A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! —J.R.R. Tolkien
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Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #1 on Oct 23, 2011, 5:46pm »
James Ward pretty much wrote all of DDG, with the exception of the Finnish Mythos (which Rob Kuntz wrote). I'm sure that Dr. Holmes gave his assistance with the Cthulhu Mythos, though. Holmes (with additions by Kuntz) also wrote "The Lovecraftian Mythos in Dungeons & Dragons" which appeared in The Dragon #12 (Feb. 1978).
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! —J.R.R. Tolkien
Joined: Nov 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 504 Karma: 67
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #3 on Oct 24, 2011, 6:29am »
I reckon it's fair to say Holmes did write the DDG Cthulhu section. Now I haven't done a thorough comparison, but check out for yourselves the text of Holmes' article (credited to Kuntz, who in turn credits it to Holmes) in The Dragon #12 with the description of of the Cthulhu Mythos descriptions in DDG. Same text from what I can see.
And of course Holmes also wrote a rebuttal in TD #16 of a letter to the editor in TD #14 which criticised his original article.
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #4 on Oct 24, 2011, 8:54pm »
Thanks for bringing this topic up, Falconer (*exalt*). It's something I've been meaning to post about. A few months ago I made a close comparison of the two documents and realized, as austrodavicus notes (*exalt*), that the D&DG chapter is largely derived from the Dragon magazine article cited by Geoffrey above (*exalt*).
I came to the conclusion that Holmes should have been given a co-author credit for that section of D&DG. I've been meaning to update the Holmes Bibliography to reflect this. The D&DG Cthulhu mythos is very well known, but few realize the role Holmes played in authoring it.
Part of the problem is the weird attribution of the original article. The column is credited to "Rob Kuntz", which would place him as the primary author, but the intro paragraph essentially reverses this position by stating "J. Eric Holmes (known for his work with Basic Dungeons & Dragons) with additions by my humble self bring you parts of the Cthulhu Mythos". The follow-up letter by Holmes from Dragon #16 (May 1978, pg 22), ends with an editiorial note referring to him as a co-author of the original article. Furthermore, in this letter Holmes states or implies that he wrote at least portions of the entries for Azathoth, Cthulhu, Elder Signs, the Necronomicon, the Old Ones, and Shaggoths [sic, for Shoggoths]. For example, he writes: "My description of Alhazred's fate is taken from H.P. Lovecraft's "History and Chronology of the Necronmicon"".
Now compare this section in the two publications:
Quote:
"Alhazred was seized in the streets of Damascus by invisible demons and devoured horribly in front of many witnesses. Those who have studied his writings have sometimes met a fate nearly as terrible" (The Lovecraftian Mythos in D&D, Dragon #12, Feb 1978, pg 18-19)
Quote:
"Alhazred was later seized in the streets of a desert city by invisible demons and devoured horribly in front of many witnesses. Those who have studied his writings have sometimes met a fate nearly as terrible" (Deities & Demigods, page 48)
As you can see, they are almost exactly the same. Every section in the D&DG chapter (barring most of the introduction) has a corresponding entry in the original article. Some are revised more than others in D&DG. Only one section in the original article ("Yig, Supreme God of Serpents") is not found in D&DG.
"Story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.” - Holmes rulebook
Zenopus Archives - Holmes Basic D&D - website & blog
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #5 on Oct 24, 2011, 8:59pm »
Here's some more information I have in the Holmes Bibliography about the development of the original article from correspondence between Holmes & Kuntz:
"A post by Frank Mentzer in forums.gencon.com, 2004 stated:
'At GenCon 1977, [Holmes] met briefly with Rob Kuntz ... to talk about ideas for a revision of the old "Gods Demigods & Heroes" D&D supplement [and] agreed to do a brief summary of the gods presented in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, for use in the upcoming book "Deities & Demigods" We have a new entry in our database for a copy of the "Original DDG Cthulhu Manuscript" (from someone's obscure archives), including: a. Letter from Holmes to Kuntz, 10/20/77 b. Reply from Kuntz to Holmes (undated but presumably early Nov. 1977) c. Reply from Holmes to Kuntz, 11/22/77 d. Typed manuscript of the "Lovecraftian Mythos in D&D" with many hand-written editorial notes and changes'"
* * * * *
Also, Rob was once asked about the authorship of the article on the Pied Piper Publishing Forum and replied: "Originally J. Eric Holmes (And I added Hastur and a few others)" (7/16/02, "Round Table Forum", thread titled "General OAD&D Trivia". See here)
So, I think the evidence (particularly Rob's words) points to Holmes being the primary co-author of the original article, and since much of the original article remains in the D&DG chapter, in my opinion he deserved a co-author credit for that section of D&DG.
