Our Appendix N Archeology and Adventures in Fiction series are meant to take a look at the writers and creators behind the genre(s) that helped to forge not only our favorite hobby but our lives. We invite you to explore the entirety of the series on our Adventures In Fiction home page. Learning From Dave Arneson’s Published Works A Dave Arneson Homage, Part 2 of 2 by James Maliszewski David Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, was born on October 1, 1947 and passed away in 2009. In honor of his contributions to the hobby, we present this two-part essay. The first part can be found here, and here is the second and concluding part. Aside from Dungeons & Dragons itself, the first work I ever owned with Dave Arneson’s name on its cover was Supplement II: Blackmoor. As I mentioned in my previous essay, I acquired a copy of Blackmoor in 1986 and read it with great interest. From the foreword to OD&D, I had gleaned that Arneson’s home campaign setting was called Blackmoor – a name shared by a locale within Gary Gygax’s World of Greyhawk setting – so it was my hope that Supplement II would provide me with some details of what that setting was like, at least in broad terms. Instead, I was disappointed by what I found. Supplement II is a bit of a mess, in my opinion: a mishmash of topics without much cohesion, especially when compared to Gygax’s own Supplement I. When I first read it, however, there was one portion of the book that nevertheless caught my attention. Located about halfway through the supplement was a 20-page section entitled “The Temple of the Frog.” Here is presented one of the earliest published adventure scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons, including five maps. In addition, the scenario provides several paragraphs of background information about the temple, its founding and purpose, and its current state of affairs. While this background provides no real details about the Blackmoor setting itself, it does explain that the high priest of the Temple of the Frog, an individual known as Stephen the Rock, is “an intelligent humanoid from another world/dimension.” Furthermore, Stephen possesses several mysterious devices, such as an anti-gravity unit and an interstellar communicator. I found this information intriguing. I was of course already familiar with Gary Gygax’s Expedition to the...