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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5430997" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 218: June 1995part 8/8From the forge: Straight into the reviews, trying to fit as many as they can into the limited space again. A mummy pegasus trying to get her foal to fly the nest, which is thoroughly adorable. A pegacorn, that symbol of mary-sues everywhere. An interestingly coloured griffon with rather impressive wings. Some Gnashings from 5th cycle. Look like fairly generic humanoids to me. Similarly, orcs riding big scaly warbeast thingies isn't surprising after a good helping of warhammer. A chunky spiky earth dragon and a slim, curvy air dragon, both with humanoid companions. A heavily armored cyclops with a helmet that may well restrict it's vision a little further. Two different wyverns, one looking up and to the side, and the other looming over something prey-like. And finally, two wemics and a ki-rin, filing in the officially licensed D&D monsters. Well, they are some of the more attractive creatures out there. Guess it's the shiny end of fantasy that wins out this time. TSR Previews: A truly scary 13 products released this month. I think that's a new record. 4, count 'em, are for Birthright. Even the forgotten realms never enjoyed this sheer short term onslaught of releases. As well as the core boxed set, there's Blood enemies: Abominations of Cerillia; The Endier domain pack, and The Roesone domain pack. Whoosh. Are you ready to take command, and face up to enemies as singular and connected to the land as your party? If they keep up this pace, you'd better learn the ropes fast. The Realms certainly isn't sluggish though, with it's usual one-two punch of gamebook and novel. Spellbound expands on Thay, Rashemen and Aglarond. Have they recovered by now from the horde invasion of a decade ago? What secret magics do their rulers command for the PC's to take once they've killed them? Ed Greenwood is also busy telling his own stories of what Elminster was up too recently, in Cloak of Shadows. What looked like a big crisis was actually an even bigger crisis. Is it any wonder he has to get other adventurers to help save the world? Planescape releases The Factol's Manifesto. Join now and work your way up for even greater benefits. Your philosophy can do as much for you as you can for it. Especially if you become a god. Now that's something to aspire too. Another tremendously pretty book with plenty of experimental elements. Mystara revisits another ancient module in style in Mark of Amber. Like House of Strahd, it's twice the size of the original, and it also has a CD full of atmosphere building bits and pieces. Can it top it for excitement though? Dark Sun compiles the many many changes the past 4 years of metaplot have made in Beyond the Prism Pentad. Have they ruined it forever for you yet? Dragonlance, on the other hand, goes back in time rather further than usual, to tell the story of the fall of the Irda. Linda P. Baker is in charge of this one. Will there be any new spins on what we've already seen in the books?Generic stuff is also big this month. First up, we have Players Option™: Combat and Tactics. Boo hiss spit. I had a very ..... visceral reaction against this when it was first released, and even now, in hindsight, the idea of point buy twinkery still seems better done in something like GUPS or BESM. The other two releases are pretty unexceptional though. Thief's challenge II lets you have more low level solo fun. Castle Sites gives you more floorplans so you can generate adventures quickly. Try the new or rehash the old? Funny how I've actually got less conservative since then. Not nearly as fun as last birthday, this issue shows that they are continuing to slip in both quality, and choice of what they cover. It's all very tiresome, with the generic bits going round and round, and the new developments mostly being bad ones. And with the new people in charge promising to shake things up, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be even more problems for quite a while before things start to get better. Who will provide a light in this darkness? Bugger. Guess It's going to have to be me again, isn't it.</blockquote>

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