Poor Aleena, We Hardly Knew Ye
This is an old blog post from a defunct blog I had
In the highly successful Basic Dungeons & Dragons rule book, edited by Frank Menter, there's an interesting story. Frank hit upon an idea when he did those two red rulebooks. He wanted to teach the new player how to play D&D while they learned the rules with a solo adventure.
It seemed like a crazy idea at the time. D&D is a group game, after all. Frank took you through the steps that had you creating your character and taught you what you used those crazy dice for. Soon, you were reading about a dungeon adventure and making the decisions on what to do.
Along the way, there is a treasure room. You can see it, but the door is locked. I've often wondered what was in there. You also meet a lovely female healer named Aleena, who casts her healing spell on you. Frank gets you to care about her.
Unfortunately, she gets killed by the infamous Bargle the wizard. Just like that, you learn how quickly a character can die in the game. Aleena actually built up a cult following among fans, which led to the creation of the Kill Bargle movement. I don't know if he ever paid for his crimes.
It was a clever idea to have people playing the game as they learned. Frank's Basic D&D rule books may have been the best ever, though I'm also partial to Tom Moldvay's Basic D&D book from a couple years earlier. Tom created a lot of fun adventures for the game in his day.
In the back of Tom's version of D&D, there's an example of how the game is played, and you see a fine example of one of the things that goes on at the gaming table. Black Dougal, the thief, misses the poison needle on a treasure chest and dies of poisoning. Moments later, the party is dividing his stuff amongst themselves.
Aleena's plight wasn't quite as cold hearted as that. You take her body back to her temple so she can be laid to rest and honored as the hero she was. I think it's a testament to Frank's writing that even three decades later, players still remember her and the way she died.
Blog Article About Aleena: https://web.archive.org/web/20150612213413/http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-iconic-characters-in-dungeons.html
