Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Myrmidon


Another of Zeus’s rascally escapades was when he presto’d Eurymedousa into an ant and then proceeded to rape her. Thus begat Myrmidon, who was followed by an entire race of soldiers who blindly obeyed any order given them.

2 comments:

Spider Jim King said...

I fondly remember designing my own personal myrmidons under the watchful eye of dungeonmaster Muggsie Krym. Krymm? Possibly Kryym. Nahh. Krymm, I think.
Before Dungeons and Dragons, before video games, Steve Jackson created a cheap board game with paper players (looked a lot like blotter acid to me) and a playing field made of collected hexagons (a good name for a band) titled "Melee." Muggsie bought a copy at Oat Willie's and, as virgins to the fantasy gaming world, we popped our cherries at the kitchen table at Ardash Lane One. We quickly graduated to using pewter figurines for players (blotter acid players be damned), painted them, and expanded our borders, as did Steve Jackson, who created "Wizard" and finally "In the Dungeon." Or some such nonsense. But Dom was a hell of a dungeonmaster, and the word 'myrmidon' brings up some rather powerful memories, as that was the name Steve gave to a basic warrior in that game. If I members keckly, you might have been down in the depths with us more than once. Prolly got killed, too. I know I did. Thanks for the info, tho. I had no idea the origin of the word other than that of blindly following commands as a soldier.

Seems that still happens. Unfortunately.

Jay King said...

I remember you guys playing that game for hours on end. Me, I never played a single role-player. Just wasn't my thang.

And the correct spelling is the first, Krym. Mugsy Krym. I was reminded of it just yesterday when I received in the mail copies of the two issues of Here & Now that were printed in 1971. Diane Matthews sent them. It was a hoot reading them after all these years. In addition to Don's nom de plume, there was Pinky Murdlestein (Bruce), Gump (Andy), Perry White (Jimbo), Lois Lane (I have no idea), and Pumpkin (me). Not only did she send the two issues, but she also sent two leaflets I had forgotten about and a supplement declaring our goal to become outside agitators. Now I'm of a mind to write off for my FBI file.