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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4632472" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 84: April 1984part 2/2Never the same thing twice: Rakshasas. One of the scariest and most flavourfull monsters in the game, thanks to their brutal resistances and highly customisable powers. Scott Bennie looks at them, and their mythical inspirations. Obviously, D&D couldn't fit them all into a single monster, but it actually hasn't done too bad a job this time at converting them to a coherent gameable form. Like Lunars, their reputation as illusionists somewhat exceeds the reality, and is based largely on their ability to disguise themselves. Still, if you enjoyed deceiving people, that kind of misrepresentation and manipulation is exactly what you'd do as well. We also get a load of new crunch in the form of two variant high power rakshasas, and their god, Ravanna. Another of those cases where the game, and it's foibles are illuminated, while still providing some useful and interesting stuff. And more evidence of their ability to better balance fluff and crunch. Which is cool.And then there were three: At last, the companion set. Frank Mentzer gives us a teaser for the players book of the high level. We also get the first mention of the fifth set to cover play beyond 36th level. Immortal level is on its way. Nice to see someone likes the idea of really high level play. Funny how BD&D ended up catering to that style so much better than AD&D. Anyway, he talks about settling down and building strongholds for the various classes, the new variant classes such as druids and paladins, and the interesting workaround demihumans get so they still improve after reaching maximum level, unarmed combat, and demihuman magic items. We see the odd mix of simplification, and putting his own spin on things from AD&D that these sets would contain. Like the top secret teasers, they definitely need to work on their selling technique. They're still a far cry from the well presented and paced reveals that the 3rd and 4th edition runups had. The twofold talisman: Another extra long adventure is detailed in these pages. However, as they just did a big one and doing that two issues in a row would probably result in complaints, they split it into two parts, putting 12 pages here, with the conclusion coming next month. This is very much a tournament module, with pregenerated characters, annoying fakeouts designed specifically to screw with player expectations, stupid jokes, (damn you monty python :shakes fist<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=":)" /> and no sense of realism to the environment at all. You should expect to die repeatedly and in very infuriating ways. Use with caution, for running it with your regular characters may result in very pissed off players. Fiction: Master of the winds by Sharon Lee. Another of those tales of testing the apprentice wizard, psychodrama stylee. We had one of those just last issue. Guess they're like busses. Don't see them for years, and suddenly a whole bunch of them come along at once. Thankfully the protagonist is a rather more pleasant character than Raistlin. Although her rival is not, and actually has quite a lot of parallels with him, which I find very amusing. This time, the good guys win, and the future looks fairly positive. Which is more than we can say for Krynn, with it's endless litany of narrowly averted world destroying disasters ahead. But enough about that. On it's own merits, this is another likable but unexceptional piece of fiction to read, enjoy and then use as inspiration for your own magical seekings, or just forget about, as you choose. Reviews: Secrets of the labyrinth is part two of the thieves guild stuff on the free city of haven. Annoyingly, they've dropped the loose-leaf format in the middle of the series, so you can no longer assemble the books into one bigger one when they're all out. It also requires quite a bit of buy-in to the gameline in general, due to lots of references to rules from other supplements. If you already like the gameline though, it's another solid addition to it, with plenty of setting details and adventure ideas. Chivalry & sorcery's new edition attempts to be more accessable than before. It may be an improvement, but it's certainly not enough of one, and their editing process leaves quite a bit to be desired. It's still a game with tremendous depth, possibly even more so than before. If you're an expert gamer who wants a better treatment of the medieval mileu than D&D can provide, try this. The mentzer ed D&D basic & expert sets also get a sycophanticly positive "review" This really does feel like a pure shill piece, with all the comments positive, and great attention paid on how friendly they are to new gamers. As much as I do like those same sets, I'm still pretty suspicious of this review. I understand that you want to sell your game, but you could at least pretend to be objective