In Memory of Terence Peter Donnelly

I recently learned¹ that Canadian game designer Terence Peter Donnelly passed away on September 23, 2020. "Skookum Pete" is best known for his fantasy adventure tabletop games, The Sorcerer's Cave and The Mystic Wood (lists of Donnelly's games and other works are at the bottom of this post). Philmar/Ariel Games published both titles in the UK, with Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) handling distribution to the United States.² The games were also published by Gibson and Avalon Hill published a new edition of Mystic Wood in 1983. They were released in an era of many other fantasy adventure boardgames, such as Dave Megarry's Dungeon! (1975), SPI's DeathMaze (1979) and Citadel of Blood (1980), Yaquinto's Hero (1980), and Mayfair's The Castle (1981). 

My Ariel Games editions are illustrated by Polly Wilson, an artist who also contributed illustrations to early issues of White Dwarf magazine, the 1st ed. AD&D Fiend Folio sourcebook and the UK 1st ed. of Tunnels & Trolls. Strangely, the dragons and other creatures featured on the box covers all appear to tears in their eyes, as if they are all saddened by the adventurers invading their lairs.

The Sorcerer's Cave (1978)

Ariel edition of The Sorcerer's Cave with the cover to the Extension Kit

A huge cave of many levels is built by placing large cards one at a time. As players explore the cave, another set of cards indicates hazards, treasures, and creatures that can be hostile or friendly. One to 4 players.³

The Sorcerer's Cave began as a way to translate the "dungeon adventure" experience he'd played learning the then-new role-playing game of Dungeons & Dragons into a game that could quickly be played with "no laborious set-up and no referee - a game that could be taken out of the box and be played instantly, yet be different every time."⁴

Donnelly spent about two and one half years developing the game before it was published⁴ and it remains an early and influential example of the adventure game genre.² Each player assembles a party of adventurers with differing Fighting Strength, Magic Power, and other special abilities. The cave system is randomly generated by drawing large terrain cards with the random denizens and hazards drawn from a smaller deck of cards. Staircases may lead down to lower levels and new sections of the cave. The winner is the player who manages to escape the cave alive with the most treasure, with bonuses for slaying the dragon or the titular sorcerer.

Games & Puzzles magazine #74 (Autumn 1979) with a Sorcerer's Cave cover story and a detail of two weeping monsters from the box cover

The game was well received as "fast, fun, and thoroughly worth buying,"⁵ and "works well... as a family game... but real Fantasy buffs will be disappointed by its simplicity when compared to D&D,"⁶ which sounds like exactly what Donnelly was aiming to create.

The Digital Sorcerer

Sorcerer's Cave (Windows) screen shot from https://www.old-games.com/download/3220/sorcerer-s-cave

Sorcerer's Cave (Windows) screen shot from https://www.old-games.com/download/3220/sorcerer-s-cave

In 1995, Donnelly created a shareware computer game version of Sorcerer's Cave under his company name of Skookum Software. This game aptly replicated the experience of the board game and I played quite a bit in around the year 2000, before I had acquired a physical version of the game. I sent a check to Skookum Software in order to purchase the full version of the game, but it was returned to me with address unknown. Donnelly later released it and all of his software as freeware (see links at bottom of this blog entry).

The Mystic Wood (1980)

Ariel edition of The Mystic Wood

A hidden wood is set up with two gates, a tower, and forty-two face-down cards. Knights explore by turning up an adjacent card. They discover objects and denizens, who can be helpful or hostile. Two to 4 players.⁷

This spiritual sequel to The Sorcerer's Cave feels more like a fairy tale than a dungeon delve. Each player portrays a different knight errant searching the wood to complete their personal quest first and win the game. Most of these heroic knights are inspired by characters in the 16th century epics: Ariostro's Orlando Furioso and Spenser's The Fairie Queene.⁸ Each knight is rated in their Strength and Prowess (similar to Strength and Craft in the game Talisman) and some have special abilities. Items, companions, and titles (such as "Giant-Killer") acquired during the game enhance the player's abilities and help them complete their quest. There is no player elimination as a knight who loses in an encounter is typically only banished to the tall tower at the center of the wood until they can escape.

