A short while back we made a post announcing that someone had finally deciphered the secret message that is referenced on page 476 of the Dungeon Crawl Classics book (seen above). You might remember that Joe Manley gets to claim that he was the first to officially solve the message. Well, now he’s not alone.
Scott Hill was the 2nd person to find the secret message, and Nils Hedrin was the 3rd. They will all be receiving special prizes for their sleuthing: original art from Stefan Poag!
There are no more prizes available for “that” secret message but “the other one” remains unsolved. As we mentioned before, the word of the day is still: acrostic…
The second secret message in the 4th printing of DCC RPG is inspired by one of Joseph Goodman’s all-time favorite industry easter eggs. In the mid-1980’s, Games Workshop was purchased by a new owner and their offices were moved to Nottingham. The move unfortunately caused a lot of unrest with the staff, most of whom couldn’t move with the company. Games Workshop’s house magazine, White Dwarf, published issue #77 (May 1986) as their final issue with the ‘old’ editorial staff, before the ‘new’ editorial staff took over in Nottingham.
The table of contents for White Dwarf #77 contains a rather angry acrostic directed at the new owner of the company. (You can decipher it more easily if you know the owner’s name, Bryan Ansell.) The acrostic in DCC RPG isn’t the only acrostic contained in a Goodman Games product—nor the only secret message in general (talk to Doug about illustrative ones)—but it’s the one most directly inspired by industry history!
Happy sleuthing….
