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By David Hartwig
Great Britain’s Royal Mail celebrates 50 years since the creation of the fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with 14 stamps in a July 25 issue.
Royal Mail presents eight of the Dungeons & Dragons stamps in two horizontal se-tenant (side-by-side) strips of four.
The stamps in one strip are nondenominated, paying the first-class rate (currently £1.35, and the stamps in the other strip are denominated £2.50 (the international standard rate for letters).
Six additional first-class stamps appear on a souvenir sheet included with the issue.
In Dungeons & Dragons, created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and first published in 1974, players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting.
The players are guided by a dungeon master who narrates the story and controls the game’s world and nonplayer characters, Players use dice to control outcomes in the game as they embark on adventures, solve puzzles and engage in combat.
Dungeons & Dragons has evolved through various editions, influencing popular culture and spawning a vast array of media. It remains a cornerstone of the role-playing game genre.
An Aug. 1 issue of 10 forever stamps from the United States Postal Service also commemorates the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons.
Each stamp in the Royal Mail set of eight features a monster from the game, and the souvenir sheet stamps depict different types of character classes players can choose in the game.
The monsters on the first-class stamps include a breed of chromatic dragon called the red dragon; an owl and bear hybrid called an owlbear; the powerful villain Vecna; and a gelatinous cube, made from transparent ooze, that can absorb and digest organic matter.
The £2.50 stamps show more monsters, including a mind flayer, a creature that can control the minds of others; a mimic shape-shifting monster; a catlike displacer beast that plays with prey before consumption; and the floating, one-eyed beholder monster.
Shining an ultraviolet light over the stamps in the set of eight reveals a hidden image. The Owlbear, Gelatinous Cube, Mind Flayer and Displacer Beast stamps show the stylized dragon ampersand from the Dungeons & Dragons logo. A dragon head appears on the Red Dragon stamp, and the Vecna stamp shows a skull. The Mimic and Beholder stamps show different images of each of their respective monsters.
The stamps on the souvenir sheet depict some of the game’s different character classes, which largely define a character’s capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
A tiefling rogue is descended from devils and is a creature of darkness and finesse. The human bard is a master of song, speech and magic, while the halfling cleric blends charisma and healing powers.
Elf fighters have intelligence, dark vision and a proficiency in perception, and the dragonborn wizard looks very much like a dragon without wings or a tail.
Those in the dwarf paladin character class focus on martial arts for defending others before themselves.
British artist Wayne Reynolds illustrated all 14 stamps in the issue, and Royal Mail commissioned 11 of the designs specifically for the stamps. …
The Dungeons & Dragons stamps and related products can be ordered from Royal Mail’s website. Ordering information also is available from Royal Mail, Tallents House, 21 S. Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB, Scotland.
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