Tribute to a Mentor: Mar Rosquites

Some elves from the first batch of figures I had commissioned for painting.

Most of what I post to this blog comes from a place of joy, but this is a post of sadness mixed with gratitude. It was inspired by the final entry to a long-standing blog by Mar Rosquites, who started out as my commission painter and who I eventually considered a mentor and even friend. I credit him with being key to my entrée to the hobby of miniatures gaming. Back in 2016 when I stumbled upon a box of unassembled Warhammer Fantasy Regiments in my basement that had inadvertently escaped the Great Games Purge of 2007, I cast about for a way to get a little game in with them, miniatures gaming being something I was always interested in but never had the time, income, or friends needed to explore.

A scan of that first box of miniatures I sent Mar to paint.

After much online research, I stumbled upon an old advert that Mar had posted on The Miniatures Page years earlier that indicated I may actually be able to afford to commission him to paint up my box of figures. That was the beginning of me sending him batch after batch of figures to paint for the next couple of years, allowing me to quickly build a collection that fueled my newfound passion for miniatures gaming. But more importantly, Mar became a guide and guru before I ever had a chance to stage my first game. The generosity with which he shared a lifetime of gaming experience was the best kind of initiation a neophyte like me could hope for. He was neither didactic nor snobbish, and his passion for the hobby--be it game systems, sculptors, or background lore--was freely and eruditely shared. He helped mold my sensibilities simply by sharing his own enthusiasms, and though his first love was Warhammer--or more accurately, Oldhammer--he had played or at least read most everything out there in the past 30-40 years. When I had questions about what system I might want to start with, he gave me a menu of options with robust details and comparisons among them. He was a devotee of the hobby, and an evangelizer of its joys. He wasn't a "power gamer," and his miniatures gaming, like my own, reflected his own love of storytelling, drama, and for a lack of better words, simple fun. He would paint up an entire crew of beer swilling dwarven brewers just to have them romp Falstaff like though his epic narratives, particularly the one involving the dwarves reclaiming Moria. A read through his blog will provide ample evidence of his buoyant spirit. For the longest time, I planned on finding my way out to San Francisco just to get a game in with him; they looked to be exactly the kind of rollicking good time I strive for at my own table.

Back of box.

I'll cherish the archive of correspondence we accumulated over those first few years. They're filled with great recommendations for things like who makes this sort of hobgoblin or which company's molds are starting to wear out or what rules work best for this or that sort of game, all of it told with good cheer and humor. They're also sprinkled with anecdotes, such as when he was commissioned in the 1980s to paint a bunch of Paranoia figures for Robin Williams. Then the correspondence stopped at the end of 2018. A commission I had sent sat unfinished with him for months. 

Mar had always hinted at a series of health issues that would sometimes slow his painting progress. He could be an amazingly fast painter for months at a time, and then he would hit a stumbling block that revealed he wasn't as superheroic as first impressions suggested. But he always bounced back. Until he didn't. Eventually, after several months of unanswered emails, a response came, not from Mar but instead a cousin, writing to inform me and others that Mar was very ill. He had lost most of his vision and would not be able to paint again. She packaged up the unfinished commissions and returned them to all of us in the queue.

More important to me than the loss of a commission painter that I could afford was the loss of a mentor and friend, a fellow enthusiast who helped stoke my interests, and could always be relied upon to share his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of miniatures, gaming, and painting technique. Of course I miss throwing money at him in exchange for a box of painted miniatures I could put on my pretend battlefields, but what I really miss is the kindred spirit correspondence.

Some of my dwarves Mar photographed from that first commission before sending me back what turned out to be a Pandora's Box in 2016.

While wandering through my blog roll, it was a bittersweet surprise to see he had made a final post to his Moria Reclamation Project blog a couple of weeks ago after being dormant for 18 months. I am not at all surprised to see him reveal the grand yarn he planned to tell at his gaming table, one that had amassed quite a following on the Lead Adventures Forum over the years. And I shouldn't have been surprised by the definitive answer I finally received on his health: that he had suffered a stroke, which had robbed him of much of his sight. While I imagine Mar will continue to find ways to be creative and squeeze pleasures out of the world--I stumbled across a site he maintained years ago in which he posted many of his musical compositions--the gaming world seems to have unfortunately lost one of its kinder spirits, forced to exit the scene unexpectedly and earlier than those of us who benefited from our association with him would have liked. You can read his final blog entry below, but I actually encourage you to jump around his blog to get a sense of his great games and fun storytelling. They reflect a spirit we could all stand to incorporate at least a pinch of in our own games. Godspeed, Omar Rosquites. You are one of the good guys. Thanks for hoisting me up when I was the rankest of novices.

One of the humorous subplots typically running along side the big battles taking place in the games Mar narrated on his blog.

Mar's first post from 2016: The Expedition to Reclaim Moria!

...and the final post from April 2020: Final Entry.

For a sense of how well liked Mar is, you can read through the 29 pages of comments over four years regarding his Moria Reclamation Project on the Lead Adventures Forum.

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