The shape was known; what’s new to me was that it could be made in glass so well back then.

It’s very easy to make in glass.

1) Cast a glass blob a little bit larger than the dodecahedron you eventually want.
2) Get sand paper.
3) start filing off all the bits that don’t look like a dodecahedron.
4) ????
5) PROFIT!!

Basically, you treat the glass like a gemstone, and shape it when hardened, not when soft. You can of course use more sophisticated cutting implements, but IIRC proper gem cutting, as opposed to sanding bits off, was invented somewhere in the middle ages.

it’s still a lovely thing; though my appreciation is more for roman glasswork than gaming, about which i know nothing.

Ahem . .

So, when Julius Cesear said that the die is cast, I guess he was rolling for initiative!

(drum beat)

Given how fast he got to Rome, and that it was so fast that it forced the Senatorial faction to flee without even taking the treasury . . . .

I think he won that initiative roll!

-abs

bleedin’ would be more appropriate on jewish, not crucified. And, a jewish person is colloquially an ikey-mo for some people, and even worse for others which I prefer not to repeat here, but use of the y- word for jews in cockey was routine for much of the 20th century, analogous to the modern-day re-acceptance of the n- word by african americans in recent times.

use of ‘me’ for ‘my’ is always typographically hard. its also a bit of a mixed bag with english accents when it is, or isn’t used.

here should be ‘ere in this here robe
and a wot I bin using would have gone well.

Also, is that quote from Monty Python?

Coincidentally, this was the very first thing I posted when I started MY blog almost five years ago.

Meeeeemorieeeees….

Incidentally, I think the 20-sided form is called an icosahedron.

Translation:
Provenance
Immorally (if not illegally) acquired by the current owner’s father in Egypt in the 1920s from grave robbers.”

Exactly. I wish boingboing would stop featuring looted artifacts. The antiquities trade is not a wonderful thing.

Suddenly I want to play D&D with a magic 8-ball, fortune cookies and Tarot cards. Perfect for the 4th edition Star Pact Warlock/Divine Oracle.

I cast at the orc! Aw shit, the Tower.

Huh? “ikey-mo?” “Y-word” I take to mean “yid,” and “N-word” is obviously “nggr,” but what on earth is an ikey-mo?

See, this is the problem with strictly avoiding using the actual word we’re talking about, even when said word is not being used in a derogatory fashion. Of course we shouldn’t use “yid” or “nggr” to refer to anyone in ordinary conversation, but when the nature of the slurs is itself the topic of said conversation, it seems kind of silly to elide the very words we’re discussing.

In modern English, it’s not quite as offensive as “nigger”, but it’s still primarily used derogatorily by antisemites.