CONTENTS

Issue #138 SPECIAL ATTRACTION Vol. XIII, No. 5 October 1988 15 Dreadful Tidings: Nothing is so bad at Halloween that it couldn’t be much, much worse. Publisher Mike Cook 16 The Black Book and the Hunters — Craig Schaefer Those who annoy the Old Ones should keep a careful watch behind them. Editor Roger E. Moore 22 The Ungrateful Dead — Tom Moldvay Assistant editor Fiction editor Beautiful ghouls and titanic zombies: new undead for your AD&D® games. Robin Jenkins Patrick L. Price 38 Methods to Your Madness — Ed Friedlander Editorial assistants A new insanity system that lets a little lunacy go a long way. Kim Walter Barbara G. Young 44 The End of the World — Eileen Lucas Art director Got an ailing fantasy campaign? Cure it — with the Black Death. Lori Svikel

Production staff Betty Elmore Kim Janke Carolyn Vanderbilt OTHER FEATURES

Subscriptions U.S. Advertising 8 Through the Looking Glass — Jeanne McGuire Pat Schulz Shelia Meehan Bring the dead to life with just a touch of your paintbrush.

U.K. correspondents 52 Putting Fire into Firepower — Martin Landauer Graeme Morris Rik Rose Lasers in TOP SECRET® games; or, “What’s this red button do?”

U.K. advertising 56 Between Thunder & Lightning — fiction by Nancy Varian Berberick Dawn Carter Kris Starr War’s purpose is to take life; to renew it is another kind of struggle.

70 The Role of Computers — Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser If the space pirates aren’t tough enough, you can try the rainbow dragons.

78 Role-playing Reviews — Ken Rolston Four role-playing games and supplements for those who take horror seriously. 90 The Game Wizards — Scott Haring Sifting through the Empires Of the Sands.

DEPARTMENTS

3 Letters 51 Index to Advertisers 92 Convention Calendar 6 Forum 76 Gamers’ Guide 96 Dragonmirth 12 Sage Advice 84 TSR Previews 98 SnarfQuest

COVER

Our “Halloween Greetings” cover is the first DRAGON® Magazine cover from Jeff Easley, whose work should be familiar to any longtime gamers. It is also the first cover acquisition made by Lori Svikel, our new art director. Jeff admits that he collects antique Halloween items; he certainly has a feel for the topic. Souvenirs

