In Memorial

This is probably the last thing you've expected here. But where else would this be appropriate: Dice Tales for our fallen comrades in dice. For years their characters lived and died side by side with our own. And with them gone, it just doesn't seem the same. But, with these memories, we can remember them as they were. 'Til we meet beyond the veil. . .

E. Gary Gygax - Died 04 March 2008

Submitted by Michael S. Webster

Gary Gygax, co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons game and of modern role-playing games, has been a part of my life since I discovered this game that has brought fun and joy and friends into my life. Every memory I have of sitting at a game table tossing around dice and weaving tales I humbly dedicate to this man. A man I communicated once to request permission to post his cousin's memoriam (see below), and met in person at GenCon 2000 where he autographed my first copy of the 3E Player's Handbook.

Gary Gygax was a man players of D&D, past and present have considered an uncle of sorts. The kind of uncle who shares with you something magical like certain types of music, or novels, or comics. In this case, it was a role-playing game.

Gary will be missed by us all. Although his presence will still be felt around the gaming table, just like it has been since 1974.

• Legacy.com Obituary and guestbook
• Order of the Stick Tribute
• Penny Arcade Tribute
• Schlock Mercenary Tribute
• Gleemax Forum
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• DnD kitteh morns loss of Gary Gygax
• Unspeakable Vault Tribute

Hugh E. Burdick - Died 20 November 1993

Submitted by Gary Gygax

Most readers will be more familiar with my cousin Hugh under the name in which he has appeared in RPG material I wrote. That is, Heward. He died of cancer. Although he had been under treatment for some time -- and two weeks prior to his dying I has a dream premonition in which he appeared to me as a young man, so I knew that things were bleak -- his passing is nonetheless a blow.

Hugh was five years older than I, and when I moved to Lake Geneva we lived less than a block from each other. We weren't buddies, but we were close in many ways. As a kid I loved to see his collection of hand-painted watches, the marvels of a repeater clock, and try to find the secret compartments hidden in other time pieces he had collected. Hugh let us younger guys use the "fort" in which he no longer had interest, a neat place above his parent's garage. He owned a pair of original pinball machines (ball bearings and pins, of course), which were a special feature of the club my friends and I had in the attic of my house when I was in high school. He introduced me to the musical fun of Victor Borge, allowed be the pleasure of hearing my first high fidelity recording and later the marvels of binaural sound and then stereo, FM music when hardly anyone knew that there were frequency modulated broadcasts. On the more active side he would take a bunch of us out in a Model A Ford, opening the wind screen and bouncing along rutted, puddle-dotted back roads. You better believe those splashing and head-banging rides were uproarious outings!

In game terms he was a metaphysical and spatial reasoning guy, while I was more a psychic and instinctive sort. At about age seven, Hugh got a non-functioning pocket watch from somebody, took it apart, and when he reassembled it, it worked. He could make just about anything mechanical run. He was musically talented, had perfect pitch, taught himself about the workings of the pipe organ, and made a profession of building, repairing, tuning, buying and selling these instruments for churches and theaters too. In my teens I worked for him as an assistant doing this sort of work in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. He could, of course, repair and tune pianos and reed organs too, but he was most happy working with grand old Wurlitzers and that ilk.

Hugh and I were quite different in many aspects. I played games. He tinkered with clocks and locks for amusement. I listened to music, but he played it. While I was hunting with bow and arrow or rifle or shotgun, rambling around with a fishing rod, camping out, he was building motorbikes, tuning a piano, making some clock or watch work right, refining his electronic music equipment, or laboring over the engine of an automobile he owned so that it would run better -- or maybe for the first time in years. Hugh was valedictorian of his high school graduating class. I never finished. He studied medicine and dentistry in college, I took courses in English and social sciences. When I worked as a farm hand, a busboy, porter, stock clerk, theater usher, even a mover, Hugh was already running his own business. As I said, I eventually worked for him, and I needed every bit of muscle developed by weight lifting and laboring jobs to manage keeping up with him. Disassembling and hauling pipe organ around, or assembling them, is really heavy and hard work.

We had a lot in common too. Blood relationship wasn't all. Hugh and I were akin in several areas. Both of us were nonconformists, both radical in our own ways, and both intellectual -- but, again, from different directions as I mentioned. As a boy I delighted in deviling him, while he in turn enjoyed disdaining me. As we grew older we had many a spirited argument, he from the left, so to speak, I from the more pragmatic right. Hugh believed very much in mystical, I more in the physical, although in regards potential unknowns we concurred.

Over the many years since then, Hugh and I had maintained the same sort of approach to life. He followed his road, I mine. He never married, although Hugh was once very serious once about an opera singer, but after a couple of years that ended. So Hugh didn't have any children, looked on mine more as might an uncle than a first cousin once removed. For family occasions such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the like, he was a part of the gathering in my home. It came as a true shock to me when he told me he had bone cancer. Hugh was one who believed in organic foods, vitamins, minerals, and holistic medicine. He never smoked, drank minimally if at all, and did all the things now popularly held to assure health, long life, and vigor. In truth, I suspected he would be around to see me off on the long voyage into the unknown. When we visited him a few days before the end, he said he was glad he hadn't missed Thanksgiving dinner with us, and he wanted to be out the hospital in time to come to out place.

