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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8460466" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 79: January 1993part 3/5Bestiary continues straight on from the adventure with a couple more Gamma World monsters. Even the plants can't be trusted once they have enough radiation in them.Claptraps are giant venus fly traps. They can blend surprisingly well into thick vegetation. Step on them and you'll have a very bad day being slowly digested unless you have friends to help get you out. Nothing too surprising really, but a pain nonetheless.Horl Ep are mutated pines that use their very pointy cones as missiles. If they get stuck in you, there's a distinct chance they'll germinate, which gives gives you short term fast healing as they boost your metabolism before a painful but  pleasantly pine fresh smelling chestburster situation takes place. People have tried to cultivate them to take advantage of this or their guarding properties, but it usually ends tragically. Whether Weyland-Yutani survived this particular apocalypse or not, the human impulses behind their business practices remain universal.The Living City: This month's instalment is not technically in Raven's Bluff, being a restaurant on a pier just outside the city limits. The Painted Boat is not technically a boat either, although it has appropriately nautical decor and serves a heavily seafood based menu. Since they're already bending a bunch of rules here, it's no surprise to find the place is run by a group of mid-level rogues (and a wizard) who are well equipped to settle things personally with any troublemakers without involving the city watch. The entertainment is similarly dubious, with plenty of animal fights, fire-breathers and other stuff that would fall afoul of regulations in the modern world. (no dancing bears though, as they wouldn't fit with the low ceilings) They also have an even more legally dubious side job as shipwreck salvagers, and are not above making the waters nearby even more hazardous with rocks & fake lighthouses so they have more wrecks to loot. That definitely gives PC's a reason to come into conflict with them if involved with legitimate trading & deliveries, or an example to follow if they're more underhanded sorts as well. So there's plenty of potential for interesting fights here, combining darkness & fog, unsteady shipboard footing and swimming in a way that would put unprepared PC's at a big disadvantage even if they're of the right level overall for the challenge. It's definitely on the nastier end of the locations in here, but that just makes it all the more useful, between the well developed NPC's and their new magical items. Without dangers, what are adventurers even for?The Living Galaxy: Roger is much more specific than usual, recommending science magazines Ad Astra, Astronomy and Discover as good sources of game ideas, and then going through their output from the past year for particular articles from each month. Amazingly enough, all three of these magazines are still going and have functional online archives, so you can actually get hold of the articles referenced legally even now. That definitely puts this in the above average category in terms of usability and is a reminder that not every company has a history as turbulent as TSR's. Science may make new discoveries as the years go by, but it doesn't often have edition wars where entire fields are discarded and replaced with new ones. Not that these magazines won't have their own eras of changing editorial focus, with connoisseurs being able to read through the archives and say which were good and bad years, (anyone out there willing to take on one of these as a Let's Read?) but the changes will be more in tone and formatting than whole new rulesets. This means they'll stay relevant and useful for longer. Nice to have another glimpse at the outside world in here.</blockquote>

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