#RPGaDay2023 - Day 22 - Best Secondhand RPG Purchase

 Day 22 of #RPGaDay2023 and  I'm feeling deja vu all over again.

For each day I'll be answering the question provided, and for fun, review how I answered a similar question during #RPGaDay a decade ago.  Scout's Honor, I have not peeked at the older answer.

Day 22s prompt is "Best Secondhand RPG Purchase" 

I scanned my bookshelves, but nothing secondhand screamed out to me.  To be honest, I have a lot of secondhand book to replace the originals I should have never gotten rid of in the first place.  

I went through my drawers, which contain smaller books, modules, magazines, and other types of games, but again, nothing I saw had notably expanded my campaign or inspired me more than anything else.

But going through my desk, I finally found something that qualifies.  

Epic of Aearth for Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys

Not many good pictures of the cover.  Pic from Shop on the Borderlands

Dangerous Journeys was Gary Gygax's triumphant return to role-play design, only to be shot down and burned by TSR's lawyers.   Mythus was the fantasy ruleset, Mythus Magick covered, well, magic, and the Bestiary did a generic run at fantasy and mundane monsters.

Epic of Aearth was the world, a gazetteer of sorts, covering the entire world, while also discussing underground civilizations, the hollow world, and the world of the fairy.  The surface world was a very dry attempt at a fantasy Earth. 

With my first secondhand copy, I decided to fit my own homebrewed World of Georic, already ten years old, into the this fantasy Earth equivalent.  

Twenty years later, and I'm still trying to fit things together.  I've been building out entries for my countries, similar to Epic, and have a few cursory countries completed with the Georic Gazetteer.

Part of that is due to the fact that I've only recently compiled my campaign's exploits, circa 1990-98, in sort of a third-party, after-the-fact format.  The Lost Dispatches of Feraso try their best to connect the distant memories of long forgotten adventures and reconcile the fact that I had Shadowdale within a days ride of the Temple of Elemental Evil and even worse nonsense.  I've revised times and places so that when I get to these more significant countries, I'll almost sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Ten Years Ago Today:  Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play.  Every time I pick up another copy of WFRP, I find something inspiring in it, although I doubt I'll ever play it.