D&D General They're Building A Memorial Game Table Sculpture In Honor of Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away in 2008. His widow, Gail Gygax, has worked to have a memorial or statue built in his memory in their hometown of Lake Geneva, USA.

Set in Library Park, in a spot that Gygax himself chose, the memorial will be a stone table, benches, and a statue of Gary Gygax himself. The table will feature a bronze map of Gygax's first ever D&D dungeon level, scaled for use with miniatures.

The Gygax Memorial Fund will be launching a Kickstarter to raise the funds to make the Gygax Memorial Table. They need $150,000 to make the basic monument--the table and benches--with other elements added at higher stretch goals. At $250,000 they will add a bronze 'throne' at one end of the table, and at $500,000 they will install a statue of Gary Gygax on that throne. The bronze dungeon map comes in at $925,000.

If you pledge at the basic level, you'll get a scroll and a mention on the Gygax Memorial Fund website, as well as a "mini-level mega-dungeon" (that has miniature giant space hamster vibes!). For higher pledges at $250 or more you can have your name engraved on one of the stone pavers around the monument.

There are even higher pledge levels of $10,000+ which are available separately to the actual Kickstarter, and if you pledge an astonishing $150,000 you get a half-sized replica of the statue, an engraving on the back of the throne, and get to play in the first ever game on the newly completed table.

If the funding is raised, it is estimated that the monument will take a few years to build, with the basic elements in place by October 2026.

The campaign creator is the Gygax Memorial Fund, which was founded by Gail Gygax. The mini-mega dungeon will be written by Paul Stormberg; the sculptor(s) will be 'internationally acclaimed' and the project has revived bids from Mike Martino of Lacrosse, Wisconsin and James Nance of Loveland, Colorado. The Kickstarter launches this Tuesday, on October 1st.

This isn't the first memorial planned by the fund. Back in 2012 they raised over $100K, apparently from a single donor for a different design (pictured below) which was not constructed. In 2022 the bulk of that donation was returned to the donor after several years of setbacks. According to its yearly tax documents, at the end of 2023 the fund had a balance of $9,759 after raising a total of $250,157 between the years 2010-2023, although mainly prior to 2014. The Memorial Initiatives page of the fund's website includes details of various recently completed projects--a park bench, permanent exhibits at the Lake Geneva library and museum, and other things. The website provides an account of the fund's activities and fundraising efforts over the years.

 

[sevenbastard]

Appendix N Alcove in the Lake Geneva Public Library,

I wish my library had this.

 

[Paul J. Stormberg]

From what I could find, they ended up with $250,000 ish total funds raised, with $175,000 coming from one donor. Who then withdrew their donation after a couple years of nothing happening. So anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 left after that pull out. No one seems to know where that money went. Maybe Paul does, but I did find a rant by Gail in 2018 about being sued by Luke, Ernie, and Margaret Weis (whose agent responded saying Margaret did no such thing.) So maybe Gail used the funds then? Pure speculation from me though.

Let me help clear up some of the details on the fiscal management and financial records of the fund.

The GMF has been managed by a professional accounting firm since our inception, we have reported to the state of Wisconsin every year and remain in good standing as a non-profit. We have filed our taxes every year and remain in good standing with both the state and federal government as a non-profit. We have posted all of these documents and our loss and earnings statements to our website or they are freely available online since we are a public non-profit-you can see exactly how the money has been spent. In short we have done everything we are required to do by law and then some, to be transparent and in good standing with the State of Wisconsin and the Federal Government.

"No one seems to know where that money went." We do, our accounting firm does, the State of Wisconsin does, the Federal Government does, and everyone else on the planet should know too, if they took the time to look at our tax records and profit loss statements and other reporting, which is all public:

WI DFI Corporations - Annual Report Lookup

990-EZ Tax Documents — Gygax Memorial Fund, Inc.

www.gygaxmemorialfund.org

Yearly Profit & Loss — Gygax Memorial Fund, Inc.

www.gygaxmemorialfund.org

Gygax Memorial Fund Inc - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica

Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax filings going back as far as 2001.

projects.propublica.org

From those documents you will see we have spent about $4-5k+ per year, on average and a little more these last few years, and a break down of how all funds were spent. You will also see we agreed to return a portion of a major donor's pledge ($150k plus legal expenses around facilitating the return) in 2022, when they felt the city would not grant us Library Park and therefore never allow the memorial to be completed. We remain hopeful the donor will re-engage as we go forward with the Kickstarter.

There was hardly any spending in 2013 and 2021 major spending in 2022 and 2023 as we ramped up our initiatives, promotions, and city-wide festival, Dragon Days. And despite the documents saying we have a negative balance, that is just our current liabilities and total balances owed.

