spk_0:   0:33
hi and welcome to have with history. I'm Jonathan and I'm Kylie is show where we talk about the upcoming week, but a long time ago. And by God, it's actually the upcoming week. We did it. I

spk_1:   0:42
was just gonna say, This time it's for real.

spk_0:   0:44
Oh, finally, it has been a struggle since missing those episodes in December. When you plan better,

spk_1:   0:50
it feels so good to have caught up.

spk_0:   0:53
Oh, so good. And around the middle of the episode, we have extra special

spk_1:   0:57
announcement. Very exciting. I'm very excited. Do you have any updates from like, two minutes ago?

spk_0:   1:04
I have found a more comfortable seating position.

spk_1:   1:06
That is good. I'm still in danger of falling asleep.

spk_0:   1:10
Well, that's not gonna be a danger you'll have for too long because you get to start reading.

spk_1:   1:14
That is true. I am first

spk_0:   1:16
to get away.

spk_1:   1:19
All right, so my event is from January 23rd of 18 97 and for this episode, I'm actually going to delve into the supernatural a little bit. I'm going to talk about the Greenbrier ghost to in life was Elva Zona Hester. Next to nothing is known about her early life other than that, she was brought up near Richland Sze in West Virginia In October of 18 96 Zona met a drifter named Erasmus dribbling trout shoe.

spk_0:   1:55
It's a name. It's a name. Pretty cool name you asked me of in the last episode About what I thought about the name Theodora. But you did not ask me about Erasmus dribbling Trump shoe?

spk_1:   2:07
Nope. It's dribbling

spk_0:   2:08
stripling Trout shoe. This is a much better name for a child, not Theodora. No, no, no, no, no, no! Come here, stripling! Trout!

spk_1:   2:19
What do you distribute? Oh, boy, no. Hell, no. Um, anyway, Shoe had moved to Greenbrier County in search of a new life and to work as a blacksmith. And he found work in a shop. Um, and not too long Later, Zona met him, and the two apparently fell madly in love and soon married. Despite the objection to the match by zonas mother, Mary Jane Hester, who had taken an instant dislike to shoe. Fair enough. So everything seemed to be going all right. But on January 23rd 19 set. Nope. 18 97 3 months after they were married, Zonas body was discovered at her home by a young boy who had been dispatched to the house by shoe to see if she needed her husband to pick up anything from the market before he came home.

spk_0:   3:08
This is why you were suspicious a few episodes ago because you had one where someone was probably murdered within the first year of marriage.

spk_1:   3:17
Oh, yeah. So the boy found zonal lying at the foot of the stairs, stretched out with her feet together in one hand, on her stomach. He ran to tell his mother, who then summoned the local doctor and coroner, George W. Knapp, who did not arrive for over an hour. Woops. So by the time the doctor had arrived, Shoe had carried his wife's body upstairs to the bedroom and laid her out on the bed. He dressed the corpse himself, which was unusual as traditionally that job. The job of washing and preparing a body for beer burial would have been undertaken by the women in the community. Nevertheless, shoe dressed her in a high next dress with a very stiff collar and then placed a veil over her face. He remained by the corpse wild. Dr. Knapp examined it, cradling his wife's head and sobbing nap, noting the husband's grief gave the body only a brief examination and noted that some brute them some slight bruising on the neck When he tried to look closer, Shoe reacted so violently that nap ended the examination and left.

spk_0:   4:25
Because that's how you're supposed to handle a situation like that.

spk_1:   4:28
Yes, the death was ruled to be of natural causes, and it was first listed as ever lasting. Faint. And I could not, for the lazy on me figure out like Is that had any specific, like reference or something like that? And when I Googled everlasting faint, the Onley thing that showed up was this, huh? Yeah. So, like,

spk_0:   4:55
it's an interesting name for death. I will definitely use that.

spk_1:   4:58
Yeah, I know.

spk_0:   4:59
I'm sorry. He has a case of the everlasting faint.