Unlike the sprawling Sorcerer's Cave, the Mystic Wood is restricted to a grid of 5 columns by 9 rows of cards (unless the Extension Kit is added to the game), and is a "much cleaner, tighter design."⁹ Each knight has a specific quest they must complete, giving each player a specific goal and alleviating "the aimlessness that characterizes most of these adventure games."⁹ There are better rules for player character interactions, jousting to lay claim to a companion or piece of equipment or to banish the other knight to the tower. It is "a good beer-and-pretzels game... if you enjoy Dungeon! or The Castle, buy this one: it is the best of the three."¹⁰

Avalon Hill licensed Mystic Wood for publication in 1983, which is unusual as they already had their own geomorphic fantasy wilderness adventure game, Magic Realm (1979) by Richard Hamblin. Magic Realm is a masterful, detailed simulation of adventuring as different characters in a fantastic realm. It is also even more complex than most of Avalon Hill's wargames. I've had Magic Realm for many years but never succeeded in completing a game once I brought it to the table (I did play in one play-by-e-mail game around 2004). With Mystic Wood, you can also set it up, play a game, and pack it up within 60 to 90 minutes. Magic Realm is a much bigger time commitment, so Avalon Hill must've been looking for a simpler title.

Mystic Wood Playthrough

The Mystic Wood, end game

I played Mystic Wood with my 7-year-old daughter on Christmas Day this year. She took the role of Britomart (from The Fairie Queene), the only female knight in the base game. Her quest was to rescue the Prince and escort him safely out of the woods. I was Sir George who needed to slay the dragon, of course.

We entered the wood through the Earth Gate at the "south" end of the map. At the game start, only the Earth Gate, Tower (center), and Enchanted Gate (north end) cards were face up. All other areas would only be exposed as we explored them with our knights.

My daughter ran afoul of an angry wizard in a castle and was banished to the dreaded Tower. I discovered the dragon's lair, but needed some arms and armament before I could defeat the wyrm. My daughter was betrayed by a dastardly rogue and sent to the tower. I ran into a grumpy magician who summoned a magic storm to stop my movement, then I ran into him again and he cast another storm on me. Meanwhile, my daughter held aloft the Holy Grail (if she played as Perceval, her quest would be at an end).

After more adventuring, we were in a final race to the end of the game. With a mighty lance and a magic ring of strength, I plodded my way to the dragon's lair. At the same time, my daughter befriended the Prince and began leading him out of the wood. My dice failed me, I lost to the dragon and watched my daughter leave the wood in victory from my cell in the tall tower. She's already declared Mystic Wood as her "favorite game" (any game where she can beat Dad is a good one in her eyes).

We will certainly be playing this game again. The occasional random swings of fortune give younger players a fighting chance against experienced grognards. The events of the game unfolded like a story and it was easy to construct a narrative from the unrelated, random card draws. I'm already planning how we can make custom LEGO minifigures for each of the knights to replace the pawns. I hope I can get a copy of the Mystic Wood Extension Kit with its second female knight (Marfisa from Orlando Furioso) before my youngest daughter is old enough to play with us.

Donnelly's Works

Ludography

1972    Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1974    Hsiang Ch’i: The Chinese Game of Chess (early English-language book about Chinese chess, published by Wargames Research Group)

1978    The Sorcerer's Cave

1979    The Sorcerer's Cave Extension Kit

1979    Middle Sea: Empires of the Feudal Age (with Wilf Backhaus)

1980    The Mystic Wood

1982    The Mystic Wood Extension Kit

Shareware/Freeware Games and Editors (as Skookum Software)

Originally developed as shareware games for DOS and Windows-based computer systems, later released as freeware.

1995    PGView (DOS Panzer General Editor)

1995    Brass Polish 3 (Windows Allied General and Panzer General Editor)

1995    Sorcerer's Cave

1996    Gem Polish (DOS Fantasy General Editor)

1996    The Animal Game

1996    Jotto (also for Palm devices)

2004    Turncoat

2006    Play the Horses (only for Palm devices)

Some Other Writings

1986    Graphics on CP/M Kaypros

2008    What Happened at Adrianople?

2016    Some Observations on Roman Chariot Racing

Footnotes

1. I learned the news of Donnelly's passing from a Sorcerer's Cave news forum post on BoardGameGeek.com: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2565315/passing-peter-donnelly-skookumpete

