Lynn Twiss

While I was in Portland I lived about 6 blocks away from Powell’s book store. (I’ll assume that its reputation proceeds) Each week I’d spend a few hours going through the floors of books and grab one or two. Sometimes I’d move past the D section in the Gold Room and see the racks and racks of Dragonlance books. It’d been years (probably since 9th grade) that I’d last read the series and with each pass by the section I pondered grabbing the Chronicles and reading them again. Then I’d see the F section down a few and get distracted by the Forgotten Realms books. I’d soon after call Christopher on my cell and ask him which of the trilogies were his favorite, since I loathed The Crystal Shard, thinking that since he’d read them all he’d steer me correctly. We’d discuss and I’d never buy one. Instead I finally started reading George R. R. Martin’s sweeping series.

When I headed this way to Boise I pondered which books to bring with me for the trip. I brought along my D&D 3.5 books just to read, but wondered if Sharon’s two eldest children, Z and P, were old enough to enjoy the mechanics of the game yet. Once I arrived, I shelved the idea; assuming their interests were so far differed from Sharon and mines that it was just a silly notion to think they might enjoy a small simple game.

A few weeks ago I was back in Portland on an interview trip and found myself in front of the D section of the Gold Room, looking at that same collected Chronicles book. Again, I walked past it, choosing to save my dollars – knowing that it was just nostalgia that made me desire reading them. Maybe in a few months I’ll drop the money to start reading them again.

When I arrived back to Boise, as I came in the door, P come running up to me with Dragons of Autumn Twilight in his hands. “Lynn, is the first book I’m supposed to read?” I furrowed my eyebrows in disbelief and answered.

“Yes; were did you get that?”

“Mom has a ton of them!” He yelled with glee. I smiled at his response and thought but of course Sharon did**. (Just before moving to Portland she had me give Christopher a big stack of her old Dragon magazines as a gift to him; “someone who would appreciate them like they deserve to be” she said.)

I followed P as he ran off, leading me to his mother’s treasure. There they were, a good measure of the trilogies and a few of the Preludes singles too. It looked like I didn’t need to buy them at all, Sharon had kept hers. You know, the original ones with the cool loose paper, not the crappy stiff ‘quality’ paper editions they print now. Larry Elmore covers and all.

For the past few weeks P comes running up indiscriminately and points at the novels and states inquisitively, “Is that Fizban?” or “That’s Verminaard?! My friend at school said it was Kit!”, sometimes “Why is Raistlin wearing black robs in this cover?” It’s been cool to see his enthusiasm. He has even been spotted running around in wizard’s robes, pretending to be Raistlin. I turned to Sharon and Rob and joked, feigning terror: “I’m frightened that your son is slipping into the path of The Occult!!! If you have a spare Chick track of Dark Dungeons around, maybe you should have him read it!” We laugh.

With my lastest trip to Portland this past Monday I found myself back at Powell’s, but I wasn’t in the D section of the Gold Room. I was in the manga and RPG section. There I was sifting through all the old Dragonlance materials. They have those new d20 books, but they simply do not have the allure the old books do. The ones I remember Woofie having, the ones I longed to own, but my parents considered it Satanic. As I sifted, my fingers ran over what I was looking for. Adventure DL1; the original, with color inserts and in great condition. I pulled it out and flipped it over to find the price: $5.95. It was mine and I was going to share it with P when I got back to Boise.

As I sat in the airport waiting for my much delayed flight to finally depart, I began reading its pages. As I read, I came to realize that they simply do not make adventures like this one anymore. This adventure encouraged the players to read sections of story and poems as if they were sitting around a campfire, each player in turn, until the story is concluded. It also was VERY loose in it’s structure, it didn’t hold the player and DMs hand forcing them along the plot plath. How cool. Then it encourages one character to actually sing and play a song – and the music is included. As I read this, I imagined Z playing Goldmoon and having her sit and learn the song on the piano (which she can play fantasticly). Sure, it’d interrupt the session for a bit, but the enthusiasm is what is important. I imagined how cool it would be to see Sharon’s eyes as she watched P and Z enacting and enjoying it all.

The next evening as I was heading off to bed, Sharon pulled me aside and said, “What do you think about maybe putting together a little D&D adventure for the kids and us to play?”

I nodded coolly, but inside I was warm and giddy.

**I must add also, I remember (how could I forget) that first time I picked Sharon up at Fatt Boys to go hang out with her at Prof X’s bingo arena. When we were driving the subject of roleplaying games came up when she said she loved roleplaying games. She didn’t believe that I read and sometimes played in the same kind of games so I produced from behind the passenger seat she was sitting in, copies of character sheets and books. I remember she smiled big as she looked at the Earthdawn books, and then I believe the women with the big breasts walked in front of the car…