Dragon Reflections #94

It is 100 pages long and has a cover price of $3.00. This issue features the second creature catalog, Solemnic Knights, and the ecology of the chimera!

The cover art is by Clyde Caldwell. Titled "Female Ranger," it depicts a striking ranger accompanied by her fierce animal companion. It's a lovely painting, and TSR later reused it in PHB11 The Complete Ranger. Interior illustrations are by Bob Maurus, Roger Raupp, Dennis Kauth, Marsha Kauth, Ernest Yates, the Marvel Bullpen, Jayne Hoffmann, Peter Berryman, Dave Trampier, Denton Elliott, Robert Albanese, Joseph Pillsbury, and Larry Elmore.

This month's special attraction is "Creature Catalog II," presenting eighteen new AD&D monsters to challenge your adventurers. It is a follow-up to the first creature catalog, which appeared in Dragon #89. Once more, Ed Greenwood makes an outsized contribution of six creatures, with Roger Moore and Len Lakofka contributing two each. Four of these monsters made it into the official rulebooks: the belabra, bhaergala, firestar, and lillend.

Gary Gygax brings us "Official Changes for Rangers." This article details new ranger tracking rules, which, according to the author, more closely reflect what he uses in his home game. They are rather too detailed for my taste, with modifiers of +2% and so on. Gygax also supplies some minor but welcome enhancements to the ranger's combat ability.

Katharine Kerr's "An Army Travels on Its Stomach" addresses the logistics of moving armies in medieval fantasy settings. She emphasises the importance of food, water, and proper animal care, detailing how such elements can significantly impact the movement of large bodies of soldiers. The article is meticulously researched, but it needed to be more gameable, perhaps via the inclusion of some movement tables. As it stands, it adds little more than a "sour note of realism to play."

"Same Dice, Different Odds" by David G. Weeks presents an alternative method of using dice to introduce more variety. He calls it the "divided roll," where you divide the result of one roll by another. For example, roll a d8 and divide it by the results of a d4. This method can create a low average roll while allowing for sporadic high results. I can see the advantage of the technique, but I think it is ultimately too much math in play to be worth it.

Ed Greenwood returns with "The Ecology of the Chimera," continuing this popular series. Presented as a conversation between the author and Elminster, the article explores the biology, behaviour, and tactics of the three-headed monstrosity. It also presents a new cross-breed, the thessalmera, for the first time. This powerful and hideous creature was included in several official books.

"My Honor Is My Life" by Tracy Hickman introduces the Knights of Solamnia, the chivalric order central to the world of Dragonlance. It explores their history, codes of conduct, internal organisation, and social role. Surprisingly, Hickman published no further articles in Dragon for the next five years.

There are two pieces of fiction in this issue. In "Fortunes of a Fool" by Nicholas Yermakov, a simple peasant gains wealth and a magical bride, only to discover that happily ever after isn't guaranteed. It is a witty, clever, and tightly structured fairy tale satire. Yermakov changed his name to Simon Hawke and went on to publish a string of popular novels.

In "The Gun That Shot Too Straight" by Ralph Roberts, an inventor builds a precision weapon and discovers that perfect aim comes with unexpected consequences. It's a short, mildly amusing tech-fable that delivers one clever idea and exits. The author's credits include a couple of dozen short stories and a single self-published novel.

The ARES Section presents about a dozen pages of science-fiction and superhero gaming material. It includes three articles:

• "S.H.I.E.L.D" by William Tracy details the famous super-agency.
• "The Marvel-Phile" by Jeff Grubb provides character stats and lore for Hobgoblin, Kingpin, and Spider-Man's Suit.
• "From Anarchy to Empire" by David Cook describes interstellar governments in STAR FRONTIERS.

There is one game review. Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes by Flying Buffalo is a flexible, modern-era RPG that blends skill- and level-based progression, allowing players to step into the shoes of Bond-like spies or hard-boiled detectives. Its hybrid mechanics, intuitive skill rolls, and focus on character background support deep roleplaying. Supplements like Stormhaven offer richly detailed scenarios, while character folders add convenience. Reviewer Arlen P. Walker concludes, "If you're planning on roleplaying in the modern era... this would be an excellent system to choose." Astute readers will note that Dragon published a much more lukewarm mini-review of the same system just three issues prior.

