This Old Dragon: Issue #87

I mentioned the collection I got from my old DM and a few Dragons in it. As it turns out, this is the only one I had not done a "This Old Dragon" for. So. Let's go back nearly 40 years ago this month to a very different time. "When Doves Cry" by Prince dominated the airwaves, But I am sure I was listening to a lot of "Piece of Mind" by Iron Maiden. I was going through Module A1, mixed with a lot of Grimtooth's Traps. I had seen Ghostbusters about a dozen times by this point and wanted more and more horror in my D&D games. On the shelf was Issue #87 of This Old Dragon!

I am very certain that when this issue was new I was at my DM's house for his birthday (which is today by the way!) playing some D&D.  This might have even been the rather infamous session where I was carrying my D&D books in one hand, a large chocolate shake in the other and I tripped falling face first into and through their storm door. Made a huge mess. Thankfully (or maybe this was a sign), I did not have glasses yet.

On to the magazine at hand.

I will freely admit this is not one of my favorite covers. After seeing so many great covers from this time period, this one felt too "Cartoony" to me. Granted, it works with the article inside quite well, that is not something that can always be said about Dragon.

Kim Mohan's Editorial is up first. It covers the very dangerous ground of TSR's/Dragon Magazine's relationship with Tolkien Enterprises.  Basically saying there isn't one and they can't really say much more than that.

Letters section covers PBM and DragonQuest questions.  One of the great things about these older Dragons was how willing they were to cover other games. 

Nice big ad for the James Bond 007 RPG. Still, one I have never played. Another ad for Lords of Creation later on. I also never played that one but wanted too.

Forum asks questions about the Elemental Planes and Monty Haul campaigns.

Our first real article is from Dragon mainstay Katharine Kerr. Here we get Part 1 of her series Beyond the Dungeon, covering everything outside. She largely focuses on movement here for AD&D. But also what the characters should expect to find and what they are not expected to know.

Shaun Wilson is up with one of my favorite Ecology of articles, The Ecology of the Dryad. I do admit that after reading this article, I considered what it would take to have a Dryad PC race option. It lacks some of the style and personality of the Ed Greenwood articles, but it is still quite good. In fact when I had my own copy of this magazine, I cut this article out and stuck it into my AD&D Monstrous Compendium.

Len Lakofka is back with the next installment of Gods of the Suel Pantheon. This time we get Kord and Phaulkon.

The Legacy of Hortus is our cover story. The author is the same as the cover artist, Jack Crane. This covers a wide variety of fantastic plants that honestly should be used in any addition of the game. Some are whimsical, like Beebalm (a plant we have in our garden), but this one grows its own bees and cowslip with the face and heads of cows. Others are bit on the nose, like Foxglove and Dandelion. But all are rather fun. 

In Reviews, we get Jerry Epperson's opinion on the Tri Tac Stalking the Night Fantastic. Personally, I rather liked the game, but I am a fan of the source material. We both agree that the game's list of encounters is great. 

We get two centerfold sections here. The first is Whiteout, a Top Secret game adventure by none other than Merle Rasmussen himself. Like the James Bond RPG, I never played, or really even read over, Top Secret. I am no judge of this adventure but it does look fun. It is quite detailed and I could use it for other games. It is part three of a three-part series of adventures. Anyone who played it should let me know how it was/is.

Our other center section is the games listing for Gen Con 17. Lots of AD&D games listed but I am also seeing a lot of Car Wars. Some Chill, James Bond, Star Frontiers, and even some D&D.  Crazy that is all used to fit inside of Dragon.

John E. Stith has our fiction section, Simon Sidekick. Interestingly enough, it is a science fiction story about a personal AI assistant. Wow! Have you ever heard of anything so advanced Siri? How about you Alexa or Cortana?

This Dragon is early enough that we still get a proper Ares section.

Kim Eastland has Freeze! Star Law! for law enforcement officers in Star Frontiers.  Pretty good article to be honest.

