Back in late '81/early '82, TSR ran a series of full page ads in the back of comic books--remember when comic books had ads? These ads were in the form of a comic-strip about a group of adventurers exploring the dungeons under "Zenopus Castle"--a reference, of course, to the greatest sample dungeon of all time. Back in the day, I did not make the connection between the castle in the comic strip and the Holmes sample dungeon because no one had spent years obsessing over that tasty little adventure yet.
Likewise, Ididn't make the connection between Valerius the Fighter and Grimslade
the wizard; both of these characters appeared in the TSR product
for which this whole series of posts is named (sort of): Rogues Gallery. For any of you hose-bags who are unfortunate enough not to have gotten it for Christmas in 1981, Rogues Gallery (RG)
was a book containing pages and pages of pre-rolled characters; each of the ten standard AD&D classes (10 pts to Gryffindor if you can list them all in the next 8 seconds) got a 2-page spread listing the vital statistics of 100 such characters. Unfortunately, things like names, gear, interests, quirks--anything that would be of use to a DM having to conjure up an NPC on the fly, were not provided, so no one has ever bothered to replicate this aspect of the RG in the years since. Actually, I tried to replicate this very thing a few years back, so, as usual, I am full of s**t.
While the bulk of the characters were just a collection of stats on a spreadsheet, in the back of the book there were a bunch of more fully developed characters fleshed out with personality traits, magic/special items, etc. Some of these characters will be familiar to even modern day D&D fans: Bigby, Mordenkainen,Tenser; while others who did not have spells named after them were identified as the PCs of various employees of late 70s TSR such as Lawrence Schick, Jean Wells, Rob Kuntz, et al.
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| Valerius the fop |
Relevant to this post, two characters from the D&D comic strip share names and classes with characters from the back of Le Gallerie des Rogues: Grimslade was the character of a one Harold Johnson--cousin to Howard and author of many D&D/TSR modules including one of my all-time my
favorites: Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan; and Valerius, PC of
young Erol Otus himself. But name and class seem to be the only traits the characters from the RG share with their comic strip brethren. Notably, the Grimslade of the Rogues Gallery publication was not an old bald dude and was accompanied by his sidekick, an umberdwarf-possum. And RG Valerius (see photo above) was much more of a dandy than the strapping bloke of comic fame.
This is the part of the post where I am supposed to provide you with some fictionalized backstory on the subject(s), or give an update on what happened after we last saw them. But, famously--I say famously, because this is not my idea, I read about it on the internet but can't remember where--Grimslade, Valerious and the rest of the party are stuck in an eternal time loop.
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| Tawny Valerius and under-dressed Saren |
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| Zenopus Castle? |
Let me explain. In the eighth and final episode of the comic strip, we see Valerius--now depicted as a person of color--is carrying non-responsive Saren, who, Grimslade informs us, has been "hurt". She probably isn't so much hurt as suffering from hypothermia, having ditched her sleeveless tunic/hauberk outfit--cut high to expose her gams--for an even more revealing getup consisting of miniskirt and sports bra--even though the party is traveling through a freakin' snowstorm! In hopes of saving Saren's life, Grimslade casts Dimension Door and teleports the party into the dungeons under "an ancient castle!" Here, in the immortal words of The Sundays, is where the story ends.
Or is this just the beginning?
If we go back to the first episode and give it another read, we are told that the party is adventuring deep under Castle Zenopus--could this be the ancient castle to which they teleported at the end of the last issue? Interestingly, Saren is not with the group at first--she arrives on the scene in the 2nd epi., insisting that no questions be asked. Given that the boys must have left her for dead in some side room, the rest of the party is glad not to have to answer any questions themselves, so an awkward peace is quickly brokered and Saren is reinstated in the party.
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| The arrival/return of Saren |
Unknown to the fellas, Saren had made her Death save--absolutely not a thing in D&D back then (Actually, saves vs Death were a thing but they didn't have the same meaning)--and revived from her cadaverous stupor. She healed herself, changed her outfit, and set out to find her erstwhile compadres, arriving just in time to save Keebler/Indel from the green slime.
One hole in this hypothesis is that when the gang clears out of Castle Zenopus in Ep. 5 they head for the tavern; this fits with the Tower of Zenopus of Holmes Blue Book fame as it is famously located within city limits of Portown. But is the "ancient castle" that our party ends up in located close enough to a tavern that they could just pop in after a day of adventuring? Possibly, but if so, why wouldn't Grimslade have teleported the infirm Saren to a nearby inn or temple instead into the dungeons of this castle? Sadly, we'll never know.
