Our march of Dragon issues continues:
- There's an article on how to calculate how much a giant weights. No, really, it provides a formula and everything, assumes giants are proportioned similarly to humans, and even provides a table for calculating the weight of golems and other giant, non-flesh creatures assuming they are still humanoid in proportion.
- After dropping a stinker in last month's Sorcerer's Scroll, Rob Kuntz comes back this month in a bit of editorializing, explaining to people that D&D is not The Lord of the Rings: The Game, for people who complain that elves, dwarves, hobbits, etc. do not match up exactly with how they are described in the books. In doing this project I have discovered that, while it's true that D&D was influenced by other fantasy works besides LOTR such as Conan the Barbarian, there's no mistaking that LOTR was far and away the biggest contributor, so I have mixed feelings about TSR trying to distance themselves from it. I'm sure some of this is motivated by the legal trouble TSR got into with Tolkien's estate early on, considering they lifted a little too much for use in the game.
- There's an article on randomly generating demons - again an attempt to thwart players who have memorized all the monster entries. It feels like it's been a while since we've had one of these "guidelines for randomly generating ___" articles. I'll be interested to see when or if they peter out in the life of the game. The tables are decently done, but what really strikes me about this article is the art:
I can't say why exactly, but I find this image particularly compelling. I feel it has an artistic maturity to it that was extremely rare in these early days of D&D. It vaguely reminds me of DiTerlizzi's Planescape art.
- We have yet another Supplement IV appendix, this time Japanese mythology. I think I've made my feelings on these things clear.
- There's another Niall of the Far Travels story by Gardner Fox. I'm really coming to like these stories and did a little bit of research on them. It seems Fox was rather known for creating Conan knockoffs, having created a couple of others as well. He only ever wrote ten short stories for Niall, all but one of which appeared in The Dragon, so I'm looking forward to more of them in the future. It seems that Niall's world, instead of being a legendary past, is instead some kind of post-apocalyptic future, set at least a hundred thousand years in the future where technology is gone and magic exists again. The moon has been destroyed and is now a ring of debris around the earth.
- There's a truly interesting article by Jim Ward on D&D playing tips. Ward modestly titles it "Notes from a Semi-Successful D&D Player", but those who know know he was one of the best of the original players. Some of his tips:
- Carry a small wand with Continual Light cast on it. It's easy to make, can't go out like a torch, and can be thrown into dark rooms. Even better, Continual Light arrows against creatures used to darkness.
- Transfer all those potions you find in breakable glass containers to steel bottles instead.
- Always carry a five foot steel rod - the uses are endless.
- Using Polymorph Other to turn a creature into a goldfish ensures a quick death for it. On the other hand, you can polymorph a large, dangerous creature into a tiny one like a snail, then capture and keep it. A proper placement of the snail and a Dispel Magic then gets you a creature to fight a future battle for you.
A few other articles of uninteresting non-D&D material round out this issue, so we'll wrap it up for now. Two more issues, and then we get to the Player's Handbook!
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