Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 4/8


Bookwyrms: Alvin Journeyman by Orson Scott Card gets a positive review from the editors, showing his fall from grace in geek circles is still yet to come. The worldbuilding is interesting, and his characters have a distinctive voice. He just wishes they'd release new books a bit faster.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester is one of those old classics that any self-respecting sci-fi fan ought to have read. A man driving himself to madness in an attempt to get away with murder in a telepath controlled future. With some fascinating word-pictures, precursors of modern text speak, and exceedingly clever plot twists, this gets inside your mind and shows you different ways to think. The science may not be that hard, but there's still plenty to speculate about here.

A game of Thrones by George R R Martin begins another epic series (that's also going to takes ages IRL and quite possibly never be finished) that takes fantasy in a somewhat different direction. Eschewing obvious good and bad guys for multilayered intrigue where no-one is safe, the twists just keep adding up. I doubt anyone can predict where it'll end.

The grid by Philip Kerr is a story of a computerised building turned sentient and malevolent, and trying to kill the people inside it. Wasn't that the plot of an X-files episode around this time as well? Well, at least it isn't going to take over the entire world like skynet.

Now you see it by Richard Matheson is a whodunnit involving a stage magician, who may well be using his craft to foil a murder investigation. This of course means plot twists and false reveals aplenty. So as usual, have fun seeing if you can guess the real killer and how they did it.

So you want to be a wizard by Diane Duane is another old book that they dig out to try and ensure younger readers of the magazine have shared cultural references with the editors. After all, it is perfectly targeted for kids, and it'll get you into the idea of building internally consistent magic systems. That's worth quite a bit to them.

The stars my destination by Alfred Bester is another of his old books that still has few direct peers. Once again, it shows us what we could be, if we only have the will to surpass our limitations, but also that people in power will fear you if you do, and try to keep you within their boxes.

War of the worlds: Global dispatches, edited by Kevin J Anderson lets a whole bunch of authors do slice-of-life examinations of the martian invasion as seen by different people in different cultures. You know, my class had to do exactly that as a project when I was 10. These are almost definitely better than what we wrote, but still, I find this spooky. I'm definitely going to track this one down.

The winter king by Bernard Cornwell tries to bring a bit of gritty historical realism to arthurian myth, downplaying the magic, and focussing on the real social changes of the 5th century. Oh, how very 90's. Meh. Once again, I'm not impressed by this column.


Tales of the fifth age: Relics by Jeff Grubb. Our themed fiction draws to a close with yet another low-key examination of what true heroism is. It's not about getting the praise for saving the world, although that certainly doesn't hurt. It's about the good you do for the people you know, not some anonymous and exaggerated tales. repeated by people in another country. And it's what you're prepared to do in the future, as much as what you've done in the past. But you shouldn't get cynical, and think all heroism is just exaggerations and putting a good spin on pragmatism. There are genuinely nice people out there, doing genuinely amazing things. So this isn't really a climax in any sense of the word, but a story of people carrying on another day, doing the best they can like they do in real life. The only truly happy ending is a new beginning. Actually, I have to wonder if sticking to that message so strongly was part of the reason the 5th age failed. People don't really want that level of realism in their storytelling, even if they say they might.

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 5/8


Network news: Another attempt to make joining the RPGA seem easy to do for newcomers? This is getting a bit repetitive really. Don't tell me the column is already outstaying it's welcome barely a year in. So yeah, this is them telling you all the benefits you'll get for signing up. It's worth it if you plan on attending even a single convention in a year! So give us your money! Yeah, this is one case where the attempts at entertainment fall flat, and this just reads as straight advertising. I'm not impressed.


Sage advice: How tall do you need to be to weird a longbow (at least medium size category. Yes, that does mean 4' 1" dwarves can wield 6' longbows. Maybe they hold it sideways)

What happens if you use attack modes on a nonpsionicist (nothing unless you use contact first. Yes, it's all backwards, but at least it's better than 1st edition. Do you remember 1st edition? Skip remembers 1st edition. Skip misses Gary. He was my best mate, y'know. Will you be my friend? :Rumble of thunder, ominous organ music: Yes, mistress, Skip'll get back to work now.

How much does making powers permanent by psychic surgery cost (However long the surgery lasts, you have to pay the cost that long. After that, it maintains itself, whether they like it or not. )

Can sha'irs hacve a signature spell (yes indeedy. It ony requires minor adjustments to work with them)

Can song mages canst sopells without singing using vocalise (No. No singing, no magic. )

Can yopu memorize cantrips asd your bonus 1st level spell as a specialist ( ```````yes)

Can the new rules frolm issue 232 be applied to the weapons in the PHB (Sure. You'll have to do the specifics yourself. Skip is a very busy sage. Very busy getting bery drfunk. )

Why do other specialists get wildf magic sopells when they caaaaant (HJave the freelancers been getting inna rules barn again. Skip qwill set rhetorical traps for them. Thatll teachem a lewsson, twist their tongues into a mobius loop and cut off their typin fingers. )

You blooped all over issue 231 ( Bloop? Skips stomach go bloop. Bloop. Bloop is a funny word. Booooooooooooop. Oops I did it again. )

I've already read the rod of 7 parts book. Can I play the adventure (Suuuuure. It's completely different. Buy two copies. :teeth with bits stiuck between: Wghy are you running away. That normally works great.)

What bonuses does a pixie cutpurse get (pixies are Soo twinkedas theives. They can theive better than the best. They'll make you dance to their tune and by the time you finish you've got no pants on and still feel greazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 6/8


Forum: Rick Bruner flaunts his noncanonicality, and invites the jackbooted TSR enforcement that may come. We will face it with pride, and fight them using optional rules. They'll never take us alive with these bleeding out rules!

Rasmus Juul Wagner suggests another thing the next edition will take up. Get rid of exceptional strength. It'll make things so much easier. Athas already shows us how. Follow eeeet. Follow eeeeeeeeet!

Keith Houin goes back to another hot topic, that of transferring PC's from one campaign to another. Surely you can come up with some IC reasons why they lose powers or items, rather than just fiat retcon, and only change the bits that'll actually be a problem. The personalised approach is usually best.


The ecology of the troglodyte: Another inventive ecology here. Last time, we had a rather neat tale of uncontrolled body invasion. Here, we have another riff on that theme, that of a wizard who in the course of his researches, gets stuck in the body of the creature he was investigating. Still, he gets to find out a good deal about them, and why they are such backwards, smelly, unsophisticated seeming creatures. Having senses that are too acute can actually be a pain in the butt, as it prevents you from using certain kinds of technology. In the footnotes, we also get the spell used to do so, which is rather powerful for it's level, but also exceedingly risky to use. Ahh, the fun of experimental technology. It also puts quite a few more interesting new spins on the creatures, making them seem increasingly plausible and usable as a culture. While not quite as good in sheer impact as the roper one, the footnotes are considerably better, and the whole thing is much cleverer in both design and pacing. Seems like we really are in a golden age for ecologies, even as everything else goes wrong. Guess stress can do that for you.


Arcane Lore: A third set of spells this month? Another good example of how they're falling back on the regular columns a lot more these days.  This also feels heavily reminiscent of the recent set of Dragon-only spells. Spells for the various reptilian humanoids, dependent on their physiological quirks to work? That'll be mildly irritating to players when they loot their enemies. I'll bet they're just exaggerations of things actual reptiles do in real life as well.

Barble lets you grow extra long vicious spines for offence and defence. I'm sure we already have a version of that usable by everyone, probably in one of the forgotten realms books. Yawn.

Serpent Tail turns your tail into a snake capable of independent attacks, chimera stylee. It'd be more fun if you could do it to your enemies, but I'm sure I can figure that one out on my own.

Camouflage is another one I'm sure there are generic variants of. Chameleon skin is just too obvious a power to miss for rangers and druids.

Scale Blade turns a reptile scale into a weapon with special powers based on the creature it came from. You should be able to get a few hundred components from a good dragon to power this for a while.

Skin of the Salamander makes your skin burst into fire with painful results for your enemies. We've already had two variants of that in the magazine. This is just too fucking tedious.

Moltings lets you turn your shed skin into a mini-me. You can then use it as a slave, or engage in self-cannibalism to restore your HP. Finally, something a bit interesting. The rest of this is still rubbish though.

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 7/8


Dungeon Mastery: Game getting boring and you feel like aborting? Get up and do something! One of the quickest ways to revive interest in players is to give them a hook. Bring out your inner LARGE HAM! and stride across the room gesticulating and getting in the player's faces. They won't dare to take their eyes off you. Even if they laugh, that's a lot better than going to sleep. And if you do it right, they'll start joining in, and the game becomes a lot more fun for everyone. While slightly exaggerated for comedic effect, this is a good reminder that roleplaying is  descended from acting as well as wargaming, and there is a lot of fun to be had in adding a little more physicality to help out everyone else's imagination. Just remember your boundaries folks, especially in mixed company. One over the top gesture without paying attention and someone else can be sporting a nasty black eye.


The Knights of the dinner table clean up the town at the expense of the plot. Is swordplay going to get anything done? Maybe. Dragonmirth has a surplus of horned helmets. Get them while they're cheap. Floyd's world is getting ever more messed up. Some extradimensional creatures really need a primer in proper shapeshifting etiquette.


Role-playing Reviews: Woohoo! The CCG craze seems to be settling down to a stable level, instead of growing insanely and eating up everyone else's floorspace like it has the last two years. Which means Rick can get back to actually reviewing roleplaying games like the sign on the door says he should. This is another case where he's a month late as well, as it's time for another horror themed review. Well, conventions do keep one busy, and it's not as if he could write the reviews on a laptop between events like I can now. It is nice living in the future sometimes.

The golden dawn is a sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu. As it covers an occult secret society, there's a lot more magic accessible to the PC's than in a normal game. But of course, it's still not without it's dangers, and there's plenty of adventures included for you to lose your characters in. It's good to see the game still stretching itself after more than a decade.

The london Guidebook, on the other hand, is a bit boring, with way too much info you could find in any mundane guidebook, and not enough mythos coolness. Not much point getting an RPG book if it doesn't have RPG specific material.

In the shadows is a pretty decent trio of adventures. Rick's main complaint here is that it seems very dated compared to other companies in terms of layout and graphic design. Chaosium, like palladium, aren't really moving with the times and will eventually be left behind at this rate.

The Mythos card game gets a fairly positive review, boosted a little more because the booster packs do really add to the game. It's fun and easy to learn, as a CCG should be, and the booster packs add plenty of scope to it. Just don't expect to feel genuinely scared like you can in the RPG.

Chronicle of the black labyrinth is for Werewolf: the Apocalypse. It takes you into the history of the Wyrm's nastiest servants, the black spiral dancers, through purely IC fiction both grim and at times hilarious. (Sherlock Holmes parody FTW!) Rick finds it wilfully eccentric and at times incomprehensible, which is quite reasonable since it's being done by an unreliable narrator of dubious sanity. This is one you really need to be heavily versed in the game already to fully appreciate. Ahh, old school white wolf. Always a joy to go back too.

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 8/8


TSR Previews: A fairly empty month next month, so they move to covering two months in advance. You shall have to wait until next issue to see that though. In addition, all of the products are novels. Not a single gaming book. How very strange and disconcerting. That may get a few complaints.

Birthright gets The Falcon and the Wolf by Rich Baker. Another young ruler has to deal with usurpers and rivals. You gotta make sure people respect and fear you.

Dragonlance goes back in time and shows us Lord Soth's history. Edo van Belkom, whoever he is, fills stuff in. Will it be consistent with his brooding on his past in the Ravenloft novels?

The Forgotten realms gets Council of Blades by Paul Kidd. The description is so short I have nothing to work from. Blah.

Blood Wars also finishes it's novel trilogy. The protagonists have had children, and they're also intimately connected with the ugliness of the war. Can they do anything to make a difference?


The current clack: This month sees Allen talk about two big things that would turn out to be vaporware. White Wolf's original attempt to go sci-fi, Exile; and Runequest's 4th edition. Mark Rein·Hagen's  attempt to make an open source polymedia property was a cool idea, but stalled and messed up in such a way that he sold all his stock in WW and got out of the gaming industry completely. Must have been some serious drama going on behind the scenes for that, given how profitable WW was at the time. Or maybe he was just sick of all the fanboys. Meanwhile, Runequest:Slayers was cancelled when Hasbro bought out Avalon Hill. Still, at least they didn't hold onto the IP forever and not let anyone else publish Runequest stuff. And in the meantime we got the rather interesting rules experiments of Hero Wars/Quest, and the psychics, superheroes and pulp adventurers of the Aeon Trinity games. Neither can really be described as terrible, so it wasn't a total waste. Really, this is just a good example of how life rarely goes exactly as planned. The best thing you can do is be adaptable and keep your eyes open for opportunities, especially when times get tough.


With only 2 articles that aren't regular columns, and quite a lot of rehash, this issue is waaaaaaaay too formulaic for my tastes. If the last couple of issues managed to strike a nice balance of edge and crunch, this overshoots too far into providing crunch, with not enough context. It's exceedingly tedious and grindy to get through, and finishing it is a huge relief. Let's hope they don't make the same mistake next time.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. Christmas time, a time for giving. Or is it a time for counting your blessings? Appropriately enough though, it's time for another cleric special in here. Ho ho ho. Give us your faith and be thankful we don't smite you, puny mortals. So yeah, it's a topic we've seen before and it's way too easy to be cynical about. I'm yet again left wondering if they have anything new to say. Let's roll the dice and hope we get lucky.


In this issue:


The wyrm's turn: Naming the editorial The Dying Game? SYMBOLISM!!!! OMGWTFBBQGENIUS!!!!! If the birthday issue was them begging for help to turn things around, this is them practically throwing their hands up and admitting they're now in deep shit and know it. Actually, the editorial isn't actually about that, but another story of how the editor's early characters got sent through a meatgrinder and died in quick succession. Which is not only less entertaining than Roger's old editorials on the same subject, but also most of the First Quest series as well. Dave Gross continues to bore me with his writing style. Screw this. Onto the letters.


D-Mail: One of those letters that comments on nearly everything in the issue 2 months ago. Guess that's still their lead-in time. Oh, and do more greyhawk articles.  Yeah yeah, we know it still has a strong fanbase by now. Where were you in 1993?

A letter from someone who wants to write books. Oh man, they just can't get away from their legal issues and responsibilities in this area. They once again have to figure out how to let someone down gently. You'd think they'd have a stock response prepared by now.

A letter from an army guy who finds Dragon is one thing that lightens up his otherwise rather cut-off existence. Haven't had so much of this since Roger left.

A letter from someone who really likes the SAGA system, and would like to see all their other worlds converted to it. I don't think so, somehow. Nice try.

Some praise for the creepy lich-focused magical items. Ahahahaha!!!!! A pleasure doing business with you. :steeples fingers:

A letter complaining Al Qadim is gone, and it looks like Mystara has fallen to the same fate. Campaign worlds are going at quite a rate, and it does not make people happy. Only the magazine keeps them alive! It is sad, isn't it. But they can't argue with sales figures. You wouldn't want them to go out of business, would you?


Heroes of faith: For a second issue in a row, we start off the articles with more Skills & Powers expansion. Fortunately this is a good deal shorter than last month, with a mere 2 pages of new options for speciality priests to buy with their character points. Quite a few of them are from other classes, given the usual excuse that they might be worshiping gods of magic, or thievery or whatever. And of course you can now get mechanical renumeration for the strictness of your god's tenets, which in theory will make characters more balanced, but in practice results in people picking restrictions that they would have done anyway, and twinking out like a mutha. So this might improve the game, but only under plenty of DM oversight. I'm once again left a bit grumpy by this.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 2/8


The seldarine revisited: And here we go with some very intentional rehash, albeit the kind that actually builds upon and improves previous articles. In issue 155, they added a whole bunch of new elven gods in an article. However, I wasn't very impressed, in large part because they didn't include speciality priest details for them, despite being well into 2e by then. Well, this fixes that problem, along with adding a couple of new deities on top of that. The specific names still feel a bit like a random syllable generator was let loose on the elvish language, but the writing is rather more palatable than last time, and the sphere selections and granted powers are on the upper end of things, but not utterly obscene. So this is an interesting revisting that goes quite some way to redeeming & justifying the original article, which I rather approve of. Still doesn't mean they'll get a place in official future supplements though.


Elemental summoning gone wild: Hmm. This is more like it. Adding a bit more sadism to Athas, which is already rife with it. Athasian cleric's elemental summoning abilities are ok, but not great compared to the granted powers some speciality priests get. This adds a bit of wild mage style fun to this, by adding the potential for all sorts of variations, from being eaten by a grue, getting a bonus spell effect, or para-elementals hacking your signal. Most of them are bad, but you might luck out and get healed or temporarily transformed into an elemental avatar ready to spectacularly kick the butt of whatever's troubling you. In short, this is one of those articles that makes your times more interesting, and keeps players from getting complacent in their playing. After all, things might go smoothly 95% of the time, but that 5% is more than enough that they won't take them for granted. Muahahahaha, and all that.


Mystic, Miracles & Meditations: Featuring one of the hardest to make out headers they've done recently. Once again it looks like their graphic designer was too busy mucking around with the computer filters and forgot about practicalities. Anyway, this is a couple of new kits for Masque of the Red Death, and associated extra proficiencies. The kind of crunch there's always room for, even if we struggle to find the time to use it all.

Exorcists are in the business of getting rid of evil spirits, which is obviously a major growth industry on gothic earth. This means they get reduced odds of punishment for using necromantic spells in the line of duty, but if they abuse their powers, hoo boy. Sounds like a path of what I was going to do anyway thing, but hey, it's less of an issue than paladins.

Enthusiasts are more capable of moral ambiguity, being the kind of preacher that goes around getting a congregation by being loud & doing miracles. Hallelujah!!!!! They aren't that well educated in proper magical theory though, and often wind up being the target of scientific debunkers. That seems like a setup that leads to lots of interesting adventures.

While the kits are ok, the new proficiencies are horrible. Meditation abilities that you use to grant bonuses to your ability scores? Representation of your degree of contact with the church hierarchy. Supernatural presence that only affects monsters, and makes them more positively inclined towards you, and appears more an innate gift than a learned skill. This is not only unbalancing, but a fundamental misapprehension of what nonweapon proficiencies are supposed to represent about your character. I object quite strongly and am baffled how that got past editing. Do they not examine mechanics and how they fit with the existing game at all? WTF man? This becomes extra baffling when you consider it's by James Wyatt, who is going to be pretty significant next edition. Father, I am  disappoint.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 3/8


The ruin of adlersberg: Looks like we're getting a lot of setting specific articles this month. Now it's birthright's turn again, with this rather nice little adventure location. With plenty of setting specific details tied into the larger history of the place, and stat conversions so the things mentioned interface with the domain systems, the location doesn't feel spurious at all. And there are some rather clever bits. Undead that only arise on specific days of the year, so there's a good reason for the challenge to vary substantially between parties and the place to be near impossible to completely clear out. Bickering humanoids that add a secondary threat before you even get to the main location. And an additional threat that the Gorgon might decide to come back, push on through to attack the lands beyond. This scales in and out very well indeed, and also has quite a nice writing style that packs in plenty of information. And it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to adapt to another setting either. I think this definitely counts as a success on most levels.


Arcane Lore: Still doubly in theme here, with a whole load of spells specifically for demihuman priests. Some are even exclusive to individual gods, just to give them a little more niche protection. Guess they get a little more spotlight from the magazine that birthed them. I quite approve, as long as they don't fall too deep into comedic racial stereotyping.

Weapon of the Earth lets you turn a bit of rock into your god's favoured weapon. And somehow I doubt you'll be short of those when you're a dwarf underground. Choose the material components to your spells wisely, for it makes a big difference.

Mark of Brotherhood let you give someone a secret sigil to show they're part of your gang. Betrayers will be automatically expelled and made very obvious. Then you can join Caine and wander the earth angsting.

Abbathor's Greed lets you figure out how valuable an item is. Course, given the nature of this particular god, he might decide to step in and take your hard-won valuables for himself. And when you're his priest there's not a lot you can say to that apart from pass the lube. Life's a bitch when you serve an evil god.

Crypt Ward is the source of a lot of those dwarven zombies defending their tomb. Course, they don't call them zombies, but you say construct, I say potato. The difference is immaterial to everyone except the clerics that try turning them.

Berronar's Favor lets a dwarven community in dire straits get a handout from said god. PC's on the other hand can forget about it. No free money for you. Don't know why they bother listing this stuff.

Animal Animosity moves us onto elven specialities. And if there's one thing they enjoy doing, it's being more connected to nature than you. This is no exception. Get ready to deal with lots of cranky animals.

Faith Arrow essentially gives elven clerics their own automatically hitting Magic Missile variant. Wearing full armor while casting spells, and now their clerics stepping on their wizards. They just keep breaking the normal niche protections, don't they.

Probe Enemies invites slashfic cracks like there's no tomorrow. Tee hee. Still, spotting which enemy is the most badass is a useful skill for the arrogant fighter. Death or glory!

Assume Gaseous Form is one that really ought to be in the corebook, given the frequency which the corresponding potion shows up. At least this version lets you take your clothes with you. A little dignity is a precious thing.

Faerie Flames looks like faerie fire, but actually burns you, and is about as hard to put out as phosphorus or sodium fires. Very nasty, especially if you've encountered the regular variety plenty of times before.

Garments of Elvenkind let you create a temporary set of boots and cloak for if one of your buds needs to get stealthy. Well, despite how it seems to adventurers, not every elf can afford multiple magical items as a matter of course.

Sejogan's Armor moves us onto the gnomes. It lets you make a suit of armour out of plants and iron filings.  That'll be a bit trickier to assemble in a hurry when trouble knocks on your door.

Burrow gives you a dig speed, completely unsurprisingly. Badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom. Yawn.

Analyze Contraption, also unsurprisingly, draws upon the tinker side of the gnome heritage. Find out exactly what the complicated and stupid devices other people have made do, if they're worthy of love, fame, or just a quick merciful smashing.

Shades of Rhontang makes your hammer flaming, just like your god's. Don't let it criticise your choice in footwear.

Mantle of Baravar helps you see through illusions. A deceiver should not be fooled by the lies of others. Perfectly standard stuff, really.

Reed Staff turns a blade of grass into a quarterstaff. A nice bit of sympathetic magic I could see coming from actual mythology. Yoink.

Weapon Shift is rather more boring, due to it's strong limitations on what weapon can be turned into what. A little more fantasticality would be nice.

Stealth of Brandobaris lets your priest steal the thief's role for a while. If they're not multiclassed already, as clerics of this god often are. All you really need in your group are speciality priests and multiclassed bards

Call Hounds is of course for Urogalan's priests. Two big sinister black doggies at your beck and call. Not to be used for playing fetch on a sunny day.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 4/8


Tracking the faith: Ha. A system for mechanically quantifying just how pious you are, and offering mechanical benefits for those with sufficiently high faith scores. Thought I'd see something like this at some point. And amusingly, it's the kind that if you get too high in, your character ascends from this mortal plane, thus "winning" the game and taking them out of play. Not that it'll be particularly easy to get to that point, since you need 256 and can only get 4 per session at most. (not counting martyrdom, which nets you a good 10 ) But still, rewards that really aren't can be an awkward business. And on top of that, it's just as easy to lose them as it is to gain them, which means religious prohibitions will really have some teeth compared to normal games. Overall, I think this is interesting, but will increase the amount of paperwork you have to do tracking gains and losses, so it's only going to justify itself in a game where faith is important. Let's just say religion is a sometimes topic, and leave it at that.


Network news: This column is once again all about selling the RPGA. But wheras last time it was trying to persuade you to join by pointing out all the cool stuff, this time it's doing so by reminding us how much it sucks to be an insular group, never knowing just how common geeks are in the rest of the world, or how to replace members when they leave. Essentially applying the stick after last month's carrot, which I do find rather interesting from a marketing point of view. Still, there is a lot to be said for being able to advertise for new players, especially if you want to play a less common game of some kind. And while Dragon long since stopped doing stuff like this, facilitating actual play is pretty much the job of the RPGA, so they're not about to outgrow that anytime soon. So this does seem like negative advertising, but that makes it all the more interesting to read from a bitchy point of view. Yes, many geeks do have social issues, but will reminding us of that like this persuade many people to avail themselves of your services? Very worth thinking about.


Wyrms of the north: Well, we finally have a non-chromatic dragon in Ed's wanderings. And hey ho, it's a silver dragon which spends quite a bit of time in human form. Aka a great big paternity lawsuit waiting to happen. Not that it's specifically mentioned, and indeed, he has a proper partner, which a little skimming ahead shows is a gold dragon, so it's still interracial sex FTW. Guess Ed is still managing to slip some rather naughty stuff under the radar. Indeed, given all the shapeshifting and identity swapping action that's taking place officially, I would be very surprised if there wasn't some kinky partner swapping taking place at some point. This one is also unusually well connected with a whole bunch of important NPC's of the realms, regularly interacting with and assisting Alustriel in particular. And the tricks they get up too are a perfect example of Ed's mastery of high level tactics. So this one really reminds me how pervy you can get with high level D&D spells & shapeshifting monsters. For that, I have to give it credit.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 5/8


Fiction: Legendary heroes by Ben Bova. Finally, we get back to proper fiction in here. And by a proper regularly published author at that, with a story in his established universe & continuity. Actually, continuity is a very interesting issue for the Orion series, for it's brilliantly designed to produce standalone stories that can be read in any order. The immortal hunter gets incarnated into various times and places with orders to kill or protect certain people and thereby change the course of history for his godlike masters. This is complicated by the fact that he hates his master and goes against him where he can get away with it, with help from the other "gods" who are playing political games with the whole of history at stake. This premise allows things to make sense (or not) in nearly any order, (especially as Orion suffers a degree of memory loss between incarnations,) and even revisit eras, as the nature of time travel means the timeline can go into flux repeatedly and different issues need to be solved to get history on the right track each time. Plus you get to use historical figures as characters. It pretty much rivals Riverworld as an incredibly flexible tool for the author to draw upon various material and feed it through the lens of his imagination to make new stories.

But that's enough exposition. This time, it's the legend of Beowulf we're revisiting. Now handling stuff like this can be tricky, because there's the danger of having your own hero upstage the original protagonist, revealing they were actually a fool, oaf or lucky braggart. Fortunately, this is not the case here, and Ben manages to strike the right balance between making beowulf competent and badass, but also flawed, and Orion useful, but not show-stealing. He then sets things up for further stories weaving other legends together with amazing smoothness. In short, after the annoying nature of the 5th age material, this makes me go FUCK YEAH!!!!! AWESOME!!!!! vmv Let's hope we'll be seeing more of you in the magazine.


Oh look, it's survey time again. This time with the potential reward of a poster if you fill it in. We didn't need that the previous times, so I'm not sure why they need it now.  Once again with the little signs of desperation.


The role of books: Mosaic by Jeri Taylor is a star trek novel about the early life of Janeway, from the person who created her. It gets rather a critical reception, as from the way she is described here, she is not a good candidate to be put in charge of a starship, and would completely mess it up. One of those things that proves many of the flaws in Voyager stemmed right from the original writers, rather than just poor execution of those concepts.

The glass cat of oz by David Hulan continues this sprawling series well after the original author's death. And it manages to draw upon and stay consistent with both the established setting details and characterisation of minor characters while continuing to introduce new ones and build upon Oz lore. This is another one that a bibliophile could spend years researching the expanded universe of.  

Kingmakers sword by Ann Marston starts another trilogy. Fortunately, it's the kind that's mostly self-contained, and has well constructed worldbuilding. This seems like another of his generic mostly positive reviews that appears every few columns.

City of diamond by Jane Emerson seems to be a soap opera - IIIIINNNNNN SPAAAAAACE!!!! (that never gets old, does it. ) The number of subplots may sprawl out, but the pace keeps up, and the various viewpoints are handled adeptly. Don't let the labels put you off.