The GEN CON®/ORIGINS™ 1988 LETTERS Game Fair is safely over. Your maga- zine staff members acquired a num- ber of items from the convention for their services: What did you think of this issue? Do you have a for prolonged visits, with meals. All prices are, An ORIGINS Special Award for question about an article or have an idea for a of course, subject to change as the DM desires, Outstanding Achievement (1987) for new feature you’d like to see? In the United and are offered only as guidelines. DRAGON® Magazine; States and Canada, write to: Letters, DRAGON® The reference to issue #155 should have been A dozen new colorful buttons, Magazine, P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva WI 53147, to issue #115, the November 1986 issue. U.S.A. In Europe, write to: Letters, DRAGON including “Veni, Vidi, VISA” (“I came, Magazine, TSR UK Limited, The Mill, Rathmore I saw, I went shopping”), “Oh, no, Road, Cambridge CB1 4AD, United Kingdom. Some last words not another learning experience!” and the rather appropriate “100,000 Dear Dragon: lemmings can't be wrong!”; Next index? After reading your article “The Last Word” in Copies of the now-infamous issue #129 and Cliff Frazier’s sequel to that WOOF MEOW role-playing game of Dear Dragon: article in #134, I thought of other suggestions to Will you ever consider a separate index of include in the sequel’s sequel. These are: cats and dogs gone bad (with magic past reviews of books and games? When do you “It’s probably just another gas spore.” system — I am not making this up) expect a follow-up index to your Ultimate Arti- “Who’s the chick with the spiders?” and the lurid MACHO WOMEN cle Index? “No, you go on without me.” WITH GUNS role-playing game of . . . Matthew Pritchard “Without Mjolnir, I’ll bet you’re a real wimp.” well . . . ahem; Houston TX “What’s that up ahead?” The keys to the display booth, “C’mon guys, let’s show him who’s boss.” which I had to return on an emer- We used to index the items that were “Why is it so dark in here?” gency drive back to MECCA on reviewed in DRAGON Magazine, but discontin- “He’s probably only first level.” Wednesday night (sorry, Mike); ued that practice as time went on (and the “I’ll try to talk to it.” “It’s just another illusion.” Converted new SPACE: 1889™ game number of things to index grew longer). Time T-shirts from the Game Designer's will tell whether we index the titles of reviewed “I think it’s dead.” books and games. “Let’s split up.” Workshop booth (thanks, Marc); We are considering several options for pub- “I’ll walk up to the dragon invisibly.” A chance to see the 22,986,375 lishing another index for DRAGON Magazine. “Why is that man performing sign language?” playing pieces inside each of the We could either create a yearly index, to be “Don’t be so paranoid.” humongous BUCK ROGERS™ and published each December, or a cumulative index Daniel Watson DRAGONLANCE™ boardgames that that would either appear every so often in the Plattsburgh NY sold so well at the booth; June anniversary issue (as has been done A friendly wave from Margaret before), as a separate booklet, or in a future “Darksword” Weis, who also told Best of DRAGON Magazine anthology. Designing And some more... such an index, however, would be a difficult and visitors that the editor of this maga- time-cosuming task, and we’re not sure how Dear Dragon: zine was the one who threw the soon we’ll be able to get to it. We will make an With respect to “The Last Word,” I have come paper airplanes in the Hyatt and effort to have an index created and published up with a few myself: thus brought down the wrath of the by the end of 1989 — but we cannot make any “The dragon’s asleep!” hotel staff on the otherwise harm- promises! “How much damage do I take?” less game-industry party on Friday “They won’t kill us if we surrender.” night (a completely untrue assertion; “I’m opening the chest.” really, it wasn't me); More errers “Those stairs sure look slippery.” “What does green slime taste like?” Several bags full of wonderful Dear Dragon: “Hey, look — archers!” munchies from the Ambrosia choco- I am writing to point out two mistakes I found “Spikes in the bottom of a chest — how late works (just a couple of blocks while reading DRAGON issue #136. The first weird!” from MECCA), where the air was so mistake I found was in the article “A Room for “I’ll dive in with full plate on.” thick with chocolate you could hard- the Knight,” in Table 1, Inn Prices. According to “How many are there?” ly breathe; this table, a four-star inn costs 5 gp to stay there “I’ll snap the staff!” Fond memories of the good for one night, yet it only costs 15 sp to stay “That’s no mage!” response we got from our seminars there one night and get a meal. The second “Did you ever see so many teeth?” (thanks to all panel members and to mistake I found was in the “Long Arm of the “It says ‘healing’ on the label.” Law.” The very first sentence in the article “I’ll turn the 43 vampires!” those in the audience); and starts, “DRAGON issue #155 printed many thief- “Neat! A cave entrance that looks like a The usual end-of-convention colds orientated articles . . .” But this was printed in mouth!” and exhaustion that debilitated the the new issue, #136. DRAGON issue #155 is not “I’m going to open the door, push the third staff (as well as the rest of TSR, Inc.) due out for another year and a half. Would you book to the left on the bottom shelf, enter the for a week afterward. please clear up these two mistakes? secret room, open the chest, take out the 3,142 It was worth it. Now, of course, Jeff Darby gold pieces, put on the ring of animal control in there's next year. . . . Lawrence KS the false bottom, and control the snake I find under the box. Pretty good guess, huh?” The first line under “Lodging” in Table 1 from Darrell Anderson “A Room for the Knight” should have read “1 Elma NY night without meal.” The second line should have read “1 night with meal.” The weekly and monthly lodging prices reflect discounts offered

