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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5097011" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 172: August 1991part 2/6The dragon's bestiary: Biclops are two-headed Cyclops. A bit goofy, but that's what you get when cyclopses and ettins interbreed. They might not have depth perception problems, but neither of their parents are very smart, so they won't be developing missile weapons any time soon. They shouldn't be hard for tactically inclined players to deal with. Averx, on the other hand, are another small trickery-prone humanoid. Only a lot tougher, smarter and more magically capable than Kobolds, mites or jermalaine. If played with the full intelligence their stats imply, they could easily humiliate name level adventurers and take their stuff. Muahaha, etc. Cushion fungus are one of those things that demonstrate why it's a good idea to dungeon delve in large groups. Threats like this, which will only kill the party if everyone succumbs to their sweet velvety lure and goes to sleep in them have their danger reduced exponentially the more people there are around making saving throws, as you can rescue the others easily enough. Another decent enough bit of screwage. The ecology of the Galeb duhr: Seems like dramatic stories are returning to this series. Also seems like for all dwarves connection to the earth, there are dozens of monsters even more linked with it, some to the point of dying if the link is broken.  Such as the Galeb Duhr. Fortunately, as long as you don't mess up their landscape, you're unlikely to even know they're here, and if you're careful, you can co-exist with them. Another ecology that takes pains to point out that these guys work best if you use your head, with powers designed to make use of the environment, softening up and trapping the enemies rather than fighting them directly. It also includes a new spell to allow PC's to emulate one of the new abilities they're granted here. Which when all added together, makes this a well above average ecology. It's good to cover plenty of bases, and making it good for PC's, allies and enemies fits that bill. Role-playing reviews: More superheroes stuff this month. Both Marvel and DC seem to be rolling out the supplements. This may or may not be a good thing. Let's see what Allen Varney thinks this month. Marvel superheroes basic set revised gets a rather negative review, being less fun to read than the old edition, and also concentrating too much on fighting over storytelling. It's not a great help in creating stories that work like the comics, and the layout doesn't appeal to him either. Like the new D&D basic set, it doesn't look like this is going to be bringing in lots of new players. Ouch. He's not in a good mood today. This should be fun. The uncanny x-men campaign set gets a dismissive few lines. It's nearly pure stats, hardly any characterisation info at all. Obviously only useful if you're already a comics buff. As do the Justice league sourcebook, The new titans sourcebook and the Swamp thing sourcebook. Churned out formulaic drek! Virtually impossible to review! I've felt like that sometimes. No sugarcoating here. Not quite as entertaining as Spawn of Fashan, but this is one of the most vicious review sections ever done here. What's brought this on? The watchman sourcebook, on the other hand gets a good result, as it tries to emulate the format of it's source material, with reasonable success. This obviously took more effort than a simple cut and paste job. Alan Moore would still probably not approve though. Kingdom of champions shows he's deliberately saved the best until last. Phil Masters doesn't churn out licenced property crap, but a well thought out supplement about the UK for the HERO system. Full of both real detail and cool invented stuff, it goes well beyond the call of duty. And so another writer comes to the attention of many. We also get some interesting mini-reviews. The Tome of Magic gets drooled over, with Allen accurately realising this is going to be a mainstay of many people's gaming for years to come. Rick Swan's Complete guide to Roleplaying gets his awe for it's incredible comprehensiveness. Someone even more immersed in gaming than me? Gobsmacking! But can he keep up with all the new releases? <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=";)" /> The challenge is on! Since Rick will also review for Dragon in the future, I find that very amusing. And we also discover that OGRE was Allen's gateway drug into roleplaying. We are learning a surprising amount about him. Before we know it, he'll feel like another one of the family.</blockquote>

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