Willow & Tara: Blue Rose 2nd Edition

Yesterday I posted the first part of my conversion of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe to Blue Rose.  Today I want to post the second part.  In this post, I'll look at Blue Rose versions of my two favorite witches, Willow & Tara.
I had posted some conversions for these two using the Blue Rose/True 20 system, but those were modern versions of what I call the "Dragon and the Phoenix" timeline.  They were not Aldean versions of the characters.  Honestly given their treatment in the main continuity, they will be more respected in Aldea than in Sunnydale.

Like with Bethan I am starting with what is the essence of the characters and adapting that to a Aldean/Blue Rose background.  So I am pleased to introduce Helyg (Willow) and Brynn (Tara).

Helyg & Brynn, Rose Adepts
In my games, and in much popular fan fic, Willow and Tara have been reincarnated many times and in each life they have been lovers.

Helyg, Adept of the White Rose

Helyg was born to a not-very-rich merchant and his University schooled wife.  She had expected she would join the service of the Church of Pure Light in Jarzon like so many other intelligent, but not wealthy, girls living in Jarzon.  Helyg knew though she was different. Very different.
She knew the thoughts of others, even when she didn't try. She could "see" when things were about to happen and avoid them.  As her magical power grew so did her realization that she also was caria daunen and preferred other girls. She had been in a relationship with boy who was a childhood friend because this was expected of her.  When she was with him she could avoid the questions her mother had, but only voiced in her mind.  Helyg planned to escape to Aldis where she could, at least, be away from a country that did not approve of her love or her magic.  Somehow she managed to convince her parents, and to this day she believes she used Arcana to do this, to allow her to attend University in Aldis.
Here she met the Darkfiend Slayer, Bethan and learned of her battles.
She also met Brynn.
When she met Brynn she felt a deep connection to her from the start. She thought at first it was because she had met another young adept and a potential "study buddy" and friend. It was not till they touched, physically and mentally, that she learned the truth.  Helyg and Brynn had been part of each other's Eternal Dance since the dawn of time. Always together, always finding each other. Thousands of lives and names. Names like Bodhmal and Liath, Sallie and Teamhair, Will and Tamara, Willow and Tara, flooded their minds. Sometimes the love was romantic, other times familial, but always in love. They knew they were Anamchara.
They have had no time to reflect on this though. They have encountered a new Shadowgate and more Darkfiends pour out.  Helyg and Brynn have also learned that they might be the first Rose Adepts in nearly one-hundred years.

Name:	Helyg
Race:	Human
Background:	Jarzoni (living in Aldis)

Class:	Adept	Level:	3

ABILITY	Score	Focus
ACCURACY	3 2
COMMUNICATION	2	Psychic
CONSTITUTION	2
DEXTERITY	2
FIGHTING	2
INTELLIGENCE	5 4	Historical Lore, Arcane Lore
PERCEPTION	2
STRENGTH	1
WILLPOWER	4 3

Combat
AR 0
Defense 12
Health 32
Weapon Groups: Brawling, Staves

Staff, Attack 3, Damage 1d6+1
Athame, Attack 1, Damage 1d6

POWERS, TALENTS, AND SPECIALIZATIONS
Armor Training: None
Talents: Arcane Training: Shaping (J), Psychic (N)
Mundane Talents: Lore (N), Linguistics (N)

ARCANA
Psychic: Psychic Contact*, Psychic Shield, Second Sight
Shaping: Move Object, Arcane Weapon, Wind Shaping, Wind Walking

Persona
Calling: The Adept, Mastery of the Arcane
Destiny/Fate: Seven of Chalices, Practical/Deluded
Goals: Keep Brynn safe, help Bethan, Learn the secrets of the Rose Adepts.
Corruption: None, but she thinks she might have unduly influenced her parents with Psychic Arcana. This is something she has only shared with Brynn.

Relationships
Brynn (4). She is the love of my life. My soulmate, my anamchara. I see a better version of myself in her eyes and she makes me want to be that person. I will always find her.
Bethan (2). She is my best friend. To everyone else, she is the indestructible Slayer but we have shared fears, sorrow, and happiness. I know the true Bethan.
Gwawr (2). She is my best friend's sister. I sense power from her, but she doesn't know it yet herself. She loves Brynn so much I can't help but be protective of her.

