Dragon Issue 66: October 1982
part 1/2
84 pages. They moved into new buildings recently. Bigger, shinier, and more consolidated, this'll hopefully make things more convenient for everyone on the team. And they certainly won't miss the mice. Language is this month's special theme, with a whole bunch of related articles. We also, as promised, get more stuff for illusionists, and plenty of returning series. Even big upheavals like moving house no longer stop them from putting out a full sized quality product on time. So lets see what else they've managed to squeeze in.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: Glenn Rahman defends his villainisation of the protagonist of the Gor novels. He has read them properly, and can cite extensive quotes to support his choice. One wonders why he kept reading them.
Roger Moore also gives a load of commentary and corrections.
Gary writes in to say that the reasons firearms are not found in Official AD&D Worlds is because the physics of the universe do not allow for gunpowder and similar explosives. Burning stuff simply burns, it doesn't exert outward pressure. (so steam power won't work either) Experiments on those lines will simply do sod-all. If you want blasting effects, you'll have to use magic. And that's final.
And finally we get an actual letter from a reader, saying that is a held creature literally couldn't move any muscles at all, they'd die from suffocation in a few rounds. Kim follows Gary's lead, and reminds him that spells completely bypass real life physics. They can be completely unable to even blink or breathe, and not suffer the ill-effects they normally would. (yes, this contradicts the ruling about held creatures in water, but hey, even a master editor can't remember everything, and if magic can break the rules of the universe, that means they don't have to be internally consistent anyway.)
Should they have an edge: The class weapon restrictions debate gets reopened. Well, it has been a couple of years. You've gotta trot out the old perrenials for the new readers. John Sapienza floats the idea of detaching the damage dice from the weapon used, so cosmetically, they can be using any weapon, but due to lack of training they'll still be limited to d4 or d6, which will preserve the intended game balance. Which is pretty innovative, really. They'll make narrativists out of these guys yet. Bruce Humphrey provides the predictable counter of no is no, and that's final argument. Which is considerably less interesting, as it's just reiterating the status quo. And we all know that drama is found in pushing and breaking the rules. So it goes. I'm sure we'll see this one again in the future.
Elfquest's characters get converted to D&D. Cutter, Skywise, Leetah, Rayek and Picknose. These guys are less twinked than most of these articles, with not a single 18, and relatively few abilities that are illegal for regular PC's. A fluke, or is this a good sign? Lets hope.
Sage advice seems to be stuck in the past this month, focussing on demihumans:
Can demihumans make magical items (yes, within the limits of their class restrictions. They can also make some special items humans with the same skills can't, because their gods are nice like that.)
How do you make elven chain. (Its a secret alloy. You don't think they'd give away trade secrets, do you. You'll be lucky to get hold of some if they like you. )
Why can't elves be rangers, when they're so nature oriented. (because the gods say so. They gave humans ranger abilities as a direct way to deal with giants and other wilderness threats. For whatever reason, elven deities aren't so generous, despite the fact that they have ranger abilities themselves. Maybe if you pray enough, they'll change their minds someday.
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Featured creatures: This month, Gary fills out the genie races, so now there's one for every element. Dao, Marids and Jann. How symmetrical of him. These are pretty much as they remain for the next few editions, giving us a wide range of power levels and morals for our genies. You'll still want efreet for the full-on wish granting stuff though. Rather a mixed blessing really, that power.
From the Sorceror's scroll: Lots of new spells in Gary's other contribution this month. This includes both future staples like alter self and shadow walk, and forgettable stuff like read illusionist magic and phantom wind (fnarr) These are generally pretty solid. As is often the case, he follows up the game material with some general chatter about events. A certain ex-editor of the fiend folio gets snarked at for something he wrote in a rival publication (can someone fill me in on the other side of this, as it is annoyingly vague.). He talks a little more about their move to new premises. And he promises to fill in details on the deities of greyhawk sometime soon. Once again, he's produced a pretty interesting, if not always the most organized set of stuff for our perusal.
Is it really real?: To complement the illusionist spells, we get another nature of illusions essay. Why can illusion spells really hurt if you believe in them, but not heal? How much does repeated exposure make spotting illusions easier. How inaccurate do things created from descriptions look? In some respects more lenient, and in some less than things would later be, this is another article that shows up repeatedly, and is useful in gauging how fashions change over the years. Which is interesting from a statistical and sociological point of view.
A primer for the language of larceny: A dictionary for thieves cant, so if you want to learn the basics of it and incorporate some of this stuff into your in character speech, you can. Since its only 8 pages, plus a couple of pages on grammar, it's hardly complete. Unfortunately, I suck at learning other languages, so this makes my eyes glaze and brain squeek. You'll have to get someone else to judge its quality and usefulness as a language and shorthand for communicating larcenous acts.
