#12B - California Gaming Part II - LSD&D with Erol Otus #RPGaDAY

Tracing the California Gaming Scene, part II: Erol Otus in NorCal

Erol Otus was one of the "second wave" of TSR artists hired in the mid 70s after the "first wave" of David A. Trampier, Tom Wham, David C. Sutherland and the like. His second wave contemporaries include Jeff Dee, David S. "Diesel" LaForce, Bill Willingham and later, Jim Roslof. Otus' trippy, semi-surreal illustrations brought a macabre yet whimsical, gonzo touch to TSR's publications: D&D, AD&D, Gamma World, Dragon magazine, Boot Hill, Top Secret and more.  He became a fan favorite and his distinct style made his illustrations easy to pick out from the rest.

In about 1983, he left TSR and the RPG industry. Nowadays, he creates art for several RPG companies looking for the classic-era look for their products. It is easy to forget that we didn't see any new weird fantasy RPG art come from him for a long, long time after leaving TSR.

1999 San Francisco: Return to the Art on the Borderlands

Twilight of the Idols (1999)

"LSD&D" succinctly describes Otus' trippy D&D art style, a term I first saw when I contacted Allan Horrocks of San Francisco's Aquarius Records back in 1998. "LSD&D" doesn't mean that Otus uses mind-altering substances to create his art (he doesn't (1)), just that his art mirrors the unrealities that such substances unveil.

Otus illustrated an album cover for SF band The Lord Weird Slough Feg (above) with an image that could've been pulled from a 1980 D&D module. Fellow Otus fan Horrocks, friend of the lead singer, interviewed Otus for his music 'zine, Hoe (now, unfortunately, lost to time).

Down Among the Deadmen (2000)

Slough Feg hired Otus to illustrate their next album the next year (above). Clearly, the members of the band are gamers and if their choice of artist doesn't give it away, you should check out their 2003 concept album Traveller based on the RPG of the same name.

This was the first time fans like Horrocks and me saw Otus work in his classic fantasy D&D style in over 15 years. Remember, this was long before Erol's covers for the DCC adventures The Mysterious Tower and The Haunted Lighthouse and the Hackmaster module Descent into the NetherDeep. By 1999, some D&D fans had even started asking the quesion, "Whatever happened to Erol Otus?"

Humna Humna alien graphics for Starflight 2 (1989)

Humna Humna alien illustration for Starflight 2 (1989)

After Otus left TSR, started his continuing career creating game designs, illustrations, graphics and music for video games. His refined his self-taught art skill first by studying painting at UC Berkeley and later studying illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Otus joined his childhood friend Paul Reiche III at the Toys for Bob studio in the early 1990s and still works there today.

My question is: how did this gonzo gamer from Berkeley become an influential artist at such a pivotal time in TSR's history?

1976 Richmond: We'll always have Arduin

The Arduin Grimoire (1977) cover illustrated by Erol Otus

As a young gamer, Otus played miniature battles with his friends using the Chainmail rules. They soon moved on to D&D when a friend bought the original three booklet set (2). Sometime probably in early 1976, Otus began gaming with Dave Hargrave in his already long-running Arduin campaign. Hargrave hired Otus to illustrate his upcoming series of The Arduin Grimoire rulebooks to be published by Chaosium.

The Chaosium deal fell through, as I explored in a previous post, and Hargrave was forced to self-publish The Arduin Grimoire and its two sequels, Welcome to Skull Tower and The Runes of Doom (all three illustrated by Otus). The change of plans delayed publication of the first book until 1977 and the sequels until 1978.

In the forward to The Arduin Grimoire, Hargrave gives this odd note:

Special Note: the artwork for this supplement is the sole doing of one fine young artist: Errol [sic] Otus. I'm only glad I'll be able to say in ten years from now, "I knew him when..." (3)

Did Hargrave have mystical foreknowledge about Otus' future career, even if he couldn't spell his name? Not really. By 1977, Otus was already a published artist with TSR.

1976 Lake Geneva: The Dragon Reaches Westward

The Remhoraz from The Dragon #2

Otus began submitted illustrations to TSR soon after he started playing D&D. TSR Periodicals finally purchased a piece for the August, 1976 issue of The Dragon. Otus describes this in a 2009 interview with tor.com:

One the drawings was of a blue and fuchsia winged worm in an icy landscape, this was published in The Dragon #2 with stats by Gary Gygax as “The Remorhaz.” This was my first published color piece.