DRAGON 3

difficulty (as per the experience-point chart in the DMG, page 35) to the building to be looted. For every 10’ a building has, assign 1 HD, FORUM rounded to the lowest number. Once the basic value is established, treat every guard or trap as one special ability. If you feel the guard or trap is especially tough, treat it as an exceptional ability. Proximity to strong sup- port (e.g., the sheriffs office) or special con- plied by two for fast combat resolution. struction (e.g., a greased tower wall) could also be treated as a special or exceptional ability. For “Forum” welcomes your comments and Table 3A every three secret receptacles for treasures opinions on role-playing games. In the Unit- Powered Armor Protection (e.g., a hidden safe), add one more special abili- ed States and Canada, write to: Forum, ty, rounded to the lowest number. Then add the DRAGON® Magazine, P.O. Box 110, Lake Weapon Combat experience given for any treasure gained, Geneva WI 53147, U.S.A. In Europe, write number adjusting for difficulty. to: Forum, DRAGON Magazine, TSR UK type Laser 20 Using this system, a moneylender’s 10’-high Limited, The Mill, Rathmore Road, Cam- Sonic 24 shop with four guards, three hidden treasure bridge CB1 4AD, United Kingdom. We ask Electrostunner — receptacles, a pit trap, and 500 gp in treasure that material submitted to “Forum” be either Bullet 28 would be worth 534 xp to a pair of 1st-level neatly written by hand or typed with a fresh Needler — thieves escaping with the loot. ribbon and clean keys so we can read and Recoilless rifle 16 This system can also be converted to dungeon understand your comments. Gyrojet 22 use, treating every 10’ of depth as height. Frag. grenade 18 Joseph Goldlust This letter is a little late because I have just Rocket launcher 14 Caldwell NJ started to use David Dennis’s article on powered Axe, knife, etc. — armor for STAR FRONTIERS® games in issue Electric sword 26 As a player of the sport of paintball, I was #129. My complaint concerns the armored Spear or sword 34 dismayed to see the editor state in the editorial combat resolution system, in which quite a bit Shock gloves 28 of issue #134 that he could understand how of math is involved. When the combat starts, Stunstick 34 paintball games might be considered harmful. this system slows the fast-paced action of the Guided missile 12 For your information, paintball has one of the game to a stop. I have revised the step-by-step Flamethrower 36 best safety records of any popular sport. On the combat system by eliminating step 2 in the Cannon 12 other hand, if you are viewing it in the same article. The system I now use is this: Howitzer 6 light as the antigun freaks who claim that play- 1. Roll to hit to see if the armored combatant Bomb 8 ing with “guns” leads to violent behavior, then is hit. Mine 20 you are being just as ridiculous as those who 2. Check to see if each weapon penetrated the ECM rifle 16 claim that role-playing games lead to Satanism. armor. Also, with regard to the review of Oriental 3. Roll 2d10 and add the weapon’s number of Finally, I decided that each suit is approxi- RPGs in the same issue, I am sick and tired of dice damage that it causes. Record this sum. mately .5 meters taller than the individual for seeing ninjas portrayed as nothing more than 4. Check on table 3A herein for each weapon, which it was designed. Also, each empty suit of evil, cutthroat assassins. In truth, they were find its combat number, and subtract this powered armor weighs approximately five forced to turn to stealth and assassination as amount from the sum in step 3. times as much as the wearer. their only means of defense against the vastly 5. Check the result on table 7 to see what Brian Estes superior numbers of samurai who frequently damage has occurred. Galatia IL raided their villages. Now, will someone please 6. Roll for damage, with the wearer taking give the ninja the respect they deserve? And one-half (or one-quarter, if a powerscreen Over the years, several people have expressed stop treating the samurai as such great and effective against that weapon type is used). a desire to create an experience-point system honorable guys. By today’s standards, most of I have added one new table to the ones in the for thieves (see issue #135, page 43). Building on them were scum. article, in which all the protection percentages a previously suggested idea in an article from Mark Crane have already been divided by five and multi- this magazine, I propose assigning a level of Edwardsville IL