"The Role of Books" returns with reviews of the latest speculative fiction:

• Secret of the Sixth Magic by Lyndon Hardy explores magical chaos through inventive world-building and clever plot mechanics, making it "original and fascinating."
• The Land Beyond the Gate by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach is a classic portal fantasy filled with quiet wonder and shows "that the familiar need not necessarily be dull."
• Raphael by R. A. MacAvoy is a philosophical fantasy about angelic identity and is "unlike virtually anything else in the spectrum of contemporary fantasy."
• The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce is a richly detailed and imaginative vampire epic that defies cliché and "is worth reading."
• The Song of the Axe by Paul O. Williams is a thoughtful and immersive post-apocalyptic journey through a richly imagined North America and is "excellent."
• The Harem of Aman Akbar by Elizabeth Scarborough is a witty Arabian Nights-inspired adventure featuring practical djinni lore and spiced with "the cheerfully sly humor that has marked [her] work."
• Exiles of the Rynth by Carole Nelson Douglas is a meandering and overly convenient middle volume in an otherwise promising trilogy and is "a serious disappointment."

And that's a wrap! It was an enjoyable issue, though none of the gaming articles rose to great heights. Next month, we have new demi-human rules, a tournament module, and Gygax on Tolkien!

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

i believe the thing that made Jorune "Jorune" other than the setting, was the art and direction of Miles Teves,. The mechanics portion probably doesn't need revived.

Arguably true.

Jorune's art always reminds me of Wayne Barlowe's sketches of a nascent fantasy setting he was working on that were published in the back of his Guide to Extraterestrials.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Jorune's art always reminds me of Wayne Barlowe's sketches of a nascent fantasy setting he was working on that were published in the back of his Guide to Extraterestrials.

I would love to see an RPG bestiary done by someone in Barlowe's scientific biology style. I have to imagine griffons, etc., would look very different when someone was trying to make them look plausible.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I would love to see an RPG bestiary done by someone in Barlowe's scientific biology style. I have to imagine griffons, etc., would look very different when someone was trying to make them look plausible.

Griffons have always bugged me. Even setting aside the impossibility of something that size and shape being able to fly, just try to imagine them walking. Eagle feet are not meant for moving around on the ground, period. They're grabbing weapons, limited manipulators, and something to hold you securely in a tree. Most eagles are already big enough that the "hop hop hop" of smaller songbirds and the like is awkward and impractical, and they aren't nailed to a flightless quadruped's body. Pairing them with half the legs of a lion doesn't help much either, although at least the wings offer a visual semi-plausible way to rear up by flapping so they can claw with the front legs and spring on a target.

I'd love to know how many people back in the day took one look at heraldry featuring these things and had to find an excuse for laughing out loud. "What barmy crackskull thought you can stick a bird of prey to a big...cat, I guess...and have it look believable? That guy with the two-headed pig down at the fair did a better job, and you could still see the stitches on that one."

Ooh, I know what the heraldry for my next knightly knight character is going to be.

 

[Flying Toaster]

Griffons have always bugged me.

Ancient cultures had lots of weird hybrid monsters mixing animal and human parts, and those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Scythian nomads seem to have been particularly influential. Encounters with unfamiliar animals or prehistoric fossils turned into travelers’ tales and bestiary entries. Some hybrids like the griffon, unicorn, and chimera became popular and iconic, while others fell by the wayside and have been forgotten.

In her book The First Fossil Hunters historian Adrienne Mayor suggests that the griffon legend may have been started by ancient travelers in Central Asia observing fossils of the quadrupedal dinosaur Protoceratops, which had a prominent beak. The horse-legged hippogriff and the hawk-headed hieracosphinx seem to have a lot of overlap with the griffon.

I have occasionally watched the Dan Harmon animated comedy Krapopolis and while it is not really making me laugh, it has gorgeous art inspired by ancient mythology and it has turned hybrid monsters into a whole “ancestry” within the lore of the show. I have always wanted to run a fantasy RPG campaign inspired by the ancient world, and I think this Harmon take on monsters may have gaming potential.

