SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS Issue # 150 Vol. XIV, No. 5 A Taste of Horror: October 1989 11 If you hunt for nightmares, they will surely find you. Publisher The Dragons Bestiary Stephen Inniss Mike Cook 12 In the lands of the mind flayers live their more monstrous relatives Editor The Sunset World Stephen Inniss Roger E. Moore 18 Illithids welcome all strangers to their homeworld with open tentacles. Assistant editor Fiction editor Fangs Alot! The editors Anne Brown Barbara G. Young 28 A Halloween issue without vampires is like a day without sunshine: the revised AD&D® 2nd Edition vampire! Editorial assistant Kimberly J. Walter The Well-Rounded Monster Hunter Dean Shomshak 32 Cthulhu doesnt scare me. I have a degree in art design! Art director Paul Hanchette OTHER FEATURES Production staff Kathleen C. MacDonald Nobody Lasts Forever David Edward Martin Gaye OKeefe Angelika Lokotz 47 All good things must end (sometimes) in the MARVEL, SUPER HEROES game. Subscriptions U.S. Advertising Janet L. Winters Sheila Gailloreto The Serpent of Aledorn fiction by John P. Buentello 52 If a sorcerer creates a monster, he does it for a reason. U.K. correspondent and U.K. advertising Role-playing Reviews Ken Rolston Sue Lilley 60 Looking for new adventures? Here are five that make the search worthwhile. The Role of Computers Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser 68 Create a world, govern a nation, or whack monsters with your trusty axe all on your home computer. Darkest Secrets Marcus L. Rowland 78 There are some things your TOP SECRET/S.I. agent doesnt know even about himself. A Final Frontier of Your Own John J. Terra 82 Boldly go where no gamer has gone before, in FASAs STAR TREK® universe! Unspeakable Secrets Made Easy Dean Shomshak 92 Curling up with a good book in Chaosiums CALL OF CTHULHU® game? D EPARTMENTS 5 Letters 40 TSR Previews 100 Dragonmirth 6 Forum 74 Gamers Guide 8 Sage Advice 96 Convention Calendar COVER This months cover is a particularly American blend of horror and fantasy by Larry Elmore. Somewhere in the hills of western Kentucky, a witch and her familiar check up on a scarecrow that guards her domain. What the scarecrow does when it finds an intruder is left to your imagination. The arrowhead in the picture (good luck finding it!) is dedicated to the times when Larry and his father searched for them on their farm. 4 OCTOBER 1989 The big one On August 9th, I packed myself into my little blue Toyota and drove to Mil- waukee for the 1989 GEN CON® Game Fair with all the enthusiasm I would What did you think of this issue? Do you have Lesser, 179 Pebble Place, San Ramon CA 94583, have for going to the dentist, assuming a question about an article or have an idea for a U.S.A. new feature youd like to see? In the United 4. We are still working on plans for a new my dentist were going to keep me in States and Canada, write to: Letters, DRAGON® graphic story but have nothing definite yet. his chair for five days and perform a Magazine, P.O. Box 111, Lake Geneva WI 53147, 5. At the moment, no Oriental Adventures root canal on me every 20 minutes. (As U.S.A. In Europe, write to: Letters, DRAGON computer game is in the works. However, you a TSR employee, I work at the TSR Magazine, TSR Ltd., 120 Church End, Cherry might be interested to know that upcoming Periodicals booth whenever we have Hinton, Cambridge CB1 3LD, United Kingdom. AD&D computer games from SSI, Inc. include such game fairs). I am pleased to in- the following (these are working titles only): form you, the readers, that the conven- Dungeon Masters Assistant, Volume II, for tion was a tremendous, stunning The vampire creating PCs and NPCs, with magical items; success, and I even enjoyed myself, Dragons of Flame, an action-arcade sequel to ® much as if my dentist had only forced revamped Heroes of the Lance, set in the DRAGONLANCE saga at Pax Tharkas; me to run 128 miles over hot concrete War of the Lance, before giving me a clean bill of health Dear Dragon: a strategic fantasy war The AD&D® 2nd Edition game is a great game about the DRAGONLANCE saga; and a warning to floss more often. system, but I was shocked when I recently DRAGONLANCE FRP, which uses the same Setup of the TSR Periodicals booth on Pool of Radiance Azure purchased the Monstrous Compendium, Volume game system as and Wednesday went well, though our One. In the two-page entry for the vampire, the Bonds, and which allows a party to explore product boxes, which had the words Krynn in the time following the DRAGONLANCE