spk_1:   5:03
And then some poor person like so he'll wake up and you're like, No, it's everlasting. Like tuck everlasting. Huh? Huh? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Anyway, him So this, um, cause of death was later changed to, like, complications of childbirth. And so the thing here is that napkin big had been treating Zona for female trouble for a couple weeks before her death

spk_0:   5:34
of a hysteria.

spk_1:   5:35
But whether or not she was pregnant is unknown, like like it would have been too early to really like towel. I think, especially, would like medicine of the day kind of thing. So who that knows? Um that so case closed, right? Yes, absolutely. Well, not really. Um, upon being told of the yeah, upon being told, I wasn't say would be a real short episode. So, upon being told of the death of her daughter, Zonas mother, Mary Jane Repeat reportedly said, The devil has killed her. So clearly. There is some animosity between zonas mom and dad's owner's husband, so she was buried on January 24th of 18 97 in the local cemetery. Her body was laid out in the Hester's house, but shoes behavior began to arouse suspicion during the wake. His grief chain changed repeatedly from overwhelming sadness, sadness, too incredible energy. He allowed no one to come close to the coffin, especially while he was placing a pillow on one side of her head and a rolled up sheet on the other. He explained that these additions, um, he explained these additions by saying that they would help his wife rest easier. She's dead. She's not resting. Su also tied a large scarf at the corpse's neck, explaining cheerfully that it had been zonas favorite. When it came time to move the corpse to the cemetery, though, several people noticed that there seemed to be a strange looseness to zonas head. And she appeared to show great devotion toward the body by keeping a vigil at the head of the open coffin during the move to the cemetery. Mmmmmmmm, huh? So for her part, Mary Jane Hester was convinced that her son in law had murdered his wife. After the wake, she removed the sheet from inside the coffin and tried to return it to him, but he refused it. She noticed an odd odor about it, so she washed it, and the water in the basin turned red. When she dropped the sheet in the sheet, then turned pink and the water cleared. The steam could not be removed, which Mrs Hester interpreted as a sign from Zona that she had been murdered. She began to pray, and every night for four weeks she kept up her prayers, hoping that Zona would return to her and explain what had happened. Now this is where we get into that supernatural aspect.

spk_0:   8:06
Oh, I'm ready.

spk_1:   8:07
Oh, yeah. According to local legend and her mother zone appeared to her mother in a dream. Four weeks after the funeral, she said that she was a cruel man who had abused her, attacking her in a fit of rage when he believed that she had cooked no meat for dinner. He then broke her neck. And to prove this, the ghost turned her head around until it was facing backwards. Kind of like an owl. Supposedly, the ghost appeared first as a bright light, gradually taking form and filling the room with a chill, she said to have visited Mrs Hester over the course of four nights. So, armed with this story allegedly told to her by zonas ghost, Mrs Hester visited the loss of local prosecutor John Alfred Preston and spent several hours in his office convincing him to reopen the matter of her daughter's death. Whether he believed the story of the ghost is unknown. But he did have enough doubt in the um in the ah words, um, cause of death that was recorded. It's minimal for sorry. I looked over and your eyes are

spk_0:   9:13
closed and I got a little distracted.

spk_1:   9:15
But sorry, I'm boring you. Him. So he had enough doubt to dispatch deputies to re interview several people of interest in the case, which included Dr Knapp. He was likely responding to the public sentiment as numerous locals had begun suggesting that Zona had been murdered, possibly from Mrs Hester's like assertions that she had been so. Dr. Knapp, when asked by Preston, stated that he had not made a complete examination of the body, and this was viewed as sufficient justification for an autopsy and an exclamation was ordered and an inquest jury firmed. Nope. Inquest Jury formed eso formation of that. So despite shoes, vigorous complaints, zonas body was exhumed and examined on February 22nd she was required by law to be there and complained that he should he would be arrested, but no one would be able to prove his guilt. The autopsy lasted three days and found that zonas neck had indeed been broken, according to the report published on margin Eyes quote. The discovery was made that the neck was broken and the wind pipe mashed on the throat where the marks of fingers indicating that she had been strangled or she had been choked. The neck was dislocated between the first and second vertebrae. The ligaments were torn and ruptured. The windpipe had been crushed at a point in front of the neck encrypt.

