The Excellent Prismatic Spray Being a Commodious Compendium of erudition, intelligence, advice, narrative and insight of inestimable value to those of a DISCERNING TEMPERAMENT and ADVENTUROUS INCLINATION TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 1, Issue 2 Editorial 1 Jim Webster From our readers 2 An Opportunity 73 FEATURES Jack Vance & The D&D Game 4 Gary Gygax Phasms 8 Robin D. Laws ARCANA of Grashpotel 19 Peter Freeman Tweaks 28 Sasha Bilton & Phil Masters The Timeless Valley 33 Lynne Hardy COZENER’S EXPEDIENTS Three Cozener’s Expedients Sample file 68 Colin Speirs THE COMPENDIUM OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE The Air-cars of Ampridatvir 42 Nicholas H. M. Caldwell The Valley of Cages 53 Lizard Three Golden Swans 63 Steven S. Long THE PRIMER OF PRACTICAL MAGIC A Beginner’s Guide to Vat Creatures 47 Jim Webster Publisher: Simon Rogers Editor: Jim Webster Designer: Sarah Wroot Art Direction: Sarah Wroot, Simon Rogers Cover Art: Ralph Horsley Interior Art: Ralph Horsley, Hilary Wade, Dave Bezzina, Dover Books copyright-free resources, Sarah Wroot PRINTED IN THE UK • ISBN 0 9539980 2 9 Copyright ©2001 Pelgrane Press Ltd. Based on the Dying Earth book series by Jack Vance. Produced and distributed by agreement with Jack Vance c/o Ralph Vicinanza Ltd, New York. The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game, Dying Earth Quick-Start Rules and The Excellent Prismatic Spray are trademarks of Pelgrane Press. All rights reserved. Editorial o now we proudly present for your cerebral improvement the Ssecond copy of the Excellent Prismatic Spray. It has been a matter of some delight to us that our experiment, publishing Scenario Supplements in a Magazine format, has been so well received. We intend to continue with this format which has numerous advantages. Not merely familiarity and flexibility, but it also enables us to bring you scenario ideas that would otherwise be too brief to include in a larger and inevitably more self-regarding volume. You will note that this noble treatise is substantially larger than our first publication, an advance we felt we could make due to the exceedingly high quality of articles submitted. Admittedly such betterment is rarely without cost, but what value terces when the sun might blink out tomorrow? Within these covers we bring you the thoughts of Gary Gygax on the influence Jack Vance had on his work, some Cozener’s Expedients which will make your life as a GM easier, and articles by persons of the calibre of Robin D. Laws and Lynne Hardy. Yet all we ask is mere money. Finally, it may be noted by persons of literary merit that we are still desirous of acquiring the services of writers of solid accomplishments. Similarly those whose muse inspires them to illustration need not feel that we shun their efforts. All persons competent in these fields are invited to contact the editor. This volume of scenarios is merely one of many. Farsighted and mathematically literate individuals may subscribe for the next four issues for a mere £30, or $40 US and Canada. Other areas please contact Pelgrane Press and we shall calculate as economical a rate as is possible to suit your convenience. Yet, as a way of expressing the unbounded admiration with which we regard those who subscribe, they will receive (at no extra Samplecost) the scenario file and game known as The Mermelant Trail. An irreplaceable resource, ownership of which is sure to be regarded in years to come as the mark of the discerning connoisseur of genre. Editor: Jim Webster. Page Bank, Rampside, Barrow in Furness, Cumbria. Tel. 01229 821561 email: [email protected] Advertising and Subscriptions: Pelgrane Press, 18–20 Bromells Road, London SW4 OBG. Tel. 020 7738 8877 email: [email protected] website: http://www.dyingearth.com Design & Typesetting: Sarah Wroot, Meadow View, Church Street, Litlington, Cambridgeshire SG8 0QB The management regrets that they are no longer able to maintain the old custom of dealing personally with those who insist on wasting their time with tales of personal misfortune involving harrowing ordeals by fire and flood, attack by beastmen or sundry undesirables, or even the petty vengeance of slighted lovers. In the interests of greater efficiency they suggest that persons prone to such behaviours should cast themselves forthwith into the nearest major watercourse, thus saving the management the expense of hiring thugs purely to achieve the same ends. The typesetter humbly requests readers to note that the editor has publicly admitted to following the creed of Dangott, a god who “doesn’t approve of punctuation”. Volume 1, Issue 2 1 Dear Sir, under-researched nonsense, your Dear Perrin My factor (whose name I do not motivation for publication is less I was so glad to hear of your