second page merely repeats the text of the first. DRAGON BOOTH written on them in The illustration is different, but rather than Legends trilogy; Dragonflight, letters 4 high, were understandably going into the habitat and ecology of the vam- a dragon-riding flight simulator dropped off at the cafeteria and at the pire, the information on page one is repeated for the DRAGONLANCE saga; and Dungeon Bash, a sequel to Azure Bonds in a upstairs auction room. After setup, word for word. your editors went out for Chinese food Is this error unique to my copy or is it com- dungeon environment. mon to all? If the latter, how does TSR, Inc. plan There are several Oriental-style computer and then went home to await Thurs- to rectify the situation? Perhaps a special insert games on the market, however; just consult days dreaded dawn, with the opening in DRAGON Magazine is in order. “The Role of Computers” column for details. of the MECCA Convention Center doors Paul Fraser to thousands of game-starved fanatics. Windsor, Nova Scotia This years game fair was scheduled Good hit, bad miss on the same weekend as the annual The error was common to all copies of the reunion of the 101st Airborne Division first run of that product—and we have the Dear Dragon: A couple of comments from down-under (The Screaming Eagles) and a large corrected text in this issue of the magazine, rap concert that was well attended by appropriately enough in time for Halloween. which might be of interest to your readers: 1. In reply to Robert Collins (Letters, issue hordes of Milwaukee police officers. By #142), the article Good Hits & Bad Misses contrast, the convention crowd of over [which contained critical-hit tables for the 10,000 gamers and spectators was well SSI & etc. AD&D game] has already appeared in a Best of behaved, with the exception of author DRAGON Magazine anthology. It is on page 65 Margaret Weis, who made faces at me Dear Dragon: of volume V. whenever she walked by the TSR Peri- Im just writing in to tell you guys what a 2. I have just purchased the 2nd Edition odicals booth. In return, I gave a fan of and great job youre doing. But now I have a few Player’s Handbook Dungeon Master’s Guide. the DRAGONLANCE® saga a dime to go questions and comments. It struck me that you could publish corrections to the Bantam Books booth and tell 1. How about an article on cantrips for Orien- for these books in a ring-binder, hole-punched tal Adventures? format suitable for insertion in the Monstrous Margaret how much he admired her 2. I LOVED the cover artwork on issue #146. Compendium binder. This would keep all such writing (naming books she had never It was superb! corrections close at hand during play and save written), but this tactic failed miserably 3. Where do I send clues for Clue corner ? time in leafing through DRAGON Magazine for when the fan was so overcome with 4. Im really going to miss SnarfQuest. Are that missing info. actually meeting Margaret that he there any plans for a new regular series? Tony R. Davison forgot his mission and probably his 5. I own Pool of Radiance, and I just love it. Sunnybank, Queensland, Australia name and address as well. Does TSR or SSI have any plans for an Oriental Many new and exciting game [computer-game] setting? 1. [Groan.] I had completely forgotten about products appeared at the convention. Jason Dunn the anthologized version of “Good Hits & Bad ® Calgary, Alberta Misses” when I wrote my reply to Robert Col- TSR had lots of AD&D 2nd Edition, lins. The error is all the worse since I worked books and supplements, Hero Games 1. Any article on cantrips should fit the AD&D on that particular anthology. had the hardbound 4th-edition CHAM- 2nd Edition game version of the spell cantrip. 2. We think it would be better to simply run PIONS rules, and R. Talsorian had the The idea sounds okay, though we would be the errata on the 2nd Edition materials in the Hardwired sourcebook for its CYBER- choosy about the article itself. “Sage Advice” column (as we have done in issues PUNK game. FASAs cyberpunk-fantasy 2. Thank you. We’ll let Keith Parkinson know #148 and #149). Players may photocopy the SHADOWRUN game was sold beside that you liked his work. errata and keep the material with their game 3. Send your computer-game clues for “The books; we don’t object to photocopying as long Role of Computers” to: Hartley and Patricia as it is for personal use only and not for sale. Continued on page 66 DRAGON 5 DRAGON® Magazine (ISSN 0279-6848) is published monthly by TSR, Inc., P.O.