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So, this last weekend was another RabbitCon. Rob Daviau wanted to run the Tomb of Horrors, old school style. In the end, a party did manage to raid the Tomb (although, unsurprisingly, they didn’t kill the boss). It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen here at Rabbitcon. Rob did it right, with old-school dice, screens, yellow character sheets full of fiddly pregens, and tons of dwarven forge stuff from my basement. It was inspiring and lethal.

Rob also wrote lyrics (to the tune of “people who died” by Jim Carroll) commemorating the event:

All the PCs Who Died

Fodder the Fighter, he was 8 levels high
Gargoyle hit him, ripped out his spine
Aryk was next up on the gargoyle’s list
Threw him in a pit but Aryk can’t fly
Davin entered an arch of smoke and mist
Sprung out naked and started to cry
He was a friend of mine

Those are PCs who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Karl was astonishing, a gnome of some reknown
Touched a lightning altar so they put him in the ground
Dravin got the shakes from a gas of fear and dread
Fled the tomb of horrors, with our gold but he’s not dead
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are PCs who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

The Mincer ran in fear and took a bad left turn
Slid down a polished slope and started to burn
No-name 12 was a wizard who the group agreed to kill
To find a secret door that was invisible
And No-name 12, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are PCs who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Howard Hughes the cleric had just found his groove
Ended up some jelly on the demi-lich roof
Cringar of West had been there longest
But someone knocked the skull and Acererak kills the strongest
But Cringar didn’t cry, Cringar died

Those are PCs who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

The rest grabbed the loot from the last little room
Made their way out of this filthy little tomb
They got some bitchin potions, a rod, and some gems
So the others didn’t die in vain,
And No-Name 12, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are PC who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

So, that’s awesome. But what was really exceptionally awesome was that as Rob sent the email with the above lyrics, I was sitting in my living room with the last of the Rabbitcon stragglers. In the mix were Eric Hanson (who’s quite a good drummer), McChuck (who plays very good bass), and a wounded Sean Sands (who had ripped a nail off rocking guitar so hard he bled for the music). A huge huge part of this last weekend for me was setting up a band in the garage. We actually rocked.

I mean, sure, we sucked. Most of us are only passingly good at our instruments or singing, if we’re being honest. But we had a few really serious ringers — my friend Dr. Dave is just amazing on guitar, and can play anything. McChuck and Eric are just rocks. We played a few hours at least, every day. Everything from harmonized indigo girls songs to Smells Like Teen Spirit to Beatles and Oasis covers. We had 8 year olds on drums and bass. We had teenage girls singing harmonies. We had everyone making music.

It was fucking glorious and loud and everything I wanted.

So here we were, at the dinner table, reading rob’s lyrics. And none of them had ever even heard the Jim Carroll song. But me? Catholic Boy (the album on which People Who Died resides) was super important to me as a kid. 1980. I was 13-14 years old. I was too late for the first round of real punks. Instead, I had the Jim Carroll, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, and all the other cool LA Punk bands to counterballance the New Wave forces of The Cure and Talking Heads and the impending crazy of MTV.

So I knew it by heart. So we went down into the basement, and quite literally, in 10 minutes, we recorded this.

It ain’t pretty. But then, neither am I. And neither is the Tomb of Horrors.