The Blue Dice
Back in 1983, my sister saved up her babysitting money to give me my first Dungeons & Dragons set for Christmas (it was actually 2 sets: the Basic boxed set with the Erol Otus cover, and the later Basic boxed set with the Larry Elmore cover). It came with all the neat little dice in a soft, opaque plastic, and a crayon you had to use to color in the numbers so you could actually read them when they were further than 6 inches in front of your face.
Those dice were cool for all of one week until I saw a set of blue crystal dice like these for sale at the Waldenbooks at Alton Square Mall. Since I was a major nerd (what do you mean “was”, right?) who was BIG into The Elfstones of Shannara at the time, I HAD to have them. After all, with just the slightest touch of head canon, these things practically WERE Elfstones – “Perfectly formed, their color a deep, brilliant blue…”
Thus began my lifelong obsession with collecting dice, and these were one of the few things I had managed to keep through my childhood until the luggage they were in was stolen en route to a con. I angsted over the loss of these dice (and the memories they held) for years until an Amazon search turned up a pretty-damn-near replica. I hit that “Buy Now” button faster than a mantis shrimp snagging a snack.
Then I saw that they had them in a lot more colors than the few I remembered from Waldenbooks. And here I thought I was done collecting dice now that I’m a so-called adult who barely gets to play anymore. Yeah. Right.
I just know that someday I’ll play again…