The freaky D&D BUS!

God bless, Mark. He used scans of *my old D&D books* for the epic D&D bus, which is completely covered in old-school, space-van-worthy illos from Dave Sutherland, Larry Elmore, et al. Apparently, the old-school books are hard to scrounge up at Wizards these days (which I guess makes sense, after so many upheavals), so Mark keeps his own private library—of my old books from junior high. 

So why does Mark have my books? He never had his own D&D books in junior high, because his mom thought they were Satanic. Traveller was okay, ditto Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Top Secret, and the James Bond and Indiana Jones RPGs. (Did I mention we were nerds? We both had C64s, too.) But D&D was forbidden. Mark played secretly, though, and whenever we talked about playing D&D in front of his mom, we used the codename "Alpha Dawn"—to the point we actually called it "A.D." for years. (Again: did I mention we were nerds?)

When I became too cool for my D&D books later in life—high school? college?—Mark gladly took them off my hands. Fast forward to now, when Mark works at Wizards (Mark's mom has come a long way) and he's putting together the D&D bus.

I'm going to go see the bus at PAX as son as I can this weekend. That "Paladin in Hell"—on the back right—just about brings tears to my eyes....

Comments

[Tom]

Here's WotC's page for D&D PAX events. Free pop at the bus!
http://wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/pax

[cb]

He didn't happen to find a +3/+5 broadsword in all your old stuff, did he?

[charlie "two teeth in a" bucket]

that is just fucking awesome. i want to have been conceived in that bus.

[Paul]

No, my friend, that sword is gone forever.

[Mark]

The drow took that sword, Chris. And unto the dark bowels of the earth, the drow cast it down!

This entire campaign has been a cross between Jack Black and Conan the Barbarian for me.

But without those books, those blessed books, we would have nothing.