DRAGON® Magazine (ISSN 0279-6848) is published monthly by TSR, Inc., PO. Box 756, Lake Geneva WI 53147, United States of America. The postal address for all materials from the United States and Canada except subscription orders is: DRAGON Magazine, PO. Box 110, Lake Geneva WI 53147, U.S.A.; telephone: (414) 248-3625. The postal address for all materials from Europe- is: DRAGON Magazine, TSR UK Limited, The Mill, Rathmore Road, Cambridge CB1 4AD, United Kingdom; telephone: (0223) 212517; telex: 818761; fax: (0223) 212517. Distribution: DRAGON Magazine is available from games and hobby shops throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and through a limited number of other overseas outlets. Distribution to the book trade in the United States is by Random House, Inc., and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Ltd. Send orders to: Random House, Inc., Order Entry Department, Westminster MD 21157, U.S.A.; telephone: (800) 638-6460 toll-free except Alaska (call (800) 492-0782 toll-free in Maryland). Newsstand distribution throughout the United Kingdom is by Seymour Press Ltd., 334 Brixton Road, London SW9 7AG, United Kingdom: telephone: 01-733-4444. Subscriptions: Subscription rates via second-class mail are as follows: $30 in U.S. funds for 12 issues sent to an address in the U.S. Or Canada; (I)16 for 12 issues sent to an address within the United Kingdom; $50 in U.S. funds for 12 issues sent by surface mail to any other address; or $90 in U.S. funds for 12 issues sent airmail to any other address. Payment in full must accompany all subscription orders. In the U.S. and Canada, methods of payment include checks or money orders made payable to TSR, Inc., or charges to valid Mastercard or VISA credit cards; send subscription orders with payments to: TSR, Inc., PO. Box 72089, Chicago IL 60678, U.S.A. In the United Kingdom, methods of payment include checks and money orders made payable to TSR UK Limited, or charges to a valid ACCESS credit card; send subscription orders with payments to TSR UK Limited, as per the above address. Prices are subject to change without prior notice. The issue of expiration of each subscription is printed on the mailing label of each subscriber’s copy of the magazine. Changes of address for the delivery of subscription copies must be received at least six weeks prior to the effective date of the change in order to assure uninterrupted delivery. Back issues: A limited quantity of back issues is available from either the TSR Mail Order Hobby Shop (PO. Box 756, Lake Geneva WI 53147, U.S.A.) or TSR UK Limited. For a copy of the current catalog listing available back issues, write to either of the above addresses. Submissions: All material published in DRAGON Magazine becomes the exclusive property of the publisher unless special arrangements to the contrary are made prior to publication. DRAGON Magazine welcomes unsolicited submissions of written material and artwork; however, no responsibility for such submissions can be assumed by the publisher in any event. Any submission accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope of sufficient size will be returned if it cannot be published. We strongly recommend that prospective authors write for our writers’ guidelines before sending an article to us. In the United States and Canada, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (9½” long preferred) to: Writers’ Guidelines, c/o DRAGON Magazine, as per the above address; include sufficient American postage or International Reply Coupons with the return envelope. In Europe, write to: Writers’ Guidelines, c/o DRAGON Magazine, TSR UK Limited; include sufficient return postage or IRCs with your SASE. Advertising: For information on placing advertisements in DRAGON Magazine, ask for our rate card. In the United States and Canada, contact: Sheila Meehan, Advertising Coordinator, TSR, Inc., PO. Box 756, 201 Sheridan Springs Road, Lake Geneva WI 53147, U.S.A. In Europe, contact: Dawn Carter or Kris Starr, Advertising Coordinators, TSR UK Limited. DRAGON is a registered trademark of TSR, Inc. Registration applied for in the United Kingdom. All rights to the contents of this publication are reserved, and nothing may be reproduced from it in whole or in part without first obtaining permission in writing from the publisher. ® designates registered trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. ™ designates trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. Most other product names are trademarks owned by the companies publishing those products. Use of the name of any product without mention of trademark status should not be construed as a challenge to such status. ©1988 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Second-class postage paid at Lake Geneva, Wis., U.S.A., and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to TSR, Inc., PO. Box 110, Lake Geneva WI 53147, U.S.A. USPS 318-790, ISSN 0279-6646.

