demon. 

Reading Dying Earth more - Jack Vance

Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Good stuff. It's many short stories put together... the first 5 or so are all related. Super entertaining. 

[[[Btw, search for “Gaun jack vance”… trying  to find art of the white long armed, furred legged monsters… instead found many book covers of Vance, many are excellent. 

And I just drew my own Gaun… less ugly drawn than my imagination, heh. 

Also, read “Night Lamp”, one of Vance’s best after the first book]]]

I might be on 2nd to last story. First story still favorite.

Update - ok, I have finished it. Very good. Happy to say only one “main character “ was a real bad guy, so it was easy to read and fun. The magic was the best, but there were lots of cool parts like the giant head which might have been an influence on the giant head on Doctor Who circa 2015 or so, and even more likely the giant head w the sphere of annihilation in the dnd module Tomb of Horrors. 

 

I need to come back to this and update it with all the references to D&D spells I keep finding... I know I did a little of this on an older post, but now I have seen more. 

• The Excellent Prismatic Spray - such an excellent battle in chapter 1. Comes up again in maybe ch. 2. 
• A weird ring that you can pass over your head to feet and become inviz... the light becomes darker from the inside. Can pick it up and carry it around, then you and "it" are both inviz. 
• In chapter 4 or 5, there was a Wizard Mouth... placed on a dude's forehead. It spoke with the dude's voice, not the wizard, so... not precisely the same.
• An imp (demon) in a jar.
• There was the crazy demon or gy thing where they summoned / captured the visage of a goddess, and started shooting spells at her which seemed to harm her a little. 
• Swapping someone's face with a demon. Weird! I guess you could almost say it's like "alter self", but definitely more like a permanent curse. 
• Evil lady summoned 3 winged monsters for transportation. They would normally eat you. So cast a sort of charm on them to prevent harming.
• Charm/geas/compulsion type spell - a very strong one. But also a loophole, where you can command someone to use their own willpower/decisions and they go back to normal. 
• Bounce back spell Rune. 
• A really weird spell, sort of like a reverse gravity/telekinetic grab, but it then would spin the enemy faster and faster until ripped into pieces. 

Random:

• I love when the Deodand comes to the door and asks rather politely to open up so it can eat someone. So freaky
• The brakes. Pg. 115, Guyal on horse through the brakes, eluding the four oasts (weird 8-9 ft. Tall humanoids that are animal minded , like a horse),
• Canebrake rattlesnakes is what I think of. 

Monsters

• . Gaun
• Deodand
• Monsters

Other notes around d&d influences … to be cleaned up :

Pg 71 origin of blade barrier? Scribd website version of book. 

Pg 75, wizard mouth? On his head.

Pg. 102 and several pages before… anti-gravity mentioned. It is in the tower, but he thought it a killing spell at first. 

Pg. 105… slime blog tentacles (not a monster but magic helpers with mouth and eyes all over, all over city)… similar to Gibbering Mouthers a little,bit. 

Pg. 105, brain controlling residents.  Like mindflayer motherbrain. 

Pg. 112, the expansible egg, mentioned earlier… it is like the magic Hut spell. Tensors eh

Pg 147, giant face.. on wall and floor… hissing like gas from mouth… tongue into hand snatch ankle. Nostril houses ghost. —- is this the origin of giant face Tomb of Horrors

Larry Elmore’s famous red box Dragon has one horn

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmMt2iDJLuU&t=1745s

Time 28:30. Wow, yep I don’t think I noticed before. Kinda weird. Kind awesome dragon though, but the horn throws me off now that I look at it. 

TONS of stuff I never saw, plus oldies, plus new ones: https://larryelmore.com/store/ (warning, a couple of the zoomed in ones are distorted so I think if you buy you get the good version no distortion... example the one near the bottom from the beCmi Companion book B&W knight vs. scary knight monster face with fur, the fur is distorted). 

Larry Elmore is a damn stellar artist. From Kentucky. The other super good fellow was also from Kentucky and he brough him in... darn it, I know the name and I'm blanking cuz in a hurry.

And this same fellow… born jan 1974, a video game art guy (call of duty)… loved dnd as a kid. His dad made him throw away all, satanic panic. Which lead to him missing them all and him becoming a collector later. 

Since the Jennel jaquays interview (and before) been reliving the 1974 od&d into 1989s and allows adnd 1e etc and dragon mags at the table AS they come up on the timeline. Wow, epic. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0MgGJIa573M&t=1122s&pp=0gcJCS0MAYcqIYzv He mentions half of that from about time 17:00 to 18:40. 

And check out that TIMELINE of all tsr stuff. I need it. 

The Red Box Basic D&D set, 1983. That's the one I knew. 

His original draft even had the one horn. 

Jennell Jaquays didn’t use roll straight down the line

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yS8KuVg-20&t=1050s

She says at 17:00 that they quickly “got over” rolling 3, put it at top, roll 3, put it at next stat. Right, very quickly they used roll 4, pixk best 3, place where you want, so that you could CHOOSE THE CHARACTER you wanted.  

TSR and OSR top 20 lists

 https://figcat.com/lists/osr-and-old-school-dnd-adventure-modules/#the-list

And https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12ualp8/i_compiled_a_list_of_the_most_frequently/

The Garden of Ynn sticks out bcuz like th dns cartoon’s Garden of Zinn. Review and author responds here… $3 on drivethru https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=4134