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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5232514" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 190: February 1993part 1/6124 pages. As the cover hints, it's time to go out on the ocean wave again. Although not that much, as it's only 2 connected features, barely worth calling a special. Still, better that than letting some crap ones in just to use as padding. Hopefully they'll have room for plenty of other interesting stuff in the issue instead. In this issue:Gnomes and halflings have to share a splatbook? Shows you the low regard people have for them <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> Low regard, Gettit? <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=";)" /> I prove my own point. Letters: Some questions about Yamara. Roger goes to the source and gets answers that are a bit silly. But you wouldn't have it any other way, really. A whole bunch of letters from people who did remember what the Thendar were. Roger is suitably chastened that other people know more about his magazine than him. I guess when you have to make deadline each month, you don't get much time to look back and reflect on the past. This leads neatly into a request for people to make an index for the magazine themselves. Since you have so much free time and we don't. <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" /> Cheeky muppet. Oh well, at least there's some money to be made here. And finally, a correction by Lester Smith re one of their recent book reviews. Oh, cruel fate, that misattributes me so! Yeah, getting the recognition you deserve's a bitch. Editorial: Ha. This month, Roger talks about the adventures that got planned, but never carried out. You spend hours and hours building a scenario, and then the players go the wrong way, or the group breaks up, and it all goes to waste. Sometimes you can reuse the work later, but others, the scenario is designed specifically around your player's quirks, and just one of them dropping out turns it into a mess. Such a pain. And then there are the idle fantasies for a game in a system you never get to run, which also gets quite a bit of attention here. There is a lot of goofy crap in here, and I can see why they wind up not happening. Roger does have one bit of good advice though. Don't hoard your ideas, talk about them. It increases the odds that you'll be able to bring them to fruition, for they might suggest modifications that you can bounce off, or they might like the idea enough to help you get a group together to actually play. Working alone is far more tedious and depressing than involving your friends. Another fairly entertaining and somewhat useful editorial that actually covers a topic they haven't done an article on. Monsters of the deep: Not exactly a standard bestiary entry, here we have an odd grab-bag of new monsters and adaptions of existing ones, mostly using abbreviated statblocks. Giant eels, super otters ( <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ) giant turtles, colossal tadpoles and a whole bunch of variants upon the saurian and whale body forms. Whatever their origins, they're big scary sea monsters that can mess your ship right up, and quite possibly swallow you whole. They're the subject of many real world legends, including, of course, Nessie. Yes, the Loch Ness monster finally gets stats in Dragon! That's an amusing turnup for the books, and definitely ups my rating for this article. With both plenty of subtle humour and a good bibliography, this is a very readable article that manages to venture somewhere new for the magazine and give you directions on how to take a cryptozoological campaign further. I think this is a pretty good way to start an issue. Deep beneath the waves: From a reasonably amusing upper to rather a downer, as we get an obituary for the writer of this article just before it. While not quite as sad as Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's death in '86, as they don't have a load of previous articles for us to get attached by, there is a very definite sense of wasted potential here. This is both pretty well researched, tackling the real world physical issues of going underwater, the fantastical solutions to those, and the magical creatures and weirdness that could be added down there for your adventurers to encounter. Metallic precipitation, geothermal flows, bizarre creatures, there's both challenges and treasures aplenty to be found down there. With giant tube worms and clams among the new monsters, this once again has slightly amusing elements that help sweeten the extensive footnotes and bibliography. As with the last article, this is pretty good, and together I think they do actually add up to a solid special feature. Just don't keep losing writers, or you'll never keep this up <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/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> The ecology of the actaeon: Yet another departure from usual Ecology protocol, we have a BD&D specific monster this month. That is fairly pleasing. Is Bruce's effort finally paying off? Anyway, in terms of actual format, as well as writing, this is a return to classic ecology style, revealing the nature and powers of the creature, and telling a little morality tale at the same time. Given all the powerful supernatural creatures protecting nature, you can barely collect firewood without running into them. I guess you need them to balance out the ridiculous number of apex predators D&D worlds also have to cope with. Anyway, this is a solidly entertaining, yet not particularly ground-breaking ecology. I do miss the days when Ed contributed a new one virtually every month, throwing new lights on creatures and filling in little bits of realmslore as well.</blockquote>

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