Brynn, Adept of the White Rose

Living in the great forests of the Pavin Weald is not an easy life.  Living under the shadow of sorcery makes it much tougher.  Brynn grew up in such an environment. Her father and brother were both stern military men that took the point of view that women need to remain at home.  He wanted to rais his daughter the same way, her mother, Meghan, would have nothing to do with that. While many girls in this part of the Pavin Weald did not bother to learn to read, Brynn was taught by her mother. She also learned that she, her mother and grandmother, were all part of a great legacy of Reznan Witches. Her father, Riobard, had rescued Meghan from a Darkfiend attack many years ago.  Riobard always felt it was the trace of Vata blood in Meghan, her mother and now in Brynn that had attracted the Darkfiends.  After Meghan had died Brynn learned that a sizable sum of money had been saved for her to attend University in Aldis.
She left her home and entered the wide world for the first time.
She also met Helyg.
When she met Helyg she felt a deep connection to her from the start. She knew Helyg had power, she had felt the same around her mother and grandmother.  It was not till they touched, physically and mentally, that she learned the truth.  Helyg and Brynn had been part of each other's Eternal Dance since the dawn of time. Always together, always finding each other. Thousands of lives and names. Names like Bodhmal and Liath, Sallie and Teamhair, Will and Tamara, Willow and Tara, flooded their minds. Sometimes the love was romantic, other times familial, but always in love. They knew they were Anamchara.
They have had no time to reflect on this though. They have encountered a new Shadowgate and more Darkfiends pour out.  Helyg and Brynn have also learned that they might be the first Rose Adepts in nearly one-hundred years.

Name:	Brynn
Race:	Human (some Vata heritage)
Background:	Forrest Folk (living in Aldis)

Class:	Adept	Level:	3

ABILITY	Score	Focus
ACCURACY	3 2
COMMUNICATION	2	Psychic
CONSTITUTION	3 2
DEXTERITY	2
FIGHTING	1
INTELLIGENCE	4 3	Natural Lore, Arcane Lore
PERCEPTION	2
STRENGTH	2
WILLPOWER	5 4

Combat
AR 0
Defense 12
Health 35
Weapon Groups: Brawling, Staves

Staff, Attack 3, Damage 1d6+1
Athame, Attack 1, Damage 1d6

POWERS, TALENTS, AND SPECIALIZATIONS
Armor Training: None
Talents: Arcane Training: Psychic (J), Healing (N)
Mundane Talents: Animal Training (Horses) (N), Medicine (N)

ARCANA
Psychic: Psychic Contact*, Psychic Shield, Second Sight, Calm, Sense Minds
Healing: Cure, Sleep

Persona
Calling: The Moon, Discovery of Secrets
Destiny/Fate: Six of Rods, Confident/Apprehensive
Goals: Protect Helyg from Corruption, help Bethan and Gwawr, Learn the secrets of the Rose Adepts.
Corruption: None.

Relationships
Helyg (4). She is the love of my life. My soulmate, my anamchara. I see a better version of myself in her eyes and she makes me want to be that person. I will always find her.
Bethan (1). She is Helyg's best friend and she treats me like I am family. If I can help her in anything I will.
Gwawr (2). She is my best friend, even though she is younger. She also has powerful psychic potential, but it is untested. I will protect her as my mother protected me.

*When using Psychic Contact between each other, neither Helyg nor Brynn suffer fatigue.  Contact is made at +5 to their rolls.

WOW. I am so, so pleased with these stats. I can't wait to play these two!

Anamchara
“The only thing more frightening than meeting a Celt in battle is meeting a Celt in battle with his wife at his side.” 
- Attributed to Pliny the Elder, 1st Century CE

Anamchara (“on-um-kor-ah”), or soul-mate, is the Gaelic term used to describe a deep and powerful bound shared between two people. This goes beyond mere companionship and even beyond love; the souls of the two people are connected at a deep and fundamental level. Some occult scholars even speculate anamchara share one soul between two physical people.
The anamchara (singular and plural) are often aware of each other on a preternatural level. While this not a full blown telepathy or even empathy it is beyond what the normal senses would allow. This manifests itself in mundane ways as two lovers humming the same song at the same time with no outside influence, husband and wife completing each others sentences, separated twins living parallel lives, or even one sibling knowing her other sibling is about to walk into a room before the event happens.
Anamchara can be, and often are, lovers, but they are not limited to that alone. Some anamchara can also be very close siblings or very deeply devoted friends. Sometimes the connection can be forged in battle, giving rise to a “brothers-in-arms” effect. The Anamchara can also have a deep connection resulting from life times of being together, often both having been in the Eternal Dance together for centuries.
The only prerequisites for this are the two characters must love each other, as represented by a relationship intensity of 3 or greater.