6 OCTOBER 1988 I’ve a few comments on Eric Oppen’s article needs to be targeted is the female consumer. If on Roman gods (issue #133). The first is simple. the D&D game can establish itself with women While it’s true that the Celtic gods worshiped by of all ages, its future is secured. druids are not a part of the Roman pantheon, While I have only mentioned the D&D game it’s also true that many Celts lived within the by name, other RPGs certainly will be a major empire, at least after Julius Caesar annexed part of the future market. Yet in the public’s Gaul. Rome had a policy of not interfering with mind, RPGs and the D&D game are synony- religions that didn’t cause trouble, and druidic mous. Something should be done to correct this; shrines would be located anywhere in the the emergence of “Party Games” might be an empire where Celts lived. avenue to open new RPG markets. The other point is a bit more detailed. In his Overall, I feel the main emphasis should be on description of the goddess Eris, Eric Oppen established players. Flexible, multisystem correctly assigns her the alignment of chaotic products of high quality are the way to go. neutral. He then has her put a number of rules Jeffrey M. Carey upon her worshipers that would be more Chicago IL appropriate for a lawful-good goddess. Eris is Chaos personified. While being chaotic Today, I decided to peruse through a stack of can be interpreted as being an individual, it can DRAGON Magazines to read some “Forum” also be meant as being chaotic (random), and a letters. Lately, the big thing has been magic- goddess of discord is more likely to have the users. When Mr. Gygax wrote the game, he latter version of the alignment than the former. knew that the magic-user at 1st level was laugh- But even if the former is used, I have a hard ably weak, and he tells us so in the Players time envisioning her taking great efforts to Handbook. But if anyone were to bother to look punish her clerics who deal with demons. at the future of the class, he would notice that The essence of chaotic neutrality is that indi- after a while it takes surprisingly few experi- vidualism is a great thing, and good and evil are ence points to rise in levels. As soon as the minor things in comparison. While I could see magic-user hits a high-enough level, a third-level such a deity harboring a hatred of devils, fireball or lightning bolt will outshine the party’s modrons, devas, planetars, and solars, I can’t warriors. Besides, when it comes to weapons, a see her think any worse of a chaotic-evil being magician only carries a weapon to defend like a demon than, “He’s a little mean, but what himself, so why not have only one weapon? the hey — if we were exactly alike, we’d be Just because a magic-user can’t fry Orcus’s boring” (unless that demon had foolishly man- brains out at 1st level is no reason to condemn aged to offend her, in which case a specific the class. I believe another “Forum” writer demon would swiftly be annihilated). supports me when I say that the magician is, S. D. Anderson because of his greater age (as per the DMG) and Whittier CA all of his studying, the most learned of any of the other characters, and will usually have the I think RPGs are entering a “settling down” highest intelligence. Surely he will be the best at period. The future stress will not be on new trying to deal with zealous arresting officers, game systems, but rather on strengthening trying to discover if the party’s contact is lying, current systems. For the first time in the RPGs’ or debating whether a known assassin should history, the number of new players will taper join the party. A magic-user must also have a off (due to shifts of taste in the public). Estab- fairly high dexterity, so he might be the best at lished players will age as a population and will helping the thief pick a lock or something along also have greater levels of disposable income. those lines. Thus, I think the future will hold an expanded A. Patrick Connery market for supplements designed to comple- Burlington ND ment an existing game. The market has been saturated with campaign settings, most of which This letter concerns what I feel is a tendency are more or less mutually exclusive. (Who has of the AD&D game to favor good-aligned player time to adventure across both Krynn and Oerth, characters over evil ones. To begin with, it not to mention the Forgotten Realms?) As play- seems that most people hold it to be true that ers become comfortable with one setting, they only a few people enjoy evil PCs over good ones. are less apt to purchase others. If they do, it is It seems to be the opposite to me because all my probably more for ideas than anything else. friends who play AD&D games play evil charac- Thus, the most successful game companies of ters; so do I. But we have to put up with all the future will cater to the generic campaign, sorts of restrictions. Cavaliers who turn evil selling products any DM can use in any cam- become hated by their own kind and lose some paign (e.g., TSR’s REF3 The Book of Lairs). Of of their special abilities. Evil clerics must use the course, the second-edition AD&D game is likely reversed forms of their curative spells, and they to spark new interest in RPGs and bring in encounter all sorts of problems because this many new players. Yet, I see an overall trend style tends to be weaker than the standard toward serving the established player. “good” style. And why can’t PCs play evil pala- While major efforts should probably be in the dins? Doesn’t Orcus need a strong champion as direction of satisfying this established clientele, much as Tyr? The only evil PC class, the assas- new players should still be sought. This can be sin, will not exist in the revised rules. And accomplished by maintaining a high visibility modules that contain adventures for evil charac- (more conventions, charity events, and — most ters do not exist. After you change a module to importantly — press coverage). Direct confron- accomodate evil characters, it barely resembles tation with Bible Belt groups should be avoided. the product that you bought. Just keep producing fine products and let them Legends & Lore (page 2) states “evil power is scream. Any press is good press. Total parental only represented as a foe for the forces of good approval could destroy the new player market to strive against and to crush.” Why must this be as much as anything; the D&D game should so? I do not want the game to become biased in keep its rebellious edge. On the other hand, a favor of evil, but I think that in the revised rules marketing campaign aimed at the older player something should be done to make evil charac- could help in making the D&D game an “accept- ters more compatible. Keep the assassin, and able” pastime for “adults.” Another market that Continued on page 86