recall) brought your periodical clear. promotion, I have used your Fromto my attention when I wasour readers...batter recipe many times with I offer you the opportunity to suffering a moment of weakness rectify your mistake — you are excellent results. It is excellent (before my mid-morning glass of invited to a blind tasting of the for pectizing all manner of dyssac my humours are three wines, and if you have any acetarious flora. somewhat unbalanced.) Under kind of palate at all, there will However we have just killed a normal circumstances I would be no contest. In future, I hoon that was rampaging in our have sent it back to the servants’ suggest you confine your articles sour melon patch and wondered quarters where such tittle-tattle to subjects of interest to your if you still had your recipe for and scurmundly ranting belong. readers; the usual gossip and hoon and sour melon sauce. Instead, I took in the cover, and titillating nonsense. Serenissima Trellice noticed that you have acquired the services of my colleague at Perrin We asked Makarapass, personal the Symposium, Sage Inferator of the Syncretic chef to Perrin, to deal with the Grashpotel. Gingerly avoiding Symposium letter from The Serenissima and the more scurrilous articles, I The Editor replies: are delighted that he accepted. turned to G’s account of the Whilst not normally editorial My dear Serenissima, wines of the Derna valley: policy to discuss these matters, it How fortunate you are to have a Golden Porphiron. Expecting a ill becomes us to snub the sour melon patch which bears piece explaining viticulture in Inferator of the Syncretic fruit! Seeds were brought from words from the estimable Jorro’s SymposiumSample for the Simulation file of the far west to this area by Dictionary for the Unwashed, Reality, Domestic of the Walls of Cuish the Younger some three instead I discovered outrageous Kaiin, Treasurer of the centuries ago but the plant rarely vilification and calumny. The Scolasticarium’s wine evenings, grows well enough to fruit in finest and most delicate wine of holder of a half share in a our soils. Should it bear, the the entire valley, High Derna temperance hotel in Taun Tassel, grower must stand over the Heart, the quintessence of and trustee of the home for tender globes to judge the peak Golden Porphiron, is referred to elderly and distressed of flavour: if left an hour too in disparaging terms: “only the gentlewomen in Kaiin. We shall long the pulp liquefies and actual owners attempt to claim it be delighted to put forward ferments. The pressure of the gas the equal of the immediate three discerning individuals to generated during the (rapid) neighbours” This suggests that taste these wines. It should fermentation soon results in an being slapped in the face with a however be noted that it was not explosion which distributes the piece of wet erb liver, or your factor who brought you a seeds and stinking pulp over the suffering the effects of an copy of our exalted work, but a surrounding area. And any earthquake whilst in a scent junior member of the student incautious grower. shop is in some way more body who is currently Nonetheless, the acid edge of the pleasurable than the tender supplementing his income by sour melon is an admirable ministrations of a Maot Excelsia. selling the periodical door to contrast to the rich flavour of Sage Grashpotel’s door. hoon: if properly prepared this is understandable jealousy at being a dish fit for Kandive the Golden denied a row of vines in the himself. I have suggested High Heart is his motive for this 2 THE EXCELLENT PRISMATIC SPRAY From our readers… alternative ingredients for the the juice. This should be added advertisement for a certain less fortunate, but would remind to the meat juices together with Wakdun. The fact that it is any aspiring cook that one a scant 1/2 cup of stock made apparently considered acceptable cannot produce a culinary from the roasted bones of the to purvey such goods and masterpiece without exerting hoon. (In the Larval Age this services in the city does not oneself. Those who search out useful liquid was normally made mean that advertisement of such the correct ingredients will be by treating the bones of a beef in items is acceptable, or even well-rewarded by the results. similar fashion.) Heat to boiling, desirable. I brought the matter season and whisk in a generous to the attention of my husband, HOON WITH SOUR MELON Instruct your cook to skin, bone, lump of butter. The end result who expressed shock and season, roll and tie for roasting a should be a well-flavoured sauce announced his intention to joint of hoon. Loin is best, thigh of sufficient quantity to moisten confront this Wakdun in person may suffice. If you are unable to the meat rather than drown it.