Dragon Issue 47: March 1981
part 1/2
80 pages. Once again, the D&D setting takes several steps forward this issue, with both planar and torillian stuff featured within. We also get another complete game, plenty of different topics covered. Oh, and a particularly blatant bit of cheesecake on the front cover. You might want to put some chaps on luv. Those scales'll chafe your legs something fierce if you ride at any speed. And you don't want to back up onto those spines.
In this issue:
Dragon rumbles: The editing stuff from issues 43 & 45 gets another followup, with bit of mock bickering between Robert Plamodon and Kim Mohan about Kim's savage editing job. Highly amusing and rather meta stuff. He does have a point though, that by doing things like this, Kim is setting himself up as a frontline performer who everyone reading knows about in his own right, rather than just a backstage worker who helps the writers shine brighter. (did I ever tell you you're my heeeero. Oh god, another song stuck in my head.) Still, If it gets him a better paid job and more chicks at cons, I guess it's a good strategy.
Out on a limb: A letter expressing outrage at the Gm who doesn't let his players buy the magazine, telling him to go kiss an otyugh.
A letter praising Gary for encouraging people to play monsters intelligently.
A letter complaining about several flaws in some recent reviews.
A letter encouraging the retirement of high level characters so you can start again with something new.
Another letter complaining about GM's running horrifically overpowered games in their area, encouraging people to boycott games like that.
A letter complaining about the Top Secret stats of various fictional characters in issue 44, quibbling about perceived inaccuracies. Yawn.
A reply from the author of said article to the quibbling on it from last issue. Whch is amusing.
And a letter defending the Professor Ludlow Module from the roasting it recieved a couple of months ago, saying it was a nice change of pace from standard gaming, and a good roleplaying challenge.
Take the AD&D exam: A big questionaire on the AD&D rules, to see how good your mastery of their finer details is. Which of course involves some stupid and somewhat subjective questions, as many of the puzzles have more than one solution. FWIW, I got 43 out of 50. Which isn't bad, particularly as I don't own AD&D 1st ed, and was working off my memory of BECMI and 2nd edition.
Elemental ideas for elemental adventuring: Like GitE last month, they've decided to accept stuff from freelancers on the nature of the planes. Which hey, means dilution of concept. Lets hope they keep editorial control over this stuff, otherwise there's going to be lots of articles that have inconsistencies with one another. The first article seems to promote a slightly more hostile view of the elemental planes than Len's, making them all innately harmful to creatures from the prime material and each other, and being far more restrictive on elemental spells from elsewhere. It does, however, include some cool ideas on the nature of the native flora and fauna of the planes, and how they will interact with adventurers. The second article doesn't actually have much to do with planar travel, but is actually about the probablity of finding someone with astral scanning and the time taken, given the size of the area scanned. Which involves some mildly complex mathematical formulae. Neither are particularly brilliant, overall.
Creatures from elsewhere: The extraplanar theme continues with a load of new monsters. Wirchler are from gehenna, look like mouths with arms coming out their sides, and have a nasty no save power that's an instawin against anyone who can hear. Take them out hard and fast, or you'll watch your characters slowly die, and even if they're rescued, their ability scores'll be permanently reduced.
Aruchai are from Limbo, and have a lot in common with chaos beasts, but are way way cooler, having an awesome plot hook that makes being killed by one both better and far worse than just dying, while not taking the characters out of play they way being undeadified would. These guys are worth the whole magazine.
The Pheonix is .... You know what it is. Bloody immortal mary-sue bird with the favor of the gods. Virtually impossible to kill, and if you do, you get tortured by the gods, then geased to go back in time and make sure you don't kill it after all. Thankfully they got rid of that bit in the 2nd ed MM entry.
Again, you ought to know what the furies are. They live in tartarus, and torture people who pissed off the olympian gods. They're pretty powerful too, so careful when you mess with them.
Mapmakers are surprisingly adorable. Reptilian creatures from pandemonum, they have a fetish for maps, and their whole existance revolves around making and obtaining them. Which means they can be useful for trading with, but also might nick your stuff showing the way out if you aren't careful. And they are from pandemonium, so chances are the maps they make are oddly designed and filled with elaborations that may not be strictly accurate. Another really cool creature that I wish had made it into future books.
Flard are from nirvana, and exist only to answer questions. Ahh, the omniscient monolith, such an overused archetype.
Sugo were originally created by jubilex, but rebelled and now live in acheron, and show that the conception of this plane still hadn't reach its current state, still being much closer to it's original greek source. Essentially malevolent flumphs, they live in marshy areas, and try and eat passers by. Meh.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: The planar theme continues here. The flute of dismissing gets rid of summoned gribleys, which can be pretty darn usefull.
The staff of ethereal action allows you to hit ethereal creatures, and use Blink as well for some reason. Good for getting rid of those pesky phase spiders.
Horeseshoes of hades turn a normal mount into a Nightmare. Which is not a good thing, unless you have some means of subduing the nasty bugger quickly.
Syrar's silver sword (another Ed Greenwood mage gets a namecheck.) is another weapon for dealing with those pesky creatures who lurk on co-existant planes and attack you while you can't hit them back. Because everyone hates them, don't they. All in all, this has been a well above average set of items.
Leomunds tiny hut: Len takes a closer look at thief abilities, and their proper application. Thieves should be able to make traps as well as disarm them, sneaking into place is a good way to make maps, so when the full party comes in, they can have more effective plans on how to clear place out. The rest of the stuff isn't very useful, but those two cool bits make up for it.
Giants in the earth: Two women from greek myth get the twinktastic treatment this issue. Camilla from the Aeneid, and Medea from Jason & the argonauts. Although they do both have several abilities at average or below, so I guess opening this series up to the floor has helped a little.