spk_0:   10:45
That's extremely strong strangulation going on there.

spk_1:   10:49
Yep. Yep, yep. And remember, she was a blacksmith? Yeah. Early, strong hands. So on the strength of this evidence and his behavior at the inquest, you know, saying that he was gonna be arrested. Shoe was arrested surprise and charged with the murder of his wife Again. Surprise. So while he was held in jail awaiting trial, his shady past began to come to light. He'd been married twice before his first marriage ended in divorce with his wife accusing him of great cruelty, and his second wife had done under mysterious circumstances less than a year after they were married. Additionally, while in jail, shoot began to talk about his desire toe wed seven women and told reporters that he was sure he would be let free because there was so little evidence against him super confident for someone who shouldn't know anything about it, right? Yeah. So his trial began on June 22nd of 18 97 and Mrs Hester was Preston Star witness. He confined his questioning to the known facts of the case and skirted the issue of her ghostly sightings, hoping potentially hoping to make her to prove for unreliable. Xu's lawyer questioned Mr Mrs Hester extensively about her daughter, her daughter's visits on cross examination. The tactic backfired when Mrs Hester would not waver in her accurate in her account, despite intense badgering as the defense had introduced the issue, the judge found it difficult to instruct the jury to disregard the story of the ghost, and many people in the community seemed to believe it. It certainly didn't help. That shoe took the stand in his own defense ended a really bad job, according to a report from the Greenbrier Independent Shoes testimony quote made an unfavorable impression on the Spectators. So the jury

spk_0:   12:43
did Mr Shoes stand have no soul,

spk_1:   12:47
No, boy. Ah, boy, I quit the podcasts. No kidding. So the jury deliberated for just over an hour before returning a guilty verdict, and he was sentenced to life in prison, apparently after the sentencing. The townspeople were so incensed by shoes actions that they formed a lynch mob to take him from the jail and hang him.

spk_0:   13:09
Oh, wow.

spk_1:   13:10
But the mob was disbanded by the deputy sheriff before any damage

spk_0:   13:14
was done. I mean, yeah. So even though he's murdering person, I I wouldn't believe they'd allow a lynching toe.

spk_1:   13:22
Yeah, well oh, um, so four of the mob organizer's later face charges for attempting to lynch him. Also, um, another article from the Greenbrier independent reporting on the conviction stated quote taking the verdict of the jury as ascertaining the truth. Then we must conclude that shoot deliberately broke his wife's neck, probably with his strong hands and with no other motive than to be rid of her, that he might get another more to his liking. And if so, his crime is one of the most horrible, cruel and revolting ever known in the history of this country. End quote. So public opinion was definitely very much against him. So she remained in jail for three more years until ah, his death. Okay. Yeah, on March 13th of 1900

spk_0:   14:23
see, wherever we record this, it's always a toss up between failure of justice system or Kylie's bringing people to die.

spk_1:   14:30
Well, this one's a good death.

spk_0:   14:31
Kylie. Brute bringer of the river sticks.

spk_1:   14:35
Yes, Well, dairymen. Yep. Well, he was the victim of an unknown epidemic and was buried in an unmarked grave in the local cemetery, which, in my opinion, is exactly what he deserved. So the state of West Virginia has erected a state historical marker near the cemetery in which Zona she was buried. It reads quote intern and nearby cemetery is ona Hester. Shoo. Her death in 18 97 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared. To whom Her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband, Edward, which I saw different accounts. Some had Edward. Some had a Rasmus, and I just kind of went with the one that I saw first. Interesting. Yeah. Um, the rest of the the plaque says autopsy on the egg zoomed body verified the operations account Edward found guilty of murder, was sentenced to the state prison Onley known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer.

spk_0:   15:34
Oh, that's interesting.

spk_1:   15:35
Yeah. So that's why I think this is it's the on Lee case, where a murder victim has actually assisted in, like getting their killer caught because she appeared as a ghost to her mother. Whether in a dream or in, really, who knows If you're into the Ghostie stuff? Could have been. But like I read some of the like transcripts of the, um, the trial and a couple of sections where Mrs Hester was talking about it the process? No, the defense was trying really, really hard to get her just say that like she was asleep or like it was a dream. But like she was adamant that it wasn't a dream, that she was awake and that she saw her daughter's ghost appeared to her and talk to her. And they're like, Well, could you touch it? And she was like, It's a ghost like you can't touch a ghost.