Luna: A Traveller's Guide is another part of the "Luna" series Ares had been running. This one is naturally from Marc Miller. I think I need to go back sometime and collect all of these and do a special on them for Sci-Fi month. That could be fun. 

Jim Ward shows he is not be outdone and has A Field guide to Lunar Mutants for Gamma World.

Roger Moore answers some StarQuestions about the Universe game.

Nice big ad spread for the FASA Star Trek line. It is also old ads like this that make me realize how lucky I was. Illinois had, and still has some great hobby shops. They have 29 listed here. That is over 4.5 times what California had, and twice what all the neighboring states had combined. 

Gamer's Guide covers the small ads. Always a treat to look at.

Couple of pages of Wormy. Dragonmirth has the short-lived Tal an Alan comic. A three pages of Elmore's Snarf Quest.

So a good issue, but more memorable for the time period rather than all the content. 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 7, Room 6

 There is a large chamber beyond Room 6.  This room is wide and open, and small flames can be seen leaping from fissures in the floor and walls.  

Embedded in the walls are several uncut rubies. They are worth 1d8x50 gp each but if taken to a gem cutter their value will increase 1d4+1 times.  There are 5d20 such rubies here, but removing them causes 1d4 hp of damage due to heat and flame for each ruby removed.

There is one other chamber to the rear of this one.

AD&D Haul from the Jon Cook Collection

 This past weekend I went down to my old hometown to see my family for my mom's 80th birthday. She is honestly doing great, and it was a pleasure to see all my family.  I even got the chance to run into an old friend, Jon Cook.

Jon and I met in Jr. High, we both played saxophone in the school band. But it was D&D that got us to be friends. I had been playing around with my very rudimentary knowledge of D&D at that point, Jon had some AD&D books and, like me, the B/X books. So we spent our time in band class when she should have been practicing rolling up characters.

We decided to meet up because he wanted to sell me his collection!

How could I say no?

Not a huge collection, but a really great one to be honest.  It shows our strange, eclectic blend of AD&D 1st Ed and Basic/Expert D&D in a way that only 1981-1983 could produce. 

I am pleased to get all the Monster books, and it has given me an idea for some edits to Basic Bestiary. Getting his copies of B4 and A1 really took me back too. Especially his weird blend of A1 with his idea of a worldwide assassin's guild. It was also the scene of one of my first character deaths!

I think I might be most thrilled with these dice.  Those orange dice came with MY Expert set. Jon and I traded since his set came with blue, and I wanted blue. Now I have them back. They are going to go into my "Halloween" set.

Those armory dice markers are a rare treat.

Some art books that my youngest brother is going to hold on too till I see them next. He called these "Elmore Porn."

The Lejendary Adventures are like new, and I can't wait to try them out!

Another DM's screen!

Some more Dragons for This Old Dragon.  ETA: Looks like the only one I have not done here is #87.

And the infamous Grimtooth's Traps. Gods I hated it when he would pull out this book.

I can add all of these to his minis he sold me a couple years back.

Those are the real deal lead minis.  The last one was the mini I had used for my cleric Johan Werper, but back then he had a blue robe and white hair. He also had a hand. No, I did not paint him myself.

This is all rather fantastic to have.

I have already added some of these to my collection, others have gone into my "extras" pile for when people come over to play (an extra Player's Handbook is always welcome), and some others have been claimed by my youngest.  He already called dibs on the B/X books and adventures along with the Traps book. Pity his poor players.

Tomorrow is his birthday, and I know he will use the cash to buy some more train gear. This was his previous hobby before D&D and the one he and his son are really enjoying together now. 

So Happy Birthday, Jon! 

Thank you for all these books, the memories of going through the A Series with your crazy ass traps, and our own blend of Advanced and Basic/Expert rules. Your books have a loving home where they will get used all the time!

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 7, Room 5

 Going back to Room #2 and taking the next left leads to room where the party can smell the strong stench of brimstone.  Fires can be seen flickering in the tunnel and the party can feel heat.

Inside the room is a sight the party is not prepared for.