2. Shannon Appelcline, Designers & Dragons: The '70s (Silver Spring, MD: Evil Hat Productions, 2014), 235.

3. Sid Sackson, A Gamut of Games (New York: Pantheon, 1982), 195.

4. Donnelly wrote about the origins of The Sorcerer's Cave and The Mystic Wood in the Autumn 1980 issue of Games & Puzzles magazine, modified and republished here: https://web.archive.org/web/20201005235651/http://skookumpete.com/CaveAndWood.htm

5. Phil Willis, "Gamesview," Games & Puzzles, no. 74, Autumn 1979, 13.

6. Ian Livingstone, "Open Box," White Dwarf, no. 7, June/July 1978, 18.

7. Sid Sackson, A Gamut of Games (New York: Pantheon, 1982), 194.

8. Donnelly wrote an appendix in the Mystic Wood instructions that detailed the game's literary influences, reproduced here:  https://web.archive.org/web/20201005235651/http://skookumpete.com/CaveAndWood.htm

9. Andy Davidson, "Open Box," White Dwarf, no. 20, August/September 1980, 17.

10. Steve Condit, "Capsule Reviews," Space Gamer, no. 73, March/April 1985, 33.

Rare Dave Trampier Art - Addendum to Part 1

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 cover art, addendum

Back in early 2014, I wrote a series of blog posts about little-seen art by Dave Trampier, the enigmatic artist from TSR's early days, creator of the comic strip Wormy, and co-designer of the board game Titan. As I was in the middle of my series, Dave Trampier emerged from hiding after decades of nobody knowing where he was, agreeing to sell artwork and come to a convention in Carbondale, IL. Unfortunately, he passed away soon before the convention. I had to post the solemn news on this blog.

In my first blog post in this series, I discussed one of Tramp's impressive color works for Titan, a painting was used on the cover of Adventure Gaming magazine #5 for a special issue with several Titan articles.

Adventure Gaming vol. 1, no. 5

I speculated that the image was probably intended as cover art for the new edition of Titan, which was published by Avalon Hill with cover art by Kenn Nishiuye instead of Trampier. I created a mock-up image of what the Avalon Hill game might've looked like with Tramp's art (see Rare Dave Trampier Art - Part 1). Earlier this month (December 2020), I had a Zoom meeting with Tim Kask, publisher/editor of Adventure Gaming and close friend of Trampier's. I asked if he remembered what the image was originally intended for, but he did not. Tramp had given Kask the original artwork long enough to make color separations for printing the cover, then required that the original be returned.

Since that time, Jason McAllister, Titan's other co-creator, also passed away. I assisted the McAllister family in identifying and helping find an auction agent for a number of Jason's personal effects, including several art pieces created by Dave Trampier. One item was a sketch of a store display for Titan games.

Titan display sketch, detail
 by David A. Trampier

The display is sketched in perspective, as if it is sitting on a store counter. The Gorgonstar logo at the base tells us this is not meant as a concept for Avalon Hill's Titan, but for a new self-published edition under McAllister and Trampier's Gorgonstar name. This looks like a new "bookcase" style game box, made popular by Avalon Hill and 3M, and very different from the flat and wide 1st edition Titan game box. The black, white, and red coloring of the display case closely matches the 1st edition game box, so they may have intended to screen print these cases using the same method, with broad swathes of flat colors. The game boxes sketched here would require color separation and CMYK printing, more difficult but not impossible for the Gorgonstar "basement" print shop.

Also, that is clearly the dragon-on-a-volcano art on the cover, the same art seen on Adventure Gaming #5! This looks like definitive evidence that a new edition of the game was intended, without Avalon Hill, and with this stunning artwork to serve as the cover image.

My speculative interpretation of a Trampier Titan box lid, take two

In light of this information, I've updated my interpretation of what this unpublished Titan might've looked like with a black border and TITAN in bold, white lettering.

Rare Dave Trampier Art Part 1

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 cover art

Mar. 2025 UPDATED UPDATE to the UPDATE: The photo gallery hosted by Castle Perilous can be seen at this new link: https://castleperilousgames.com/photos/galleries/album/d-a-dave-trampier-artwork

Dec. 2020 UPDATE to the UPDATE: See my new blog post with more revelations about this artwork.  Note that the Castle Perilous photo gallery link in the next paragraph is now dead.