spk_0:   16:36
You played with

spk_1:   16:37
the hag. So it was. It was very interesting because I'd heard of this before, but I haven't really, like looked into it, so

spk_0:   16:44
I hadn't heard of it before. It was cool to listen to.

spk_1:   16:46
Yeah, I liked it. It was fun, and actually, I really so into it that I didn't dilly Dahlia my notes like I started after Jonathan and then finished before him. And he went How did you catch up already? Yeah, I was. I was

spk_0:   16:57
a little section of notes ahead and then all sudden, just a little.

spk_1:   17:01
Yeah, I was just super invested in this one. So it was fun.

spk_0:   17:06
Well, is that it,

spk_1:   17:07
Mads? All she wrote.

spk_0:   17:08
Okay, so now here is our fun Surprise.

spk_1:   17:13
Who outside his face, planted

spk_0:   17:15
in the microphone. So once upon a time long, long ago On January 26 of 1974 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Tactical studies rules invited those whose imagination knows no bounds to enjoy a world where the fantastic is fact. And that is the birth of Dungeons and Dragons. Bump row for initiative.

spk_1:   17:43
Ah, where are my days?

spk_0:   17:45
I'm just kidding. We're not playing him. Damn it. I just wanted to start it off like that. Uh, everything. I've been looking forward to this episode for a long time. Uh, probably back in, even like episode 14 when we did the nefarious nodule. If you haven't listened, that definitely go back. It's one of our older episodes with better sound quality. And it was really fun and delightful. We played a choose your own adventure game.

spk_1:   18:10
It was so much fun.

spk_0:   18:11
It was based on war with the evil power master. So it was a little sigh If I twist It was fun. I did some like extra editing, too just because

spk_1:   18:18
yeah, you did like voices and stuff

spk_0:   18:20
is pretty interesting. So now on to our special treat I'm gonna plug something else.

spk_1:   18:26
We're

spk_0:   18:26
starting a Dungeons and Dragons Podcasts

spk_1:   18:29
Liu Huai

spk_0:   18:30
Insert our teaser here Hi, I'm Jonathan, and

spk_1:   18:39
I'm highly wear the host of halfwit history And we have a new podcast.

spk_0:   18:43
We're calling it Half Wits and Failed Critz An actual play podcast. Our first season is gonna be called World's Divided where we played Dungeons and Dragons featuring a few of our friends. Louise, I plan X turn. Ah, half work, chaotic evil mercenary fighter. I was raised by bears and collect Mary.

spk_1:   19:00
I played really a snarky T fling assassin, Tough on the outside but under layers of poison and daggers secretly loves the company of her guilt. Laura, I play Anya, a widow ranger exiled from our tribe and denounced by her goddess. She drinks to forget and her trusted companion pants. The blank dog keeps her on the right path. And Kylie, I play Millar, a high elf druid. I'm responsible for keeping these hooligans in line, and I'm seeking to find out the secret of my mother's mysterious.

spk_0:   19:29
And lastly, I'm Jonathan, your GM for the adventure. Our 1st 3 episodes air going to be a recap of our 1st 9 events of But till we started recording this, then we'll start posting games 10 through 20 as they get edited. Join us as our characters try to make a name for themselves in a kingdom of guilt that most definitely has it out for our newbies

spk_1:   19:47
dice. Definitely have it out for us, too. Check us out at half wits failed Critz dot com or your favorite pod catcher.

spk_0:   20:03
We're really excited to do this. Even if it's not your thing. You should be a little thankful because it's one of the major reasons why we upgraded all of our audio equipment. Yeah, it would

spk_1:   20:14
be very hard to have six people using one microphone.

