#first quest

When I wrote my essay on dungeonsynth for The Believer back in 2023, I made the usual points: its really came together as a genre in the ’90s thanks to the work of Mortiis, though it had clear predecessors in acts like Tangerine Dream and Danzig’s instrumental project Black Aria (1992); explicit connections to D&D and other RPGs came later. And all that’s still true, but I’ve since been introduced (by Jamie Sutcliffe at Strange Attractor) to a double LP that directly ties D&D to electronic music earlier than Corvus Neblus’ Strahd’s Possession (1999): Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Quest: The Music (1985).

To be clear, while it sometimes strays into territory we would now identify as dungeonsynth, this is not really dungeonsynth. It has more in common with the Dream, John Carpenter’s scores and the odd world of psychedelic electronic music that was floating around in the early ’80s — synth-based meditation music that would soon become known by the fairly meaningless umbrella marketing term “New Age.” There are eight different artists here (they sound almost cohesive) providing a score for a (brutal, ridiculous) dungeon crawl plotted out of the record sleeves, punctuated with menacing voice overs by actor Valentine Dyall. There are some corny bits and some, uh, sections that are clearly inspired by other music (“The Living Dead” is basically a cover of the theme from Return of the Living Dead and there are echoes of some incidental music from Ghostbusters and countless videogames, at least to my ear), but overall I think it hangs together remarkably well. I don’t know if it screams “D&D” to me, but I dig early ’80s synth music and this winds up on my turntable pretty regularly.

Season of passage page 8 - a sky children of the light adventure

Behold, the first Rogue Thief rules I played with! That’s just a summary, from the introductory boxed set First Quest (TSR, 1994), and it gives the gist of what a Thief looked like in AD&D 2nd Edition.

The rules were a bit of a mess, frankly. Everything was a toss-up. At early to mid levels you sucked so much at your own roguish skills it’s a miracle any thieving urchin in the entire history of Greyhawk, Mystara, and the Forgotten Realms combined ever managed to survive to adulthood. But damn it was cool.

Season of passage page 7 - a sky children of the light adventure

FIRST QUEST: “BEGINNINGS”

We have been playing D&D 5th edition on Discord using DnD Beyond since March 2019 during the Covid-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania.  CARCERAN AMASTACIA IX, 1st Level Elven ClericEZURI, 1st Level Half-Elf BardHIGGS HOLLOWHEART, 1st Level Halfling RougeTORINN RHOZIROS, 1st Level Dragonborn Paladin Neverwinter Once famous as the Jewel of the North, Neverwinter rivaled Waterdeep in splendor. Then…

FIRST QUEST: “BEGINNINGS”

We have been playing D&D 5th edition on Discord using DnD Beyond since March 2019 during the Covid-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania.  CARCERAN AMASTACIA IX, 1st Level Elven ClericEZURI, 1st Level Half-Elf BardHIGGS HOLLOWHEART, 1st Level Halfling RougeTORINN RHOZIROS, 1st Level Dragonborn Paladin Neverwinter Once famous as the Jewel of the North, Neverwinter rivaled Waterdeep in splendor. Then…