Blackmoor Weeps: A Hero has fallen

This day has seen the first knight of Blackmoor fall. Dave Arneson, co creator of Dungeon & Dragons has passed. Those of us old school gamers have walked the wild and varied lands of Blackmoor. This weekend when you set down to enjoy  a game raise your glass to Dave Arneson, may his star burn as brightly in the heavens as it has on earth. May he and the mighty Gary forget past ills and once again take up on the trail of adventure in the great beyond. Dave you will be missed.

CNN Reports:(CNN) — David Lance Arneson, who helped trigger the global phenomenon of role-playing games as co-inventor of “Dungeons & Dragons,” has died at the age of 61.

A statement on the game’s official Web site, wizards.com, said Arneson died Tuesday evening “after waging one final battle against cancer.”

Arneson “developed many of the fundamental ideas of role playing: that each player controls just one hero, that heroes gain power through adventures, and that personality is as important as combat prowess,” the statement says.

The game’s co-creator, Gary Gygax, died last year.

In 1974, Arneson and Gygax created Dungeons & Dragons, which allowed players to assume roles in a magical world. They could be fighters or wizards, elves or dwarfs. “As characters journey through various lands, they search for hidden treasures while battling menacing monsters with their own brains and brawn,” a description on wizards.com says.

Some games would last days or weeks — or even longer. “Game campaigns are as limitless as the player’s imaginations,”wizards.com says.

What began as a hand-assembled print run of 1000 games quickly sold out. Young people all over the world started buying up the game. By 1982, sales broke the $20 million mark.

Arneson filed a series of lawsuits against Gygax insisting he was not being given credit or proper royalties for his work creating the game. The suits were settled.

Dungeons and Dragons spawned video games, novels, a cartoon, and a movie. The franchise saw a surge this decade after the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies took off.