spk_0:   20:18
Yeah, well, we kind of did that for the D and D podcast. You'll hear when you because you're gonna listen to it. You're better. You're better. Are amazing listeners. Yes, please. So regardless of your fan or not, let's hop back into the half wit history. Part of this

spk_1:   20:38
we

spk_0:   20:39
So what is Dungeons and Dragons?

spk_1:   20:43
I know, I know.

spk_0:   20:45
Do you want to read or you want me to?

spk_1:   20:48
Oh, I was just gonna say what I think

spk_0:   20:49
it is. What is it? Never mind. Huh? Oh, man, this is a great one to not be editing. So Dungeons and Dragons is a role playing game. You create a character with a few friends. And one of those friends called the dungeon master creates a world that everyone plays in. There are an infinite amount of ways that you can play lots of number crunching and strategy. A grid map where you can play where you move only so much every turn. Or people like to add more acting in less numbers, get rid of the maps entirely and play the game entirely in their heads. For me, Dungeons and Dragons is a continuation of old school storytelling where your friends help guide the path of a story that you're trying to tell them. So how did D and D. It's common abbreviation come to be like I just mentioned. It was originally a tactical game back in the sixties and seventies, war games were very popular within the gaming community, and, uh, but

spk_1:   21:48
sixties and seventies was Vietnam, right? Or like thereabouts. They're

spk_0:   21:52
like about to be, Well, it's not like wargames isn't like guns and stuff. Yeah, that's tactical. That's true battle map games.

spk_1:   22:00
I just find it interesting because I

spk_0:   22:02
feel like a lot of people who would have been protesting Vietnam would also be the people who were playing this game. But maybe,

spk_1:   22:08
who knows?

spk_0:   22:11
So Gary Guy Jacks the creator that most people think of when they hear Dungeons and Dragons. If you knew who he was, was part of a club called Castle and Crusade Society Society within the society, there were ranks and honorifics and status is that you could achieve through playing the games. Basically, all I'm hearing what I'm researching this is that the literal king of nerd, um, was trying to get as close to a live action role, playing without actually going over that line of nerdiness. For those who do not know, I ran a large for seven years. It was great. Everyone should try it sometime.

spk_1:   22:43
Yeah, everyone should

spk_0:   22:46
try it sometime.

spk_1:   22:47
I have yet

spk_0:   22:47
to try, but I digress. The game that they played primarily a castle and Crusade Society was called chain mail. It was made by Gary and another member named Jeff Paren. It was supposed to simulate large scale medieval combat. Well, at one point, Gary decided to make a supplementary book to chain mail. Think of it like a modern DLC for video games.

spk_1:   23:11
Ah, What's that?

spk_0:   23:13
Downloadable content. Okay. How many times have I told you that? Acronym? Kylie,

spk_1:   23:20
I don't think ever

spk_0:   23:22
Every time I've ever brought it up, you ask what it stands for.

spk_1:   23:25
I don't remember you ever bringing it

spk_0:   23:27
up shows how much she loves me.

spk_1:   23:31
Um, no. It shows how much I know about technical

spk_0:   23:35
stuff, which is nothing. So the supplementary book was 14 pages that added some rules to make games more fantastical. It added some limited magic and monsters, and maybe not exactly period realistic weapons and items. Such stuff with magic properties imbued in them

spk_1:   23:55
and dragons. Don't forget the dragons.

spk_0:   23:57
I said monsters.

spk_1:   23:58
While dragons aren't monsters, they're better than monsters. Jack is a cool Okay, I'm really tired. It is midnight.

spk_0:   24:13
So the fantasy ad on wasn't played all that much, But a man named David Arnson liked it enough that he decided to spin it just a little bit to make his own game. In 1972 David Dist decided to take a trip to Wisconsin to show the creator of chain mail the game that he made from his fantasy rules. David and David called his game black more, and it was largely based on The Lord of the Rings. Ooh, that I could get into. Another major departure from chain mail was that in black more you didn't control an army. But you controlled a single character. And instead of fighting on a battlefield in a kingdom your King, your character fought through a complex map before descending down to even greater perils. Who Gerry was blown away by this abdication of his chain mail rules, he and David would spend the next few months workshopping Blackmore into something that could stand on its own. David's 18 page rule book was expanded by Gary into about 50 pages when Gary would test his his additions and changes with his three Children. The protocol campaign was called Castle Grayhawk, and once he settled on its additions, David and Jerry gave the rule book One last sweep, and their plan was in motion.