So yet another chapter in my life has closed with the departing of my cousin. It is a very sad thing for me, but a good reminder of mortality, the absolute lack of assurance as to anything standing between one and termination. In response I turn with greater verve towards the production of such writing as I have inside my head and heart. Time is uncertain and a precious resource. There's yet much I wish to pass along. Hugh chose to exercise his creativity in bringing people the sounds of the majestic pipe organ as they should be heard. For many decades at least, probably far longer, there will be pipe organs with little brass plates with his name on them hidden somewhere which issue forth their music because Hugh E. Burdick repaired, rebuilt, or built them. Hugh directed his efforts towards lifting the soul of mankind and building the metaphysical side of those around him. I hope I am as successful in encouraging the reasoning and creative portions of the minds of those I reach through my writings.

My life is lessened because my cousin is no longer here to make me consider other approaches to life, to prod me into pondering such things from past lives and reincarnation to the whole of Gaia. In fact, it was there, at least, where he and I shared common ground. I "feel" the oneness of all life on this planet, and possibly even the greater entity encompassing the many parts. Of that he was positive. Be that so, then the loss is but transition, and in other ways Hugh will be with me and all to continue contributing towards betterment and understanding. So as long as I remain able, you can be assured I will work with renewed diligence and attempt to touch the metaphysical a bit more frequently in that process. That is something Hugh would certainly agree was beneficial, and a process which you might find interesting. Without abandoning individuality, quite impossible, of course, I'll try to bring a facet of that part of human conceptualization to my writings.

The name, Heward, remains in the game system of a company who now claims it as their property. This by no means disallows the reappearance of his special persona in fantasy game terms, or in other genres for that matter, by another name. What a heka-forger and crusty character!

Farewell, then, Hugh. Thank you for being with me for a while.

John "Jock" Croken

Submitted by Steven James

His name was John "Jock" Croken (Jock is Scottish nickname for John). He died at 18, one of the longest living folk with M.D. He came from Wishaw, Scotland.

He loved playing tough kick ass dwarves, often clerics. He was infamous for casting LIGHT spell, he just liked it! it worked too! :) And when he got to high level, he cast the spell he always wanted: BLADE BARRIER, just as well his pal reminded him you don't center it on yourself.... :>

He didn't complain when a PC got nuked, it was a case of "Oops! Time to role a new PC!" Despite suffering from a displaced hip for months, he wasn't grumpy in the slightest, and he liked Iron Maiden, which made for a nice gaming session ("Run to the Hills" playing in background, etc.).

Here's to Jock! Who's like ye? Damn few!!

"Mr. Steve" Miller

Submitted by Jim Vowles

"When last we left our intrepid adventurers..."

That's the way my games all start these days--the signal to my crew that it's time to stop gabbin' and start gaming--but it was my old college DM who got that habit started. Just as every campaign arc ends with "Thus ends the adventure..."

I first met Mr. Steve during my freshman orientation weekend; I'd put up a sign looking for fellow gamers, and who should show up at my dorm door but this graduate student and theatre costume designer. We shared many interests, including similar taste in games and reading materials, and it wasn't long before we'd decided to set up a gaming club on campus. That wednesday, the Knights of the Sextagonal Table was born. That was back in 1987, but the club lives on to the present day.

Why "Mr Steve", you ask? Well, Steve was Western Maryland College's costume designer for several years, and apparently, he'd gotten blasted at a wrap party and announced to a newcomer "Hello, I'm Mr. Steve, and I *AM* the theatre!" And the name stuck.

For someone who often seemed very self-absorbed, Steve could be very surprising sometimes--it was his idea to run charity events at gaming conventions. We charged $5 a head and earned over $2000 for the MS Society--a charity Steve chose in honor of a friend of his who'd suffered for years from that disease.

We kept in touch after graduation (most of our old crowd still does), and went to GENCON together to run an adventure we'd written, starring our old adventurers. When two of our friends finally got married, I was best man and Mr Steve designed a veil for the bride.

But the following summer, Steve was sick--a lot. I didn't see him much, because he was working summer stock theatres, but we still talked often.

Then one day I got a call, at work, from Mr. Steve. He told me that he had been really sick. And that he'd found out that he had HIV, and that was why his ear infection had persisted. AIDS.

Steve told me he was going back home, to live with his parents, so that he could get the care he needed, but the prognosis wasn't good. Steve knew he didn't have much time left, I think, and though I protested, he insisted that he wanted me to take custody of his gaming stuff.

