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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glyfair" data-source="post: 2881449" data-attributes="member: 53">Starting where the missing thread left hope (with fingers crossed that it will eventually be recoverable):The Dragon  #14 May 1978<img src="http://paizo.com/image/product/magazine_issue/dragon/14/cover_120.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />We have a very spacey science fiction oriented cover.  The blurbs proclaim "TD in Orbit:  Space Marines, Robot Players in MA, Lycanthropy in D&D."Dragon Rumbles this issue announces that this is the end of the secon publishing year.  The editorial spends some time covering the changes over the past couple of years.The first article announces the winners of the "Name that Monster" contest, finally.  We have the "The Creature Some Call Jarnkung," "The Ulik" and "Cursed Crimson Crawler."  Stats are given for these three variations (the winner and two runners-up).  They also list 10 entries for honorable mention and the prizes the top three recieved. First place got $20 Gift Certificate from Ral Partha, $20 gift certificate from Archive, $10 gift certificate from the Dungeon Hobby store, copy of the Monster Manual & a 6 issue subscription to Dragon.A long article appears on the game Space Marines.  It includes optional rules and some discussion of the game.  Jim Ward gives a full page review of the wargame Nomad Gods.  This is the sequel to White Bear, Red Moon (later Dragon Pass), which will eventually lead to the production of Runequest.  Jim is very high on the game.  Tony Watson reviews Cosmic Encounter, a classic that still survives in various forms today.We have the promised articles on Robot players in Metamorphisis Alpha, co-written by Jim Ward.  MA clearly is getting much support in these early days of Dragon.  Later in the "Designer's Forum" we have history charts for characters in MA."Excerpt from an Interview with a Rust Monster" is the next in a line of humerous fiction about the D&D game.  This will eventually be reprinted in the first "Best of the Dragon" compilations.Gary Gygax takes on this issue's "The Sorcerer's Scroll" (indeed, he will become the primary writer for this column over time).  "D&D Relationsips, the Parts and the Whole" discusses the difference between Original D&D, Basic D&D and the upcoming AD&D.  He points out that before Eldritch Wizardry had seen print they saw the need to unify and clarify the D&D system.  They were contacted by J. Eric Holmes, a professor & author, who was interested in distilling the rules into a beginners set.  This would become the first Basic D&D set.  Gary points out that the Basic set isn't for experienced players.  It's designed to lead players either to Original D&D or to the new Advanced D&D.  On AD&D Gary says it will initilally consist of 4 book:  the Monster Manual (already released), the Player's Handbook (which Gary is finishing up now), the Dungeon Master's Guide (which has a rough outline) and Gods, Demigods and Heroes (which Kuntz & Ward are working on at this time).  He mentions that the first 3 books should be available by mid-1978 (which doesn't happen).An D&D archeytpe makes it first official appearance in Jim Ward's "Monty Haul and His Friends at Play."  Monty Haul will become a standard term for games with large amounts of treasure and magic for very little effort.  We have a slightly tongue and cheek response to a previous issues Cthulhu mythos for D&D in "The Cthulhu Mythos Revisited."  This is followed by our regular comics "Fineous Fingers" and "Wormy."  For our "D&D Variant" column, we have some rules for Lycanthropy in D&D.  We have a lot of detail in lycanthropes and PCs who may end up with their characters being cursed in this way.We have the beginnings of the D&D game moving from OD&D to AD&D.  Metamorphisis Alpha is still going strong.</blockquote>

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