No one knows for sure how Menggandul was created, only that he was. This monster is a huge floating eye with great magic abilities. The pallid skin of the eye is magically enhanced and tough as steel. When a being is in the vicinity of Menggandul that being feels an intense sense of being watched, this affect reaches out for fifty feet from Menggandul through wood, water, and even stone.

Some rumor that Menggandul was created from the eye of a great dragon, others guess he was spawned from a great pool of lawless evil that was conjured by a crazy mage. Both assumptions are partially correct. The base vessel for this creature was the eye of an ancient dragon that was then plunged in to a magical pool of concentrated lawlessness and evil. The mage who performed this ritual was just strong enough to create the pool of pure evil, but not strong enough to control it.

Through that vile act Menggandul came in to being and now exists for only one singular purpose. That purpose is to spawn horror wherever he goes. Menggandul wasted no time and corrupted that mage even further. Menggandul is an extremely intelligent and motivated abomination. Through illusions he impersonates humans where he then facilitates gangs and encourages lawlessness, mentors evil mages and kings bringing chaos and evil to rule all.

Lacie was a low born surf that had the misfortune of also being "touched", as in "touched by the dark one" also called insane. When her parents died there was no one left to take care of her. Lacie ended up wandering from town to town forced to move as locals were scared of her "madness" being contagious and they labeled her Lacie The Lunatic.

One lonely road Lacie fled down led her to salvation from her mental illness, but damned her to a life of vileness transforming her into a parasitic nightmare. Lacie's nickname followed her into her undead existence. She never saw the vampire that had created her. Lacie awoke after the attack with a clear mind for the first time ever. All of her tormented past flowed into her mind in one great flood.

The power of that flood coupled with her raw bloodlust sent her straight back to the last town that had shun her and run her out by stoning her. Lacie The Lunatic took revenge and proceeded to kill every living being in town. Every man, woman, child, cat, sheep, dog, and mouse was destroyed. She reduced the town to an empty shell that she completely erased when she burned the gown to the ground. Lacie's act of eradicating this town solidified "Lacie The Lunatic" as her permanent moniker.

As the years passed she learned how to infiltrate the wealthy and created elaborate plans to bring the highest born down below the lowest of the poorest mentally ill street people. During one such scheme Lacie found Valdrik Van Der Brock. She took special pleasure in converting and corrupting him from the people's protector to their worst nightmare.

Lacie The Lunatic's reign of terror was ended by a party of heroes who were bent on avenging a fallen comrade. Valdrik Kill each one of those heroes after waking to the death wale of his undead mate. Every one but Alice Lam for she so reminded him of his slane death's mistress. He left her in the crypt with the slaughtered heroes and fled into his lonely undead existence.

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

A once great noble that was brought low by a single wound. Valdrik Van Der Brock was bitten by the vampire Lacie Heidelberg, A.K.A. Lacie the Lunatic. Lacie bewitched Valdrik's mind while dancing at a ball he hosted at the center piece of his family's estate, Castle Brock. Valdrik was bit right there on the ball room floor and followed Lacie to his doom.

The couple laid waste to the surrounding lands that the Van Der Brock family had protected for generations. This darkness hung over the land for over fifty years. A ray of hope came in the form of a party of vengeful heroes that were successful in destroying Lacie while she slept.

Lacie's scream of true and final death woke Valdrik and his wrath. He drained the heroes dry, all except Alice Lam. Alice's face favored that of Lacie and Valdrik could not bring himself to strike down that which he found dear. He left her to her dead companions and fled his ancestral home.

Gary Gygax, the Father of Dungeons & Dragons has passed on, today March 4th 2008. I can still remember the first time I read the original Players Handbook from that Red D&D boxed set. Gary Gygax created a system that freed my teenage angst and gave it a channel to productive creativity. I still look to those books for release from the tedium of my soul stealing I.T. job. Every other Saturday my wife and friends get together to delve in to another world where we release the full wrath of our imagination upon the villains and monster of our D.M.'s devising.

Gary Gygax's artistic vision lead to creation of a phenomena that evolved in to an entire industry whose sole purpose is enjoyment and celebration of the fact that anyone can be anything they can imagine, if even for only a few hours every other weekend. For a few of the extremely talented creative souls Gygax built a path to wealth and a means to live through their creativity. People like R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, Troy Denning, and so many other authors that wrote for TSR and now Wizards of The Coast who built careers off the foundation that he laid.

Gary Gygax's originality has left an undeniable impression in the lives of so many fantasy lovers. Gygax's spirit will live on through the systems of creativity that have spawned from his creative soul. Gary Gygax's true success is that he will be missed, but never forgotten. All About The Dragon is ABOUT creativity, fantasy, imagery, fantastic creatures and locations, and all of it can be traced back to the feelings I have when I remember the first time I read those basic rules from that D&D basic red boxed set.

Sites Reporting and Commenting on this event:
Troll Lord Games
New York Times
Lategaming.com
Gleemax.com linked from Wizards of The Coast
Wired Blog
Matt Forbeck - Author Blog

Raynek has many been known by many names over the centuries. He has been known as The Golden Mountain, The Purifier, The Just, The Cleanser, and among Dragon Kind he is currently known as Raynek The Ruler. Raynek leads The Horde Of Gold Dragons as he is the strongest, largest, and most importantly the most intelligent of all the Gold Dragons. He was "elected" to lead The Horde when his challenge to rule after the eldest Gold Dragon died was not taken up by a single challenger. The Horde sees Raynek as the most able to lead even though his "election" was unprecedented in that he is the first dragon of any horde to rule that is not also the eldest of that Dragon Kind.