Duke Seifried

Duke "Uncle Duke" Seifried (born c. 1935) is artist, game designer, writer, musician, music composer, and public speaker who is probably best known as the legendary artist who has sculpted over 10,000 miniatures and as the first executive vice president of TSR.

In 1957, he graduated from Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, with a degree in speech/radio-television.

Seifried helped bring polyhedral dice and miniatures into the gaming hobby. He claims that his depiction of Helm's Deep was the most accurate as he'd visited with Professor Tolkien and made sketches with him before designing it.

He attended Gary Gygax's funeral. A week before Gygax died, Seifried stumbled upon a one-of-a-kind metal miniature he'd made specifically for Gary many years ago. He had set it aside, intending to give it back to Gary. As a result, the miniature wound up in the pocket of Gary's suit, and he was buried with it.

A month later, he had triple bypass surgery on April 23, 2008.

He has lived in Madison, Wisconsin, where he has is known as a guitar player. His ancestors are from Austria.