IMAGINE Adventure Games Magazine Index

[Echohawk]

To fill a small gap in the monster indices, here are all the creatures from the 31 issue run of TSR UK's Imagine magazine. Imagine ran from April 1983 to September 1985, with a special compilation issue published in late 1984.

• 5 - Mountain Hag
• 11 - Full Warhorse
• 12 - Canopic Shade
• 15 - Marsh Dragon (Draco Fatalus Plagues)
• 15 - Wrigglies
• 17 - Weremice, Giant Partridge, Aughisky (Water-horse), Birch Tree Spirit, Faerie
• 19 - Gem Hylem, Rock Totem, Black Widow Totem, Bone Golem, Bronze Golem, Rag Golem, Sand Golem, Wood Golem
• 21 - China Dolls
• 22 - Greater Vampires: Lord, Arch-Lord, Princeling, Prince, Arch-Prince
• 23 - Headless Horseman (Rider and Mount), Revenant-Magna, The Gebbeth
• 25 - Agta (Demon), Batibat (Demon), Tikbalang (Demon), Aswang, Mansalauan, Segben, Mantabungal
• 26 - Undead Parrot
• 29 - Taumet

 

[Garnfellow]

Bizarre. I was just thinking last week that an index just like this would be useful. Nice work!

For those who don't know, Imagine was sort of a sister publication to Dragon, edited by Don Turnbull. Many of the early writers from White Dwarf moved over to Imagine for its run.

I don't have issue 25 -- can you tell me a little bit about the article that had all those monsters?

 

[Echohawk]

Sure. All of the creatures from issue #25 are from "Monsters from the Folklore of the Philippines" by Graeme Davis. The first three creatures (agta, batibat and tikbalang) are filipino demons, which are "creatures of a highly magical nature rather than inhabitants of another plane". The remaining creatures are the aswang (a human looking woman who becomes a hag-like humanoid monster at night), the segben (a hornless goat with glowing eyes and large ears), the mansalauan (a flying creature which is a cross between a hawk and a bat, with a reptilian head, monkey's arms and woman's hair for a tail) and the mantabungal (a tusked, yak-like bovine). The last page of the article provides filipino names for standard D&D creatures, as well as descriptions of minor variations found in the folklore of the Philippine Islands.

Garnfellow, if you like, I can scan the article and mail it to you. Drop me a mail if this sounds like a plan.

 

[Garnfellow]

Garnfellow, if you like, I can scan the article and mail it to you. Drop me a mail if this sounds like a plan.

Thanks for the offer, but I actually think I have that issue now that you've been kind enough to jog my memory.

 

[Shade]

Cool. I'd never even heard of the magazine, and now I find out it contained other official monsters.

 

[BOZ]

Bizarre. I was just thinking last week that an index just like this would be useful. Nice work!

For those who don't know, Imagine was sort of a sister publication to Dragon, edited by Don Turnbull. Many of the early writers from White Dwarf moved over to Imagine for its run.

I don't have issue 25 -- can you tell me a little bit about the article that had all those monsters?

are you going to put any conversions on your site? much like the old White Dwarf issues, i'm doubtful that i'll ever even see a copy of Imagine!

 

[Garnfellow]

I will, though not many of those monsters really grabbed me -- many of these are jokey monsters. I am very curious now whether this birch tree spirit is the same as, similar to, or different than the White Dwarf one.

 

[Echohawk]

They are different creatures. The birch spirit in White Dwarf #28 (by C N Cartmell) is the soul of a murdered dryad, and looks like an incorporeal hag with long twig-like fingers. The birch tree spirit in Imagine #17 (in "Tir Nan Og" by Chris Barlow) is, well, the spirit of a birch tree bound into the service of a druid or magic-user. It appears as an amorphous white cloud.