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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4585806" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 66: October 1982part 2/2And a second article on languages. The author creates a possible language tree to show how the various D&D languages could be related. Fantasy philology: And another one, which also gives various eases of learning related languages to your current ones. Like weapon proficiency groups, this may be realistic, but it's also a considerable amount of extra crunch which you only want to use in a game focussed upon the subject. Old dwarvish is still new to scholars: Another article that gives us some specific details on a fantasy language. The writer steals liberally from tolkien to give us the basics of dwarvish grammar. Which is pretty much as you would expect, given their established personality traits. Meh. Leomund's tiny hut: This month, Len gives us stats for a load more (almost) natural animals. Compsognathus and euparkia, adorable mini dinosaurs. Vultures and hawks. A whole host of stats for miniature animals, to counterbalance all the dire ones and give low level characters a fair chance. Skeletons for the above. And in a stroke of genius, the carnivorous flying squirrel. Combined with the amusing illustration, this is the best thing he's come up with ever. What's more terrifying than a swarm of these leaping onto you, each taking off a little chunk of flesh and then scurrying away with it? The only thing that's really in the same league are giant space hamsters. I an definitely using these when I get a chance. Up on a soapbox: Individuals are important, and can make a difference to the flow of world history. While the truth of this statement can be debated in the real world, it should definitely be the case in your games, particularly for the PC's. Otherwise what's the point in playing? So let them rock. Not a particularly exceptional or controversial position, really. Off the shelf: The coming of the horseclans by Robert Adams is a reprint of the first book in what sems to be the reviewers favourite series. It goes without saying that he wants you to get it. The iron dream by Norman Spinrad is another reprint. It tells the story of what could have happened if hitler had decided to become a novelist and emigrated to america instead of taking over germany. Which certainly sounds interesting. Mallworld by Somtow Sucharitkul (now there's a hard name to write right. ) pokes fun at humanities current foibles via extrapolative sci-fi. The earth-shaker by Lin Carter is another novel in the Prince zarkon series. The liberal stealing from various pulp stories continues. The wrath of khan by Vonda N McIntyre is of course the novelisation of the latest star trek movie. Of course, the novel format means you get to see inside the characters heads, as well as some stuff that was cut from the final version of the movie. Which makes it a worthwhile complement to the film. Collected fantasies by Avram Davidson is a collection of whimsical short stories. Can dentists save the world from alien invaders? Stranger things have happened.Bolo by Keith Laumer is another load of short stories, this one telling the tales of giant, self powered super-tanks and what happens when they refuse to be shut down after the war is over.Erasmus Magister by Charles Sheffield blends real history and fiction cleverly, making legends seem plausible.Death, edited by Stuart David Schiff is a compilation of stories from Whispers magazine about , well, you can guess from the title. It goes from comedy to horror, as real deaths do. Black easter and The day after judgement by James Blish are two books in a series. Bored billionaire unleashes all the demons of hell. Concequences happen. No-one ends up happy. You'd think people would learn from other peoples mistakes. But no. Still, it makes for entertaining reading, and gets praise for the consistency of its science and magic. Merchanters luck by C.J. Cherryh follows on from downbelow station. Once again, this reviewers favourite gets plenty of praise for its characterization and plotting. The dragon's augury: Star Smuggler is a solo sci-fi adventure game. Can you make enough to pay off the loan on your starship before it gets reposessed. You'll have to work fast and take risks. This is obviously in the same vein as the fighting fantasy books, if a bit more complex. The reviewer certainly seems to like it. We'll be seeing plenty more of these in the coming years. An open letter to rick loomis: Ahh, joy. It's another amusing case of Gary airing his dirty laundry in public. (or quite possibly the same one referred to obliquely earlier) This is amusing. What are we to do with these bickering games companies? Not much we can do really unless we invent time travel, so lets just enjoy the show and see how it gets followed up on. Friends in high places: A jokey minific from Roger Moore. What is the ultimate source of ultimate power that nothing else in the game can match up to? Read on to find out. And then bitch about it in forums, because it's so unfair. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> What's new talks about building your own dungeon in real life. Wormy has lots of arcane language stuff that is diliberately incomprehensible. Seems to be a lot of articles on recurring themes and series this month. Combined with the continuing real life drama, this makes it most interesting in context, particularly since a big chunk of the issue was pretty dull on its own merits. The average quality definitely seems to be on a downswing at the moment. Lets hope they can pull out of this soon.</blockquote>

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