2000 Year Old Roman d20 Up For Auction

dolo666 writes "There is a d20 for sale at Christie's. Titled; "A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE", this item dates to circa 2nd Century A.D., and it's likely to go for a mere $6k USD! Just think of the die-hard dice gamer on your list, this festive season! That would make all those late night Cthulhu missions with Lord Nekrull, my 16th level Assassin demi-god, a smashing good time!"

Comments

A die to die for?

[danormsby]

So this was a die to die for?

Re:DND is THAT old?

[purplebear]

Can I just say:

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Whew. Thank you. I desperately needed that.

Re:D&D parody

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, it's just that the Gazebo story is real, but it happened long enough ago, and was funny enough to spread greatly.

The original story, at leat as I've seen it, goes like so:

Let us cast our minds back to the early days of fantasy role-playing...
In the early '70s, Ed Whitechurch ran 'his game,' and one of the
participants was Eric Sorenson, a veritable giant of a man. This story is
essentially true: I knew both Ed and Eric, and neither denies it (although
Eric, for reasons that will become apparent, never repeats it). The gist
of it is that Eric... well, you need a bit more about Eric. Eric comes
quite close to being a computer. When he games, he methodically considers
each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he
will invariably pick the optimum solution. It has been known to take
weeks. He is otherwise in all respects a superior gamer, and I've spent
many happy hours competing with and against him, as long as he is given
enough time. So... Eric was playing a neutral paladin (Why should only
lawful, good religions get to have holy warriors? was the rationale) in
Ed's game. He even had a holy sword, which fought well and did all those
things holy swords are supposed to do, including good or evil (by random
die roll). He was on some lord's lands when the following exchange
occurred:
ED: You see a well-groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you
see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: (Pause) It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: (Pause) It's about 30 feet across, 15 feet high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect whether it's good.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo!
ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo!
ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it
respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric. It's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (rolls to hit). What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?
ED: Of course not, Eric! It's a gazebo!
ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a plus-three arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a gazebo! If you really want to try to
destroy it, you could try to chop it wih an axe, I suppose, or you
could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try.
It's a @#%$*& gazebo!
ERIC: (Long pause - he has no axe or fire spells) I run away.
ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo,
and it catches you and eats you.
ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so
I can avenge my paladin...
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a
modicum of order by explaining what a gazebo is. This is solely an
afterthought, of course, but Eric is doubly lucky that the gazebo was
not situated on a grassy knoll.