Inside the room are three Burning Bunnies.

These creatures are the Elemental Plane of Fire analogs to the common rabbit.  They are here eating coal and sulfur. Thus the smell.  Like regular bunnies, they are quite scared and mostly harmless.

Picking one up (if you can) causes 1d8 points of fire damage. When scared (which is all the time), they will explode. This is how they get back to their home plane. The explosion causes 2d8 points of fire damage to anyone within 5' of the rabbit. This behavior has given them the nickname Boom Bunnies.

In an interesting side effect of their diet, the Burning Bunnies leave behind 1d3 small diamonds worth 10 gp each as their "droppings."

They have no other treasure.

Mail Call (of sorts) Tuesday: Birthday and Father's Day gifts

 This is a bit late, but one of my birthday gifts finally came in.

I got the three core D&D 5 books in Spanish. I have been taking Spanish all year and wanted an RPG to read. So my wife an kids got me these. The Player's Handbook was back ordered and I just got it. 

Now to practice my Spanish some more!

For Father's Day, in addition to having some of the best smoked food and strawberry pie my kids have ever made for me I got this ridiculous toy.

Yup. A 3.5" USB floppy drive for my retro computers. I have to decide now if I want to mount it or leave it free to use elsewhere.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 7, Room 4

 Following the lava tube past the hellhounds, it gets hot. The party enters a large room with glowing rocks. The floor is cooling (but by no means) cool, lava.  Inside "cooling off" there are three Fire Nymphs. 

The nymphs look tired, but they do not attack. Nor do they attempt to charm. The floor is too hot to wal across and the nymphs move further back. 

They will ask the party what they want, and try to figure out if they have a ruby or diamond of good size (50 gp). They will say they missed their opportunity to get back to the Plane of Fire and are stuck here. If the party has a ruby or diamond, they can use a ritual to get back home. The gem will be destroyed though in the process.

If the party coporates with them and lets them have a gem. Then they should receive the same XP as if they had defeated them.  If there is a party member with Charisma of 16 or higher they will offer a "Kiss of the Fire Nymphs" to the party.  This will grant anyone who receives it a +1 against all saves vs fire and fire magic for 24 hours.

If the party chooses to attack the nymphs, instead they will use all their burning hands attacks and try to charm anyone onto the lava floor. Grant the party only 1/2 the normal XP for defeating the fire nymphs in combat.

Monstrous Mondays: Fire Nymph for Old School Essentials

 It's a warm one out today (and I am posting remotely after visiting with my mom on her birthday) so let's get a conversion in shall we?

Here is a Fire Nymph from the Tome of Horrors now for Old School Essentials.  An update to my 5e version.

Nymph, Fire

Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 2* (9hp)
Attacks: 1 x magic (charm) or burning hands (1d6 damage)
THAC0: 18 [+1]
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Saving Throws: D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (4)
Morale: 6
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 25
Number Appearing: 1d4 (1d6)
Treasure Type: D

This creature appears as a very attractive and beautiful female with long, flowing fiery-red hair. Her eyes are pale blue and her skin is lightly colored with a cinnamon hint to it.

A fire nymph is a very beautiful creature that dwells on the Plane of Fire. It is akin to the nymph and dryad, though its origins obviously lie elsewhere. Fire nymphs rarely visit the Material Plane, though mages are known to request their company on occasion. A fire nymph is most easily summoned on Midsummer's Eve where they can walk about and interact with mortals and other fey. A fire nymph usually wears translucent robes of white or ash.

Fire nymphs can charm like a their terrestrial cousins, but they can also cast a burning hands spell three times per day. Additionally, they have immunity to fire and take double damage from cold.

Summoning a fire nymph is relatively easy but not without dangers.  The nymph's passionate nature causes her to move from one emotional extreme to the next very quickly. When a fire nymph is angry, her hair will burst into flames.

Also, due to their passionate nature, there are many gifted pyromancers that claim to be the offspring of a wizard and a fire nymph.

Fire Nyphs are also known as Pyroeads in some arcane circles.