- <Sigh>, people are just dead set on adding every single mythos in the world as a Gods, Demigods, & Heroes supplement. This month it's the Polynesian mythos. Are we done now? Can we be done? I don't know if people actually liked this material or if it was just low hanging fruit as a way to get published in the magazine.
- Fitting the Halloween theme, there's a new article on a witch class (another appeared in an earlier edition), although these witches are a little more along the lines of historical druid-like witches vs the Satanic witches of the middle ages. It's a pretty decent write-up for an amateur submission. Of course, D&D would always take the official position that a witch was just a particular kind of wizard and didn't need their own class, but that obviously didn't stop people from trying. In 2nd edition it would get the "kit" treatment at least once that I know of to placate fans.
- There's a terrific article on demon (or devil) summoning. I always have been disappointed that D&D's summoning system...well, basically didn't exist. There are so many interesting possibilities in building a detailed summoning system - researching the true names of summoned beings, the elements of summoning rituals, bargaining with summoned beings, etc. But most summoning spells work just like any other spell. The Cacodemon spell has a few elements thrown in, but it's still pretty meager. This article goes into detail on rituals, the bargaining process, and the like. It makes me wish for a more detailed magic system where it really pays off to specialize in schools of magic - whereas a fire wizard might become more powerful by learning more powerful fire spells (Burning Hands -> FireBall -> etc.), a summoner wizard would grow more powerful over time by gaining more and more powerful summoned creatures who served him (whether by force or by bargaining).
- There's a short but enlightening article by a DM who started keeping statistics on character death in his campaigns. It ends up being a highly insightful look into the nature of the game at this point. He recorded deaths only of player characters and their followers (not mercenaries or other NPCs), and recorded 600 in a 2-3 year period! Can you imagine? His tone indicates that most DMs still see their role as the adversary of the party, seeking to do them by any means necessary. Obviously players under such a paradigm have to get used to rolling up characters one after another, as each previous one meets a new grisly end. The statistics themselves aren't that interesting, with goblin-kin taking the top spot on the list of killers - not because they are the most dangerous foe, obviously, but because they are the most commonly encountered, and because they are often encountered in significant numbers. I've said it before, but I'll be most interested to see the transition of the game from a hack and slash meat grinder that chews through player characters and enemies alike to more modern roleplaying sensibilities.
- Finally we get an article on demonic possession, something that never really made it into official material on demons and devils. I don't know, maybe even Gary had his limits. It's not very interesting - basically a demon possesses a party member who then most likely just attacks the rest of the party. Still, like the article on summoning demons, I appreciate fans trying to add these aspects into the game. I also wonder to what extent content like this came back to bite TSR when they had to start dealing with the Satanic panic of the 80s. I guess we'll see in time.
That's all for this issue. There was a lot of material devoted to other games, and besides the witch article and the two demonology-related articles it really wasn't much of a Halloween issue. But now we get to an actual product again - the very first Basic D&D module - In Search of the Unknown. I'll see you there.
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