	ANAMCHARA STUNTS
SP	Stunt
5	I Will Always Find You. This acts like a mild form of Empathy or Awareness that extends only to their anamchara. This grants +2 to locate their anamchara via mundane, magic or psychic means. This also gives each anamchara a broad sense of the other’s health and well being.
5	I’ll Stand By You. When anamchara are together even dire situations do not seem as grim. With a soothing word or even a knowing look a character can grant her anamchara +5 on any one test. Best of all, she can do it after the player has already made this test. The granting character spends her Action explaining she is doing this to aid her beloved. This can only be done once per game session per character.

Plays Well With Others: Blue Rose and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This June I am on a big Blue Rose kick gearing up for my review of the game.  I felt for this review I should play the game more and kick the tires a bit more.  Today, given that it is Tuesday, I want to talk about another progressive game and how well it works with Blue Rose; the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.
I am extremely proud of the work I did on Ghosts of Albion. But I never would have gotten to do that work had it not been for the success of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both the Show and RPG really. Without Buffy, there would have been no Ghosts on the BBC and without the RPG there never would have been a Ghosts of Albion RPG.

These two games share a lot of themes.  Blue Rose is more character-centric than other fantasy games and Buffy is more character-centric than other modern-supernatural games. Though most modern-supernatural games also tend to be more character focused.

Blue Rose and Buffy also share the +John Snead connection.  He worked on the original Blue Rose (and compiled a great list of must-read books of the genre). He and I also both worked on the Buffy Magic Box book.   Speaking of Snead's book recommendations, I reread The Blue Sword recently and I am struck how much of the heroine Harimad-sol reminded me of Buffy in ways. Also, my Queen Jaeliln was more than a little influenced by Buffy and SMG.

With Green Ronin now talking about Modern AGE (MAGE...snerk), I think the time to dust off my Buffy books is right.  As my old friend +Robert Black used to say, "I have a Buffy-shaped hole in my life."

By the Numbers
Normally when doing a Plays Well With Others of different systems I like to look how the stats convert.  I am less interested in that these days and instead more interested in how to convert concepts and ideas.   In this case, it's a "How would the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer work in Blue Rose?" Though I am not immune to the siren song of numbers.

Blue Rose/AGE has 9 Abilities.  Buffy/Unisystem has 6.  The mappings are pretty logical.
Just take the Unisystem ability and map it onto the AGE ability of the same name; Strength is Strength, Willpower is Willpower and so on.   The three remaining, Accuracy, Communication and Fighting, can be taken from various skills or qualities.  So Fighting is taken from Kung-fu; Communication can be derived from Charisma. Accuracy, depending on where it is used can come from Gun-Fun or Occultism.
Blue Rose/AGE abilities rank from -2 to 4. Buffy/Unisystem attributes go from 1 to 6, with some cases of 0.  Take your Unisystem score and -2.  Not perfect really, but it is really, really close.

Now at this point the numerical conversion stops.  In the Buffy RPG, the eponymous Slayer has Strength 8, Dexterity 9, and Constitution 8.  A straight conversion gives her 6, 7 and 6 respectively.  Not undoable really, but I'd have to bend the rules.  Instead, let's see how close I can get with Rules-As-Written.

I want to do starting characters, but to get her to the power level I want for a starting character I am going start her out at Level 4.  Blue Rose/AGE is fine with this as True20 was.

By the Concepts
What is a Slayer known for?  Killing Vampires naturally.  But in Blue Rose Vampires are not the threat that Darkfiends are.  Indeed, in the RPG and TV show the focus was less on Vampires and more on Demons. Unstable Shadowgates are roughly the same (plot wise) as a Hellmouth.  While magic is common, Sorcery is bad (Sounds like a 4th season episode, "Sorcery Bad!").

A lot of the same themes can be explored as well; family, relationships, sex, sexual identity, friendships and a group coming together.

Mr. (Robert) Maclay: This is insane. You people have no right to interfere with Tara's affairs. We are her blood kin! Who the hell are you?
Buffy: We're family.

