here we go (bit long)
Hello Erik,
I started to read Dragon with issue 74 (lotsa years ago) and immediately tried to get my hands on back issues (subscription came later).
Here's my list. It's bit long, though:
- Gary's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column.
- The old "Giants in the Earth" series
- The Nine Hells article (and its later addendum)
- The "Anti-Paladin" NPC class
- Roger Moore's articles on the various demi-human races (the POV series)
- Lakofka's "Leomund's Tiny Hut" column
- covers... Why hasn't no one mentioned them????
For starters, I think no one could intimate action as well as Holloway. I remember two covers vividly: one with depicting a nighttime swamp scene with a tattoed dwarf dragging a KO'ed orc and a woman hiding behind a tree plus some orcs in the background wading through the swamp, and another showing a post-combat daylight scene where a small group of elves is reluctantly approaching another group of feisty orcs; if you look closely some fallen orcs are not dead but lying in wait for the elves to get close so to give then a OACOWA).
Beauvais is magnificent (the Chess series).
Ned Dameron did some highly dynamic covers.
Let's not forget the Witch cover for 114 (I belive), which showed a nekkid! woman in a highly stylised way but which caused an
uproar...
BTW, if you have any weight to throw around with Dragon's Art Dept, pls give us more action scenes and less portraits! (think Holloway, do not think frex #315's cover).
- NPC classes (sentinel, frex)
- The complete content of issue 90 - (with the Asgard planar info plus _Aesirhamar_)
- As above, issue #67: Fedifensor and Astral Plane info.
- Again, the entire issue with the Illithid extra-long article, with impressive art by Janet Aulisio.
- Finieous Fingers & Wormy (nuff said)
- The Roger Moore article that analysed A&D&1E classes - very well thought out, based on factoids (XP, average HPs, etc). Unique!
- Creature Collections - frex, the lillend and the lhiannan shee came from these...
- "A Different Bard, Not Quite so Hard"
- the article with a paladin for each alignment.
- "From the City of Brass to Dead Orc Pass".
- Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft run.
- Paul Jaquays article on Avatars
- the reviews section, particularly when they were done by game designers
(Bambra, Terra, Rolston).
- the Monty Haul run (and the Waldorf letters years later)
- extra material from TSR projects (FR comes to mind - Waterdeep
extra-material cut from FR1, Skullport extra-material, Ivid the
Undying material)
- "Plan Before You Play" and "Law of the Land" by Ed Greenwood. I based my first homebrew on the map presented by Greenwood in the 1st article...
- Katherine Kerr's "Beyond the Dungeon" 1 and 2 from Dragons 87 and 88; Kerr's "The Real Barbarians" from 72.
- Stephen Inniss' articles (he did a lot).
- "Living in a Material World" from Dragon 81(by Michael Dobson)
- Bruce Heard's article on magical research from Dragon 82, "Spells
Between the Covers". Excellent! Great Source for AD&D1E. superceded today by 3.* rules.
- Healing herbs article. I also used it intensively in my games.
- The Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat.
- "The Toxins of Cerilon" (by Larry Di Tillio)
- The entire run of Minarian Legends
- "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy". That issue (146, I think) is just. about. perfect.
- The Elven cavalier article. Nice tropes.
- The "u2 ken urn big bux" is a classic. As mentioned before, some of my friends can quote the test verbatim... hilarious!
Cheers,
lokirime
