No one can deny the influence of fantasy literature on OD&D. But fantasy artists? That gets trickier.

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The mysterious early D&D document known as “Beyond This Point Be Dragons” (or, alternatively, as “The Dalluh Manuscript”) contains many tantalizing statements and notes. The more it it is investigated and pondered over, the more it appears to reveal.

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“I had spent the previous two days watching about five monster movies on channel 5’s ‘Creature Feature’ weekend, reading several Conan books (I cannot recall which ones, but I always thought they were all pretty much the same), and stuffing myself with popcorn, doodling on a piece of graph paper.”

– Dave Arneson

The Hammer horror films of the ’50s-’60s- and early ’70s were an essential part of the OD&D inspirational corpus. These films – their style, their motifs – had a profound effect on the game’s monsters and, as others have noted, even on some of the player’s roles. The righteous, undead hunting cleric could be based on many of the “vampire hunters” in these classic films. As we return to the original game and its original influences, revisiting these films, in all their glory, is vital.

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Back when I was in college, and my brother was still in High School and living at home, a neighbor a few blocks away made an arrangement with him and a friend to do some yard work. In exchange for raking the leaves, mowing the lawn, and tackling some other routine chores, this neighbor agreed to give them a yellow Peugot moped.

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Where do the dungeons in D&D come from? Why are they there and who built them and why? This question haunts people playing D&D type games. But what if there really were ancient underground cities?

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See more illustrations here.

There’s been a lot of talk online among the OSR community – this year – about a mysterious early D&D document. Evidently discovered in a box of the late M.A.R. Barker’s papers, it’s referred to as either “Beyond This Point Be Dragons” or, even more intriguingly, as the “The Dalluh Manuscript” after its “discoverer.”

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