So. Who is Buffy Summers in the World of Aldea?  Well, she is the Slayer. The Chosen One. She lives with her mother and sister in a suburban area of Aldis. Here she discovers a Shadowgate linked to the realm of the Darkfiends.  She has been chosen by Maurenna to destroy the darkfiends.

For my own Blue Rose games I have chosen Welsh as the language that represents Aldea, so all the names of my characters will be Welsh or Welsh-inspired.  Buffy Summers becomes Bethan Hâf, she lives with her sister Gwawr.

Bethan Hâf, the Darkfiend Slayer

Name:	Bethan Hâf
Race:	Human (Slayer)
Background:	Aldin

Class:	Warrior	Level:	4

ABILITY	Score	Focus
ACCURACY	3 2
COMMUNICATION	1	Persuasion
CONSTITUTION	3 2
DEXTERITY	3 2
FIGHTING	4 3
INTELLIGENCE	2
PERCEPTION	2
STRENGTH	4 3	Might
WILLPOWER	3

Combat
AR 1
Health 65
Weapon Groups: Brawling, Bludgeoning, Heavy Blades, Light Blades

POWERS, TALENTS, AND SPECIALIZATIONS
Armor Training: Novice
Talents: Quick Reflexes (N), Single Weapon Style (N), Arcane Potential, Visions (N)
Specialization: Slayer of Darkfiends

Persona
Calling: The Sun, Championing the Everyday
Destiny/Fate: Six of Swords, Optimistic/Pessimistic
Goals: To Destroy the Darkfiends invading our home

Relationships
Gwawr (3). She is my little sister and maybe the only one that truly understands me. I will protect her. My wrath on anyone that means her harm.
Helyg (2). She is my best friend, the only one that has shown me kindness. I will save the world only because I have her help.
Brynn (1). She is the love of Helyg and that makes her family.

I like it.  This is a build I could work with.  Note I have not given her a significant other yet. Not sure how I want to work that in just yet. Would like to see where I would take this character first.

Next time lets spend some time with Helyg and Brynn.

Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge: Gretel: A Fairytale Retold

"It takes more that a little fire to kill a witch," Maeve whispered to Gretel.

I love retellings of classic fairy tales. I do.  I ESPECIALLY love ones where the witch is not the monster, but the hero of the tale.

I get such a tale from Niamh Murphy in her retelling of "Gretel: A Fairytale Retold".  In this, we have an older version of Hansel and Gretel. Here they are in the woods, hungry and chased by wolves.
That is till the Witch shows up to scare way the wolves and take Hans and Gretel back to her home.
The tropes are all here. She fattens them up, she lives alone. But that is where the similarities end.
The "witch", Maeve, lives alone because she dared to love someone her village did not approve of.
While Hans does not trust her, Gretel is taken with her charm, her intellect, and her independent nature.  Maeve knows the secrets of the forest and in her own words she was not exiled but set free.
Maeve is easy to like.
I thought the relationship between Maeve and Gretel felt natural. Afterall, Gretel knew she was missing something, she just didn't know it was this.
I was disappointed, but not surprised, in Hans' reaction. I had hoped for more, but it does set up the final act.

The story is a quick read, but a lot of fun and you can grab it for free from her website.  I lament that the story was too short, to be honest, but it is a fairy tale retold, so it can't be too long.
Of course there is a happily ever after, it's a fairytale still.  OR as we used to say to my kids when reading fairytales to them "they all went home and had tea."

She has other stories too, I just grabbed one that is longer.

Niamh Murphy can be found on the web at her website, http://www.authorniamh.com/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNiamh/

2017 Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
Books Read so far: 15
Level: Mother
Witches in this book: Maeve. She might not be a "real" spell-casting witch, but I choose to think she is.
Are they Good Witches or Bad Witches: Good!
Best RPG to Emulate it: Blue Rose is a good choice.  Maeve lives inside the  Pavin Weald.  She very much fits with my idea of a Green Witch.  I would use my new Witchcraft Specialization for her.  I'd make about a 4th level witch.
Use in WotWQ: I plan on using all sort of fairy tales in my War of the Witch Queens.  A Fairytale re-told is also good material if that re-telling is good.  This is a good retelling.

Something like this would also make for a good Blue Rose adventure.
Much like the Frog Princess is a retelling, this would make a great adventure.  Hans and Gretl can be part of an adventuring party sent to investigate the so-called Witch of the Woods and determine her true intent.   But it turns out she is not evil, but the nearby village is making it look like she is.  She does control the wolves, but not magically, they just treat her as their Alpha.
Gretel, or some other female character, ends up falling in love with Maeve.

