Temple of Apshai

Role-playing games are not so much �played� as they are experienced. Instead of manipulating an army of chessmen about an abstract but visible board, or following a single piece around and around a well-defined track, collecting $200 every time you pass Go, in RPGs you venture into an essentially unknown world with a single piece � your alter ego for the game, a character at home in a world of demons and darkness, dragons and dwarves. You see with the eyes of your character a scene described by the �author� of the adventure � and no more. There is no board in view, no chance squares to inspect; the imaginary landscape exists only in the notebooks of the world�s creator (commonly called a referee or dunjonmaster) and, gradually, in the imaginations of your fellow players. As you set off in quest of fame and fortune in company with those other player/characters, you are both a character in and a reader of an epic you are helping to create. Your character does whatever you wish him to do, subject to his human (or near-human) capabilities and the vagaries of chance. Fight, flee, or parley; take the high road or low: the choice is yours. You may climb a mountain or go around it, but since at the top may be a rock, a roc�s egg, or a roc, you can find challenge and conflict without fighting with your fellow players, who are usually (in several senses) in the same boat.

"And now, my friend," Merlis continued, "only the bravest or most foolhardy dare enter the cavern under the coastal bluff when the tide is at its ebb, and few of them return. Those who do grow in legend to proportions men of mere flesh and blood could never hope to realize. My friend, this village is dying, and its people with it. Soon the last will fall to the curse of Apshai, and only the doers of great deeds shall be remembered." He turned his gaze to me. "Dare you join them in search of the lost wealth still, if the legends speak true, hidden there?" "Geb's beard," I murmured...