UPDATE: The original painting is now at Castle Perilous Games and Books in Carbondale, IL. See it and more in this photo gallery.

The painting in situ at Castle Perilous

Tim Kask, head of TSR Periodicals and founding editor of Dragon magazine, met Dave Trampier sometime in 1977 (possibly at Gen Con X in August, though probably before*). Tim and Dave soon became fast friends and gamer buddies, as Kask recalls:**

"He spent many an hour with me in my basement playing games. playing miniatures on my sand-table (mostly WWII micro-armor, which we both LOVED, fooling with TITAN, partying together and racing slotless HO racecars for hours on end. My wife really liked Dave and thought he was one of the more "normal" seeming of all my gaming and industry friends."

Kask hired Trampier as staff artist for TSR Periodicals' Dragon (then titled The Dragon) and their wargaming magazine, Little Wars. Kask also published Trampier's comic strip parody of fantasy wargamers, the Pogo-influenced Wormy. Kask continues:

"I loved Wormy from the very first time I saw it; giving Dave a place to publish Wormy I rank as one of the finest things I did with the magazine."

Kask resigned from his position at TSR in 1980. He then founded Adventure Gaming, a high-quality, independent magazine for role-players, miniature gamers and boardgamers alike. He kept in touch with his good friend and hired him for work on issue #5 (November, 1981):

"After I started ADVENTURE GAMING Magazine, he did a couple pieces of art*** for me, and I did a cover story article on TITAN that he added and published some advanced rules in."

The first piece is a striking painting of Titan creatures on a bleak landscape. A dragon perches atop the volcanic mountain, effectively under-lit by the molten lava. At the base of the mountain, a lion is ready to pounce. The minotaur stands at the ready, wielding a shield and ball-and-chain weapon like the minotaur counters in the game. A titular titan, with cape, sword and shield, watches from behind the protection of his strange legion.

Adventure Gaming vol. I no. 5 cover art

The image stands out as more elaborate than most covers of Adventure Gaming from that era. At the same time, it has an unfinished quality: I can see pencil marks on the lion's face. Could this be a first pass at a planned box cover for the 2nd printing of Titan?

To recap the Titan history from my last post, Trampier co-created the game with Jason B. McAllister and self-published it in 1980. This first printing featured a simple, two-color box cover. They expanded the game with Battlelands of Titan in 1981, the same year this painting was created and the magazine issue was published. Avalon Hill finally combined Titan with Battlelands and published the 2nd edition of the game sometime around autumn of 1982.

Kenneth Nishiuye's Titan box lid

Avalon Hill chose to use staff artist Kenneth Nishiuye's functional but stiff "angry titan" painting on the front of the game box. The image has an iconic look and stands out on the store shelf but the prancing unicorn and the rampant dragon don't do much to fire up the imagination. It is in striking contrast to Trampier's skilled, yet fun and cartoony art style.

Notably, Trampier's art does not appear in any Titan articles published by AH's house magazine, The General. I don't know if this points a disagreement between AH and Trampier or if it was simply AH's policy to purchase the rights to a game and use their own in-house people to support it.

My speculative interpretation of a Trampier Titan box lid

Imagine if AH used this Trampier painting for the cover. Admittedly, there isn't any action (the creatures appear to be waiting for enemies to "spawn in" on the other side of the battle board) and the image is hard to read from a distance but at least it informs the viewer about the product. This looks like a scene from the game, unlike the Nishiuye cover, above.

If I had to quickly art direct for AH, I'd add one creature to battle the lion in the foreground, add another advancing on the right to clash with the minotaur, then lighten the color of the sky and darken the background figures to make them "pop" more. The dragon in the volcano would remain the central focus.

Stay tuned for more!

* Trampier started as staff artist for The Dragon's September, 1977 issue. That isn't much lead time to produce a magazine if he only met Kask the month before.

** Kask's thinking he met Trampier at "at GenCon at Parkside" must be incorrect.  GenCon did not move to University of Wisconsin-Parkside until August, 1978.

*** I will take a look at the other "hidden" piece of Trampier art in the next blog post.

Rare Dave Trampier Art Introduction

Recently, Jason Zavoda used his Hall of the Mountain King blog to start an in-depth look at the characters in Dave Trampier's comic strip, Wormy. Since Tramp is a subject of study for me, I've revived my oft-abandoned blog to discuss some of his lesser-known art pieces.