And they all go home and have tea.

The Warlock goes Copper!

I just logged onto and noticed that just at six weeks that The Warlock for Swords & Wizardry has gone Copper Best Seller at RPGNow!

I am so pleased!

The Warlock joins such worthies as The Witch (Silver on DriveThru), Eldritch Witchery (Copper), Sisters of the Aquarian Order (Copper), and Ghosts of Albion (Gold on DriveThru and Silver on RPGNow).

Thank you all for supporting me over the years.

I hope my next book, The Green Witch, is just as welcome.

Kickstart Your Weekend: Lion-tiger-bears and Apocalypses Oh My!

A couple of brand new Kickstarters for you today.

First up is +Andreas Walters and Atlas Animalia - A book of monster variants for Pathfinder and 5th edition Role-Playing.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metalweavegames/atlas-animalia-a-book-of-monster-variants?ref=6yv756

Metal Weave games is bringing together an all-star cast of writers, artists, and editors to bring us monsters from any clime and local to drop into your game. The hardcover book reminds me of the old Dragon "Ecology of..." articles. There will be PDFs of monsters stats in Pathfinder and 5e format.  It looks really awesome, to be honest.

The Apocalypse happened.
It sucked and now 70 years later the nations are dead and only The Lost Citadel remains.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/504269797/the-lost-citadel-post-apocalyptic-fantasy-roleplay

The Lost Citadel — Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Roleplaying is for 5th edition RPGS, but will be offering "System Hacks" for other systems including AGE.
Funded in a matter of hours I think it is now well on to stretch goals.

It looks like a lot of fun to be honest and I might just pick it up to have some 5e/AGE translation notes.

Blue Rose Accessories

Had to stop by my FLGS tonight to grab some D&D books for a gift and saw they had the new Blue Rose GM's Screen and Dice in.  Well...you know I had to get that!

My collection so far.  Printed PDF, with extra material from Fantasy AGE, my core book, the GM Screen, Dice and my Shadowscapes Tarot deck.

Opening up the GM Screen gave me a surprise. Laminated cards. Two with stunts, two with moves, and a combat tracker. I tried a dry erase overhead marker on them and they wipe right off.

The booklet has some ready to run character or NPCs. Plus a lot of easy to access information.

The screen is heavy duty and loaded with useful information.

The dice are nice too. They are d6s from Q-Workshop.  I note with some amusement they are the same color as the first set of D&D dice I ever owned.

Now I need some great adventures.  Maybe I'll have to write some.

How about it +Green Ronin Publishing! Can I write some adventures for you all?

This Old Dragon: Issue #161

Jumping ahead a bit more. I thought I had grabbed the newest (relatively speaking) Dragon in my box, but this one came up.  Granted, I cheated a bit and this was actually the third one I had grabbed for this week.  It had some things I want to go over and fit in with some my Blue Rose posts.   This one dates to September 1990. I was living in my own apartment at this time and working my butt off to get into grad school.   I was not playing all that much because of this, but I was still enjoying reading the 2nd Ed books and playing or running the occasional game.  The issue is #161 and this is This Old Dragon!

No cover here.  I looked it up and it is what I consider to be the typical Jim Holloway fare.  Now don't get me wrong, I like Holloway. His art in Chill 1st edition was one of the things that made that edition iconic to me. But there is a "silliness" about his style that bugs me.  Maybe it was because of the Paranoia art or Castle Greyhawk.  I don't know. It's just not art I seek out anymore.

Missing a few pages. First up is the table of contents then the letters.  A letter from Jessie Lin wants a reprint of all the NPC classes. Yeah, me too. But Dragon can't do that, so instead, they list all the classes and the issue they were in. Some going all the way back to issue #3.  These sorts of things are easy to find now, but back then it was much, much harder.

Roger Moore has an editorial bit about a romance between two characters; Ursula and Black Bart. The story is a fun one about these two characters and their interactions.  The point though is that there is so much story-telling and adventures NOT being used because D&D gamers shy away from romance.  Something I think we see more of today in games for sure. It is something I have always used in games myself.  More on that in a bit.

The Feature of this issue is Why is the DM Smiling and it is really only a loose collection of DM advice rather than a proper theme.  It's a good advice for the most part.

