Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The Realm of Dungeons & Dragons



Not surprisingly, the Dungeons & Dragons television series from the Eighties prompted various merchandizing efforts.  Among the affiliated products are two sticker books released in the United Kingdom.  Aside from the requisite stickers and scenic pages upon which the stickers could be posed, each book has a simplistic choose-your-own-adventure type narrative that employs the imagery of the stickers.  There are also maps...or things that purport to be maps.  The word “map” appears in the lower, right-hand corner of each example, but it looks self-conscious, as though uncertain if it really ought to be there.  Actually, each example is an array of illustrations of locations; some of the locations are mentioned in the adventures.  While perhaps not altogether accurate, “map” nonetheless possesses the dual advantages of brevity and convenience.

In the first adventure, from 1985...
Kelek, who is an evil sorcerer, has stolen THE FORCE!  THE FORCE is a strange power held in a star-shaped crystal.  It is the magic which makes this world possible by separating it from the other world which you know outside.
Anyway, Kelek “has broken the crystal into several pieces and hidden them.”  The objective is to recover the pieces.  When the stickers representing the pieces are properly arranged on the map, each “points to a letter in one of the names on the map – and they spell out a message!”  Through this means, the reader/player successfully completes the adventure.

In the second adventure, from 1987, the naughty Kelek has “stolen and hidden” the Spirit King's “magic armour and sword.”  The objective is to recover these items.  The sticker representing the Spirit King's mail shirt is to be placed on the map as is evident below.




The 'maps', as presented, may not be especially useful for a role-playing game setting.  However, the illustrations could easily be incorporated into a more traditional map graphic.  For a crude example, I have taken a map of Indonesia, shifted it around, and 'reversed' land and sea.  I have used the illustrations to create a border around the map, with lines pointing to their precise positions.  Borneo has become “Black Lake,” so I expect the scale to be somewhat less than that associated with Indonesia.



3 comments:

  1. The first map also appears in the D&D 3.5 Animated Series Handbook, the 30 page adventure which was sold with the DVD (and contained the stats of the magic items of the series).

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  2. Any chance you can provide scans of the 2nd sticker book? Since the 1st one has already been provided online.

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    Replies
    1. I do not have access to the 2nd sticker book, so the chance is nil.

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