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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4905486" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 139: November 1988part 2/5Where Wizards meet: Mage guilds. Given how tricky studying to be a spellcaster is, a tutor is obligatory. It'll be a long time before magic is ingrained enough to manifest spontaneously round these parts. So sharing the responsibility may not be as common as with thieves and clerics, but it's hardly rare. Here's another article on the idea. This is less concerned with the training of apprentices, and more with the social organization of working spellcasters. It includes a sample wizards guild, along with a map, and large quantities of setting detail. A long and elaborate article, this is a pretty good place to start from in designing your own, as it will probably need a bit of adaption to fit into an existing campaign. Pretty pleasing, as it's another good example of their improvement at building campaign worlds at this point. Bazaar of the Bizarre:  Back to the spellbooks this month, as they give us some more tricks for exceedingly powerful spellcasters. The book of black circles is a very interesting item indeed. With spells that allow you to detect magical potential in ordinary people, prevent them from advancing in magical power until they prove themselves worthy, and enforce a magical hierarchy, it is designed for a very particular kind of wizardly guild, and putting it in your game encourages a very particular kind of story. This is a strong thematic choice that may not be for every group, but is pretty cool, and definitely worth considering. Laendar's book of metamorphoses is rather more self-explanatory. A big spellbook full of shapeshifting magic, including two new spells, it also has an awkward curse that takes place slowly, and is exceedingly hard to get rid of. This is another one that makes for dramatic stories, as the transformations it can inflict take place slowly enough that a race against time quest to cure them is a very viable option. Both of these are definitely intended for games where roleplaying is more important than pure hack-and-slash combat optimization. Overall, a very pleasing entry, that feels very much in the upcoming 2E spirit. Speaking with the spirits: More call of cthulhu coolness here. Seances were rather popular around the turn of the last century, so of course Cthulhu by gaslight had some stuff on them written. But cutting for space happened yet again, and now their loss is the magazine's gain. Do you really want to sit in a circle and call up the dead when OOC, you know exactly what mind bending horrors lurk out there? Eh, you gotta go sometime. As this is CoC, you may not be dealing with the spirits of the dead at all, but insubstantial extradimensional horrors that'll take you over and use you for their own ends, and these get statted up for your use. As this is from an actual book, the quality of writing is pretty good, although thematically some of the elements don't mesh perfectly with the mythos setting. I suppose it depends how much of a purist you are. And it doesn't hurt to surprise people anyway in a milieu like this. Oh look - a harmless statue!: Now there's a phrase you'll never see an experienced group of adventurers say. They're almost as bad as skeletons for coming to life at awkward moments. So here's 30 ways that you can make your animated guardians a little less obtrusive. Recessed into walls, dressed up dummys, silly poses, many of these are rather amusing. This will of course have the long term effect of making your players even more paranoid. Generally, I'm rather fond of this kind of article, and this is no exception, as it also gives you plenty of ways you can mechanically customise your monsters. Another short article that'll give you hours of fun. Ars Magica! Now this is advancement. This is turning out to be a very good year indeed for new games. Fiction: The visitor by Llynne Moore. Hee. Bait and switch. Always a fun way to get people to remember you, if not always particularly favourably. So it goes here, in a story which builds the drama up and up, into purple prose territory, and then deflates in in one swift rush of humour at the end, with almost as much finesse as Harry Turtledove managed in issue 113. Which is pretty amusing to me, anyway. Taking things too seriously is one of the great dangers of writing, and mocking those who take themselves too seriously one of the great pleasures. Which this manages just fine, with lots of very D&D specific tropes mentioned. Woo. The new, Improved druid: Hmm. New druid powers? Interesting. In actual fact, this is a substantial nerf disguised as a power-up. Reducing the range of creatures you can shapeshift into? Codifying poison brewing abilities in a way that substantially reduces their power, and competely ignores the many non-damaging penalties you can inflict with chemicals. Spells which seem out of theme (druids do not manipulate undead. ) This is not a good article both in terms of mechanical and thematic design. I very strongly disapprove. One to avoid.</blockquote>

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