Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry

Finally we get back to an actual product.  I enjoy the magazine issues, but it's the products I'm really after in this project of mine.  This won't be an issue once we get a few more years into it, when TSR started cranking out multiple products per month.  But for now we still live in the original D&D era when supplements were few and far between.

Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry was certainly a landmark, and for many different reasons.  Let's just jump straight to the thing that stands out the most about this product - the cover art:

Well alright then.  This was the very first product with color cover art, and I just find it interesting this is the direction they decided to go.  A naked woman tied down to a sacrificial altar?  I mean, it definitely matches the feel of the title if nothing else (although it is a little ironic that there's not any actual wizard-specific material in this supplement).  It's very clear that this was a different era.  All I can say is that I'm sure they were glad that this product was out of print by the time the satanic panic of the 80s rolled around.  But enough about that, let's look at the content:

• The druid class, originally an enemy in Supplement I, now makes its appearance as a character class, along with many classic druid spells.  What strikes me so much about the writing of these early rules is just how loose they are and how much they leave up to the DM.  For instance, it mentions how mistletoe is important to druidic spells, and how the effectiveness of a spell is modified by how properly the mistletoe was gathered, but that's it - no actual rules for adjustments are given.  It's totally up to the DM to make them up.  This is an interesting rules philosophy, and I'm not sure if it really represented a belief that this kind of minutiae was up to the DM to decide, or if it was honestly just to save on space (and thus printing costs).  It certainly is the polar opposite of what we would get in 1st edition AD&D, which if anything had too many rules.
• This supplement notably introduces psionics to the game.  I personally love the idea of psionics in general, and I really loved the 2nd edition psionicist class.  I still think its rules are an excellent example of a non-Vancian magic system.  But I knew nothing previously about psionics prior to 2nd edition, other than bits of legend and lore passed on by friends.  Psionic powers here are something that any character class can have, but at the expense of their normal class features.  Once again, I'm shocked at just how many powers I'm familiar with from the 2nd edition rules go straight back to the very beginning here.  I'm also shocked at how absurdly over-complicated the rules for psionics are.  Now I'll admit that as I read these products I'm not paying as much attention to the rules as I would if I were trying to actually learn and master the system.  Still, after reading the rules on psionics I couldn't even begin to give you an overview of how the system works.
• As if to underscore my previous point, there is a section on a primitive initiative system for combat that is again over-complicated and doesn't make much sense.  This is something I've been noticing ever since Chainmail.  The concept of streamlined, easy to remember rules has yet to make its way into roleplaying.  To make matters worse, it's not just the rules themselves, but the writing as well.  Concepts are described in the most roundabout fashion possible.  It just shows how very, very far the roleplaying industry has come in forty years.
• Most notably, this supplement introduces demons to the game.  Yes, "demons" with a "d"!  As a child of 2nd edition, I was familiar only with baatezu and tanar'ri, 2nd edition's renamed devils and demons respectively.  Seeing the effects of the 80s satanic panic on the game as it happens is something I'm eagerly anticipating down the line.  And speaking of demons, the majority of the supplement's art is devoted to them:

Bless their heart, they're trying.

After the cover art, I find the fig-leaf whip placement rather amusing.  Naked woman on a sacrificial altar?  Fine.  Demon wang?  Too far.

What about one of the most iconic demon princes of all time?

Well, it could be worse, I suppose.  It's just a long way from the pants-wetting depiction we get on the cover of the 4th edition Monster Manual:

Progress, huzzah!

• Mind flayers, previously the subject of the very first Creature Feature in The Strategic Review #1, now get a more fleshed out entry among the other added monsters, which also include the classic psionic monsters of the game like the brain mole and thought eater.
• Many of the most classic D&D artifacts are introduced here for the first time: The Mace of St Cuthbert, the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, the Rod of Seven Parts, the Machine of Lum the Mad, Heward's Mystical Organ, and several others, including the classic Vecna artifacts: the Hand, the Eye, and the Sword of Kas.  And although that may sound epic, the whole section is greatly disappointing.  The artifacts have very little - if any - lore attached to them.  The story of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the battle with the Queen of Chaos has yet to be invented for the Rod of Seven Parts, for example.  Each item is just a name, a very brief description, and then a list of how many powers of each kind it has on the traditional tables for artifact power and curses.  It doesn't even list suggested powers for each item!

Between druids, demons, psionics, and artifacts, this was certainly a landmark product in D&D history, and arguably the high point of the original D&D supplements.  Next time we return to the magazines for another landmark: Dragon #1.