Club Information
Welcome to The Fellowship of the Black Spot Club Info page. Here you will find various information about our club – from our very beggining, to our current state of mind.
Club Information Index:
- Beginnings – the beginning of the Fellowship
- Endings (of a sort) – how the Fellowship currently lives
- Braggings – official club accomplishments
- Member List
The Fellowship of the Black Spot is a group of gamers who get together to have a good time and enjoy our favorite hobbies in the company of our peers. These hobbies range from board to role-playing games, video to computer games, and almost any type of gaming we can find!
As of late 2008, most forms of activity within the club have stopped. We no longer produce a newsletter, run conventions, or other forms of club activities that we used to do. In simple terms, the club has reverted back to it’s founding members, with a small following of honorary members that were with us as of 2008.
Club members still play various games in Wisconsin and other States, but the main focus of what our group used to do only exists on this website now. Someday we may reform as an active club and be more engaged in the gaming community again, but for now, this website remains as a landmark on the Internet for the Fellowship of the Black Spot gaming club. Long live the Black Spot!
The Fellowship of the Black Spot was started back in late 1988 in Brookfield, Wisconsin. We were not officially the Fellowship then, but that is where the founding members first met. After a couple of years gaming together, Dave Flemming, Todd Penwell, and Daniel Cunningham finally convinced the rest of the original founding members (Tom Flemming, Erica Woollums and Jake Brunette) to form a gaming club. (Note that Dave Konkol joined the founding members a short while later). Finally in April of 1993, after a couple weeks of discussion about a name we all agreed on Fellowship of the Black Spot.
Why The Fellowship of the Black Spot? Well, that is an interesting story.
It all started in the late 1980s, with the exact date not known. There was a particular player whose character got into a bad trap. Being the nice guy that I am (for the most part), I tried to help out. Well, I ended up in the trap with the other person, and in trying to get out I almost lost my character’s life and did lose my familiar. So what does the other person do, completely deserts my burnt husk of a body and loots the room that the trap emptied into.
After escaping the trap, I got this crazy idea to pay that person back. The thought came from one of my favorite movies, ‘Treasure Island.’ I remembered the opening scene with the blind, peg-legged pirate giving an old sea dog a folded piece of crumpled parchment. When the old pirate opened the parchment, he beheld a horrible black spot, which filled him with such dread that he fell dead on the spot (pun intended).
So, finding great humor in this, I decided that my character would slip the other person the ‘Black Spot’ as a kind of ‘thanks a lot for helping me out, jerk!’ Of course this was meant as a joke, never to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, this player took it way too seriously, much to enjoyment of everyone else.
Well, to make this story short, the players in our group never completely let me forget about this to this very day. I don’t mind either, cause it’s added a lot of humor to the game at times.
-Ozyr
Note: We were almost The Fellowship of the Flaming Halfling. We felt that this name could possibly cause a misunderstanding about who we are and what we stand for as a gaming club, thus the change to the Black Spot. (Mind you, we don’t care, but image is everything in this mixed up, crazy world we live in.)
The Black Spot was active for longer than most clubs that I can remember, and I’ve seen a lot of gaming clubs come and go. As of July, 2008, the Fellowship of the Black Spot has returned to where it originated from. And that is the original founding members, many of which are still playing some version of D&D in their basements to this day! We still honor those that stuck with us in the end, and have them in our member roster an honorary Black Spot members. We are not accepting anymore members, except for possible special occasions, and those will be rare. What money the club did have in the end was divided up and given to those club members who actually helped with the club over the years (and by help, I mean more than just a drop in a bucket kind of thing).
That being said, the Black Spot website will remain, for as long as possible. This is our marker on the Internet, showing what we were, and what we are currently. Whether we rise again from our own ashes is something I cannot predict, but there is always that slight chance. Only time will tell.
Here’s to what was! I hope that those who were with us even for a short while had fun, through the conventions and game days we ran, or by just being members of our club. It was a fun ride during our peak years back in the 90’s. I don’t think we will pass that way again (but I cannot predict the future).
We took 2nd place in the RPGA Club Event at Winter Fantasy ‘95.- The Ink Blot newsletter took First Place in the RPGA’s 1995 club decathlon.
- We took 1st place in the RPGA Club Event at Winter Fantasy ‘96.
- The Ink Blot newsletter took First Place in the RPGA’s 1996 club decathlon.
- The Ink Blot newsletter took First Place in the RPGA’s 1997 club decathlon.
- Chris Tulach’s ‘Scorched One’ took 2nd Place in the RPGA’s 1999 club decathlon for Best New Monster!
- We got 1st place points from RPGA HQ for Club Event at Winter Fantasy ‘99.
- Chris Tulach won 1st place in the RPGA’s 1999 club decathlon for Individual Play during Weekend in Ravensbluff, Portage Indiana.
- Our FBS web site took First Place in the RPGA’s 1999 club decathlon.
- Chris Tulach took 2nd Place in the RPGA 1999 club decathlon for Best New Decathlon Event, for his ‘Best New Faith’ for the AD&D Game.
- FBS placed 2nd in the RPGA’s 1999 club decathlon Most Service to the Network for May thru July, 1999.
- Erica Woollums received 1st place for Best Report on the Gen Con Game Fair in the RPGA’s 1999 club decathlon.
- FBS took 3rd place in the RPGA 1999 Club Decathlon!