“I don’t see anything dark, and I don’t see anything nerdy.”
Paul Stormberg was stand in the cellar of 330 Center Street , the tokenish “ place of origin of Dungeons & Dragons , ” giving his 19th tour of the daylight , when his snotty-nosed phone rang . A bit of dramatic event unfold down at Library Park : The live archery demonstration , where a leather - clad bowyer was helping children fire arrows at row of plastic orcs , was jangle the nerves of tourists saunter the contiguous Geneva Lake Shore Path . Never mind the safety net and hay - bale backstop — a few were lodging complaints .
Stormberg , a laminitis and Colorado - chairwoman of theDragon Days Fantasy Festival , held inLake Geneva , Wisconsin , sigh and told the caller he ’d deal out with it . Then he hung up and turned , not missing a beat , back to the dozen or so folks watch him from across a gaming table cover in Baroness Dudevant and medieval statuette .
“ The DNA of D&D is right on here in this gumption table ! ” he declared , excuse how Dungeons & Dragons conscientious objector - creator Gary Gygax had stood in that very spot while remixing dime - store credit card toy dog to make his first flagitious toy : dragons , devil , owlbears . “ All of that fantasy , ” Stormberg said , pause for event , “ was create right here . ”
Photo by Elsie Stormberg, stormbergstorytelling.com
Last calendar month ’s second annual Dragon Days score a turn point in the family relationship between the cultivated holiday resort town of Lake Geneva and its most celebrated exportation : Dungeons & Dragons , the pioneering tabletop role - playing biz , multimedia franchise , and geek - culture criterion that ’s currently celebrating its50th anniversary . Until recently , the townspeople had never made much of its status as the cradle of D&D. Lake Geneva has rarely wanted for visitors — not since the 1870s , anyway , when well - to - do Chicagoans go fill up train to escape the gritty wake of the Great Chicago Fire . The lake itself is a large hook , call with beaches , marinas , and a21 - mile footpaththat cuts through the yard of mansion build by Gilded Age industrialist . ( The body of water supply , bewilderingly , is “ Geneva Lake , ” while “ Lake Geneva ” is the town on its northeasterly shore . ) Those grand demesne — named for Maytags , Schwinns , Wrigleys , and others — earned the area its nickname : the Hamptons of the Midwest .
As the news report goes , a young Gary Gygax used to sit by the lakeshore , gazing wistfully at the manse while stargaze about becoming a rich and renowned fantasy novelist . In 1973 , he was a 34 - yr - old brake shoe deep-dish pie working out of his basement at 330 Center Street , a few blocks and a earth out from the tony harborfront . An avid player of military - scheme games , he ’d lost his task as an insurance underwriter a few years earlier and decided to give it a go as a self-employed secret plan interior designer . Shoe repair was his side bunco game , just barely frame food on the mesa for him , his wife , and their five kids .
One of Gygax ’s project was a cross of a Tolkien - esque struggle game he ’d design and a more character - aim , conjunct one made by a friend , a Minnesotan secret plan house decorator namedDave Arneson . To produce and betray his and Arneson ’s novel plot , Gygax started a company called Tactical Studies Rules , or TSR . In January 1974 , TSR distributed the first thousand copies of athree - booklet rule setwith the unruly labelDungeons & firedrake : Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures .
Photo by Elsie Stormberg, stormbergstorytelling.com
In the decades that followed , TSR rose and accrue spectacularly ( its tumultuous arc has made for some page - wrick collective histories — see Ben Riggs’sSlaying the Dragonor Jon Peterson’sGame Wizards ) . But at the starting time , the troupe boomed as D&D made cultural waves , whirl off , among other thing , a huge catalogue oftie - in novelsand aSaturday morning sketch .
At its former ’ LXXX peak , TSR employed more than 400 people in a town of just 5,600 . And by the time the company allow for Lake Geneva at the end of the nineties ( buy out byWizards of the Coast , publishers of theMagic : The Gatheringcard game and today owned byHasbro ) , D&D had summoned to the arcadian little lake townsfolk a whole microculture of fantasy authors , artist , game designers , and other creative loony .
And yet , to try some of those weirdos differentiate it , the aspect of a town - blanket street fairish celebrating D&D ’s legacy would have been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago .
Photo by Elsie Stormberg, stormbergstorytelling.com
“ The local world and the city fathers were just kind of mystified by it — like , ‘ Who are these guy ? What is this game ? ’ ” come back Mike Carr , a plot clothes designer and former TSR employee . “ Gary Gygax was viewed as a little unknown . ”
That wariness was n’t helped by the occult stigma that followed D&D out of the 1980s , when sloppy coverage in the wake of a pair of adolescent suicide set off a nationwide “ demonic terror . ” WriterAnne Morrissy , who grew up in Lake Geneva in the ’ 80s and ’ 90s , suspects that few around townsfolk actually believed their TSR - employed neighbour were devil worshippers . All the same — not great for the Lake Geneva make .
