mazirian - In Honor Of Gary Gygax

From the dream archive and in honor of his passing, I offer this dream about Gary Gygax: In this dream I was teaching geology to retirees. There's simply no accounting for why, but that's what I as up to—a sort of elderhostel geology boot camp. We were in the mountains (perhaps the White Plume Mountains) and one of the students was Gary Gygax. But unlike in real life, Gary had had a sort of Cat Steven-like revelation, had renounced D&D and refused to speak of it or even acknowledge its existence. In the dream, I just know this already, as thought it were common knowledge. There is this real tension in the air for me because I want to approach him with questions about how he came up with the D series, but I know he won't like it. I start to ask him gaming questions nonetheless. He sidesteps them politely and ups the ante intelligent questions about gneiss—which is weird because I can't even think of any intelligent questions about gneiss. I start to get pissed off at his stubborn refusal to answer my questions and I threaten not to answer his geology questions unless he answers my questions first. Things escalate, and my hope of making friends with him start to fade fast.

"Who was Gleepworp the Eyebiter?" I demand.

Gygax dismisses the question with, "he was an asshole, don't mention him," before countering with, "what do you think the origin of these amphibole inclusions is?

Things go further downhill from there, and I distinctly remember being ashamed of myself in the dream, knowing that I was saying awful things to someone I respected, but not being able to stop myself. "It's a trashcan mineral," I scream, "like your Momma!"

While Gygax continues to deny any involvement in writing D&D, I notice that his pockets are bulging with dice. I call him on it: "What the fuck, Gygax, I can see from your pockets you're lying." He looks down and notices the dice in his pockets with unfeigned surprise. "Dammit dammit! Why does this keep happening to me?" he shouts and starts scrambling towards his car in a panic. At this point, I actually have the gall to wonder whether it would be okay to chase after him and ask for his autograph.

I really wish that in my one and only dream featuring Gary Gygax, I could have been respectful and at least received the inside scoop on Gleepwerp the Eyebiter. From all accounts he was, like Jack Vance (who dropped a Gygax reference in one of his books) is, most accommodating of random geeks showing up on his porch to pay homage.