Since so many of the bookstores we used to go to over the last three decades are closed, we stopped at Half-Price Books.
I found this little gem, SPI Demons.
At first I thought it was an add-on or supplement for the DragonQuest RPG. They look rather similar really. But closer examination revealed that it was really a board game.
In any case, I could not say no to this. Besides, look at that cover! That demon is fantastic!
I got it home and since it was late I let sit on my dining room table for a bit. I finally got around to looking at it yesterday. Turns out that only is this game whole, and unpunched it looks like it is near mint condition!
It is a rather attractive game in a late 70s War-Games-bleeding-into-RPGs way.
I posted some pictures of this over the weekend and I was reminded that TSR bought SPI back in the day and absorbed them. WotC who now owns all of TSR's IP also owns SPI. They could rerelease this if they wanted to. Sadly there is really no reason to. The cash cow in that arena is D&D and even DragonQuest, who could do well, suffers from comparison. TSR, like them or not, straight up murdered SPI and the body is too dead to Raise Dead.
BUT that doesn't mean *I* can't perform a bit of Necromancy myself!
This game could feed into my "Traveller Envy" quite well.
The obvious thing to do here is use that Demons map of Albania and do it as a DragonQuest Hex crawl. And I mean a proper Hex crawl that also just so happens to be filled with demons and wizard hunters. The magistrate or wizard hunter's angle of the game also made me think of THIS unholy abomination.
Maybe instead of "EdenAgain" the DragonRaiders are in the old country fighting demons? That one is a bit of stretch really. Also I would need some sort of converter to sit in the middle; likely D&D. Though these both will contribute to my War of the Witch Queens campaign.
These two games share a lot of similarities in tone and publication time. Both are essentially the bridges between war games and RPGs as board games. Both feature a wilderness area to explore, monsters (demons) to defeat, and treasure to collect. Slightly higher on the complexity scale than Dungeon! but not quite full-blown RPGs. You can read my overview of Warlocks & Warriors here.
These two do not have a lot in common other than name and subject matter. But both would be equally fun resources in my games.
Like I say though I might not figure out how to get these to all work together (or even some of them) but it will be fun trying.