“ Probably no one was actively trying to lessen the Dungeons & Dragons connexion , ” say Morrissy , now the editor of Lake Geneva ’s lifestyle magazine , At the Lake . “ But there was a specific image the town was trying to project , which is , you know , ‘ the Hamptons of the Midwest . ’ So how do you waver a very famous fantasy game into this very elect vacation address ? I suppose that ’s what the townspeople is working towards now . ”
Photo by Elsie Stormberg, stormbergstorytelling.com
The seeds of Dragon Days were sow afterGygax die in 2008 . He was 69 and had latterly suffered an abdominal aneurysm . In the years that followed , a group of family and friends came together to buttonhole the city council for a memorial statue . But the council was reluctant and progress stalled until 2019 , when Stormberg joined the group ’s control board .
Stormberg is a genuine fanboy who run anauction business firm for D&D memorabiliafrom his base in Omaha , Nebraska . But he gift like a cordial country attorney who just take place to have a knack for joint D&D ’s significance to those who ’ve never rolled a 20 - sided die . Now president of theGygax Memorial Fund , he nudge the radical to work with community leaders on a across-the-board slating of more achievable initiatives , including the Dragon Days Fantasy Festival .
After a low - scale soft launch in 2023 , this year ’s Dragon Days saw an estimated 2,600 people pile up in downtown Lake Geneva to celebrate 50 years of D&D. The lakeshore park where Gygax once daydream was filled with vendor hawking hand - turned wand and leatherware , artisans cave in chainmail and blacksmith demos , and an outdoor point hosting bards , aerialists , and alchemists . kid gathered in the library for D&D taradiddle hr and at the downtown theater for covering of the ’ eighty cartoon show . At theGeneva Lake Museum , TSR veteran gave talks about the biz ’s story and impact . Main Street was a carnival of robed pixie and tiefling peasant licking ice cream strobile while wandering from venue to venue .
There was gaming , too , with players roll die in the sameHorticultural Hallwhere Gygax , in 1968 , hosted the first - ever Geneva Convention — Gen Conis now an annual event that attracts 70,000 gamers to a stadium in Indianapolis each August . But unlike Gen Con ( orGaryCon , held each saltation at a Lake Geneva group discussion resort ) , Dragon Days is n’t a gambling convention for die - hards , just a sept - friendly civic celebration — and a symbol of how the once - arcane D&D subculture has been demystified and embraced .
“ I do n’t see anything dingy , and I do n’t see anything nerdy , ” says Deanna Goodwin , frailty chairperson of merchandising , communications , and exploitation forVisit Lake Geneva . Three geezerhood ago , she and her tourism - bureau colleagues rolled up characters and played a tutorial session at a since - close local sideline shop — and loved it . “ I cerebrate there ’s a new genesis of fans and musician , and it ’s melded with the old . It ’s a vast part of soda - culture chronicle . And as a marketer , what I ’m depend for is , what would I demand to see or touch , as a fan , to make this a destination where I can experience the birthplace of D&D ? ”
“ We know there are millions of gamers worldwide who ’d require to make this pilgrimage to Lake Geneva , ” state Harold Johnson , a former designer and editor at TSR and chairperson of the Dragon 24-hour interval fest . “ But for a long metre , there was nothing to do or see here . ”
TheAdventurer ’s Map of Lake Geneva , hand out at Dragon Days , illustrate how much that ’s changing . Stormberg ’s roll of 42 sites of D&D implication includes 330 Center Street , which Yolanda Frontany , a Chicago bank handler , bought as a holiday home in 2005 , never having get wind the name Gary Gygax . Now she ’s a D&D convert who rents the place out to groups want to take on on hallowed RPG ground . Vince Vaughn was among the gamers who show up last year .
The function includes the Geneva Lake Museum , Site # 21 , which last year opened itsWizard of Lake Genevapermanent exhibit , brimming with memorabilia . website # 25 , the Appendix N Alcove at the Lake Geneva Public Library , also commit last year , is a enthralling compendium of 100 books that influenced the game ’s development . There ’s # 33 , the Gygax Memorial Park Bench , where a plaque installed last class mug where the untested Gygax once ogled lakeside mansion . And # 34 , Stone Manor , the eye - popping 1901 Italianate where he did finally live ( albeit in a condo ) .
situation # 22 , the map explain , is the Lake Geneva post office , “ where TSR receive hundreds of thousand of pieces of fan chain armour , game submission , catalogue order , and more . ” That one may seem like a reach , but not to Stormberg . Not when he thinks about the inscrutable connector that generations of gamers formed with the brand .
“ That address was their petty mainstay , ” he say , “ the electric cord that seize them from their small town , where they were ostracize for being different or gay or nerdy , to some magical place : to PO Box 756 , in Lake Geneva . ”
In March , the Lake Geneva planning commission and city council approve a site plan and vote unanimously to assume the contribution of amemorial statue of Gygax . If fundraising is successful , the remembrance will feature a bronze Gygax seated at a granite gaming tabular array . His arm will be draw out and his cupped hand angled slightly downwards , so that visitors can roll their die from it .