The Anhkheg from The Dragon #5

Three issues later, TSR Periodicals published Otus' creature write-up and illustration for the Anhkheg, now an iconic D&D creature (and now spelled Ankheg). Gary Gygax gives Otus credit for both the above creations in the 1st ed. Monster Manual(4). Not long after, TSR needed a new staff artist (possibly because Dave Trampier had just quit(5)) and hired Otus. He moved out to Lake Geneva.

There appears to be some trouble for Dave Hargrave's Arduin after this. About the time The Arduin Grimoire was in its second printing, TSR sent him a cease & desist letter to remove any references to D&D from his books. This may include Erol Otus' art as it starts to disappear from later Arduin printings.

1979 Berkeley: The Booty, the Beasts and the Necromican

Fantasy Art Enterprises logo

Erol Otus still had an effect on California Gaming. In 1979, he teamed up with his buddy Paul Reiche III (who was also being hired by TSR around this time) and Mathias Genser to create a couple of unlicensed fantasy RPG supplements. They founded their tiny publishing company, Fantasy Art Enterprises, in the "hills north of the UC Berkeley campus."(6)

Booty and the Beasts (1979) cover art by Erol Otus

Booty and the Beasts autographed by Otus to Mike, the lead singer of Slough Feg

Otus illustrated all products and contributed numerous designs. Reiche and Genser wrote the rest. They created a compilation of new monsters and treasures (Booty and the Beasts), a book of 132 new spells (The Necromican  (not The Necronomicon)), a set of Geomorphic Mini Dungeon Modules and a set of New Magical and Technological Item Cards. The last item notably includes "HANDY DANDY RANDOM MAGICAL ITEM GENERATION TABLES" with which the user may create an item that deals 3d20 points of damage or a cursed item that slays its user, "permanently."

The Necromican (1979)

Their books were saddle stapled, softcover, roughly digest-sized (more like trade paperback sized 8 1/2" x 5 1/2") booklets and other supplements were printed on letter-sized (8 1/2" x 11") cardstock. This was the de rigueur RPG supplement publishing style at the time, matching the original D&D booklets (1974) and early TSR supplements Dungeon Geomorphs (1976) and Outdoor Geomorphs (1977). One advantage is that the rulebooks and other supplements (once the cards or geomorphs were cut apart) easily fit inside the original D&D box

New Magical and Technological Item Cards (1979) art by Erol Otus

Other Califonia gamers published in this same "digest booklets + cut-apart cardstock" style. Dave Hargrave's The Arduin Grimoire booklets and various Arduin Cards supplements (1977 Grimoire Games) are in this style. Clint Bigglestone, Terry Jackson (Steve Perrin's fellow DunDraCon organizers) and Kate Wadey published Artifact Cards (1979) and both Dungeon and City Geomorphs (1978) under the DunDraCon, Inc. name. Bigglestone's other company, Fantasy Factory, produced similar card-based accessories in 1978. The Playing Board of Albany published the digest-sized The Spellcaster's Bible (1979) (see Conclusions, below). Matthew Walley of Chula Vista self-published his own Wizard's Aide (1977) booklet of the same mold.

Geomorphic Mini Dungeon Modules (1979) art by Erol Otus

Fantasy Art Enterprises' supplements tended to be of better quality than their competitors. Erol Otus' earliest illustrations were still better (or at least, more interesting) than most other amateur artists in the industry at that time. Otus' geomorphs are regarded as better than Bigglestone's or even TSR's offerings. Otus teamed up with legendary-designer-to-be Paul Reiche III (future co-creator of GW1: Legion of Gold, Mail Order Monsters, Archon, Star Control and even the Skylanders franchise) and with an ability to create a legible book (a rarity in that era) made for a winning combination.

The Neila, not H. R. Giger's Alien, from Booty and the Beasts, art by Erol Otus

And their stuff was weird, like, gonzo, out-there, bizarro weird. It was weirder that the poster child of gonzo gaming, The Arduin Trilogy.(7) Like Arduin, there is a mix of sci-fi and fantasy equipment and creatures, including aliens, robots, pulses rifles, ornithopters, particle beam weapons, whirly chairs (personal mini-helicopters) and more.