"Story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.” - Holmes rulebook
Zenopus Archives - Holmes Basic D&D - website & blog
Falconer Level 9 Sorcerer Cleric of OD&D member is offline
OD&D, Middle-earth, Star Trek TOS
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Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #6 on Oct 26, 2011, 6:28pm »
Was “From the Sorceror’s Scroll” Rob Kuntz’s column at the time? That would explain the weird authorship attribution there.
Anyway, this puts yet another nail in DDG’s coffin (if its best section is available in TD as a supplement to Sup. IV). Of course, DDG still has the cool art.
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! —J.R.R. Tolkien
"Story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.” - Holmes rulebook
Zenopus Archives - Holmes Basic D&D - website & blog
Was “From the Sorceror’s Scroll” Rob Kuntz’s column at the time? That would explain the weird authorship attribution there.
Good point. I took a look at The Dragon #11, and sure enough there's the first FtSS column by Rob Kuntz. So it was his column at the time; there's another in The Dragon #13 ("Tolkien in D&D").
Quote:
Anyway, this puts yet another nail in DDG’s coffin (if its best section is available in TD as a supplement to Sup. IV). Of course, DDG still has the cool art.
D&DG has perhaps my favorite collection of art in a TSR rulebook. I must admit that I haven't looked at GD&H very much. It suffers from the limited, public domain (?) art. It's almost a text dump with poor breaks between sections (and no table of contents or index). Howard's Hyborean Mythos seems the most interesting since it didn't make it in to the D&DG.
"Story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.” - Holmes rulebook
Zenopus Archives - Holmes Basic D&D - website & blog
Joined: Mar 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 778 Location: Hyperborea Karma: 47
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #9 on Oct 28, 2011, 7:12pm »
Just wanted to chime in to say great work gentlemen. A fascinating topic. Zen, great work on the site and blog. You present like a scholar, and I do appreciate the effort.
Falconer Level 9 Sorcerer Cleric of OD&D member is offline
OD&D, Middle-earth, Star Trek TOS
Joined: Sept 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,340 Location: Chicago, IL Karma: 51
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #12 on Oct 30, 2011, 1:17am »
I’m pretty sure Rob has stated that his co-authorship credit for DDG was solely because the work he did for Sup. IV (where he was lead co-author). In other words, any way in which DDG differs from what came before (in Sup IV or TD), the credit is due Jim Ward.
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! —J.R.R. Tolkien
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,557 Karma: 87
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #13 on Oct 30, 2011, 12:00pm »
I think it was on Rob's dragonsfoot Q&A thread that he mentioned that he did the actual writing of DDG's Finnish Mythos. I think it's interesting that the heroes in the Finnish Mythos are loaded down with magic items, but none of the other heroes in the book are.
Re: Holmes wrote the DDG Cthulhu section? « Reply #14 on Nov 15, 2011, 10:49pm »
As it turns out, a fellow Acaeum member won the typed manuscript for the Dragon article that was auctioned at Gen Con (see above), and was kind enough to let me look at it.
From this manuscript, it's clear that Holmes wrote the bulk of the article, including the main intro and entries for Azathoth, Cthulhu, Hastur, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, The Necronomicon, The Elder Sign, Yog-Sothoth, Byakhee, The Deep Ones, The Great Race, The Old Ones (aka Primoridal Ones), The Mi-Go and The Shaggoths [sic]. Kuntz added another introductory paragraph (the one in italics) and entries for Cthuga, Ithaqua and Yig, and made a few minor edits to Holmes' entries - just a few word changes and two added sentences.
Kuntz must have been mis-remembering when he said he added Hastur. The conception of Hastur is primarily a Derleth creation as are Cthuga and Ithaqua, so perhaps he switched these in his memory.
One of the minor revisions that Kuntz made was in the entry for The Deep Ones, where he changed "Every large group will have at least one evil high priest, level 3-10" to "at least one evil clerical type, level 3-10", presumably because in OD&D the title EHP should only refer to evil clerics levels 7 and up. In the entry for the Necronomicon, he changed "chaotic" to "chaotic evil". The other word changes are just for grammar.
Kuntz added one sentence (in parenthesis) concerning a saving throw to the entry for Nyarlathotep, and one sentence to end of the entry for Byakhee concerning damage inflicted.
For the most part, Holmes' original text, including some typos, is printed verbatim in the Dragon article.
"Story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.” - Holmes rulebook
Zenopus Archives - Holmes Basic D&D - website & blog
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