The Winner’s Hat! Prizes for This Year’s DCC Dying Earth Team Tournament|Goodman Games

Posted By billward on Jul 20, 2023 |

The Winner’s Hat! Prizes for This Year’s DCC Dying Earth Team Tournament

by Harley Stroh and Terry Olson

For each team tournament — and especially the Gen Con open — we seek out trophies as exciting and inspiring as the players that will win them. When players have strived against mind-bending puzzles, conquered impossible odds, and faced the looming Doom Gong to rise above all other contenders, no mere trophy can suffice.

In the past, champions have received coveted WWF-style trophy belts (girdles of mighty gaming?), strange figurines depicting decrepit gong farmers, leering skulls atop black stones, and even leather-wrapped sets of thieves’ tools to complement the kit of the discerning Lankhmart alley-basher.

And this year is no different. Or rather, this year’s trophies are very different.

For 2023 we sought out trophies fully worthy of a magician of Dying Earth. Gazing crystals perhaps? Wizard staffs? Both too generic and vanilla for Vance’s oeuvre.

No, the defining accessory of any magician of Dying Earth is a good hat.

But who to craft such marvelous headpieces? (The term “hat” being far too pedestrian.) Who might have the creative vision, crafting skill, and artistic drive to create hats full worthy of an Erol Otus painting?

Fortunately at Goodman Games, we have a habit of collecting just that sort of weird talent. The inimitable Jordyn Boci stepped into the fray, proposing no fewer than nine mind-melting designs to adorn the pates of this year’s champions. Some of you may already know Jordyn for her crafting of our masks: the Cyclops, Magician’s Skull, and Chaos Lord.

Nine designs were proposed. Which were chosen? To learn, that you’ll need to stop by the Goodman Games booth and visit our tournament headquarters in the stadium.

And finally – when the sun sets on Dying Earth and the last stars flicker into darkness – who will wear these crowns of mighty gaming and be Arch-Daihaks of Dying Earth? That can only be decided by you and your companions. Like our trophies, each tournament is unique, brooking no imitation, and this year’s tournament is as wild and exciting as Jordyn’s designs.

See you in the pit, Gongfarmer!