Vacucumber, victim and pile of treasure/excrement, from Booty and the Beasts, art by Erol Otus

Also, there are plenty of puns, such as the "Vacucumber" seen above, "a gargantuan sea cucumber with one addition: it has 11 huge tentacles... [with which] it combs the ocean around it for bits of food (sailors, scubadivers [sic], large fish, etc.) to suck down into its immense stomach."

Drillbot, from Booty and the Beasts, art by Erol Otus

It was weird, but not abstract. Booty and the Beasts includes a 20-location hit location system used for certain weapons/creature attacks (such as the Drillbot, above). The monsters stats tended to be simple (no alignment or treasure) but always include a Dexterity rating (sometimes as high as 25!), probably due to the dexterity-based initiative rules in the Holmes Basic D&D set (1977) or The Arduin Grimoire.

Whatever happened to Fantasy Art Enterprises? Otus and Reiche were hired by TSR, who would frown on employees making their own products to compete with them. Eventually, all three members of the company (Genser included) moved into the video game industry. FAE produced no more products after 1979.

Conclusions:

ARDUIN WAS EVERYWHERE. Every time I research a 1970s Californian RPG supplement, publisher or game designer, Dave Hargrave is affiliated somehow. Even my copy of The Spellcaster's Bible by The Playing Board has a notice stamped (not printed) to the inside front cover stating, "Some of the material within this book is inspired by and based upon material from "Adruin Trilogy" and other works by David A. Hargrave©." My planned Arduin post will require further research.

Left, Termite People from Booty and the Beast (1979). Right, Buggems (a.k.a. "Termite Men") from GW1: Legion of Gold (1981). All art by Erol Otus.

TSR got a healthy dose of gonzo where it needed it most - Gamma World. Somebody at TSR wisely put both Reiche and Otus together on Gamma World (1978), Jim Ward's new post-apocalypic, science fantasy RPG and pseudo-sequel to Metamorphosis Alpha (1976). Reiche and Otus were able to reuse some old designs, perfect for this game, as seen by the Termite People and Termite Men, above.

The lasting power of friendship? There is something to be said for childhood friends who can work together through the decades. I met both Reiche and Otus in 2011 and they were both warm, receptive guys who were a pleasure to speak with. That will be the subject of another post, dealing with a certain artifact in my possession.


1: "When people ask me if I was on drugs when I created, then I must inform that I never was." Rients, Jeff, "Interview with Erol Otus," Fight On! no. 8 (2010): 78.
2: "We had tried a bit of battling with the Chainmail rules, then a friend bought the boxed set of three pamphlets." Ibid., 77.
3: Hargrave, David, The Arduin Grimoire (Richmond: David Hargrave, 1977),  2.
4: "Erol Otus for doing the preliminary work and illustrations of the anhkheg and remorhaz which appeared in The Dragon." Gygax, Gary, Monster Manual (Lake Geneva: TSR Games, 1977), 4.
5: "My favorite D&D artist is Trampier, though he had just quit before I got there. In fact I believe that was the reason they were looking for an artist at the time." Rients, Jeff, 77.
6: Appelcline, Shannon, Designers & Dragons: The '70s (Silver Spring: Evil Hat Productions, LLC, 2014), 322.
7: "Most consider Fantasy Art's books even more gonzo than Arduin itself." Ibid.

#3 First RPG Purchased - Holmes Basic blue box on the cheap #RPGaDAY

I first started role-playing when I was nine years old, learning from friends at school and playing with their books. With an allowance limited to less than one dollar per week, I relied on birthday or Christmas gifts for my first RPG books. I could afford to buy a few dice or miniatures for myself but would take all summer to save up for one AD&D hardback manual.

My mother was an antique dealer and visited thrift stores in a hunt for underpriced artifacts to resell in her shop. I was often in tow and would always scour the games, toys and books. It was on one of these trips that I made my first RPG purchase: an unplayed copy of the original 1st edition Basic D&D boxed set edited by Dr. John Eric Holmes.