To date the Gygax Memorial Fund has:

• dedicated a Park Bench in Gary's name in his favorite spot in his favorite park,
• successfully petitioned the City of Lake Geneva proclaim Gary's birthday, July 27th, as Gary Gygax Day,
• established the Appendix N Alcove in the Lake Geneva Public Library,
• laid the Gen Con Founder's Stone at Horticultural Hall celebrating Gary's founding of Gen Con,
• created The Adventurer's Map to Lake Geneva (www.TLBgames.com), a walking tour map of Gary's life,
• donated a recreation of Gary's sand table in the basement of 330 Center St., the Birthplace of D&D,
• established The Wizard of Lake Geneva exhibit dedicated to Gary at the Geneva Lake Museum,
• founded the annual Dragon Days Fantasy Festival, a citywide celebration of Lake Geneva as the birthplace of fantasy and Gary's legacy behind it (www.DragonDays.org)--last year we has 1,700 attendees--and that's 900 adults and 800 children--and this year on October 4-5, it will likely double

All this to help convince the City of Lake Geneva, that Gary really does deserve a memorial. Why did they need convincing? Because at one point they considered banning any memorials at all in Lake Geneva--ever--and were going to pass an ordinances to do so. Not only that but the site that Gary wanted was the absolute crown jewel of the entire city, Library Park, an emerald parkland along the picturesque shore of Lake Geneva.

The deck was stacked against us but with the implementation of the initiatives above and a long PR campaign, including, many speeches, lots of travel (over 10,000 miles on my truck in one year just back and forth to Lake Geneva!) presentations to the various civic bodies, positive press in the local papers and news programs, engagement with the local tourism entities, and downright persistence, we finally achieved our goal after 16 years of effort in 2024.

Of course, none of this was without cost. The maintenance and development costs of the fund over these years included: accounting fees, tax preparation fees, attorney fees, travel, convention appearances, city presentations, artists, surveyors, architects, sculpture consultants, promotional materials, advertising, domain and website management, etc. It all added up to an average of $5-6K of expenditures each year. Without those expenditures there would be no location for the memorial and thus no memorial.

It took time and considerable effort but we accomplished our mission, and secured the site and design for the project. And now we can move forward with fund raising once again.

 

[Paul J. Stormberg]

Seems pretty awesome. Hopefully aside from us average joes kicking in, rich fans like Colbert and Manganiello can easily get it to the 500K spot.

Thanks!

We are really hoping that the 50 million that have played over the years will each give 18.5 cents each.

Seriously, though, we want this to be built for the fans of D&D, by the fans of D&D as a community. Big dodnor would be great but we want everyone to be invested in saying thanks for all the fun!

 

[Paul J. Stormberg]

View attachment 418390

I wish my library had this.

When I suggested this idea to Gary's widow, she was astounded and said they had a fancy Chinese, teak, foo dog/dragon throne-like chair, and Gary referred to it as "The Throne of Reading"!

 

[Nylanfs]

View attachment 418390

I wish my library had this.

The chair looks cool, but not terribly comfy.

 

[sevenbastard]

Its for Apendix N books. So thrilling you only need the edge of your seat!!!!

 

[Koloth]

Yes, part of our budget includes a $25k maintenance fee, that will include cameras trained on the site. Also, we have worked with the sculptor to ensure to minimize damage risks. For example the height of the throne and a Gary's mullet will prevent any attempts at decapitation, as has happened to the Andy Gump statue in town. Even the positioning of his hand was considered so as not to having his thumb stick out to avoid damage to that appendage. We are also using Barre granite from Vermont which is incredibly hard and durable. Eeven the bronze will be of a slightly harder alloy (and a bit more expensive) to resist scratches.

Good to hear. Would really suck if some <bleep> person decided that vandalizing this project was something that needed to be done, for reasons. Similar to the person that took out the 10 commandments monument I linked to. We have also had a couple brass/bronze statues stolen in part, probably to sell for scrap.

Glad this was posted up here as it isn't something I would probably hear about in time to donate.

 

[Mull Ponders]

So, if I am reading this correctly, you now have the permission of the city to build the memorial and just need the funds?

 

[EthanSental]

Up to 298 followers for the launch. After the responses from Paul, my mind is more at ease and I’ll be backing the kickstarter. Specifically looking at the one for the paver stone. The game has brought me a ton of fun and a little something to give back.

 

[aiouh]

I'm not a Gary Gygax hater or anything, but 500k-1M is a lot of money for what is essentially idolatry. You could run a bunch of sustainable youth or gaming focused programs, fund libraries and stuff with that kind of money. In one of the worst recessions in recent memory no less.

IMO this should have more city funding and the project should be smaller. There is no reason why the table should be out of 100k marble. This is frivolous to the highest degree and might make Gary look vain to outside eyes.

Is the love any worse if the memorial is only 100k?

At the end of the day this will inevitably get funded, but please ask yourself, does having your name carved into a monument at lake geneva really help carry on Gary's legacy?