*MoCaW

Suddenly, things didn't hurt so much. The pain was gone, and the darkness as well. The touch of his loved ones' hands faded away, as did the pain.

He was free.

He wasn't sure when it happened, just that it did. There was a burst of light, and a feeling of utter calmness, and then a moment of understanding.

He looked back only once, but already, what had been was fading away. A part of him longed to return, but a voice whispered to him that his time there was over. Something new lay ahead.

But first, there was something he wanted to do.

They were already waiting for him, smiling, just like he remembered. Sheets of paper with arcane symbols and numbers lay in front of them next to glasses of drink and small, polyhedral shapes that glowed in brilliant colors that no human eye could have seen. Faces long since missed. Friends and loved ones that he'd wished he could have seen one more time, and now he could.

There was one empty seat waiting for him at the head of the table.

He took his seat and cleared his throat. Reaching out a hand, he adjusted the shimmering cardboard screen and glanced over his notes.

"All right, guys. Roll for initiative," he said.

[link]

Gary Gygax, creator of the pen and paper roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, and the grandfather of all tabletop roleplaying games, passed away today. He had been in poor health, suffering multiple strokes, heart attacks, and an aoric aneurysm.

If you have ever handled polyhedral dice, rolled for initiative, or even played a game of World of Warcraft online, you owe a great debt to the man who started it all with a bunch of fantasy supplement rules for a tabletop medieval combat game called Chainmail. Raise a glass at midnight tonight Eastern Standard Time for the man who made THAC0 a part of a teenage geek's vernacular, who authored countless blue-black-and-white maps made of five-foot squares and filled with ridiculous deathtraps, to the man who gave three generations of teenage nerds something to do on Saturday nights while all the "cool kids" were out hanging out with girls.

RIP, Dungeon Master