Panel 2: Raised an eyebrow at the slightly puzzling sobriquet “Doom-Shrouded Dracolisk,” then belatedly realized this was a fairly obscure reference to a monster from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons pencil-and-paper RPG. A further bit of Googling revealed that the dracolisk appeared in the classic adventure module S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth—which is interesting, given that Tsojcanth may be the only one of the classic AD&D modules I never actually DM’ed back in the high-school day. Believe me, we played the hell outta the rest of the S-series modules, from the deathtrap Tomb of Horrors and goofy-ass White Plume Mountain to the Erol-Otus-tastic SF shenanigans of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. 

(If I may briefly turn the 80s-era RPG geekiness up to 11, one takeaway from White Plume Mountain: Whatever the hell you do as a DM, don’t let a player hang on to the magical sword Blackrazor, which was clearly meant as an homage to Stormbringer from Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné. However, ill-considered game design made Blackrazor vastly more powerful than the Deities & Demigods version of Stormbringer, to the point that a player armed with that ripoff pigsticker was functionally an invulnerable God-Mode Hero. Let’s just say, all three modules of the Against the Giants series were a g-d cakewalk for a Blackrazor-armed party.)

Panel 5: New readers may already think that ol’ Major Havoc (on the right, here) may be quite the obnoxious “douchecape,” but rest assured that his as-yet-unidentified teammate on the left will prove to be even more unpleasant in the long run. (Long run, as in 600-odd pages further down the line.)

Note that the profuse spray of “sweat droplets” from the unfortunate lads in this panel is a bit of an old-school manga flourish, one I’m reasonably sure picked up from either artist Atsuji Yamamoto (Elf 17, Sinbad, Arnis in Swordland) or his former assistant Hisao Tamaki (Star Wars: A New Hope manga) long ago. I still use the riff on occasion, nowadays, as it continues to amuse me to no end, unlike many other techniques and approaches I cribbed from mangaka during the 90s and eventually discarded.

-Adam Warren