Ok, after having this for years, I've finally taken a close look at it. It's a very, very cool product, on par with a Judge's Guild item like Book of Ruins or Modron or Thieve's Guild using D&D stats. It is a small booklet with 106 pages jam packed with goodies for those who love self-published stuff, and the level of professionalism is high enough to put this on a scale better than a lot of better known items (Wilmark Dynasty for example).
         The item comes in booklet form like the OD&D supplements. It was published in 1984 out of Longview, TX, and I get the impression this was some guy's homebrew campaign he ran in college (Longview is a small town but there are several small colleges and universitys there). The item is more professional than a lot of self-published items (Wilmark Dynasty comes to mind, this item blows any of their products away). One thing helping was the artwork of Darla Hallmark throughout, she is now a professional erotic fantasy artist and this was probably something she illustrated while still in college or maybe even high school. The maps are adequate, there are four larger pull out maps and these are quite well done (off hand, they are as good or better than some of The Companions maps I saw while I was flipping through one of their products today). The system used is basically 1st edition AD&D but disguised as "generic" to probably avoid a lawsuit. However, when you use the same stats (AC, LVL, six basic character abilities, etc), magic items, monsters, spells and such of OD&D/AD&D you are basically publishing a Dungeons & Dragons item. This could easily be run with OD&D or 1st edition AD&D with little or no changes, 2nd edition AD&D with a few changes. The feel is very OD&D, early Judge's Guild, or early AD&D in content and form.
         This item is jampacked with stuff. There are eight short Dungeon crawl adventures, an entire city (Greystone Claybank and enviorns), and lot of other homebrew goodiessuch as encounte tables, new character classes, interesting locales, Fumble and Crit charts (what homebrew product of this time period didn't have one of those?), and more. The adventures themselves are all of average quality, none really stick out as spectacular, but neither do they fall below certain standards. They have the feel of being written by several different authors due to the varying quality, very homebrew (think your average Judge's Guild module in Pegasus or Dungeoneer magazine, only a little better). All are for levels 1-4 and are reminiscent of low level adventures you or I may have put together on a weekend 25 years ago or so. The city is really quite good for the time period, it would require a bit of tweaking due to some of the unrealistic elements but overall could fit in nicely with a campaign. The last few pages are fun to read through, lots of homebrew stuff that reminds me of the Arduin Books especially the "Lore of the Land" sections that describe certain places in the world of R'Lane.
         The back says a second volume was due out, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I have a feeling this item may have been very, very short printed and only sold locally. I've never seen or heard of another copy, and it's not listed in Heroic Worlds or talked about anywhere. Maybe a few hundred copies for the author's friends and fellow gamers?(He states 200 people have adventured in his world, that seems about right for a print run). Something like this would have cost very little to print up and was probably only sold at the local gamestores in Longview and Tyler.
All in all this is a surprisingly neat little item that deserves a much better fate than the obscurity it has fallen into.
         Below are some images of the product. If you think you might be interested in a copy of this, please PM me, thanks!

Mike B .

Front Cover:


Back Cover:


Half of City Map:


Table of Contents:


Cool Darla Hallmark artwork:

yeah looks like a cool item! looks like the kinda thing i like having - nice one mike!

Al

jasonw1239 wrote:Have you tried contacting the artist at her gallery to see if she could furnish any additional information?

From a google search it appears that she could be contacted through:

http://www.unseengallery.com/

         Thanks Jason, I did see that, and it appears it is indeed the same Darla Hallmark.  I guess I will eventually contact her, it's just that it appears she is running a business online (selling fantasy art, quite good, some erotic) and I feel odd about bothering her about something she probably knocked off in her spare time 22 years ago. Don't want to take up her time, so to speak, without compensating her...maybe I can find something artwise of hers I like and purchase it, and then pepper her with questions after the purchase.  
       The drawings are one of the best parts of the supplement. By far some of the most professional looking on something I basically consider a homebrew.  BTW, the creature pictured is a Type IV demon hopefully you won't run into during one of the adventures (thought these were for levels 1st-4th, yikes!).  You have to retrieve a Mage's amulet and that is the demon it summons (very tournament like, that adventure). When I get time I will post a couple more drawings.
  Remember if you are interested in a copy please contact me via PM...I don't mind this item getting into as many hands as possible, it should be better known. Thanks!

Mike B.

Badmike wrote: BTW, the creature pictured is a Type IV demon hopefully you won't run into during one of the adventures (thought these were for levels 1st-4th, yikes!).

Ah! I just checked the MM and the type IV is supposed to combine the "worst features of an ape and a boar". This one looks more like it was created using the random generation tables in the back of the DMG...assuming that "artichoke" and "pigtails" can be found on those tables. To quote the movie Metropolitan, "It's really vulgar; I like it a lot". Great style!

Not had time I'm affraid.

Nope. It states copyright pending 1984. In the uk this would be considered 'abandoned work' until a copyright owner challenged it's distribution.

Not for proffit distribution would be hard to sue against. But it could even be published provided that in any ensuing claim the published could prove that he took all reasonable steps to trace the original writer, and ceased publication immediately upon the writer surfacing.

jasonw1239 wrote:Have you tried contacting the artist at her gallery to see if she could furnish any additional information?

From a google search it appears that she could be contacted through:

http://www.unseengallery.com/

BTW also sent an email to Darla Hallmark this week; let's see if I get anything back.

Mike B.

Bumped

Found four of the photocopies I made, I'd like to sell them if anyone is interested.  I'm also selling some copies of tournament modules, check out the classifieds. I have four copies of this left, first come, I won't be making anymore of these for the forseable future if ever....these four are it.  BTW, anyone who got one ever read through them?I'm going to take another look at it this week, might be able to work some parts into my D&D campaign...

Mike B.

HannaFate wrote:Did I ever respond?

Darla you never replied back.  PM me if you wish to have a photocopy of this; unfortunately it's very rare and I can't part with the original.

Mik g

Segal wrote:Evening Mike:

That booklet is my work that was created in 1983-1984.  The inital print run was about 1000 copies, most of which I still have    It was never distributed except for a dozen copies that I gave to an old Friend who owned Nan's Toys and Games in Houston Texas.

Darla Hallmark did all the artwork, I paid her $120 for 12 pages of orignal art which she created in about 2 evenings from a short phone conversation we had.  I typed the whole manual on an electic typewriter that I rented from an Office Supply (I didnt own a personal computer that had word processing capabilities until 1985).   Its fairly obvious that there was not much spell checking or editing.  

Most of the material came from my homebrewed campaign that began in 1976 or 77.  Some of the material was used in a gaming tournament that was held in 1979.   Much of the world was recreated using Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and that server was open to the public for about 5 years under the name of Shroudworld.

I am happy someone appreciated the work, however crude it might be.

You should put one up on ebay and see what it fetches then sell a bunch to eager collectors here! (Once you've established fair asking price). I know I'd love to get hold of a copy.