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https://gizmodo.com/dnd-themed-picket-wga-sag-amptp-brennan-lee-mulligan-1850798483>
"When Jon Strahd, the evil CEO of Ravenloft Studios, was defeated, the crowd at
Universal Studios gave a huge roar. A group of 500 adventurers had shown up to
picket at “the worst [Hollywood] location,” and about 100 were now engaged in a
existential fight with a contemporary capitalist, a spin on Wizards of the
Coast’s notorious vampire, Baron Strahd von Zarovich, led by DM Brennan Lee
Mulligan. (Wizards of the Coast, which had recently produced a massive
Dungeons & Dragons film with Universal Studios, did not endorse this event.)
But Strahd wasn’t the final villain. As the metaphorical vampire crumpled under
the weight of a zone of truth cast in order to expose the real streaming
numbers, battered by the orcas summoned to destroy his yachts, an even more
terrifying monster emerged from the shadows. The adventurers waited with bated
breath as Mulligan–a professional dungeon master known for his shows on
Dimension 20–narrated the scene. Rising from the ashes of the CEO came a
massive, five-headed dragon. This was the real Big Bad Evil Guy: the AMPTiamat.
This was the beginning of the end of the
Dungeons & Dragons-themed picket day
at Universal Studios on August 30. The event was organized by three members of
the WGA: Daphne Miles (
Batwoman,
Legends of Tomorrow), Lindsey Allen
(
Agent Carter,
Emergence), and Lauren Muir (
The 100). Miles had the idea
at another picket—how could she leverage her love of
D&D to help the union?
Immediately after floating the idea past a friend, he volunteered to run a
one-shot, and she was off to the Sword Coast. Allen was quickly recruited to
help and Muir immediately responded to the call for aid, and the three of them
worked together to organize one of the largest pickets that Universal Studios
has seen in the 100+ days since the WGA began its strike. io9 spoke with the
three organizers over video chat for this interview.
Out of the over 500 people who attended, the organizers said that there were
about 350 people there who had never been to a picket before—and that was a
conservative estimate. There were so many people in attendance that “we ran out
of signs,” said Muir, and that wasn’t all. “We ran out of character sheets, we
ran out of dice, we ran out of nametags,” listed Allen. While
Dungeons &
Dragons might have been the draw for many people when they first heard about
the picket, nobody at the event lost sight of the fact that they were there for
the unions first. “They were there for
D&D as much as they were there to
support the cause,” explained Muir."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
