Junk From My Closet: Old '48 and Dethiaous

Here's a double-header of old ALL CAPS pieces from the gaming closet, circa 1981-82 for our crazy teenage kitchen sink campaign of the Reagan Era. First up is something I envisioned would be used for future extra-planar adventures. I'm pretty sure the damned thing was too complicated and ended up getting used in a game a few times at most. The group had pinched the artifact from an extremely nasty Ancient Red Dragon named Belphast. I can't remember the diversionary tactics used to trick the dragon out of some of his loot, but I do remember that the party was always worried that Belphast was going to track them down and melt their faces for stealing his favorite toy, the Magic Steam Engine, Old '48.

There's more on the back about movement and cost in various rare metals to power the engine. Man, some of the stuff I made back then was funky, to say the least. Old '48:



Next up is a scan of an old hand-out from the same campaign. This message is rather confusing to me now, over 25 years after I wrote it.

If I recall correctly, the message was before the next to last room of a long dungeon crawl. The story involved two warring schools of magic who had destroyed one another. Dethiaous Delian (He of the Fearful Thought, and Grand Wizard of the School of the Fearful Discipline) had been entombed by Elan Eurotal (Weaver Lord of the Invisible School of Thaumaturgy, and Wizard to Emperor Toltan). Both Schools were decimated but their legend grew in the decades following the titanic struggle.



Dethiaous was a Lich, and there was a method provided by Elan to 'put to rest' this foul undead being. Doing so would free the Invisible School from the terrible curse which Dethiaous had placed upon them (and allow their own return to power).

Blah, blah...anyway the characters won and all was well.

Just another strange piece of paper turning yellow in my gaming closet chock full of such relics.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee