Dragon Magazine 084.pdf

DRAGON 1

Contents

Publisher: Mike Cook

No foolin

Editor-in-Chief: Kim Mohan

Editorial staff: Roger Raupp

Patrick Lucien Price

Mary Kirchoff

It wasnt until the last hour before dead-

I settled on the subject for this

column. Actually, Roger decided it for me

while he was putting down the type to finish

page 93.

Not much of an April Fools issue, is

Vol. VIII, No. 10

April 1984

Roger Moore

Andria Hayday

line that

SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS

Subscriptions: Mary Cossman

Layout designer: Kristine L. Bartyzel

Contributing editors: Ed Greenwood

Katharine Kerr

The Twofold Talisman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

it? he said.

An AD&D tournament module

in two installments

Ken Rolston

Advertising Sales Administrator:

Mary Parkinson

No, it sure isn't. We didnt have room to

include any foolish material in this issue,

like we have in April issues past, and thats

The ARES Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

National advertising representative:

bad news enough all by itself. (Well, we

16-page spotlight on SF gaming

Robert Dewey

1836 Wagner Road

enjoyed it, anyway . . .)

OTHER FEATURES

Glenview IL 60025

Phone (312) 998 -6237

Speaking of bad news, you aint heard

nothin yet. After three years, Phil Foglio

This issue's contributing artists:

has decided to give himself some time away

A cast of strange familiars . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Roger Raupp

Jim Holloway

Phil Foglio

from the rigors of chronicling Phil & Dixie.

The last installment of Whats New is in

David Hutton

Widening an M-Us circle of friends

Steve Swenston

Kurt Ericksen

this issue, and thats reason number two

Larry Elmore

Davis Trampier

why were not in an April fooling mood this

The ecology of the trapper. . . . . . . . . . . . 20

DRAGON Magazine (ISSN 0279-6848) is

published monthly for a subscription price of $24

year. But maybe its fitting that we didnt

Smartest floor you'll ever see

upstage Phil & Dixie in their last appear-

ance by using a lot of other funny stuff in

per year by Dragon Publishing, a division of

Never the same thing twice . . . . . . . . . . 30

TSR, Inc. The mailing address of Dragon

Publishing for all material except subscription

orders is P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva WI 53147.

the magazine. Most of the jokes in this issue

De-myth-tifying the rakshasa

are brought to you by Phil Foglio, and he

uses his three pages very well.

And then there were three . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

DRAGON Magazine is available at hobby

With p ride in one eye and a bit of a tear

stores and bookstores throughout the United

States and Canada, and through a limited

Previewing the D&D® Companion Set

welling up in the other, we present in this

issue of DRAGON® Magazine the first

edition of

number of overseas outlets. Subscription rates

Master of the Winds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

are as follows: $24 for 12 issues sent to an address

in the U.S., $30 in Canada; $50 U.S. for 12

issues sent via surface mail or $95 for 12 issues

the ARES Science Fiction Gam-

Fiction for the breezy season

ing Section. Were proud of what were

sent via air mail to any other country. All

going to be doing from now on to serve the

subscription payments must be in advance, and

should be sent to Dragon Publishing, P.O. Box

SF gaming public, but at the same time

were going to miss ARES Magazine just as

REGULAR OFFERINGS

72089, Chicago IL 60690.

much as its readers will.

A limited quantity

of certain back issues of

Maybe in a month or two, when the

Out on a Limb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

DRAGON Magazine can be purchased from the

Dungeon Hobby Shop. (See the list available

issues printed elsewhere in each magazine.) Pay-

ment in advance by check or money order must

memories dim and the space opens up a bit,

well bring in our freelance leprechauns to

slap together some foolish pages. (Some

of the stuff weve collected is too good to

Letters and answers

The forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

accompany all orders. Payments cannot be made

through a credit card, and orders cannot be taken

Opinions and observations

nor merchandise reserved by telephone. Neither

hold onto until next April.) But right now,

an individual customer nor an institution

can be

billed for a subscription order or a back-issue

purchase unless prior arrangements are made.

we just dont feel like foolin.

Figure Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Off the shelf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

The issue of expiration for each subscription is

printed on the mailing label for each subscribers

copy of the magazine. Changes of address for the

delivery of subscription copies must be received

Fantasy and SF book reviews

Convention calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

at least six weeks prior to the effective date of the

change in order to insure uninterrupted delivery.

Game reviews:

Labyrinth makes good . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

All material published in DRAGON

Magazine becomes the exclusive property of the

publisher upon publication, unless special ar-

rangements to the contrary are made prior to

publication, DRAGON Magazine welcomes

unsolicited submissions of written material and

artwork; however, no responsibility for such sub-

missions can be assumed by the publisher in any

event. Any submission which is accompanied by

a self-addressed, stamped envelope of sufficient

FRPs gilded chestnuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Gamers Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Snarfquest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

size will be returned if it cannot be published.

Whats New? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Dragon Mirth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

DRAGON® is a registered trademark for

Dragon Publishings monthly adventure playing

aid. All rights on the contents of this publication

Wormy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

are reserved, and nothing may be reproduced

from it in whole or in part without first obtaining

permission in writing from the publisher.

DRAGON, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED D&D, TOP

SECRET, BOOT HILL, and GAMMA WORLD are regis-

tered trademarks owned by TSR, Inc.

designates other trademarks owned by TSR, Inc., unless

otherwise indicated.

Second-class postage paid at Lake Geneva,

Wis., and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to

Dragon Publishing, P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva

WI 53147. USPS 318-790, ISSN 0279-6848.

A PRIL 1984

pril, in the area where this

dragon's lair is locates, is a

month of change: It's not

winter any more, but it's sure

not summer yet, either

(Wisconsin does have something called

spring, but it always either feels like winter

or summer, and the name can safely be

ignored.) . . . All of which is to introduce a

lot of changes that are happening or about

to happen to DRAGON® Magazine.

This issue contains the first ARES

Science Fiction Gaming Section, about

which the editors have much more to say

starting on page 69.

This issue contains the last installment of

Phil Foglios Whats New? comic strip

at least for now for reasons that are

explained on page 93.

And, were presenting the first

tournament-style AD&D module weve

ever done, The Twofold Talisman, begin-

ning on page 43. Its also the first two-part

adventure weve published, and were

looking forward to hearing what you think.

Detail-minded artist Dean Morrissey has

returned to our cover for the first time since

issue #70 with a painting thats not swords

& sorcery, but undeniably a piece of fantasy

art. He calls it Ian Dinwoods Martian

Moment, and describes it as a scene in an

earthly Victorian parlor momentarily trans-

posed (at least in Ians mind) to a tract of

scape on the surface of Mars. So thats why

the sky is pink.

The first essay to make it from Steven

Innisss typewriter to our pages is this

months lead article, A cast of strange

familiars, offering a few dozen ways to

liven up the magic-users find familiar spell.

In this issues ecology article, Ed Green-

wood explains how a trapper does what it

does; unfortunately, why is still something

only another trapper can tell. . . .

. . . And then theres the rakshasa, where

the why is fairly obvious, but the what (as

in What does it look like?) is the unan-

swered question. Scott Bennie has delved

into the myths and legends of India to shed

some light on rakshasas and their even more

powerful kin, the Knights and Lords and

Ravanna, the baddest of all.

Those of you who savor stories about the

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® game should

be satisfied, for now, by And then there

were three, Frank Mentzers preview of the

soon-to-be-released D&D® Companion Set,

plus FRPs gilded chestnuts by Ken

Rolston, in which he describes and com-

pares the newest revisions of the D&D®

game and the Chivalry & Sorcery game.

And, if you havent noticed already, take

a peek at the small type on the left and

welcome Ken Rolston and Katharine Kerr

to the ranks of Contributing Editors for

DRAGON Magazine. (Yep, another

change.) As for why we wanted them to

have the titles: If youve seen more than a

couple of issues of this magazine, youve

already read the reasons. KM

A rare peryton?

magic in essentially the same ways that the ver-

sion in the article does. Restrictions? Nothing to

worry about, as long as the new amulet is not so

over-powerful that it unbalances the game in

favor of a character who wears one.

This simple conversion works not only for

objects described in DRAGON® magazine artic-

les, but also for procedures and concepts that just

happen to be written in the language of a

certain game. Dont be turned off by an article

that seems to be about a game you dont play

sure, the words in the article are about that

other game, but the ideas behind those words

may hit you right between the ears if you give

em a chance. KM

Dear Dragon,

In the February issue (#82), I quickly turned to

page 10 for the article on perytons. Somehow, the

picture just didnt look right, and on page 28 of

the Monster Manual it states that, its claws are

too weak to use. The picture on page 10 showed

hooves, not claws. That would be a rare specimen

indeed!

Peter Delaney

Kingston, N.Y.

Maybe not as rare as you think, Peter. When

we researched the peryton for that ecology

presentation, we had a hard time finding infor-

mation on what this semi-legendary beast looked

like. The illustration is based on a passage in

The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis

Borges, where that author quotes an unnamed

Greek scholar who had this to say about the

perytons appearance: The Perytons had their

original dwelling in Atlantis and are half deer,

half bird. They have the deers head and legs. As

for its body, it is perfectly avian, with correspond-

ing wings and plumage. . . .

And thats where the hooves came from.

We decided to go with the unnamed Greek in-

stead of the Monster Manual for three reasons:

(1) the deers legs make for a creature thats

even more bizarre-looking than the one in the

Monster Manual; (2) the peryton doesnt make

any appreciable use of its claws anyway (no

attacks), so they might as well be hooves if thats

what the Greek says they are; and (3) we just

wanted to see if someone would notice.

So, if we assume that the peryton in the

AD&D game is derived from the Peryton of

Greek legend, maybe most perytons should have

hooves, and perhaps the one pictured in the

Monster Manual is the rare one. KM

Sleeping damage?

Dear Dragon,

I have a question about Taking the sting out

of poison (issue #82). The run-time for sleep gas

was printed 1hp/rd. Is this to imply that the

victim takes damage as well as falling asleep, or

was this merely a misprint? (All other sleep

poison had a run time of 1 round). Also, was

contact sleep poison excluded for a reason?

Brian Dvoretz

Smithtown, N.Y.

The run-time figure for sleep gas should be

simply 1 round, like all the other sleep poisons

in the article. The mistake crept into Chris Land-

seas original manuscript while he was meticu-

lously typing out the poison gas table, and never

crept back out. I can imagine a special kind of

sleep poison that also does damage, but that

wasnt within the scope of the article, and we

didnt mean to give anyone the impression that

sleeping damage is possible.

I havent checked with Chris to find out why

he didnt include contact sleep poison, but I

assume the omission was intentional. Maybe the

chemists and alchemists of the AD&D world

(Chris Landseas version, at least) just dont

know how to make such stuff and maybe the

world is better off because of that. KM

Thats the idea!

Dear Editor,

In issue #82 you had an article called Enhanc-

ing the Enchanter. In it, an amulet made from a

wyvern horn which could detect magic was

discussed. Although the amulet was for Dragon-

quest, I was wondering if the same amulet could

be applied in AD&D play; and, if so, what would

its restrictions be?

No limb to stand on

Dear Editor:

Ive been playing D&D and AD&D for six

years and have been reading DRAGON for

almost as long (since issue #38). Since then, Out

on a Limb has dried up. In the beginning there

was light the anti-Monty Haul campaign.

After a while, though, everyones eyes got sore.

One can only read so much on the pros and cons

of butchering gods. Finally a voice from the

bowels of DRAGON yelled Enough! and that

was it. The light, so to speak, got boring. . . .

However, all semblance of controversy has died

since then. Letters like I liked or I didnt

like or Where can I get issue #. . . are actually

Seth Walther

Marietta, Ohio

Seth, youve got the right idea. Theres no

reason why a wyvern-horn amulet cant exist in

an AD&D universe and no reason why you

cant make the fairly simple adaptation from

DRAGONQUEST game terminology into

terms used in the AD&D rules. Youll need a

wyvern horn (do wyverns in the AD&D rules

have horns? Oh, well . . .) and some kind of

powerful magic (enchant an item, wish), and

youll end up with an amulet that can detect

DRAGON 3

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