A Brief Trampier Biography

TSR Games

In 1977, sometime around his 23nd birthday, David A. Trampier became one of the early artists working for TSR illustrating Dungeons & Dragons and other games. He created some of the most iconic illustrations in D&D. His influence is still felt in countless homages across the role playing industry.

Trampier's grizzled, bearded face and 6' 3" frame often appears in his own illustrations, such as the above piece of three successful adventurers from AD&D's Players Handbook. Even Trampier's monstrous manticore face feels like a self-portrait.

Around 1981 or so, Trampier's work disappeared from TSR games but his Wormy comic continued to appear in TSR Periodicals' Dragon magazine.

Titan

With co-designer Jason B. McAllister, Trampier self-published the fantasy "Monster Slugathon" board game Titan under the name Gorgonstar Publications in 1980. Tramp created all the artwork for the game box, board, components, rulebook and advertising. 1981's expansion Battlelands of Titan added new features to be incorporated into all future printings of the base game. The game eventually became a hit, one of the seminal fantasy board games of the 1980s.

Supposedly, TSR was given first crack at publishing the game but refused. In 1982, Avalon Hill published the game as part of their Bookcase Game series. Strangely, the box cover featured art by Avalon Hill's Kenneth Nishiuye. Nishiuye's purple painting of a titan, unicorn and dragon was functional and iconic but ran counter to Trampier's distinctive style seen on the game components. I'll discuss more about a possible Trampier Titan cover in the next post.

Titan remains a classic and was republished in numerous forms. Avalon Hill licensed the game to Hobby Japan who released a computer game version as Beast Lord in 1991 followed by a sequel in 1992.  In 2008, Valley Games, Inc. created a high-quality reprint with an iPad edtion appearing three years later. A German edtion appeared in 2012. It is unknown if Trampier continues to profit from these reprints.

Wormy

Tramp started worked for TSR Periodicals in 1977, illustrating Dragon and Little Wars magazines. Dragon started publishing his Wormy comic strip about a cigar-chomping, snooker-hustling, wargaming dragon and the strange being that inhabit his world. Much like Cerebus the Aardvark years later, Wormy began as something of a "funny animal" comic, a parody of gamers just as Cerebus parodied the Sword & Sorcery genre. Wormy's story matured over the years as Trampier's skills as artist and storyteller improved significantly, much like Dave Sim with Cerebus. Unlike Cerebus,* Wormy continued to be funny. It remained a parody of the very gamers flipping to the back of each new Dragon magazine to read the latest installment.

Disappearance

Sadly, Wormy's second storyline was abruptly truncated in 1988. A cryptic announcement informed us that Wormy would no longer appear in Dragon. Trampier's brother-in-law, game designer Tom Wham, had no contact with him since 1982. Trampier seemingly fell off the face of the Earth, leaving fans to wonder what happened to the artist who was an influence on so many.

In 2002, amid rumors of his death, it turned out he was working as a cab driver in Illinois. The Daily Egyptian, a Southern Illinois University newspaper, posted a short piece about the life of a cab driver in Carbondale named David Trampier. There was that grizzled, bearded face last seen peering out from behind a shield on the AD&D Dungeon Masters Screen. TSR insiders confirmed that this was the very same David Trampier.

For whatever reason, he wanted to be left alone and get away from art and the gaming industry. Attempts to contact him about his art were politely declined.

Rare Trampier Art

Over the next several posts, I will examine some of the lesser-known Trampier works. The illustrations from the Monster Manual and Deities & Demigods are all well-known. Jason Zavoda is doing an admiral job at exploring the art from Dragon magazine. I will share the rarer, published pieces I've discovered along with any pertinent information I know about them.


* I am quite a fan of Cerebus and read each and every issue (yes, even the prose with almost no illustrations, even when it seemed like he'd never get out of that bar). I admire Dave Sim's ability to self-publish and do what he wants with his creator's rights. Lord Julius remains one of the best interpretations of Groucho Marx I've ever seen (take that, M*A*S*H-era Alan Alda). I just wish Wormy had a chance to see a 6000 page storyline published, like Cerebus did. Who knows, It could've degenerated into a misogynistic diatribe with Wormy worshipping an amalgam of the Abrahamic religions at the end.