Over on FB, I just heard from D. Daniel Wagner (inventor of the thief class and co-author of the Manual of Aurania) that Holmes played a PC named "Eric the Cleric" with his group, which was centered around Aero Hobbies. A pretty fitting PC name for a doctor named Eric. http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-manual-of-aurania-1977.html
http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-manual-of-aurania-1977.html
That's great!---any more tidbits from Wagner, Zach H? :D
ReplyDelete!!!
ReplyDeleteI love the Manual Of Aurania - what an important document from the history of our beloved hobby!
ReplyDeleteAndy, I'm sure he'd enjoy hearing that from you. Here is his FB profile if you want to friend or message him --- facebook.com - Security Check Required
ReplyDeleteAllan Grohe Not much, he wrote: "He had a character named Eric the Cleric. He liked one of my weird classes from the Manual of Aurania. But he usually ran a game for the kids, he only played with us a little. He was older than us by quite a bit."
ReplyDeleteThere's a Q&A thread with him on ODD74 if anyone is interested in learning more about his group --- http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/9279/manual-aurania
ReplyDeleteUgh. I love learning/hearing about this stuff, but....nowadays especially...there's little to no reason why items such as this shouldn't already be made available in pdf form at least. Having them not causes much gnashing of my teeth. :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome. It is great seeing the connections between the LA groups. Certainly, Aero Hobbies was a nexus for gamers and different play styles within LA.
ReplyDeleteWonder how much playing at Aero Hobbies influenced Holmes rule set. Daniel Wagner had mentioned on a thread on ODD74 that they had started with "original pre-production copies of what was to become the original 3 Vol set."
Chris Holmes' samurai PC may have been based on the one by the Aurania group. IIRC the samurai in the Adventure of the Lost City has lamellar armor described like in Aurania. And then Holmes mentioned the Samurai in Basic.
ReplyDeleteChris' friend Eric, who ran Murray, still has his copy of the Manual of Aurania. And the Spartan Warlock. Edit: Chris' friend was named Eric, not Jeff (Chris' older brother).
ReplyDeleteSo unlike Warlock, Aurania provides a diversity of new class/races, which was certainly something Holmes was a fan of.
ReplyDeleteZach H If D. Daniel Wagner ever wants to reproduce the Manual of Aurania for sales on DriveTruRPG or the like, I'd do the conversion work for the princely sum of one comp'd copy. And if he produced it himself or by other means, I'd pony up.
ReplyDeleteMichael Calleia He expressed interest a few years back (see that OD&D thread), wanted to donate the proceeds for charity IIRC, but was having trouble convincing his friend Hugh Singh to agree to it.
ReplyDeleteThe picture of Eric (Murray) Frasier's rulebooks including Warlock and Aurania is on page 303 of Tales of Peril, in B&W, as part of his essay about what he remembered of the game. I believe he sent it to us in color originally, I'll see if I can find it.
ReplyDeleteThe original is in color, but G+ isn't liking the photo so I'll upload it to my web site tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThanks Allan, but I already made another post with it. Eric had sent the original to all of us in an email, so I had it.
ReplyDeleteJust checked this out. I think Mr. Wagner has a great memory and Dad probably was Eric the Cleric. Yes the Manual of Aurenia inspired my Samurai character. We treated his armor like chain mail that weighed less. Don't know if that was accurate.
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