spk_1:   25:25
I suddenly wish I was one of Carrie Guy Jackson's Children. Yeah,

spk_0:   25:31
since like most paper since, like most pen and paper games of the time they couldn't find a publisher. They formed TSR or tactical strategy that did I mess that up? Tactical study rules for some reason, ever tactical strategy right there and decided to self publish the game. They printed 1000 copies of their game, which was extremely ambitious for any game of the time. And on the cover was the title Dungeons and Dragons.

spk_1:   26:04
Thegame

spk_0:   26:06
had a slow initial start that originally worried them, but soon enough they found out that it was actually taking off quite a bit. People were just pirating the rulebook instead,

spk_1:   26:14
that that sounds like Yep, that seems like it's par for the course for that game.

spk_0:   26:20
Yep. So with this information, they tried to secure a publisher again, and this time they did. They secured publishing with Random House.

spk_1:   26:28
Yeah, which

spk_0:   26:29
is a pretty prominent book published very quickly. Went from being a wanna be unemployed game developer to owning a mansion in Beverly Hills. Dang. And by 1983 there was even a cartoon television show of the same name that would last for three seasons. When

spk_1:   26:46
I missed, that

spk_0:   26:47
is called Dungeons and Dragons.

spk_1:   26:48
How did I miss that? When was it?

spk_0:   26:52
1983?

spk_1:   26:53
Okay, well, I wasn't born, so that would be how I missed

spk_0:   26:55
that. So then came the satanic panic.

spk_1:   27:01
Ah, yes, he's freaking.

spk_0:   27:04
Christians are at it again, just ruining things through multiple episodes.

spk_1:   27:10
I feel like we need to stress that to use a really bad phrase. Not all Christians thes freakin

spk_0:   27:21
Christians, just ruining everything. So in 1979 a boy disappeared from college and people claim that he ran away through some underground vents because he was involved with the game of Dungeons and Dragons and believed that the game was riel.

spk_1:   27:38
People, people are not that dumb, like the whole leg thing about not allowing people to, like, read like Harry Potter or play this kind of game because I don't think it's really clearly are very out of touch with their Children because

spk_0:   27:53
the freakin Chris stop

spk_1:   27:57
because not all, like Children are not that dumb late just anyway.

spk_0:   28:05
Well, anyways, if a boy disappearing from college to play what he thought was real Dungeons and Dragons sounds familiar to any listeners, that means you're probably a fan of Tom Hanks.

spk_1:   28:15
Oh,

spk_0:   28:16
because Tom Hanks stars in the 1982 movie Mazes and Monsters. Very clever title. It's about a college student who runs underground in the sewers, believing and hallucinating that the role playing game Hugh's friends play is actually really

spk_1:   28:31
I wanna watch that so

spk_0:   28:33
bad. It's so bad.

spk_1:   28:35
That's fine. It's Tom

spk_0:   28:37
Bad. So something important to note is that the guy who went missing ran away intentionally and was not found and was found not long after the disappearance. His really reason for leaving was he's gay and was getting away from a place that he didn't feel safe anymore.

spk_1:   28:54
Oh, I wouldn't say he was running away with very large African American man because he's Huckleberry Finn, Okay, does the whole premise of the bike.

spk_0:   29:09
So even after this became public knowledge, the Satanic panic did not stop. Psychotherapists were teaming up with angry moms and religious leaders and used their national coalition against television violence to form another group called Bad B a d D. That's a bad acronym. Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons cheese? I'm bothered by that name, to be honest.

spk_1:   29:32
Me, too.