Not my original Holmes Basic set, but a close replacement

I was pleased but puzzled as I'd never seen a D&D set like this one. I knew the 2nd edition basic set edited by Tom Moldvay. This game, I was sure, must be the original D&D set: the near-mythical 0th edition (that wasn't quite right, but it was still a good find). The price was right (probably 75 cents - the cost of one new lead miniature) and I took it to the register.

A tale of two B2 spear-wielding, armored minotaurs. Erol Otus' original Holmes-era illustration on the left and Bill Willingham's Moldvay-era version on the right

Once I got home and read the rules, I was even more puzzled. This was a D&D set from an alternate universe. Cardboard chits instead of dice? All weapons deal 1d6 damage? Why does this copy of The Keep on the Borderlands have different illustrations like that goofy minotaur eating a drumstick? Most importantly, where is Morgan Ironwolf?

Instant adventure: just add dice

Long before the days of "edition wars" we used whatever rule books we had together in a mishmosh of Basic/Expert/Advanced D&D. I'd alternate between the Moldvay and Holmes rule books, but defaulted to Moldvay for any rules differences. Soon thereafter, I completely switched to AD&D and rarely played the B/X or BECMI rules after that. We still played some of the modules (B4 The Lost City is still a personal favorite) but adopted them to play with AD&D.

For more on The Keep on the Borderlands and the Holmes edition basic set, be sure to bookmark Zenopus Archives and the Zenopus Archives Blog. Zenopus' latest project is a fascinating, page-by-page examination of Holmes' original manuscript for his rule book and a comparison with the printed version. Highly recommended!

Rare Dave Trampier Art Part 3

Uncredited art from B2 The Keep on the Borderlands

The Keep on the Borderlands seems like the last place to find a rare piece of TSR artwork. Gary Gygax himself wrote the module and included it as an introductory adventure in two different editions of the Basic Dungeons & Dragons boxed set (both the blue Holmes set and the magenta Moldvay set). TSR printed an estimated 1.5 million copies and it ranked the 7th greatest D&D adventure of all time in Dungeon magazine issue #116. Countless players and DMs cut their RPG teeth on this module (myself included). It can hardly be considered "rare."

In 1980, one odd illustration appeared only in the second printing of the module where intertwined, horned dragon-serpents devour each other at the bottom of page 5.

The mysterious serpents

Some of the 6th and 7th printings of the Holmes basic sets included this printing of B2 and a few more copies sold individually. Later in 1980, the illustration disappeared from the third and subsequent printings, just as D&D's popularity started its greatest ascent. This makes it safe to call the illustration "rare."

The striking image is reminiscent of Celtic knotwork designs and M. C. Escher but who illustrated it? The artists credited in the module are David S. LaForce (a.k.a. "Diesel"), Erol Otus and Jim Roslof. However, this looks nothing like any of their art styles.

Now compare the illustration to the works of fellow TSR artist Dave Trampier:

Boat masthead (D3 Vault of the Drow), Gorgon (Monster Manual) and Kobold-Hating Dragon (Dungeon Masters Guide) all by David A. Trampier

We see the same toothy snout and careful balance between light and dark in the boat masthead. The gorgon's cross-hatching style and line weight are almost identical; even the shading on the horns is the same. The dragon exhibits the same serpentine neck with similar scales and soft underbelly. I feel safe in saying all four images were created by the same hand.

There were small changes between the first and second printings of the module, including the addition of the intertwined serpents image and a dragon illustration by David S. LaForce (previously seen in The Strategic Review). An editor probably added them to fill some white space between paragraphs. It is highly likely Tramp's contribution was overlooked and TSR staff neglected to include him in the art credits. In fact, third and later printings are heavily revised and include illustrations by Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham, both equally uncredited.

As far as I know, the intertwined serpents image was never published again. I believe this is the first time Trampier is acknowledged as the creator of this image.

For more information about module B2 and the early days of Basic D&D I recommend Zenopus Archives. "Zenopus" maintains a terrific repository of information on the original, blue-book, basic rules set and its author, the late Dr. John Eric Holmes. Stay up to date with his blog where he is currently comparing an original manuscript for Holmes' Basic Set against the printed versions, noting where editor Gary Gygax was making subtle adjustments to the original D&D rules.