There was a time when I fell in love with D&D… well, perhaps that’s not entirely true. There were actually a dozen times I fell in love with D&D, but the time I fell in love with Aleena was the first time I fell romantically in love with D&D.
For all you Grognards out there who remember the Red Box, I have to wonder if you fell in love with Aleena too, and if a part of you died with here in that first intro adventure penned by Frank Mentzer [curse you Frank, and curse you Larry Elmore for creating the ‘Aleena Look’ as I call it that appears in so many of your wonderful images from that time period.]
Today, on Art of the Genre, I’m going to take us all back to that ‘Learning to play Dungeons & Dragons games!’ adventure that started it all for so many of us in a certain age category.
I hope in viewing these images, remembering your first bought with the undead, Bargle the wizard, and finding a bag of gold that no human could ever hope to carry will make you want to take out the Red Box once more and perhaps not only run this intro, but the great little solo adventure that comes after it.
For all of us who don’t have players these days, or out lives keep us from the game that means so much, this adventure is for you, so I hope you enjoy the images I’ve captured from Larry and Jeff Easley on this TSR classic!
Artistic Rating: 5 [out of 5]
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Don’t like that last picture. Did she die?
“Noooo….Why? Why do you torment me with her death?”
I did a 3 week trip to India once and was blown away, the culture is so very dinfereft from European, I’d love to go back but I wouldn’t want to go on my own (last time I did it with a male Indian friend which made me feel very safe, I don’t think I’d want to try it as a female on my own)we also did a month’s tour of New Zealand which was wonderful, the culture is not so vastly dinfereft from here in the UK, but it’s just such a young open country with loads and loads of beautiful scenery and so much space (UK is so crowded!!)we also went on a cruise in the Baltic and I thought St Petersburg was going to be the highlight, but for some reason I felt totally alienated there however Helsinki in Finland and Tallinn in Estonia were wonderful, lovely people so that might be another idea for you
Jeff: Yep, it was one of the hardest losses I’ve ever had to take, especially at a young age… :(
Don’t like that last picture. Did she die?