 

[Flying Toaster]

The Ranger was always fairly popular in my junior high school (late 1980’s) AD&D 1E groups, but more because of Aragorn from LOTR and general “rule of cool” than because of the actual class abilities. One of our house rules allowed Elves and Half-Elves to be Druid / Rangers or Druid / Ranger / Mages, which we felt made a lot of thematic sense for those classes and also matched the Fighter / Mage and Cleric / Fighter / Mage multi-class options. I suppose by that logic we could have also had Ranger / Mage, Ranger / Thief, Druid / Mage, and Druid / Thief characters, although I don’t recall anyone ever trying any of these. The 1E rules required Druids to be “True” Neutral and Rangers to be any Good alignment, but we split the difference by requiring Neutral Good alignment for all such characters and it worked well enough.

On paper the Ranger always seemed like a fun class, but in actual play it was often hard to use the abilities effectively. Rangers might have really come alive in a wilderness-focused campaign like the West Marches hex crawls popular with the OSR crowd today, but in my experience at least few DMs back then ran wilderness campaigns and the TSR modules we used did not seem to offer great opportunities for stealthy characters. I can’t recall if any of our Rangers ever actually got the chance to use the iconic tracking ability at the table. Many of the 1E rules for stealth and perception used d6 mechanics that meshed poorly with the percentile dice used by Thieves, and I realize now that most of those d6 rules were probably holdovers from the ”white box” OD&D era.

None of us could ever figure out why the “giant class” enemy list had that name, since many of those monsters were Small or Medium size and that term was never used anywhere else in the rules. IIRC correctly Rangers were supposed to belong to some kind of circles or fellowships that organized their activities. That could have been the basis for quests or story hooks, but our games were not that sophisticated. When 2E came out we switched to the new edition and did not really look back, but in retrospect we could have used both the 1E and 2E Ranger rules together. The two rule sets could have represented two different groups with their own goals and training methods, like martial arts schools, e.g. “Wyrmwood Wardens” (1E rules) and “Trollbane Rangers” (2E rules with Trolls as favored enemies).

For some reason it never seems to come up much in discussion these days, but one class feature that impressed us back in the day was the hit dice. The 1E Ranger was a Fighter subclass that only got d8 hit dice instead of d10, but they got a unique perk: two HD at first level instead of the usual one. I don’t think this idea was ever used for any other classes, and the 2E PHB switched Rangers to more conventional d10 Hit Dice (among many other changes). High level Fighters and Paladins would usually pull ahead of the 1E Ranger on hit point totals, but in deadlier campaigns run by tougher DMs that early low-level survival advantage might have proven decisive. Our tables were not particularly deadly, but we still really liked this feature, particularly since we used the popular “max hit points at first level” house rule. I remember at least one attempt by someone whose Ranger had a high CON score trying to “rules lawyer” their way into getting their CON bonus applied twice at level 1, but the DM was not having it (and rightly so IMO). Thus a 1E Ranger could theoretically start with 20 hit points: d8 + d8 + 4 (18 CON).

Regarding the animal in the cover painting, it seems to be some kind of lorisoid primate like a loris or potto. Clyde Caldwell probably used a photo of one of those as a reference. In the real world they are nocturnal, arboreal, wooly-furred primates native to tropical Asia and Africa. This being is kitted out with a dagger, some pouches, and a fair amount of jewelry, so I think it is at least a magical familiar or more likely a sapient sidekick.

 

[Nikosandros]

For some reason it never seems to come up much in discussion these days, but one class feature that impressed us back in the day was the hit dice. The 1E Ranger was a Fighter subclass that only got d8 hit dice instead of d10, but they got a unique perk: two HD at first level instead of the usual one. I don’t think this idea was ever used for any other classes,

Tangent: Monks in AD&D 1e also have two hit dice at first level. It's 2d4, which is still quite terrible. I import a lot of features from the monk variant in Dragon 53 ("He's got a lot to kick about"), among those the d6 hit die.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I remember this one! Both because of the cover and the Gygax Ranger article. I liked rangers, but his rules were painful.

I recall the concern in my gaming group from this (and the Cavalier when it came out in From the Sorcerer's Scroll) because on the one hand it was "official" because it was handed down by Elder Gygax, but on the other hand was awkward to use, or just busted.