The first article from David Flin is Inside Information, dealing with how characters get information and knowledge in their games.  Again, good, but anyone playing Chill or Call of Cthulhu was already doing this. Heck, sometimes going to the library WAS the adventure.  This is why I always advocate playing other games. It's great to have a favorite and a go-to game, but you can gain a lot of insight from playing other games too.

Tom Schlosser is next with Romance and Adventure. He describes romance as "the most overlooked aspect of any fantasy role-playing game."  I tend to agree. Though there were elements of it in Pendragon. Of course we are coming into the 90s and "Story games" are about to become a thing.  The article is good, and has plenty of good advice. Though for my money you can't beat the Bard when it comes to seeing how to use Romance as an adventure point.  Think of "Mid-Summer's Night Dream" or "Love's Labour Lost", they center around the ideas of love and romance and the hazards (albeit comical ones) of such undertakings.  I'll mention "Romeo and Juliet" but anyone that has actually read it knows it is not a romance, but a tragedy.
Again, you see this more in modern games. I think we wrote pages and pages on it for Buffy and it is more or less the entire focus of Monsterhearts and many Anime RPGs.

It's sort of like a wand... by Gary Coppa covers mystery in your games and keeping players in the dark. By the mid and late 80s there was no mystery left in D&D.  I say this in general terms, but I know at the time I knew the HD and weakness of every monster in the MM, FF and MM2. Knew every spell and 90% of the prices of all the items in the PHB, UA and both Survival Guides.  But also many of the magic items were known and the ones that weren't well we knew how to take of that as well.  Second Ed helped some of this, but still, the advice in this article is sound.  Plus nearly all of it stands true today.  Now I think nearly all DMs/GMs are fine playing a little more loose with the rules as written these days than back in the "If you change this you are no longer playing AD&D^®!" The article is written from a first ed point of view I noticed.

We get a full two page spread ad for the Franklin Mint's Fantasy Collector doll of Queen Galadriel.  She doesn't look much like an elf to be honest. Or even like Cate Blanchett.
Though for the price of $295.00 in five easy payments she can be yours.  Or you can wait about 30 years and pick her up on eBay.

Marc Newman beats me to the punch by two decades with his The Classics Campaign.  This short article discusses how to use the classic AD&D adventures with newer rules.  It seems weird to read an article published in 1990 go on about "nostalgic AD&D", though I guess that the *D&D game was 15 years old at this point.

Jim Bambra in Role-Playing Reviews covers the Dragonlance Time of the Dragon and The Glorantha book for RuneQuest. He likes both and says they are great choices regardless of the world or system you use.

Ads for the Hunt for Red October game and Dungeon Magazine follow.

+Bruce Heard has Part 8 of Voyage of the Princess Ark.  Going to collect these all so I can read them in order.

The Role of Computers is getting more interesting.  This was the heart of the Windows PC boom and just before the world discovered the Internet.  DragonStrike is a "Dragon flight simulator" similar in many ways to the very popular stealth fighter simulators that were out then.  There is a martial arts game, Budokan, but sadly no Cheap Trick references.  There is also a section on tips and tricks for players of other games; mostly D&D related PC games.

Marvel Phile is actually in this issue!  But I see why it was not cut out.  There was a huge 1990 character update book out recently and these are the characters that did not make that cut. WE have Daktoa North and Stick. Stick at least has gotten some screen time thanks to the Elektra movie and the Daredevil Netflix series.

Next pages are water damaged. Looks like the Role of Books .and some ads.

An oddly placed Scout NPC class shows up after the Marvel material.  It is a thief variant and it is also for 1st Edition.  It is an interesting take. Something I think can be done with the current "Rogue" versions of the thief a bit easier these days.

The Con Calendar covers games for the last quarter of 1990.

Sage Advice covers various Forgotten Realms topics.

Another long "keeper" article is the Ecology of the Griffon. I always liked these are articles and the griffon seems like an excellent choice for a big long article.  This article is a good companion piece to the entry in the Monstrous Compendium.  I actually had hoped back then that the Ecology articles would have greater playability in 2nd ed.  It seemed obvious to me that a logical choice would be to cut out the articles and put them in your binder. I did that for a few, but nowhere near enough, to be honest.

We end with the normal slate of ads and comics. This time joined by articles continued from other pages.

Not a bad issue and certainly one with some ideas that can be used today.