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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Appendix N is a list of books and authors which informed the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. The term now covers a loose literary aesthetic of pulp fantasy and planetary romance.
The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide (1979) was a book written by Gary Gygax to help people run games of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).[1] It contained a series of appendices, including one titled "Appendix N: Inspirational and Educational Reading". Appendix N was a list of authors and works that were identified by Gary Gygax as the source of many concepts, tropes, spells and monsters that were used in the development of D&D.[2]
The list specifies 28 authors, 22 specific books, and 12 different book series; it is one of the foundations on which fantasy roleplaying was built.[3] A revised and expanded version of the list was published as "Appendix E: Inspirational Reading", in the 5th Edition Player's Handbook (2014).[4]
Appendix N is now used to describe a subset of imaginative fantasy and science fiction from the early-to-mid 20th Century that predates the global mass media popularity of the genre; much of the work in the list was originally published as serials in pulp magazines of the 1930s.[5][2]
Appendix N set the tone for fantasy roleplaying.[6] The early design of D&D drew so widely from Appendix N influences, that very few of the classic monsters are even claimed as Product Identity by Wizards of the Coast (notable exceptions including the Beholder and the Mind Flayer).[7] According to Appendix N researcher, Jeffro Johnson, if you read Appendix N then a great many of the oddities of classic D&D will start to make sense.[8]
Gary Gygax has stated that D&D was not meant to recreate the work of any one specific author in the Appendix,[9] but his list singled out the impact of L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft, and A. Merritt over the others.[1][5] The impact of J. R. R. Tolkien is also evident in races such as the Halfling (originally Hobbit), the division of elves, the ubiquitous orc, and the Ranger character class (after Aragorn), although Gygax professed Tolkien's impact was "minimal" and dismissed the Ring Trilogy as "tedious".[5]
D&D's influential alignment system of Law vs Chaos was derived from the Elric stories of Michael Moorcock and their precursors in Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions, which also inspired the player character class of Paladin.[3] The player character class of Barbarian is a direct nod to Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, although this remains the subject of debate among fans who class the character variously as a fighter, thief, or hybrid of the two. The concept of dungeons with multiple levels connected by secret doors is derived from Margaret St. Clair, especially Sign of the Labrys,[10] while the inspiration for the Drow and the Underdark were derived from both Merritt and St Clair.[3]
D&D's engine of memorised spells is known as the "Vancian magic system" after the work of Jack Vance, who also inspired the Thief player class, and several early spells.[7] Vance freely gave permission to Gygax to use his Ioun Stones as a magical item in the game on the condition that his books received a mention (as they then did in the Appendix).[7]
However, not everyone was as happy to be so influential: the first edition of the Deities & Demigods reference book[11] included statistics for nonhuman characters from the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and the Melnibonéan mythos from Michael Moorcock, both of which were the subject of legal threats and were removed from subsequent editions.[12] TSR was served with papers threatening damages to the tune of half a million dollars by Elan Merchandising on behalf of the Tolkien Estate in connection with D&D and a Five Armies game.[13] TSR were told to removed Balrog, Dragon, Dwarf, Elf, Ent, Goblin, Hobbit, Orc, and Warg from the game,[14] but eventually all but Hobbit, Ent and Balrog were ruled as public domain.
Works cited but not formally listed include EC Comics books, medieval bestiaries and fairy tales.[1] The original list did not feature Clark Ashton Smith, which Gygax later addressed as an omission. Some of the books and series include an "et al.", indicating that their further works were also partially included in the list.
Appendix N reflects the canon of fantasy literature at the end of the '70s. The amalgamation of fantasy tropes into the original D&D in the late 70s has been identified by Michael Moorcock as a period marked by the creation of a fresh genre of fantasy literature, whereas the work that came before was often within the now-obsolete genres of planetary romance or weird fiction.[15]
Appendix N was instrumental in the foundation of fantasy roleplaying and has been important to the OSR "Old School Renaissance" of roleplaying games.[3] Games designer, Joseph Goodman, read every book in Appendix N to create the Gygax-inspired OSR RPG Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC).[2] Many of the published modules for the game directly reference some of the Appendix N texts, such as Peril on the Purple Planet, which is inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs.[16] DCC have also published campaign settings for adventures set in the worlds of Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance.[2]
Jeffro Johnson's book on his journey through Appendix N was nominated for the Hugo Award in 2016.[17] In 2022, Ernie Gygax Jr. nominated Shagduk by J.B. Jackson as an honorary Appendix N title.[18]
Others have also endeavored to read the entirety of Appendix N, including games designer Martin Ralya; Ralya maintains a blog on his quest.[19] There are multiple podcasts exploring and reviewing all of the books in Appendix N, including Sanctum Secorum and the Ennie Award-nominated (2022) Appendix N Book Club.[20]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Appendix N is a list of books and authors which informed the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. The term now covers a loose literary aesthetic of pulp fantasy and planetary romance.