spk_0:   29:34
So, using this platform, they campaigned that DND was actually cult instructions causing people to go out and murder in real life like they would in the game. Some psychologists even claimed that the game itself had words that activated sleeper cells in teenagers that told them to participate in demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blast me, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex, perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, say Sanick type rituals, gambling barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning neck romantics, divination and other teachings. They're bonkers. There were even police seminars that were warning full of the neighborhoods about the dangers of D and D in them and its effects on the minds of the vulnerable. Yep, So for shore with this decade of panic, this killed D and D. It didn't Guy axes. Empire had grown so large that it completely withstood the satanic panic. Good And like there were, there were other things that kind of fell to it, but DND did not, and with multiple versions and supplements, were still being printed frequently. But an end did come for Gary. Guy Jacks abruptly, once computer game started taking off the executives that guy Jackson hired to manage TSR booted him from his own company.

spk_1:   31:04
Oh no,

spk_0:   31:06
In pursuit of these more modern game formats, they also put a gag on all creative freedom coming out of Guy Jacks anytime you to produce a game that had any influence from Dungeons and Dragons inside of it.

spk_1:   31:18
What the hag?

spk_0:   31:19
Yep, Corporate B s

spk_1:   31:23
Oh, my gosh.

spk_0:   31:25
So joke's on them because it all fell apart in 1996.

spk_1:   31:29
Oh, good. Well, I mean, not good, but like I don't know I have I'm indifferent about this.

spk_0:   31:35
So Gary's deal with Random House was hugely beneficial in the beginning because they could print as much as they wanted, and Random House would pay them on delivery to the Random House warehouse, not on sale of the book. So Gary made a ton of money up front because he was just stop. He's just printing as much as he could to stop the warehouses. Now, when he wasn't part of the company anymore. They ended up seeing that their video game sales were doing worse. The video games were expensive to make. They were honestly just rule books at that point. Two. They weren't actually video games. It was just a digital versions of the Dentures and Dragon Rule books. Well, like real games like Vampire, the Masquerade. And you know, there's plenty of CD games that were coming out at that time and even consuls in, like Gameboys and stuff like that, where becoming prominent. Um, so they put all this effort into all the CDs that no one was buying and stop putting effort and all the books. So Random House shipped all of their product back to them. Just millions of dollars worth of product got shipped back to T S. R.

spk_1:   32:48
Ah, car is a bitch.

spk_0:   32:50
TSR closed down in 1996.

spk_1:   32:53
But that is like Carmen is best form.

spk_0:   32:56
Yeah, Dnd didn't stay dead for long, though, because right around the proverbial coat corner was a wizard with some magic that printed cash. And by this, I mean wizards of the coast. The company that three years prior produced the most profitable card game in history. Magic. The gathering

spk_1:   33:15
boy. Oh, boy.

spk_0:   33:16
Now, with two massively nerdy games under their umbrella and soon to grab the Pokemon card games as well, I

spk_1:   33:23
forgot about that.

spk_0:   33:24
Yep. Pokemon was at one point owned by Wizard of the Coast. The card game, at least? Yep. And actually was based off of magic. Oh, yes. So the what game designer wouldn't want to work for wizards of the Coast and help things like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic live and flourish. And the rest is history. Now, about that date the, um What is it? June 26 1974 January. You did this in an earlier episode. You said

spk_1:   33:56
yes, I did.

spk_0:   33:59
So we don't know when D and D was published.

spk_1:   34:05
Oh,

spk_0:   34:06
there was no publishing date on the books. There was no like, you know, gaming was such a small community. At that point, there was no massive advertising. So what we can backtrack is that there was in There was an article that Gary wrote about his previous game chain mail back in November of 1972 I think yet no, 1973. So in 1973 he wrote an article about chain mail saying that he had some interesting news for people, and it involved the fantastic, uh, expansion to chain mail on that he was working with a new partner to make something that he was hoping would be fun for everybody. Yeah. Ah, and he mentioned that most likely this thing would start printing in January. So he knew January. Um, there was another article that got printed in February about when the mass printing of Dungeons and Dragons happened, and it mentioned that, um that Gary said that it had been printed a few weeks earlier. So if it was the first or second week of February, we can assume that it was late January, huh? And lastly, there was an article in the newspaper like a wanted, like a help wanted section kind of a thing that was saying that any role playing fanatic, any nerd person can come to his house in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and play a new game called Dungeons and Dragons on it, I think it said on Sunday it didn't say a data just said on Sunday, So as far as we can tell, it was the last Sunday of the month of the month of January in 1974.

