Ālea iacta est: The Final Moments of The DCC Dying Earth Tournament at Gen Con 2023 by Harley Stroh with Terry Olson The 2023 Gen Con Open was as grand in scope and ambition as the source material from which it was born. Terry Olson, Marc Bruner, and their cadre of designers invited us to take part in the very last moments of Dying Earth, when cabals of rival magicians vied for supremacy across a seemingly endless series of demiplanes, each questing for the means to survive the collapse of the universe. Judging a DCC tournament games is no small feat, but the task was doubly so with new classes derived from the Dying Earth box setting, mixed with mind-wrenching puzzles, unknown monsters, and the complete freedom of parties to pass between the spheres almost at will — stymying foes and judges alike! Design and writing began last November, and beginning in March, the tournament underwent a series of rigorous playtests. Sprawling worlds (meriting dedicated adventures of their own) were tightened and focused. Puzzles were written, revised, and written again. Challenges were tested, found wanting, and resubmitted. And in the end, each encounter was honed to a deadly edge fully worthy of challenging the would-be Arch-Daihaks of Dying Earth. But if the challenges to the judges were daunting, those presented to the players were nothing less than epic. Parties had to contend with some of the most difficult puzzles and deadliest foes yet presented in a tournament setting. A single misstep could (and did!) spiral into to a TPK. Allotting too much time to a single puzzle could cost a team the round. And defaulting to violence as a means to an end was nearly guaranteed to end poorly. This is Dying Earth after all. * * * Round Two of the tournament was a closely held secret. The second half of the round ended in a bloody free-for-all where each cabal was pitted against the others, in real time battle royale. Yes, you read that right: the conclusion of round two was an officially sanctioned Player Vs. Player event, where the five remaining teams discovered that they weren’t navigating a new dungeon level, but were in fact battling one another! A total of twenty-five players, issuing commands through party callers, vied for mastery of Dying Earth! Early on,...