My friend Dale Donovan wrote over the weekend to report that Chuck Crain, one of the founders of Ral Partha, had died. Apparently he suffered a heart attack the Tuesday after Gen Con and died a couple days later. The Miniatures Page has an excellent obituary for him.

I’d known Chuck for many years, since before I became involved in gaming professionally. He could be a gruff guy, but he always had a smile and warm word for his friends. He did a great job running Ral Partha, one of the first fantasy gaming miniatures companies, for years. Even after Partha went away, he helped out with its successor company, Iron Wind, and I still ran into him at conventions from time to time.

It has to be over a year since I’d seen Chuck, and I’ll miss him. To me, he was part of that same crew of early game industry folk that was always happy to fill me in on the real facts of how things started out and how that led to how things work now. I count Dan Matheson, who also passed away a few months back, among that now-poorer crowd.

We were lucky to have Chuck with us for as long as we did, even if that time was far too short.