spk_1:   35:52
All right, so that's some good detective work.

spk_0:   35:55
Yeah, And that came that. That section of detective work came from a website called Playing at the world dot block spot dot com was called. When Dungeons and Dragons turns 40. I forget what year that happened. I think it was

spk_1:   36:08
funny.

spk_0:   36:08
It was within the last few years. Dungeon Dragon turned 40.

spk_1:   36:11
Well, whenever it came out plus

spk_0:   36:14
40 you're mean.

spk_1:   36:18
Well, I also don't remember what year you said. Otherwise, I

spk_0:   36:20
would have been. Really was 2014 was the 40th. Okay? Yeah. Yep. So, yeah, that's my story about Dungeons and Dragons.

spk_1:   36:29
Who

spk_0:   36:30
on two called action while Kylie still awake?

spk_1:   36:35
Yeah,

spk_0:   36:36
So you can find us on. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter at halfway history. You can find our patri on at half a pod, and you can email us at half a pot at gmail dot com.

spk_1:   36:55
Ah, we'd really appreciate any comments in the site. Potential topic, ideas. Um, anything like that. We really appreciate feedback. Um, especially the like, affirmative kind. So, yeah, if anyone wants to give us a show. That would be wonderful. We'd love to hear from everyone.

spk_0:   37:14
Yeah, and you can direct your friends to www dot half wit dash history dot com friends France and thank you to the fishermen for the use for theme song. Another day you confined his link to his soundcloud down in our show. Notes.

spk_1:   37:32
Yeah. Go check him out.

spk_0:   37:33
And also, while you're checking out new things out our new podcast we got the trailer up right now. That was the thing that we just played right in the middle.

spk_1:   37:42
So you repeat the name of it?

spk_0:   37:45
Yeah. So we're calling the group half wits and failed Critz. And our first season is going to be playing Dungeons and Dragons and the season will be called World's Divided. We're actually already recording a second season now, with all this new equipment and everything, so that's gonna be a lot of fun. And the second season will be more of a scifi theme.

spk_1:   38:06
Yeah, so we recorded those, like, prequel things, right? Yeah,

spk_0:   38:11
but we haven't talked about that yet.

spk_1:   38:12
Oh, yeah, that's true. Sorry.

spk_0:   38:16
So if you're not totally into fantasy, we check. Follow follow that. Ah, that arse s anyways, because we will be having scifi at some point.

spk_1:   38:27
Italy Fund.

spk_0:   38:28
Yeah, it'll be a ton of fun on to fund fax

spk_1:   38:32
fun backs.

spk_0:   38:33
I have one, so I will go first.

spk_1:   38:35
That's probably a good choice.

spk_0:   38:36
January 24th for the wow. January 21st of 1972. The first convention of Star Trek fans was held in New York City's Statler Hilton Hotel. Keep up with the nerdy. And also, it's only two years before DND so kind of timely. Yeah. What's your fun fact?

spk_1:   39:00
Well, now I need to Oh, you know what? I'm gonna keep mine topical as well. On the ah, in the theme of shitty husbands on January 21st 1934 Parisians baker and quote, Student of medieval life. Whatever. Okay, um on re Lettiere appears in court having been charged with forcing his adulterous wife Juliette toe wear a chastity belt, having committed the same offense in 1932 he was sentenced to three months in prison and fined 50 francs for cruelty to his

spk_0:   39:41
wife. Oh, boy.

spk_1:   39:43
A literal chastity belt in the thirties

spk_0:   39:46
that he had done before.

spk_1:   39:49
Yep. And only got three months for cruelty to his wife mammogram. Anyway, that's it. That's the thing.

spk_0:   40:00
Well, it has been our show. We are finally caught up again. Oh, it feels so good. Thank you for listening. As always, I've been your half wit.

spk_1:   40:08
And I'm your historian

spk_0:   40:10
and we look forward to seeing you next week.

spk_1:   40:12
Bye, Theo.