a bit better. Are's section. Are's log: So sci-fi is back in Dragon. This is pleasing, even if the method by which it returned isn't. Then again, they didn't have to do this. They could have just let the magazine die entirely. And at least this time they're transferring the subscriptions properly. Similarly, it looks like at least a few of the staff from the magazine have been transferred over as well. It's almost like a separate mini magazine. Which also means Roger gets to hone his editorial skills before he gets to take on a whole magazine on his own. So what have they got to offer. They've only got 16 pages to play with. Will they make the most of them? Lets take a look and see. The lunar high republic: Well, it looks like they haven't abandoned their ambitions, in any case. They're planning on doing a series of pieces on the moon in various game universes and future histories. Just how many ways can an airless lump of white rock be developed? I'm betting quite a few. First up is the moon of the Space Opera game. Having been repressed by earth in it's early year, it rebelled, and is now fiercely independent, despite the infrastructure needed for survival. Dueling is an entirely de rigeur means of settling disagreements, and the generally pretty liberal laws are enforced fast and without ceremony. It all seems a bit of a mary sue writeup, really, as the author goes to pains to make it clear how much better things are than on earth in almost every respect. If this was an in-game perspective, this would be forgivable, but as a supposedly objective write-up, this makes me suspicious. Is this typical of the game's attitude in general, or a flaw of this writer in particular? The zethra: Oh no! said Edward Greenwood. They have cancelled Ares magazine. Whatever shall I do now?! I can't write nothing but D&D stuff all the time, I'd go quite mad. And what's going to happen to the article I sent in just last month? Don't say it's just going to be lost forever. Don't worry, said Roger Moore. We wouldn't let you down like that. We've saved it, and we'll publish it in Dragon Magazine. Hooray! said Edward Greenwood. You guys are the best friends ever. And so everyone was happy again, and they all went and had pancakes with maple syrup for tea. Anyway, where was I. The zethra are weird tentacled blob things. Seems like one of the standard sci-fi things people come up with when trying to get away from the standard humanoid body model. These ones come from the Xagyg ( <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=";)" /> ) cluster, and shoot energy bolts. I'm really not enthralled, as they have an air of self-concious wackiness about them. When told to say something random, the average person will say Fish! Bad taste is represented by combining purple and green, and the random number is usually 7. So decorate the amorphous blob's room with 7 little flying fish models painted green with purple spots, and you have the wackiest setup ever. Malkav would be proud. Starfire, gaming x3: Oh, now this is more like it. 3 quick sets of optional rules to include or not, as you see fit. Rules to speed up the movement process, and allow for simultaneous actions. That'll certainly ramp up the drama. Rules for facing and the advantage you get for catching someone from the rear. Hee. And if you want something a little more complicated, you can introduce 3d positioning, including the pythagorean mathematics needed to determine diagonal distances. Ai carumba. I think I'll pass on that one. Still this is a useful little set of ideas, and it's nice to see non RPG's get some small amount of coverage again. I've found this the most likable of the articles in the section. It's the only one that doesn't seem to be trying too hard. Lets hope they settle in soon. It might be a bit cramped, but at least it's homey and the companies good. Snarfquest does some shapeshifting. What's new gets fired. Well, at least they go out with a bang, very literally, as that means it's time for sex in D&D. We also get a proper postscript. Talanan goes monty haul. Wormy reveals the dark side of wargaming with real figures and long postage times. They really oughta get proper life insurance for this. What are raise spells for, otherwise. A nice full colour advert for D1: Dragons of dispair. Looks like they're going to push this one hard. They already have the flashy logo for the world done. And once again dragon magazine goes through some substantial changes this issue, mostly for the better. The ares section might have got off to a shaky start, but it's still a very interesting development, and I look forward to seeing what they have to offer over the next couple of years. Hopefully things'll settle down for a bit after the madness of the last few months. If the format changed every month, it could hardly be called a format. I guess it's more interesting than things being essentially the same for years though.</blockquote>

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