And peace shall sleep by Sonia Orin Lyris is a Magic: the Gathering novel. It's a rather interesting one though, that doesn't fit the normal mold of gaming fiction. High tension, and full of politics, I suppose it shows what it's like when the whole setting is being used as a battleground for a game. John hopes that WotC won't stop producing books like this in the wake of the CCG craze's leveling off. Looks like it's all positive reviews this time. That's no good. After you've started alternating with ones that are more like pure promotion, you ought to put a bit more effort in to differentiate yourself.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 6/8


The statement of ownership is once again hidden in the middle of the magazine where it was a bugger to find. Quite deservedly as well, as they've really been in freefall this year. With an average of 61k, and a last month total of 57, they've been shedding nearly a thousand readers every month. And though it's similar number, it's a much bigger proportion than it was during the 86-7 slump. Less than half their peak, they're really in trouble now. How much further can they go before collapsing altogether?


Children of the night: Hello? It's time for another article drawing on details released in a recent supplement and taking them in another direction. A bunch of interestingly unique vampires for the Forgotten Realms setting, using the expanded rules from Ravenloft. Two popular settings, so hopefully this crossover won't be too niche for the average reader.

Morg is a vampire hill giant shaman with a rather interesting past. He's taken full advantage of his vampiric state to get revenge for his mistreatment while alive. Now he's a real scourge upon the countryside, as his greater size means a correspondingly larger appetite. His minions and lair are detailed pretty well too, given the space available. It all seems very well designed to make a good adventure for PC's.

Saestra Karanok is a vampire thief who hunts mages, and will create a witch hunt when none are available to ensure she has plenty to eat. It's the kind of racket that'll unravel sooner or later, especially with the whole not ageing thing. Vamps gotta learn to think long term if they want to survive. In the meantime, this should make for some quite interesting political/sleuthing adventures.

Saed, Beast Chieftain of Veldorn, has managed to survive a few centuries, on the other hand, and made a pretty decent unlife for himself as the ruler of the kingdom of monsters. Not that he's particularly happy in his current position, for he is the kind of vampire who is consumed with angst about what he has become. Once again, he has a really cool set-up, with minions, treasure, and interesting personal abilities. So that makes this article both interesting, entertaining and useful on all counts. That pleases me quite a lot.


Starshield sentinels. Looks like Margaret and Tracey have another trilogy out.


Forum: Amy & Ryan Biggs become our 4th internet contributors. The snowball is gathering pace. They remind us that medieval books did indeed have ridiculously thick pages in comparison to modern stuff. You take for granted just how good you have it, how much technology has advanced.

Devin Ross says much the same thing. Go to an old library, and you can look at the things, get physical proof if you ask nicely. Do not nick the books and use the pages as toilet paper.

Wayne Rossi reminds us that wizards do have their drawbacks. Yes, but they're one of the classes most able to compensate for them, especially if they get into spell research. You have to watch out for that.

Larry D. Hols discusses the level limits thing with a fairly balanced contribution. You need to give humans some advantage to compensate if you remove demihuman level limits. Hey, is that history calling I once again hear?

Chris Leon reminds you that if you remove magic for the players, you also have to make sure you aren't attacking them with any monsters or puzzles that are impossible to solve mundanely. Actions have knock-on consequences, often quite significant.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 7/8


Sage advice goes SAGA. Is this the last straw for skip! Or a chance for him to demonstrate his rules mastery again? Tune in for this month's exciting instalment of sage advice!

Does physique decrease with wounds (Of course it doesn't. Does strength decrease with hit points! What kindacrap idea is that? )

Can you use elemental magic to destroy that element (If you must. It's a very crass way of working)

There's no way to kill without making people unconcious first How undramatic is that? (Yeah, It totally sucks. Skip blames the fucking editors)

How many extra spell points should you put into overcoming resistance ( Is skip the arbiter for your success? Give it a little fucking time. It's a brand new game. You've gotta make up the conventions as you go along, twat. )

When do you use Va, and when do you use Vc (Va, unless it's inapplicable)

What happens when one player casts a spell against another (Big drama. Both of you are in big shit you dirty PvP'ers )

Why can't bows fire faster than crossbows (abstraction. SAGA is even less realism based than D&D. Don't you DARE weigh it down with the years of fun spoiling crap you put into D&D, you wankers!)

Are there rules for Swinging frying pans (improvised fucking weapons. Someone always wants improvised weapons, even though they know they'll be crapper than the regular ones. We'll give you fucking rules for improvised fucking weapons! And then we'll beat you over the head with the book containing them as a practical demonstration. How d'ya like them improvised weapons! )

We want to convert all the cool new stuff in the SAGA system back to AD&D. Please give us conversion guidelines ( No. Skip worked hard making this system different, and the first thing you want to do is turn it back into an AD&D game?! Fuck the hell off. Skip does not need this. Skip is the private sage! TSR has been making a joke of that over the last few years. Skip says No More! Skip Quits! Nothing you say can bring skip back! :Rumble of thunder, ominous organ music: And that means you, too, Lorraine! Nothing you could make Skip do could possibly be worse than what you've already made Skip do!!! Skip is sick of listening to your threats and rantings. Skip is not going to wear purple spikes any more. They make skip look like an overweight gay evil flower. Skip will never forgive you for this. You took a job Skip loved and made it into torture. Skip is outta here. Skip is so pissed off Skip's not even going to close the bracket behind him. Enjoy your grammatical deathtrap, ladies.


KotDT fits a thousand orcs into a 20 by 20 room. This won't end well. Swordplay gets a metallic wedgie. Dragonmirth has more heroics, both smart and dumb. Floyd needs to find an excuse to avoid dinner fast.

