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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5018947" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 159: July 1990part 1/6116 pages. Looks like we have a spelljammer special this time. It's been out for almost a year, and doesn't seem too unpopular. And good multi-pronged marketing is the cornerstone of sustained growth and public awareness. Let's push these products, build the profile of the brand, and maybe produce some good material while we're at it. In this issue:Letters: A letter asking about LARPing. Funny you should mention that. We've just done another article on it. A letter pointing out how much paper the average gaming group uses, and asking about TSR's environmental policies. Again, they may not have done much on that in the past, but they're busy getting on this bandwagon. Expect more preachy off-topic adverts. And a gameworld tailor made as a soapbox for ecopreaching. (Dark Sun <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) A letter full of good old fashioned scattershot questions. Roger replies with his usual combination of diplomacy and whimsy. Course, that doesn't soften the fact that Gamma world is dead again. Oh well. Sales will be sales. Editorial: Another regular topic of letters gets Roger's attention this month. The damn morality in fantasy arguments. Here he decides to make the stand, and say, yes, you should judge them by our standards of morality. It may be a bit dodgy, and won't stop the flamewars, but it's less of a headache that way. So much for making roleplaying an immersive experience. Or is the heyday of that still to come? Anyway, this is considerably less fun than the demonic debate, and it's less likely to go away after a while as well. I do believe it's time I zoned out on this one. The forum is likely to have a load more of this as well. Rough times on refuge: Ed Greenwood once again proves eager to try new things, and also demonstrate Spelljammer's potential as a crossover setting, taking the lead in this issue's themed section. The whimsy is high in this one, as he creates a new moon and surrounding crystal sphere for you to explore and be killed by. The Arcane feature strongly, and we actually get to see a bit of what they get up too "at home" for a change rather than endless inscrutability. Ed is as usual, the master of worldbuilding, giving us in a few pages a place with plenty of room for both wilderness adventuring and city based intrigue, and a whole bunch of sample characters and hooks. This is great fun to read, and along with the Buck Rogers stuff a couple of issues ago, reminds us just how broad his range is. The Realms is now big enough to take care of itself, which gives him more room to play around with other people's stuff. Not that they could stop him, as I suspect he comes up with all sorts of bits and pieces that wouldn't fit in with his full books. A pretty promising start. Bazaar of the Bizarre: Our second article continues the Elminster goes into space theme. Steven Schend establishes one of his off-world contacts, and uses that as a framing device for unearthing (unspacing?) their latest collection of new toys. Nice to see them getting into character.  Atmosphere cloaks let you breathe in space temporarily. Overall, they're probably not as useful as a ring of survival, but hey, what is? Boots of star striding let you walk on a gravity plane even if there's nothing solid to support you. Now that's only going to be useful in very limited situations. Orbus rings are made from beholders, and let nonspellcasters use a helm, or spellcasters move one faster. Finally, a practical use for the bastards. Now, the tricky part is getting hold of some. Cabinets of air restoration do exactly what they say on the tin. They only have limited charges, so you can't explore space forever on one. On the plus side, you can cannibalize your other items to power it, so lengthy sargasso sea scenarios become an option. Just the thing to deplete a party that's got overpowered and overconfident. Cloaking helms let your ships imitate the Romulans. This is of course immensely useful, and immensely expensive. You could bankrupt a country for one of these. No wonder space travel is always going to be a tool of the elite.  Everfull Casks give you 5 gallons of water a day. Compared to the decanter of endless water, that's pretty pathetic. You take what you can get. Figureheads of wonderous power go on the front of your ship and buff it. Cloaking, speed, resilience, it's easy enough to convert human scale magic items to these rules. Course, you'll need a ship first, or you'll have to sell it on. Guess it's like getting barding in a treasure hoard. Griffons Claws are automated grappling hooks. A rather prosaic trick, but obviously useful all over the place. And with a range optimised for space battle, they should be able to handle any distance you encounter while dungeoneering. Mage shot is a bunch of alchemical thingies that you can load into your cannon for special effects when you shoot enemy ships. Like the array of special arrows, this is always handy tactically, if expensive to restock. Oil of fire stilling makes your ship fire retardant. Unfortunately it has a limited and unpredictable duration, and gets less useful with repeated uses. Sounds like a good Arcane scam to keep the money rolling in. Blackjammer's Cutlass is an intelligent cutlass that makes you into a stereotypical pirate. Arr. That be little change in behaviour for most adventurers. And methinks they will respond heartily to the idea of doing a little acting like this. Now all ye need is a good ship. The Gauntlet of Tamus once again showcases their goofy sense of humour. It goes boom when you punch things. Unfortunately, it catches you in the explosion. This does not deter the Giff, who virtually epitomize big tough dumb macho guy. What ho! Let's get out there and boff some of those bally Scro! Pillocks. So yeah, with the combination of weaker versions of existing stuff, things that will only be useful in very limited situations, and lots of irritating whimsy, this is one of the least useful of these collections I've come across so far. Looks like the things that will be this setting's downfall are already very much present. Sigh.</blockquote>

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