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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5474941" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 223: November 1995part 7/8Here we see this years statement of ownership. And in the past year, it seems they've shed another eight and a half thousand readers, with an average of 71, but a last month total of 68. They haven't sold this little since 1981. The number of free copies given out also continues to increase, although they obfuscate that by splitting it between free posted stuff, and stuff given away to in house staff, at cons, etc. Ahh, nepotism, freebies and bonuses. Another thing that seems harmless, but can bleed a company dry if not kept in check. The right monster for the right adventure: Call of Cthulhu coverage comes to an end with a rather long article on choosing what adversaries to throw at your players. There are now a lot of mythos beasties out there, and they have very different abilities and habitats. You need to keep track of that is you want to maintain a sense of reality. So this is mainly adventure hooks, with a little bit of ecologising thrown in. I'm not sure if it's aimed at experienced GM's who are dry on ideas for a session, or newbies who maybe haven't read the original book too extensively, (which isn't hard given that it's now an open universe with all manner of different authors adding to it without any kind of central clearing house. ) but it does seem useful, and packs a lot of information into it's page count. It has a surprisingly large number of decent illustrations as well. It all makes for a classy and elegiac goodbye for coverage of third party games. So long, eldritch mind-shattering horrors. We no longer practice affirmative action employment for your sorts. <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=";)" /> Don't let the door hit you on the way out. <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=":(" />Floyd is indeed in over his head, and narrowly escapes becoming dinner. This wizard gig isn't all it's cracked up to be. Fiction: Winter's Knight by Mark Anthony. Dragonslaying time again. It seems almost an anachronism these days, with the things given so much weight, but rarely encountered in actual games. And interestingly this story takes advantage of that tendency, presenting dragons and the knights that hunt them as in decline, and the kingdom suffering from this fact. The twist here is that the dragons, as forces of tremendous vitality, bring renewal to the land when their blood spills upon it. Which leaves the story open for a happy ending of the kind you don't get to see in reality, without it feeling unduly given or a deus ex machina. Since we've been having quite a bit of darkness lately, that is a fairly welcome contrast. Plus it feels thematically appropriate given the recent release of Birthright. The fiction is maintaining it's usual high standards quite comfortably despite the troubles around them, just like the ecologies. Libram X reaches a climax. Possibly. It's certainly progressed a lot faster than most of these comics. Dragonmirth features PETA girl. No, seriously. And no, she isn't hot either, before you ask. Swordplay features things from the point of view of the monsters. Only don't call them that. Persey has to get the hang of being human in Yamara. An interview with the Dragonlance team: Dragonlance has had rather a lot of embarrassing episodes in it's history when you sit down and look at it. Some of them were intentional, while others really weren't. But they don't shy from either in this interview, acknowledging both that new books may piss off longterm readers, and that the writers have made terrible mistakes that ought to have been spotted in editing, as well as revealing how banal and whimsical many of the inspirations for characters and events were. I'm not sure if they're trying to sell us on or off the setting, given how mixed the messages being sent are. In any case, they're being honest, which does count for quite a bit. I guess it's like a family. Everyone knows that jimmy's had a drug problem for years, and mum's having an affair with the gardener, but they still stick together and stay civil because they still love each other and the alternative is worse. And the soap opera provides interesting gossip for the whole neighbourhood. Which means this is an advert for their big things to come, that also shows us just how goofy and flawed Krynn is. Yet it still holds together somehow and has millions of fans. They must be doing more right than they are wrong. So this remains intriguing yet frustrating reading. I do wish I could stomach this setting.</blockquote>

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