That was when I knew it was serious. Steve had about 35 milk-crates full of gaming stuff--pretty much everything that had been published for AD&D, loads of Call of Cthulhu stuff, years of Dragon Mags, etc. He said he didn't think he'd be using it again, and he knew that I could give it a good home. I did as he wished, but felt miserable about it.

Then, a month or so later, the call came. Steve was gone. Within a week, I found myself speaking at a memorial service in the big chapel on campus, surrounded by fellow gamers, theatre folk, faculty, friends, coworkers from the flower shop....an outpouring of folks who, like me, couldn't make the trip to upstate New York, but who wanted to remember a strange, funny, mischievous looney. Everyone had a story--from the time Steve, at a costume party, had shown up as the greek seer Tiresias--and had fallen flat on the carpet, causing someone to ask "What do you see, oh great seer?" "I see carpet lint! And dog hair! Ohhhh, the omens!! The Omens!!!" was Steve's reply. We remembered the way he'd mangle and mispronounce names, or gloss over whatever he didn't want to hear, or play at being ancient and venerable (Steve was 36 when he died). People remembered the familiar sight of Steve, backpack over his shoulder, trudging up the hills of Westminster--always a few minutes late, with a "Sorry I'm late guys" at the ready. Or his knack of finding the best, most distinctive and convenient (and annoyingly inexpensive) apartments in town. Or his strange, whimsical and wild tales of teddy bears found in the furnace--or the odd characters he'd experienced, like looney neighbor Selena Valentine, or the drunk who burst into his house mistaking it for her estranged husband's. Or his "fireball in a bowl" -- the chili that frightened us more than the Call of Cthulhu adventure he'd set on campus.

The Mr. Steve Memorial Collection eats up a big chunk of space in my library, but it remains a place where our friends can find that old module, or see what Steve was *really* throwing at us in some 10-yr-old adventure, or leaf through original artwork Steve had done for our group.

But we don't need that to remember our friend, especially when we get together as a group and start telling old stories, which frequently involve Mr. Steve and something equally improbable. I know that for myself, every game makes me think of Steve. Whenever I've forgotten some DM-ly detail, and the players use it to thwart my evil plans, or someone ekes out a 1-in-20 saving throw, I find myself shouting "FOOLS!" as Steve did. Or when I suddenly realize that someone's been trying to get my attention for some vital action and has resorted to belting me with a crumpled piece of paper. But for me, the hardest one is when I find myself saying "Thus ends the adventure..." --because I am forced to remember that for at least one of my friends, the adventure *has* ended.

We miss ya, Steve.

Brian Sullivan

Submitted by Miguel Valdespino

This is not your standard gaming story. It deals with a gaming buddy of mine who passed away this year and how we remembered him both in and out of game.

Brian Sullivan was larger than life both as a player and especially as a gamemaster. He was an Anime addict, and he brought that epic scale to his games. He was able to build villains that could threaten entire worlds, and yet make them suitable enemies to drive entire campaigns. As a player, he was the type of hero who set his sights on an impossible task and accomplished it by refusing to accept failure.

When he died it left a big hole in me and in all of our groups. I had not known him nearly as long as others in our group, but it was hard on all of us. One of our group, Scott, had just graduated and was preparing to take a position as a pastor. His first duty in his new role was to give the service for one of his dearest friends. I was amazed at how much he had affected so many people. People had showed up who were customers at the gas station Brian managed. I guess he saved up all of his evil impulses for the villains in his games.

At that ceremony, there was a small basket of small velvet bags. In each there were a few dice, and a miniature or small trinket of Brian's. It was a way of sharing his memory and his incredible luck (he had a way of pulling out the critical success at the dramatic moment). At the memorial, gamers were in the minority, but everybody was invited to take a bag to keep a part of him with them. As I saw some of the children on the porch with the dice and the minatures, it was as if Brian was around to play with them.

Brian's masterwork is the world of Britannia. It is an anime-inspired techno-fantasy world that has survived many generations and even more rules systems. It was always his desire to publish it someday. Afterwards, all of us wanted to see this published as a testament to his work. Scott took the lead and we are attempting to write this world that existed mostly in his head.

We had the first playtest game recently, and among the players was somebody new to gaming... Brian's mom. She had watched Brian grow up with gaming, and wanted to be a part of something that had brought him such great joy.

Roberta Sullivan is very much the sweet motherly figure. She invited us to her house for the game and the potluck. As we began, she started out unsure of herself, and wondering what she could do, just like most new gamers. She was playing the seer of the group, with a special power that allowed her to see the destiny of a person or place, and if that destiny was good or evil. As the game progressed, she grew more confident and started getting more comfortable.

When we got into the big battle of the evening, we had a little glimpse of where Brian came from. His mother was striding right out into combat, swinging a sword and lashing out with kicks. Most of the time she didn't connect, but that didn't stop her. Finally, she ended up jumping on the back of a demon-mecha, ripping out the cables in it's neck, and surfing it as it crashed to the ground.

And all of this from the little lady that had warned us early to watch our language around her. Brian would have been proud of her.