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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4608759" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 76: August 1983part 1/2100 pages. Lots of big features in this one, too. Our second big index, and the conclusion of the nine hells article. Unfortunately, they're stopping doing sci-fi stuff for the forseeable future, as they want to give Ares magazine some room and set different niches for the two. After all, they have to do something with all those SPI properties they have lying around. Which means while they may be devoting more space to it somewhere, I'm not going to get to see it. As ever, anyone else who wants to start a reading thread on that would be welcomed. In this issue: Out on a limb: Another letter saying the computer program they gave us doesn't work on their machine. Given how many variations on computer code there are running around at the moment, that's understandable. Maybe we ought to give this one up. It really doesn't seem worth the effort. A letter criticizing their language articles. Real languages aren't remotely as logically derived (see, I told you so) from culture. Plus even 8 pages is nowhere near enough to make a language properly usable. The vocabulary just isn't there. A letter by michael gray further following up on the PbP clarifications he received last issue. Correspondence has been sent. Misconceptions cleared up. Isn't that great. Two letters criticizing the amount of advertising and promotional material in the magazine. Kim of course reminds them they need that stuff so they can afford to fill the rest of the pages with useful stuff, and the amount of that each issue is expanding as well. You'll have to tolerate the commercial considerations, because there's no getting away from them. We are not a charity. The ecology of the beholder: Now here's a monster that certainly needs some rationalizing. And as it's such a big task, both Ed and Roger contribute to it. The results are not as impressive as you'd think, they obviously were not very inspired when they wrote this one. Oh well. You can't hit a home run every time. It's still fairly solid as a piece of fiction. And the amount of actual ecology is increasing as well, with dietary, reproductive, and tactical considerations mentioned. Because if any creature will slaughter a bunch of adventurers that just wade in with swords swinging and spells blasting, it's a beholder. You want lots of hirelings with ranged attacks to take the brunt of those rays. You need to take advantage of your superior speed. You need to surround them so they can't anti-magic everyone. Etc etc. And you should still expect to lose quite a few people in the battle. Just be thankful there aren't any social beholder variants like the ones that'll turn up in spelljammer yet. Leomund's tiny hut: Len gives us a new NPC class, the death master. Necromancy specialists, and all that goes with it, plus some amusing experience tables (gaining xp for digging graves and embalming bodies, fnarr.) For all his exhortations about never allowing it as a PC, it's probably actually less powerful than a regular wizard or druid. But then, this isn't about power, it's about morals. Len seems to be part of the brigade that thinks PC's should never be evil, and assassins shouldn't be allowed as a PC class. Which surprises me less than you might think. My love of PvP is pretty public, so this is one thing I'll probably have to complain about quite a bit, particularly when the morals brigade really take over around the 2nd ed changeover. But then, they did a lot of stupid things then. Thankfully I can pick the bits I like and ignore the ones I don't. Figure feature gives us a titan, elves riding bumblebees, a bard, an assassin, a magic-user, a barbarian riding a giant owl, and a demon rising from a well this month. You'll be unlikely to get to use those in a game too often, unless you skew the encounter tables a bit. The nine hells: Layers 6-9 get the spotlight upon them in the second part of this feature. Once again, Ed's descriptions of both the landscape and denizens are exemplary, giving us a great picture of just how unpleasant an afterlife there is for pretty much everyone, even the high-ups. As these are the lower levels, there is less focus on the tormenting of damned souls, and more on the devilish inhabitants, and the way they treat one-another here. Everyone is subject to seemingly arbitrary <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> in the name of various schemes, or sometimes just out of general sadism. There is also a surprising amount of sexism, as all the Lords are male, and have female consorts. (all statted out, yay, but relatively weak for the political power they wield, hmm.) I guess that's what they consider the proper order of things, since gender for beings like that is interchangeable as part of their promotions and demotions anyway. And you know they're big on order. Discipline me now mistress. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> It ends with spells in the hells, another tedious list of how magic spells, items, character abilities, etc etc are changed while you're there. So it's still not perfect, being very much a product of its times. But it is a fascinating read, that is in many ways better than the Baator book in Planes of Law. This is definitely stuff I'd use in game, as it provides the rich cast that a place full of scheming politickers with a web of alegences and grudges between them needs. Can you figure out how to take advantage of their personal quirks and come out ahead? Have fun trying, and don't take it too hard if your characters get sent to eternal torment. It's just a game, and you can't win all the time. The dragon index gets it's second epic outing, filling up the middle of the issue. They've altered the format a bit to keep it from getting too large, but there's still several different ways you can find each thing. And it looks nice as well. That should come in handy. The palladium fantasy roleplaying game. Over 20 classes, 290 spells, 13 races, etc etc. Only their second advert, and they're already pretty close to the style and layout that they use to this day. Some things just never change. Kinda reassuring, really.  Saved by the cavalry!: Even having excised the sci-fi stuff, at least they still fit some non D&D bits in the magazine, thankfully. We get info on the cavalry and other soldiers for boot hill, in case lone cowboys are getting boring. This includes rules for making them available as PC's, who have both advantages and disadvantages compared to regular PC's. Not sure if they balance out, and the social restrictions of being under command by high ranking NPC's may cause problems, but it's a good idea anyway. After all, who doesn't love leading a bunch of fight, er, soldiers, to kill some marauding orcs, er, indians <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=";)" /></blockquote>

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