O is for Oracle, The RPG Zine - #atozchallenge

Today's post is about the Oracle, an rpg zine from the early days of D&D.  The reason I am writing about this is because the author and publisher of the zine recently completed a Kickstarter where he published all five issues of the zine into a complete volume.  He also commissioned the completion of a sixth issue of The Oracle.  The final product is a thing of beauty.

Cover to issue 5 of The Oracle.  Illustration by Peter Laird

The contents of the Oracle are old-school and cool.  There are movie reviews for The Secret of NIMH (my favorite animated feature as a kid) and Blade Runner, reviews of play-by-mail games, home made dungeons, new spells and classes for AD&D, and funky art.  My favorite part of the reprinted collection is that the creator and publisher includes the story of how he started the whole project.  He tells the tale of a teenage who put together a labor of love in his basement, enlisted the help of professional writers, and even offered a D&D module to subscribers.  The Oracle is a view into what makes the rpg hobby great.  People don't just play rpgs, they make them their own.

I'm not sure if The Oracle will be for sale to the general public soon, but it has a listing over at Plagmada.org