This is the End

I'm an American illustrator, in my late 20s at time of writing (you can check out my work at www.tkillustration.com). I've also been playing and thinking about D&D ever since my older brother ran AD&D 2e's The Eye of the Wyvern for me when I was about seven. The introductory dungeon is perfectly linear, has three rooms, and is a terrible mess of bad layout and information design, but I made him run it for me twice with my super special centaur character (nearly defeated by a low wall and a misreading of some boxed descriptive text) and then a third time where I used a full party of all the illustrated pre-generated characters included in the back. The Eye of the Wyvern is a pretty bad introductory product on both the player and DM-facing sides, but the premise of the game itself was exciting. Soon I was making terrible adventures of my own for my brother and his friends to play in.

A few years later a friend's dad started running Keep on the Borderlands and later Against the Giants for a group of my friends after Boy Scout meetings. By middle school, impatient to play 3rd edition, we had mostly taken over running games for each other, with me DMing more often than not. We adopted Pathfinder when the beta rules came out, increasingly asking the ruleset to do stranger and stranger things, and then we all went off to college and mostly stopped playing as it become harder to find time where we could all be in the same place to put a game together. Fortunately around that time I discovered Grognardia and through there the weird subculture of D&D blogs. Eventually I ended up illustrating parts of Gavin Norman's B/X Essentials.

Now, eight years later, I'm starting my own blog. The iron I'm striking could not be colder, the ship of the OSR blog-o-sphere having long since sailed, but I already spend a lot of my time thinking and writing about games, so I might as well put that stuff out where people can see it.

If nothing else it'll save me from hollering into my friends' direct messages at odd hours because I've had some game design idea or other.

Until the End of Days

Ted Nasmith

"Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows,
The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes.
‘What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?
Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?’
‘I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey.
I saw him walk in empty lands, until he passed away
Into the shadows of the North. I saw him then no more.
The North Wind may have heard the horn of the son of Denethor.’
‘O Boromir! From the high walls westward I looked afar,
But you came not from the empty lands where no men are.’

From the mouths of the sea the South Wind flies, from the sandhills and the stones;
The wailing of the gulls it hears, and at the gate it moans.
‘What news from the South, O sighing wind, do you bring to me at eve?
Where now is Boromir the fair? He tarries and I grieve!’
‘Ask me not of where he doth dwell—so many bones there lie
On the white shores and the dark shores under the stormy sky;
So many have passed down Anduin to find the flowing Sea.
Ask of the North Wind news of them the North Wind sends to me!’
‘O Boromir! Beyond the gate the seaward road runs south,
But you came not with the wailing gulls from the grey sea’s mouth.’

From the Gate of Kings the North Wind rides, and past the roaring falls;
And clear and cold about the tower its loud horn calls.
‘What news from the North, O mighty wind, do you bring to me today?
What news of Boromir the Bold? For he is long away.’
‘Beneath Amon Hen I heard his cry. There many foes he fought.
His cloven shield, his broken sword, they to the water brought.
His head so proud, his face so fair, his limbs they laid to rest;
And Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, bore him upon its breast.’
‘O Boromir! The Tower of Guard shall ever northward gaze
To Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, until the end of days.’"

-Lament for Boromir, J.R.R. Tolkien