Going all the way back to September 1984 for this one. Highlights include that wonderful Denis Beauvais "Chess" cover, a follow-up to his
Issue 86 cover. Like that issue, I have some pretty fond memories of this one. Put on some "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince and jump on into "This Old Dragon!"
We start with a very interesting letter. The reader asks if print version of some Dragon covers could be sold. Editor Kim Mohan responds saying they can't because they do not own the reproduction rights to many of the covers. Now in later magazines, we know this changes a little due to the "Art of the Dragon" book that comes out, but others are still owned by their respective artists. Something they later seem to miss when publishing the CD-ROM.
Stephen Inniss is back (or this could be his first) with
Survival is a group effort. He talks about the survival chances of some of the frequently used humanoid races. I was surprised to see that he gave kobolds a really long life span. At five pages it is an interesting read. The aging tables are worthy of cutting out and sticking into your Monster Manual.
Six very special shields is next and comes from the pen of Ed Greenwood via the word of mouth of Elminster. I remember having some high hopes for this article; that it would as interesting as the swords ones they (hypothetically) compare it too, but somehow it doesn't live up. I do recall putting
Reptar's Wall into one of my games though.
Cool ad for The Wizard's Nook. I had no idea what they sold really, never sent my two bucks in for a catalog.
Len Lakofka returns for more
Gods of the Suel pantheon. This time featuring Pyremius, Beltar, and Llerg. I was SO into the Suel back then. I collected all of these articles, I wrote a bunch of histories detailing the migration of the Suel survivors all over the world. Their histories and magic. It is interesting to see which of these gods survived to today. These gods made it to the 3.x Living Greyhawk Gaz and Complete Divine.
The article
Many Types of Magic by Charles Olson covers a particular 1e problem of well....somethings just not making much sense. So anyone familiar with the history of D&D knows how it grew somewhat organically and that means things sometime feel off. The magical classification system (Alteration, Illusion, Conjuration...) doesn't always follow the rules. This is something addressed here, and to a much larger degree in 2nd and 3rd Edition. I can't tell if this article informed those changes; they were really must needed changes to start with. Now before the angry posts and emails start, I am not saying 1e is broken or anything like that. It does have its own set of peculiarities. Anyone who played it knows this.
Another great ad for the Time-Life book series
The Enchanted World!
Show of hands. Who had these? Of COURSE I had the Witches and Wizards one. I also have the one on Ghosts. I see them at Half-Price Books a lot. I'd get more of them (just for the geek street-cred) but they are too tall for my bookshelves!
In the annals of "useless NPC Classes" I think the Sentinel from
Halt! Who goes there? would make the top of my list. Maybe only the accountant from the dawn of the Dragon is worse. It's not a bad class, it just doesn't really do anything a fighter with some thief skills couldn't do better. I am actually pretty sure a multi-classed fighter/thief would be better.
Ah. Here we go. I am not sure if it was this issue or an earlier one, but it was this ad that got me interested in White Dwarf.
Issue 44 was my first White Dwarf.
Learn magic by the month by Craig Barrett covers learning new magic in the Dragonquest game. I have to admit I always liked the look of Dragonquest and wanted to learn how to play it. No one around me did at the time. I think I missed out on some cool experiences, to be honest with you. Rereading this article only convinces me of that. Trouble is I doubt I have the patience anymore to learn a relic from the 80s.
Creature Catalog.
Oh now, this was fun. My appetite for new monsters was strong 1984 and I always wanted something new to throw at players that had the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio memorized. This was a great addition. In particular, I enjoyed the Fachan (it was so weird), the Ghuuna (which I still use), the Glasspane Horror (one of my favorites), and the Utukku (I made
a revised one years ago based on the same myths). I lost my original copy along with all my 2nd Ed material (I had put it in my Montrous Compendium binder), so it is great to have this one again.
Roger Moore follows up with an article on calculating monster XP values. The Monster Manual II will also make this easier in the future.
The
Ares Sci-Fi section is next.
Some articles on the
Mega-Corporations of Star Frontiers.
Continuing the articles on the Moon we have
Luna, The Empire and the Stars for the Other Suns game.
Of
Grizzly Bears and Chimpanzees covers mutant animal characters in Gamma World. I used this article to beef up the Gorilla Bear that appeared in the Fiend Folio.
Missing some pages. Checking the CD-ROM it appears that the Marvel Phile was cut out as was the crossword puzzle.
We end with Wormy and Snarf and the answers to the crossword.
A fun issue to be sure! Loved the cover and monsters.
Want to know what I was saying about White Dwarf magazine during the same month? Check out my
White Dwarf Wednesday for issue #57.