DRAGON 7 by Jeanne McGuire Through the

Looking After and before: A skeletal guardain in its finished state and with flat white primer alone. Photos by Roger E. Moore.

Glass Put a little death in your painting The intrepid band of adventurers pressed on into the depths of the long-lost tomb of Khemon-Pha.

heroes realized that several of the skeletons lying in state were moving — and were armed.

shattered bones of their undead assailants lay scattered about the crypt. Dess, a mage of great renown,

we have fought strange foes,” he reported. “See — the chests of these skeletons

limbs have no joints. Only with powerful magic could they have been made to move at all!”

Huh? What’s this with solid skeletons? do it; even trying gives me eyestrain and Small brush (about size 0); Skeletons are supposed to be skeletal, cramped hands, and filling in the gaps Very small brush (3/0), or a technical right? Aren’t yours? Mine are — now. with a wash gives only dirty bones. The pen, about size 00; Both as a game master and miniatures technique described in this article works Paper towels or old rags, and painter, I have always had a special fasci- for me, shaky hands and all, and gives Water or solvent, as appropriate, for nation with the undead. Skeletons have professional-looking results as well. It thinning paint and cleaning brushes. long been a personal favorite. Dozens of takes a bit more preparation than the them prowl my dungeons and workbench. method given earlier, but the actual work (On special occasions, I line them up in is easier. I can paint six or eight of the little Art supply stores are the best places to front of the TV and show them videotapes fellows in under an hour. find brushes; they tend to have a much of the great Ray Harryhausen animated wider selection and better prices than skeletons.) Over the years, I have come up Tools of the trade hobby shops. White synthetic fiber brush- with a simple and sure-fire technique for You will need the following materials es are good, but they may be hard to find. quick and easy paintings of properly skele- and tools, most of which you probably Acrylic paints, unlike the solvent-based tal skeletons, and variations on it to deal already use for miniatures painting and paints, cannot be dissolved and smeared with liches, zombies, ghosts, ghouls, and the rest of which are readily available: by freshly applied layers of color once other horrors. they have dried. Armory and Polly S acryl- Most people, especially beginning paint- Hobby knife (X-acto #l or similar); ics work well. ers, paint a skeleton in a sequence of steps Several small files; resembling the following: trim the obvious Large file or medium sandpaper; Skeletons, bone by bone flash (little bits of metal from imperfec- White glue; To paint skeletons, first select suitable tions in the mold) from the figure; paint it Pieces of wood for temporary bases; miniature figures. Some, such as the old white; paint little black lines to indicate Primer (optional); Grenadier “Wizzards & Warriors” line, are gaps between the bones; then, sic it on Black spray paint (Testor’s flat black too flat and crudely carved for this tech- innocent adventurers. enamel works well); nique to work well. Most recent releases The problem with this technique is that Clear flat finish (optional); are adequate, and many of the recent it tends to produce rather coarse-looking Paints (preferably acrylic): light tan, figures from Grenadier and Ral Partha are results. Even with a 5/0 brush, it is diffi- ivory, white, and black; superb. Look for deep sculpting and cult to paint even, regular lines between Old battered brush, cut short for dry- raised, clearly defined bones. The hands, the bones, especially ribs. At least, I can’t brushing; feet, and rib cages are the usual trouble