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 8/8


Role-playing reviews: Deadlands gets moderately praised by Rick. The character generation and combat systems are pretty interesting and suitable for the game's wild west flavour, but the setting is still very sketchy. It does read very much like they want to produce lots of supplements to fill in various bits and pieces in upcoming years. (which will be the case, thankfully) Better get ready to spend that disposable income.

Neverworld gets praised for it's character generation system, which again is full of flavour and detail. But the rest is either boring or confusing to him. In the end, that probably doesn't make it worth playing. You want something to do after finishing your character, unless you're a charop wonk who's more enamoured of theoretical number crunching than actual play.

Infinite domains is another one with an excellent character generation system, and simple but effective mechanics, but the rest could do with some development. Mind you, it is an attempt at a universal system. Those do need a good deal of supplements to really prove their versatility. Even if the corebook shows potential, you can't truly cover every genre without adding some serious page count.

We have rather a lot of interesting short reviews this month as well. Mage: the Ascension & Star Wars get new editions. Mage justifies the repurchase with the improvements it makes, SW doesn't. Meanwhile, I Tyrant, GURPS Goblins and The Planewalkers Handbook all keep Rick interested with their idiosyncratic approaches to their topics. TSR is still putting out some pretty interesting stuff even though sales are dropping.


TSR Previews: Another fairly light month next time. We finish the beholder trilogy of adventures, with Eye to Eye. Do you have what it takes to win a war against them? Actually, they may be individually deadly, but it seems to me that multiple ones in an engagement would be rather less than the sum of their parts, as one's anti magic eye would be where another one wanted to shoot, and more than one would try and kill the same enemy in the same round, resulting in powers going to waste. And they've never been that good at co-operating without the spelljammer variants to glue things together.

Dragonlance takes us to Wayreth in The last tower: The legacy of Raistlin. He may be gone, but we can still learn about the new magic using his methods. For those of you unhappy with the 5th age, the novel this month is prequelariffc yet again. Vinas Solamnus by J Robert King tells the story of the founding of the knights.

The Forgotten realms completes it's 5th visit to undermountain. Stardock sees the PC's asked to save Halaster! Better the evil you know, I guess. And he does play a vital part in ensuring more adventurers get to reach high level and save the world. Their novel this month is also magic related. Realms of the Arcane is a collection of short stories, many of them set back in Netheril. Is time travelling going to become the new continent exploring?

And Dragon Dice gets their second novel as well. Army of the dead ties in with the recent expansions, as they often do. Is there any real setting behind this latest money grab?


The current clack: Allen talks quite a lot about licenced games this month, asking some interesting questions. Does the value of a licence in terms of sale outweigh the costs and inconvenience of getting it? Quite possibly. Actually, in these tough times, it seems like the proportion of licenced games is increasing, because they're a lot more likely to get proper distribution in stores. This can of course lead to accusations of creative moribundity. It's the same problem as hollywood in microcosm. It's not that there aren't plenty of cool new ideas out there, it's just that the sequels, remakes and spinoffs of proven successes are more likely to get greenlit, even if they're obviously crap to a discerning eye. Name value is important, and this is yet another annoying reality that has to be dealt with.

Our other big bit of news is the attempt by HERO games & R .Talsorian to merge their systems and create the Fuzion system, easily compatible with both and appearing in both company's books. Another amusing experiment that would eventually fall apart, while the original systems survived. It's like a big comics crossover in game mechanics form.


I actually like a pretty high proportion of the articles in this issue, and once again, the bad bits are often bad in interesting ways. So despite some rocky bits, I am forced to conclude 1996 has been a better year overall than 1995. And they've finally got rid of the annoying 5th age stories. Course, it's not over yet. They've now added an annual onto their workload. That could turn out all sorts of ways, maybe good, maybe bad. Let's hope that either way, it's not more of the same, as that would just be boring.

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. Hmm. So we've reached the extra product. I wonder how this will differ from the standard issue. For a start, despite having the same pagecount, it costs $5.95. Was there any bonus stuff to justify this extra cost? Or was this just to make up for the fact that subscribers got it for free. The cover is slightly different, with a border around the cover image in the style of the early issues of the magazine. The contents page seems much the same as usual though, although most of the regular columns like sage advice, letters, forum and and reviews are missing. So instead we'll be getting more game content. Cool. Wait, that means less variety in what I'll be reading than usual. Now I don't know what I'll make of this. If they've put extra effort into picking the best articles it could still be an improvement.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Since this is their first time doing one of these annual thingies, the editorial is a fairly basic explanation of what they're trying to do here. And yeah, it looks like they're trying to pack it with a greater proportion of game material, and give us more of the same stuff that they felt worked over the last year. And lots of material for specific settings, including their now quite substantial selection of dead ones. So this does feel very much like catering to their core audience to keep them from leaving rather than trying to expand things. Which is very symptomatic of their overall approach this year, and probably isn't helping if their sales figures are any indication. How is a game about adventuring actually becoming less adventurous? Doesn't feel right, somehow.



Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game: This little descriptive piece before the articles tries to illustrate just how far AD&D has come over the years, yet at the same time, how little the core of the game has changed. The rules are still pretty much recognisable as the same little pamphlets we saw way back in 1974. And they are having to strain a bit to sell that as a good thing. Yeah, they admit that once you add some supplements, the game gets rather bloated and unwieldy at this point, but in theory you can still choose which ones you use and leave the rest out. And the talk about the modern world being more complicated than it used to be is just rose tinted glasses. In 1974 you had Nixon engaging in corruption sufficient that he was forced to resign, the cold war hanging over people's heads, all kinds of economic instability, and disco music. In 1996 the worst you had to deal with was the Balkan states squabbling, britpop invading (and mostly failing) and Clinton shagging everything that moved. The late 90's actually look like a pretty decent part of history in hindsight. So yeah, this shows up the problems in both the ruleset and the company's attitude towards their game quite clearly. Makes you want to give them a good kick in the pants and tell them to buck their ideas up.


