1st Edition AD&D Part III- The adventuring party

This post will be a bit shorter the the others to follow if for no other reason I don't have all of the details, the DM who ran THE CAMPAIGN does ahem ;) In my last post here Post Part II I outlined my character a mercenary dark elf fighter/magic-user named Relendor Silkenweb. Now, until we unearth some more details from notes from either Dave or Jeff might have I'm going to have to do this from memory. It was ironic that after this campaign I started to take more notes. Also one of the first things I started doing was writing down player and names, classes of characters in greater detail, but not here :( Looking back at it there were indeed seven of us in the group (I thought eight previously) with Jeff DMing. The players and their characters are as follows circa 1987 for the start of the game:

1. Dark elf Fighter/Runecaster- (Me) As outlined previously specialized in spetum and wielding a magical bracer of ogre power. He did not have the dark elf magic resistance but did have utlization of his regular male abilities. At various times had a cloak of the bat, wand of polymorhping and other magical accoutrements. Had a black cat familiar named Soot. Was a very effective fighter with specialization and often served as the 3rd best fighter or a backup to the half ogre and dwarf in melee. 
    
   
2. Half ogre Fighter- (Tom) encased in full plate by the end, this brute wielded a massive warhammer inspired by his miniature which was a citadel chaos warrior, specifically this one here: chaos warrior mini I remember him getting killed a few times and obviously was our best fighter. I believe we had to raise him from the dead at least twice. 
    
   
3. Dwarf Fighter- (Jim) for this character my recollections are the most sketchy. I only vaguely remember the mini, but still can't quite place it. He was a typical axe toting dwarf and probably the second best fighter from what I can recall or certainly 1B. Jim was a very back story driven player from what I recall. Like the half-ogre above, I recall two deaths for the dwarf.
   
   
4. Halfling Fighter/Thief- (Dave) No recollection of the mini that represented him but I do recall his quest against Dragotha revolved around a bear cloak of some importance to the character and perhaps the halflings in the realm. Dave was a very inventive and smart player. He was the only one who had thief as part of his class. This brings up a good point as we will see three multi-class characters in the group. Dave's mini I recall was one he painted for himself. 
    
   
5. Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger- (Mike) Mike was the older guy in the group by maybe 3-4 years at most and the only one who could drive, hence he had to go on the pizza runs. His character may have been an elf but I seem to recall half elf. I also have a recollection of this character being female, but I'm not quite sure if I'm confusing it with some characters in my later 2^nd edition campaigns that I've played in. Wielded two maces in combat. Our only healer in the group. Gulp!
   
   
6. Human Pyromancer- (Daryl) before specialized wizards made their appearance in 2^nd edition Jeff had them in his game. The pyromancer as might be imagined specialized in fire based spells and as an added touch had a firedrake from the fiend folio as a familiar! The best part as I clearly recall Daryl saying in game “he's a lazy slug” indeed the drake rarely did anything it didn't want to and would rarely breathe on anything, especially if we needed him to do. I vaguely recall the mini for the character as a Citadel one, but cant quite place it. 
    
   
7. Human Illusionist- (Christian) this character is another hazy one as I recall Chris being there less regularly then the rest of us. Chris played his illusionist well and creatively, not unbalancing as illusions can be so tricky in 1^st and 2^nd edition AD&D. I remember one key encounter which I'll detail in a later post where he created an illusion of a magical bow out of thin air and began firing it; a practical and well thought out illusion that stuck in my mind.
   

The only other person who gamed with us on a regular basis in this group was Pete, but for some reason or another I do not recall him or a character he played involved in this group. In all I'd say not bad remembering something from 25 years ago with no notes. 
 
As I was jotting through these guys I remembered another facet to the campaign. We did not get to see the map, as we explored I mapped it with the places we had ventured. I can picture it to a degree, but I no longer have my sketch. In a way it functioned much like how things did in Baldur's Gate one with the map being revealed as one explored it
 
The next post will detail some of the broad undertakings of the group and some other background as well as our nemesis Dragotha, no, not that Dragotha!