8 OCTOBER 1988 Three custom-designed spearmen from the Bad Bones Legion, meeting an The techniques described in this article apply to all skeletons — even to those enemy's charge. Miniature designs and painting by David C. Sutherland III. from Central America and the Orient.

spots. I prefer to buy new releases as soon moment and will certainly not wear as be applied two ways. First, drybrush it on, as possible, as the molds used to cast them well as their properly dried brethren. I in slightly less amounts than the tan. This wear out. After many thousands of figures generally spray a batch of figures before I serves to indicate which areas should be have been produced, this wear produces go to bed, glue them to temporary bases painted. Then, with the 0 and 3/0 brushes, more mold flash and dulled details. for easier handling when I get up (that’s carefully paint each bone. Since you are Second, each figure must be prepared what the bits of wood and the white glue only working on the raised areas and have for painting. This entails a bit of work are for), and paint them after I get home the drybrushing to guide you, this is quick with a knife and files to clean off the flash, from work or after lunch on weekends. In and easy. The backbone, for instance, can mold lines, and other imperfections. It is between, I have time to touch up the be done as a series of dots. Be careful to essential that this be done as thoroughly specks where the spray did not cover, keep the paint out of the black regions. as possible, as the painting technique such as behind shields, under arms, etc. A Remember, it’s always easier to put a little described herein enhances any raised black wash can sometimes help here. more paint on than to take it off again. area, intended or not. Be especially thor- Much of the subsequent paint on each After the ivory comes white. Like the ough about the ribs; mold lines often run skeleton is applied by drybrushing, which tan, this is drybrushed on. However, it is up the sides of the rib cage, and it pays to is one of the most important methods of applied lightly, as a highlight. The only keep a small knife-edge needle file just to producing highlighting and special effects. place you might need to actually paint it clean these up. Depending on your normal You will need an old and fairly wide brush on is the back of the skull. Do not overdo procedures, you may also want to chemi- that you do not care about damaging. the white; the primary color of the skele- tally clean the figures. If not, a quick wash Drybrushing shreds brushes, so it is a ton is ivory, with tan shadows and white with hot, soapy water will remove many good way to use those old brushes you highlights. of the sorts of grunge which prevent paint have lying around waiting to be thrown You will probably need to do a few from sticking properly. Be sure to rinse away. Dip the brush in paint and wipe touch-ups here and there, especially the soap off thoroughly, and only handle most of the paint off on a rag or paper around the skull’s face. This is where a the figure by the base after cleaning. The towel. Dab, wipe, or scrub the brush fine-point Rapidograph or other tech pen use of primer is optional. Whether you use across the figure, depending on the comes in handy. It is easier to control than it or not depends on personal taste and the amount of paint on the brush, the texture a brush and, while I have not tested it on sticking abilities of the black spray paint of the surface, and the coverage desired. oil-based paints, its permanent ink holds you have. I myself use Floquil gray spray The only way to get a feel for proper nicely to acrylics. A fine brush and a primer, which should be let dry for 24 drybrushing is to practice. steady hand can fake it quite nicely, too. hours. The first color to be applied by dry Finally, you can paint armor, equipment, When the figures are ready to paint, the brushing is the light tan. You should apply and whatever shreds of clothing are still first little trick of this painting technique the tan fairly heavily, but be careful not to hanging on each skeleton. Paint colors for comes into play. Lay all of the figures flat get it into the grooves between the bones. these details were not included in the on several sheets of newspaper and spray This is the foundation of the entire tech- materials list, because they vary depend- paint them black. When they are dry, turn nique: It is much easier to paint something ing on what the particular figures you are them over and do the same to the other that protrudes than to dodge two protru- painting happen to carry and wear. Armor sides. Be thorough, but avoid overdoing it. sions