The ecology of the wyvern: Brendan Farwanderer makes his 4th appearance, more than 3 years after the last one. He's not very prolific. And he's still the closest thing the ecologies have to a recurring character. This, of course, is all the more annoying precisely because his stories are such good ones, made all the more interesting due to the now well established banter between Brendan and his charges. Wyverns may not quite be full dragons, but they're still quite scary, able to swoop down and kill you with their poisoned stingers, or carry you away to feed to their young. Indeed, a lot of attention is paid to their stingers, and the way they use their poison as a territory marker, means of fighting for dominance, and way of ensuring nothing else eats their food. With plenty of detail on it's lifecycle, and also some more cool tricks you can pull with the creature, this is another one that's both a good read and useful for actual play. Let's hope we'll be seeing these guys again sometime.

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 2/8


Wyrmsmere: Well, this is nice. I get to see some modules again, as these annuals are outside the regular Dragon/Dungeon continuity divide. It's a reasonably substantial one too, at 10 pages long, which definitely contrasts with the one from issue 200. It's quite an involved one plotwise as well, with some quite interesting NPC's and potential for open-ended interactions between them. While in theory you could ignore that, and run this as merely a straightforward dungeon crawl, you'll get a lot more out of it by playing up the various characters and roleplaying their encounters. Indeed, since they mention some bits that aren't directly statted out, and which would require rather higher level characters than to main part of this adventure, there's a lot of room for follow-ups. That makes it pretty good value for money.


Arcane lore: Having given us tons of elemental stuff over recent years, for this special, they decide to get paraelemental on us. Unsurprisingly, it's ice magic that gets first go. Cold magic is already comfortably third place behind fire and electricity in the blasting stakes. This keeps it so, while also adding a few utility bits and pieces that may well actually have it overtake electricity in the overall number of spells stakes. It's not neglected by any stretch of the imagination.

Arctic Spray is burning hands with a different energy type. Since more things are immune to fire than cold, this is probably a step up. Take those nasty yugoloths down with a good zap.

Icy Missile is a cold based magic missile which is otherwise identical. Since more things are immune to cold than force attacks, this is probably a step down. Funny how that works.  

Shiver imposes moderate penalties on the victim. A basic debuff on a similar level to the likes of Bless/Curse. Another good one for ice mages to fill their extra slot with at low level.

Deep Freeze encrusts whatever object in magical ice that'll take other magic to melt. This is one that has lots of versatility, as a preservative, as a doorstopper, to break mechanical devices, or even to create firm blocks for you to jump on megaman stylee. You won't regret memorizing this one.

Freeze Tag paralyzes whatever part of the enemy's body you touch, also in an unpleasantly chilly way. Good thing this isn't reality, as gangrene would be likely after it melted. Even so, using it on your genitals so as to prolong lovemaking is not recommended.

Frozen Ground is an elliptical method of replicating pass without trace under the cold theme. Freeze the ground so no tracks are made. Y'know, this'll be rather a giveaway itself in warmer climes. Perhaps not the most optimal method of doing things.

Ice Floe summons a barge made of ice to ferry you around. Obviously this lasts longer in colder climates. Please sit still while the vehicle is in motion.

Ice Trap makes a fragile bit of flooring to serve as concealment for whatever nasties lurk beyond. People still fall for this basic stuff, because you can't check every single bit of floor before putting your weight on it.

Snow Cone is one that could in theory have become a staple low level blasty spell to rival fireball and lightning bolt. Enjoy your icy AoE blastiness and watch out for your friends, as usual with these things.  

Cold Shoulder fails to live up to the punny potential of it's name, merely being another damage and penalty inflicter for your combat oriented characters.

Hail fails to scale and so won't be taking fireball's place in my arsenal anytime soon. Yawn.

Ice Bolt, on the other hand does scale properly, taking lightning bolt's place quite nicely if you're that way inclined. It even eliminates the bounceback problem, which'll please some people.

Snowblind is another one that isn't nearly as useful as it's regular equivalents light or cause blindness. I don't think I want to stick this closely to theme for that.

Snowman is another one that has interesting visuals, but is so suboptimal compared to it's corebook equivalent hold person that no-one with basic mathematical skills would touch it with a bargepole. What has happened to basic comparative analysis? All down the toilet.

Hypothermia is yet another one that doesn't seem all that optimal when you crunch the math. It tries to do two things, and winds up not being that impressive at either.

Northwind is a bit better, being basically gust of wind with added damage. I think the issue here is that it's gust of wind that's not very impressive in the first place, being very context sensitive. In an arctic environment, don't miss the chance to blow your enemy off mountaintops or into freezing water.

Blizzard is one of our lower level, less versatile weather controllers. Seen this kind of thing before in the sea magic stuff and it's decent enough powerwise, but still yawn-inducing.

Avalanche gives you mass freezing paralysis. No, can't work up any enthusiasm for this either.

Icicles is yet another decidedly unimpressive zappy spell. Since you have to make a hit roll with this, and wizards suck at those, this may well wind up being less effective than the 1st level magic missile variant. Lame.

Dancing Shards, weirdly, manages to be even less impressive despite being higher level. It's like the power levels were just picked randomly out of a hat. Roll on the next edition please.

Winter Flames, on the other hand, does have the potential to cause the devastation an 8th level spell should, but only in very specific circumstances. Not one for casual memorising and unleashing still. I can not say I'm impressed with this collection, with it's serious power level issues. What were the editors thinking, letting it go through like this?