Arik Moonhawk Roper (born 1973) is an illustrator and painter based in New York City. Roper grew up in Richmond, Virginia. His parents both being artists, his creativity was encouraged and he spent a great deal of time during childhood drawing. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 1995 specializing in cartooning, and silk-screening, he began working as a freelance illustrator and storyboard artist for advertising agencies in New York City. In 1998 he was hired as a storyboard revisionist at MTV Animation for the series Downtown. Later he directed his creativity toward more personal interests while shifting into the world of music-related visual art and packaging. After creating album art in the 1990s for underground rock and metal bands such as Buzzoven, Weedeater, and Nebula, and working often for Tee Pee Records, his reputation grew within the underground music scene. In the early 2000s he reconnected with Matt Pike of Sleep and created several album covers for the band High on Fire. He later went on to become closely associated with the band Sleep, having created several album covers for them, including the "bootleg" version of Jerusalem and two versions of the legendary Dopesmoker. He has since developed a devoted following creating seminal record covers and screeprint posters for a wide variety of bands including rock and metal legends such as Earth, Sunn O))), Sleep, Howlin' Rain, High on Fire, The Black Crowes, Kvelertak, Cathedral, Astra, Earthless, Enslaved, and Windhand among many others. His influences include diverse artists and styles ranging from comic and fantasy art to graphic design and classic illustration. Roper has cited some primary influences to be Roger Dean, Frank Frazetta, Vaughn Bode, Bernie Wrightson, Greg Irons, Mike Ploog, William Stout, and Alan Lee. He was a contributing artist to the highly regarded and cutting-edge Arthur Magazine during the mid 2000s. Arik has also designed hand-made screen-printed posters for a pantheon of concerts and events including Sound on Sound Fest, Roadburn Festival, Deserfest, Sonic Blast, Moments Arts Festival, and Desert Daze Festival. Other notable work includes art for the rpg game Torchbearer and background art for Ozzy Osbourne's animated video Patient No. 9 Roper's work encompasses a spectrum of visual styles, including graphic black-and-white illustration, lettering and logo design, abstract psychedelic color and landscapes based compositions. His art is frequently inspired by his interest in mythology, consciousness, psychology, religion and other timeless subjects. Roper mixes the light and the dark within his art to reveal imagery characterized by highly detailed compositions and repeated symbolism and imagery. His book, Mushroom Magick (Abrams, 2009), is a vividly surreal collection of exotic fungal species from around the world. His art has also appeared in books such as De Gotham City a Metropolis by French Paper Art Club, Juxtapoz New Contemporaries, and Revisionaries: A Decade of Art in Tokion, Appendix N, and Taschen's Plant Magick. His collected art book Vision of the Hawk: The Art of Arik Moonhawk Roper was published by Strange Attractor Press in 2023. Some clients include: Penguin Books, Wizards of the Coast, Warner Bros Animation, Sony Records, Magnolia Pictures, Waxwork Records, Columbia Records, Southern Lord Records, Burton Snowboards, Creature Skateboards and many more.
In the human body, the appendix (pl.: appendices or appendixes; also vermiform appendix; cecal (or caecal, cæcal) appendix; vermix; or vermiform process) is a finger-like, blind-ended tube connected to the cecum. The cecum is a pouch-like structure of the large intestine, located at the junction of the small and the large intestines. The term "vermiform" comes from Latin and means "worm-shaped". The function of the appendix has long been unclear, and if it becomes inflamed (appendicitis), doctors may surgically remove it (appendectomy). Since the early 2000s, extensive work has been conducted regarding potential functions of the appendix (for example, serving as a reservoir for beneficial gut bacteria).
The Appendix Vergiliana is a collection of Latin poems traditionally ascribed as being the juvenilia (work written as a youth) of Virgil (70–19 BC). Many of the poems in the Appendix were considered works by Virgil in antiquity. However, recent studies suggest that the Appendix contains a diverse collection of minor poems by various authors from the 1st century AD. Scholars are almost unanimous in considering the works of the Appendix spurious, primarily on grounds of style, metrics, and vocabulary.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.