Britain’s Royal Mail celebrates 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons

August 22, 2024 6:15 PM

"Shining an ultraviolet light over the stamps in the set of eight reveals a hidden image. The Owlbear, Gelatinous Cube, Mind Flayer and Displacer Beast stamps show the stylized dragon ampersand from the Dungeons & Dragons logo. A dragon head appears on the Red Dragon stamp, and the Vecna stamp shows a skull. The Mimic and Beholder stamps show different images of each of their respective monsters."

The colonies also have something similar.

posted by cupcakeninja (25 comments total)

HEY WE ALSO...

The colonies also have something similar.

quite right.
posted by jessamyn at 6:36 PM on August 22 [13 favorites]

Phew, can still identify all monsters on all stamps. It's like being in a supermarket and hearing 80s music. Pander to me!
posted by mollweide at 6:41 PM on August 22 [7 favorites]

Neat!
posted by praemunire at 6:43 PM on August 22

and the Vecna stamp shows a skull.

a head of vecna reference is a deep cut, but it's no gazebo
posted by logicpunk at 6:44 PM on August 22 [19 favorites]

A gazebo?!?!

I will clock that little emeffer.

Also, no rust monster? Someone needs a letter to the editor upside their inbox.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:04 PM on August 22

no rust monster?

Guess what happened to the printing press.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:27 PM on August 22 [12 favorites]

grateful for the forever stamps as purple worms are quite expensive to mail
posted by clavdivs at 7:49 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]

For those lost:
The Head of Vecna
Lair of the Gazebo
posted by SPrintF at 8:41 PM on August 22 [3 favorites]

… what’s the British connection to Dungeons and Dragons? (I know people also play it there, but it comes from the US. There are plenty of details in the history and development of the game that are not within my current knowledge, though - are the stamps related to specifically British contributions in some way?)
posted by eviemath at 9:22 PM on August 22

Also, no rust monster?

IIRC, it was based on a toy so the rights might be uncertain at this point.

what’s the British connection to Dungeons and Dragons?

Charlie Stross ;)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:04 PM on August 22

I wonder if there's a sense of connection/"ownership" by way of Tolkein & LotR, given that the original D&D world is so inspired by his remixing of Anglo-Saxon & Norse (and whatever else) myths.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:10 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

The UK was one of the first major non-US markets for D&D, and Games Workshop got an early boost through being the exclusive UK distributor on behalf of TSR. (I'm just reading Dice Men, Jackson and Livingstone's memoir of those days.)
posted by Major Clanger at 1:34 AM on August 23 [5 favorites]

They could have included monsters from the UK-produced Fiend Folio.
posted by GeorgeBickham at 1:49 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]

Charlie Stross ;)

If you say his name three times he may appear.
posted by biffa at 2:04 AM on August 23 [4 favorites]

Don Turnbull was also significant; he worked with Games Workshop on White Dwarf, contributing articles to the "The Fiend Factory" (articles about new monsters, also contributed by readers), which lead to him becoming head of TSR UK. Games Workshop then published the Fiend Folio in collaboration with TSR UK, significantly based on the Fiend Factory column; this was a substantial addition to UK AD&D and was a parallel book to the Monster Manual - it introduced the Githyanki (should have had a stamp!) among others.

TSR UK produced a number of UK modules and stories, and Turnbull is often credited for substantially building the popularity of D&D in the UK in the 80s, though he, and TSR UK ultimately fell foul of the US parent company issues, and the falling out of Gygax and the Blumes.

So while obviously an american game, it also had a distinct UK flavour, was heavily linked to early Games Workshop, and was VERY popular amongst UK nerds of a certain age. (cough)
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 2:08 AM on August 23 [6 favorites]

Someone needs a letter to the editor

if i only had some stamps...
posted by HearHere at 2:57 AM on August 23 [2 favorites]

IIRC, it was based on a toy

So was the owlbear, and it gets a stamp.

Owlbears, Rust Monsters and Bulettes, Oh My!
posted by zamboni at 4:56 AM on August 23 [3 favorites]

I've known about Vecna since around 1980, but I don't think I'v ever even seen an illustration of him! These are cool. But where's the Flumph?
posted by SoberHighland at 5:42 AM on August 23

I'm likely going to pick up some of the USPS stamps.

I will confess that I did buy a couple of the ReAction D&D figures, the Sorceress and the Githyanki. I don't have enough time or space in life to get (back) into miniatures, let alone the mind-numbing array of action figures that small-scale production & crowdfunding have made possible, but those two sit on my bookshelves and make me smile. I also have Grayscale Vincent Price hanging out with the horror mass market paperbacks...
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:54 AM on August 23

The missed an opportunity to have Prince Andrew as a buggerbear.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:34 AM on August 23

The "nornce" would also be appropriate.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:56 AM on August 23

… what’s the British connection to Dungeons and Dragons?

As folks have pointed out, there is some UK history with D&D, but the primary driver is that nerds and nerd philatelists have money, and the Royal Mail would like some of it, please.

X-Men Collectors Sheet
Transformers Dinobots Medal Cover (yes, I know about the rich cultural history of TFUK, thanks)
Ebay - Star Wars British Stamp Presentation Packs
posted by zamboni at 8:05 AM on August 23 [2 favorites]

Speaking of British D&D: We (USA family) had an original copy of Tegel Manor (1977) but I don't think we played D&D until around 1980 or '81... when I was 10 or so with my older brother and his friends. Tegel Manor was from Judges' Guild, a UK game company. Tegel Manor was also pure batshit wacky! We never played a game in the Manor as it was such a bizarre collection of craziness. I remember one of the bedrooms was described as simply having "Purple Worm under bed."

Link to a fun recap with some decent scans

A Purple Worm is a titanic beast that wouldn't fit even in the grandest bedroom, let alone under the bed! The module was also full of typos and errors. I was around 10 years old and read that thing cover to cover more times than I could count. We played some D&D, but mostly I created modules/adventures on my own, dreaming of one day getting published in Dragon Magazine. I was an 11 year old boy sitting at an old electronic typewriter, banging out page after page of crazy adventure stuff, full of background lore, NPCs, custom monsters and accompanied by hand drawn maps. Reams of paper. None of my stuff was ever play tested and I'm sure none of it ever had a chance of being published, but I cannot exaggerate the amount of time and energy I spent imagining and writing these things. Not to mention all he pencil and pen & ink drawings I made... reams of those too!

It helped me become a good writer (regardless of the quality of my comments here!) and spurred a lifelong interest in fantasy, sci-fi and assorted other weirdness. D&D was one of the top influences in my life, ever.

I took a 35+ year hiatus, then got back into weekly sessions of 5e with that same brother... I had to bail about a year ago for personal reasons but want to jump back in soon!
posted by SoberHighland at 10:04 AM on August 23 [4 favorites]

They missed a trick by not having the mimic look like an ordinary object under UV
posted by riotnrrd at 12:28 PM on August 23 [3 favorites]

And if you're into hockey jerseys more than stamps, Geeky Jerseys has a 50th Anniversary jersey, a Mimics jersey, and an Owlbears jersey.
posted by plinth at 2:41 PM on August 23