It is not often we find real-world combat data to use in comparison to legendary monsters from the Holmes sample dungeon, but here we are:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56612257
A man has been whipped by what he described as the "angriest octopus" while swimming on holiday at a Western Australian beach...The creature came after him again later and struck him on the arm, before whipping his neck and upper back. The tentacles left stinging red welts on his skin, which Mr Karlson said only eased after he poured cola over them...

Where would a D&D character find cola? Maybe that could lead to a cross-planar quest.

David Sutherland's iconic painting for Holmes Basic is on exhibit for the first time at the Norman Rockwell Museum in MA!

I visited two weeks ago, and below is my best photo of it.

I've also written a blog post for the Zenopus Archives about my visit:

ZENOPUS ARCHIVES: The Holmes Basic Set Cover Art: Exhibited!

Zenopus wrote in Zenopus Archives: Holmes Basic website & blog - updates:David Sutherland's iconic painting for Holmes Basic is on exhibit for the first time at the Norman Rockwell Museum in MA!

I visited two weeks ago, and below is my best photo of it.

I've also written a blog post for the Zenopus Archives about my visit:

ZENOPUS ARCHIVES: The Holmes Basic Set Cover Art: Exhibited!

[ Image ]

WOW!  Anyone wanna take a stab on a valuation?
Im thinking it is at least 6 digits.....

Zenopus wrote in Zenopus Archives: Holmes Basic website & blog - updates:Today marks ten years of exploring with underworld of Holmes Basic D&D with the Zenopus Archives blog!

To mark the occasion, I've got a "Collector's Edition" post up:

Ten Years of the Zenopus Archives

[ Image ]

Congratulations!

grubbiv wrote in Zenopus Archives: Holmes Basic website & blog - updates:It looks like some of the images on the Zenopus Archives blog aren't working, such as the pictures of the Holmes manuscript, e.g. look at ZENOPUS ARCHIVES: Part 16: "An Exchange of Two Blows With Ordinary Weapons"

The domain 4.bp.blogspot.com that they were hosted on doesn't work any more.

The bad news is that I earlier this year I accidentally deleted the "Google Album Archive" that hosted all of the images for the blog, other than those that are externally linked. The okay news is that most of the images are backed up in the Internet Archive. Every so often I will grab some of the images from there and add them back, but it's tedious so progress is slow. In the meantime, you can try the IA if there's an image you are looking for.

Zenopus wrote in Zenopus Archives: Holmes Basic website & blog - updates:Over on the Zenopus Archives, I share Jim Ward's story about why later printings of the Holmes Basic set included chits instead of dice:

ZENOPUS ARCHIVES: Jim Ward on the Why of Chits

Great story!!! Was Blume the "mold VP"?

The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave dungeon-in-progress write-up continues with d12 random encounters for the cave system!

The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave: Random Encounters

And with another fantastic illustration by Lore Suto:

Chris Holmes, son of J. Eric Holmes and a FRPG illustrator himself, as well as regular NTRPGCon attendee and GM, was recently a guest on the THIS OL' DUNGEON podcast, episode 22 (July 8th, 2022).

Direct link to the episode page:

Episode 22 Chris Holmes and The Tower of Zenopus

My blog post about it:

https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/20 ... dcast.html

Earlier shows that Chris has been on can be found on the audio recordings page on the Zenopus Archives site:

https://sites.google.com/site/zenopusar ... t/podcasts

In the latest post on the blog, I highlight that the newest episode of the long-running Fear of a Black Dragon OSR/FRPG podcast is dedicated to the Tower of Zenopus, the sample dungeon from the Holmes Basic D&D rulebook. In the second half of the show, they expand the discussion to cover elements to include in a sample adventure in a RPG rulebook, which may be of more general interest.


Fear of a Black Dragon podcast: Tower of Zenopus