To listen to this blog post recorded by Anchor, click here. If you want to hear it on Spotify, click here. No, this is not my voice, but he reads very well. I hope to be set up to record my own voice next week.
Prefer to read? Here it is…
The original Dungeons and Dragons game was released in 1974 as a box set of three booklets. The creators were a circle of midwestern mages named Gary Gygax, Jeff Perren and Dave Arneson. The basic set arrived on the scene in 1977. This was probably around the time my Dungeon Master discovered the game. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons – Dungeon Masters Guide by Gygax was published in 1979.
I didn’t start playing until 1979, which means most of my experiences took place in the 1980s.
I’ve decided that’s where this fantasy novel takes place. At least when this world is referenced. The fantasy land where the adventure happens is squarely set in some archaic time similar to mediaeval times. That means horses, outhouses, dirt roads, castles, swords, daggers and wagons, and no jeans or cowboy hats.
The main characters are young adults in the early 80s. They started playing Dungeons and Dragons when they were in their early teens and played for years until that fateful day when…
Setting a story in the 1980s eliminates the noise technology creates. There is no Internet, pocket phones, computers, email or 3,456 TV channels. We still communicate face-to-face, know how to read facial expressions and body language, are slim, fit and outgoing, and we know basic survival skills, such as how to start a fire and cook a real meal.
The characters in this novel transported to the fantasy world need these basic skills and abilities to survive more than 48 hours.
This era means the references the young adults use will be what was popular back then with regard to music and movies. That provides me the opportunity to inject a few favourites of mine. What was hot in the early 1980s? Footloose, Eye of the Tiger, Raiders of the Lost Ark and I Need a Hero.
Currently, I have 38,746 words of Dragons in the Dungeon written.
LAUNCH DATE: Thursday March 23, 2023.
Diane McGyver 