After initially losing the eBay fight over it, and swearing off eBay for the remainder of my days because I hate it, I got this in the mail the other day:

Turns out the original winner didn’t want to pony up the cash, so there it goes back on auction, and this time I luck out with the winning/only bid.  Yay me! (I do still honestly hate eBay though. If I want to buy something, I just want to buy it.  I’ll pay whatever ridiculous price it’s listed at, because I just want it, I don’t like the uncertainty of someone else coming in to swoop it out from under me.)

I first saw this game as a wee lad searching through the basement of my Dad’s house.  My Dad’s house was the best, and had the best basement, and I found this game, an original copy of ‘Keep on the Borderlands’ D&D module, and I’m sure something else amazing but those are the only two things I remember.  They were enough.  The copy at my Dad’s house wasn’t the box, it was just the cards, and the little hard plastic jewels that come with the game.  I never played the game, there were no rules, and no internet at the time to look the rules up on.  Instead I used the fantastically illustrated cards as action figures, fighting amongst themselves to slay the dragon, marry the princess and generally get up to whatever a 7-14 year old boy’s imagination can conceive of.  (The little hard plastic jewels I used for all sorts of stuff, but mostly as caltrops that caught myself, and my family, unawares, in the middle of the night.  My daughter learned a similar lesson last night, when we played the game for the first time, as it is meant to be played.)

It’s an ok game, the basic premise is a trick-taking card game, the jewels don’t really serve any purpose, the cards are obnoxiously large and there are only 10 to a suit.  I can see why it didn’t last long, BUT I LOVE IT. Because nostalgia is a drug that makes you stupid.

The other take away, Merunga playing cards.  They’re going to happen someday.  I’d like there to be a Merunga board game, I’ve got a couple of ideas kicking around for how that would work out, but a playing card deck, just for fun and giggles, that’ll happen too.