About: This is part of a collection of gaming notes left behind by my mother when she passed in 2020. Mom was an avid table-top role player, starting her adventures in the late 1970s and continued for as long as she could find a game. I’m slowly making my way through these papers and posting them as I uncover them.
Millie’s Personel [sic] Treasur [sic] list
- 49,811 gold
- 29 silver
- 12 roman candles
- 100 fire crackers
- Lizzard [sic] – 16 claws 20 teeth
- 1 oil – heavy machine
- Pouch theives [sic] tools +5% on Rols [sic]
- Pouch Regular Theives tools
21 Daggars [sic]- 1 White clerical robe (fine)
- (Dragon’s breath)
- 5 Boxes insence [sic] (jasmine)
- 2 Boxes reg candles
- 7 Robes 2 gray 5 brown
- 1 Pair gray slippers
- Eating utensiles [sic] (plate, cup, fork)
- 2 shirts
- Obiedesson [sic] (size of pop can)
- Leather bag from menatar [sic]
- Schaple [sic] (surgical knife)
- Bandages 5 rolls
- Alcohol 2 jugs
- Bone scroll case (desepell [sic] mag.
- Rope of climbing
- X healing 3 1/4
- Animal control
Gems
- 1 emerald (125)
- 1 shaphire (125)
- 1 cats eye were tiger 500
- 1 Ruby 200 (gambling)
- 1 Opel 200 (gambling)
- 1 Opel 200 (gambling)
- 1 (medussa)
- 1 (medussa)
- 100 diamonds – $100 gld
- 2 ” 125
- 3 ” 50
- Blue crystal w/sword engraving (20,000)
Encounter / Kill Sheet
- Fire beatlle [sic]
- Beatles – oil
- Draco
- Giant rats
- Carrion crawler
- Cynidiceans
- Human
- Scorpion giant
- Wer [sic] tiger
- Owl bear
- Minataur
- Wessels
- Gorm (Demigod)
- Bug bear
- Skelton [sic]
- 2 Orch
- Hob goblenens [sic]
- Centar [sic]
- Drowl (dark elf)
- Lezzard men [sic]
- Giant
Amulet of Seeing (small note)
Amulet of Seeing – allows a non-magic user to identify magic 1x day
Millie (character note and equipment list)
Apprentace [sic] to Meralilis Magic user – given necklace of black panther as sign of appreintaceship [sic]
Left falling following items with Meralilis
- gold 49,700
- Lizzard [sic] claws & teeth
- Robes – 1 clerical 2 magic users 5 regular
- 4 boxes insence
- 2 boxes candels
- 3 soap scented
- 2 bath perfumes
- 1 pair gray slippers
- 1 bronze wine goblet
- 1 crystal goblet
- 1 ring of spell storing
- 1 potion frost giant streangth [sic]
- Gems – 1 ruby (8,000) Emerald (2,000) Cats Eye (500) Opals – 1,000 Diamonds (4,000)
- Short bow – 4 Doz reg & 1 doz silver arrows
- 2 short swords
- +3 frost brand – +5 +7 on frost creatures
- Bow strings 5
- Poison for arrows
Clothing list
Town wear
- Robes – 2 red, 1 green – MU
- Robes 5 brown – Theiving
- Leggens [sic] black 2
- Shirt (snug) black 2
- Sandales [sic] – 2 pair –
- Felt shoes – black ankle
Travel
- leather (padded) sleeveless jerkin or leather shirt lose leather straps on arms and cross chest
- high hard boots
Backpack, sacks and pouches inventory
Back Pack
- Cloak
- Tunic
- Leggens / Trousers
- Boots
- Vials – 4 empty
- Med packs 5 – D8
Pouch – Small
- Diamonds – 400
- Spell components
Pouch
- Spell book
Sack
- Hide of Salamander
- Hide of Red Dragon
- 4 teeth from Red Dragon
Pouch Small
- 2 Fire opals – Egg size
- Gems
- Rubys [sic] – 20
- Diamonds 180
- Gold 50
- Platinum 30
- Topaz 40
- Saphires [sic] 10
Skill list (small note)
- Ancient history 1
- Blind fighting 2
- Reading lips 2
- Survival 2
- Languages
- Ancient 1
- Reading / writing
- Herbalism 2
My thoughts
As I begin this process of documentation, I’m surprised to see the number of spelling errors pop up. I’ve left them in for the sake of preservation, but, yeah.
You have to understand that Mom was an avid reader. She was always reading a book of some sort; science fiction, fantasy, mystery and occasionally detective thrillers were her staple. Her bed was covered in books. Her walls were lined with books. She loved books.
She also loved to do crossword puzzles. Later in life, she added in Sudoku. She was highly detailed about processes and systems (being an old school computer programmer).
So why the spelling errors for words that she likely read or used hundreds to thousands of times? I have a few theories.
- She was drinking wine while she played and was a little lose with the notes.
- Quickly trying to capture information during a gaming session led to a “enh – I know what I wrote” decision. These were, after all, for her alone.
- Maybe these notes are from a session later in life and the aging brain did what it did.
The first theory seems the most likely. The last seems the least likely, given the state of the paper.
These seem quite old and are probably from the mid 1990s. One of the notes (Amulet of Seeing) is certainly from a game master, giving a magic item to her as a player. Our old Dragonlance GM, Jim Miklos, used to do this, so it might be his handwriting. That would certainly date the note itself to being late 1980s to early 1990s (depending on when she continued to play with Jim’s group).
The answer is probably the most obvious. For her book-ish, nerdy, nature, she probably just wasn’t that great at spelling.