and paint the depression between is best done with heavily drybrushed dark The skeletons will eventually have four them. By such simple tricks are great silver, followed by a very light highlight of layers of color (five if you used primer), so undead made. The tan, if applied in a normal silver in a few spots. Weapons care must be taken not to make any too properly thin coat, will be fuzzy at the should be painted dark silver, sometimes thick, to avoid chipping when they are edges and allow some black to show highlighted with drybrushed silver or handled. through. That’s fine; the tan is only impor- platinum. A little rust paint goes a long Let the black paint dry overnight. It pays tant along the edges of the bones, where it way — don’t overdo it. Dark bronze fol- to be paranoid about the coat of paint at portrays the bone curving into the dark lowed by bronze or gold handles most the bottom of any painting job. If it does interior of the skeletal body. gold-colored things. Remember that gold not dry properly, your figures could go The second color used is ivory, the pri- does not tarnish; it does, however, get horribly bald at some inopportune mary color for these skeletons. This will dirty, and it has shadows like anything. DRAGON 9 else. For leather, heavily drybrush or neat things about this is that the naturally lightly paint dark brown, with a very light irregular finish left by drybrushing is highlighting of a lighter brown. When perfect for simulating cloth! Shades of tan Polly S did official AD&DTM paints, it had a nicely simulate a sort of unbleached mus- color called “Otyugh Brown” that was lin color, but dull red and dark green also perfect for leather surfaces. This same work well. Ghosts and other wispy undead technique works very nicely for painting should use the same tan-ivory-white wooden parts on shields. The hafts of sequence of painting as skeleton bones. weapons such as axes and pole arms Try out these techniques on your next should be slightly lighter in color than undead. You will be amazed by how well other woods. The bases of undead figures they look when you start by painting them can be painted charcoal gray. black. Incidentally, this dark-priming tech- The matter of shreds of clothing on nique works well on other sorts of figures skeletons brings us to a category of as well. It is nice for giving a dark tone to undead figures which I call the robed just about anything. Among the figures I undead, as these figures are generally have used it on are an antipaladin, a broth- rather well clothed. Robed undead include er and sister team of thieves, a small red liches, zombies, and various other horrors. dragon, two bandits, and some drow. Their skins, where applicable, are fairly easy to paint. If you can’t get properly rotten-looking greenish-gray paint, it is easy to mix it yourself. The cloth areas are another matter entirely. Look at an old piece of cloth. The color is dull, often worn in places. All of the colors look dusty and vaguely alike in some hard-to-define way. If the cloth has been attacked by mold, these effects are more pronounced. To paint such old, worn, rotting clothing, start with a color quite a bit darker than the intended result, followed up by the primary color of the clothing, then by a lighter shade for highlights. One of the

DRAGON 11 Will a paladin’s protection from evil keep ghouls at bay? SAGE ADVICE Yes, but ghouls are the only undead creatures so affected. The paladin (or spell-caster) can voluntarily break the circle in order to melee the ghoul, but this allows the ghoul to return the attack, though at the appropriate penalty (see the spell’s description on page 44 of the Play- ers Handbook). by Skip Williams What happens when an undead The Monster Manual says that with a link to the Negative Material spectres are totally powerless in plane is plane shifted to an outer If you have any questions on the games sunlight. What does this mean in plane? Would this sever the link? produced by TSR, Inc., “Sage Advice” will game terms? has no special effect on answer them. In the United States and Plane shift A spectre cannot drain levels or inflict undead. If the spell succeeds, that portion Canada, write to: Sage Advice, DRAGON® damage when exposed to natural sunlight of the undead that was formerly on the or its magical equivalent, such as light Magazine, PO. Box 110, Lake Geneva WI Prime Material is shifted to the destination 53147, U.S.A. In Europe, write to: Sage produced by a sun blade (continual light, plane; the link to the Negative Material Advice, DRAGON Magazine, TSR UK Lim- although quite bright, is not equal to full remains intact. It is quite possible that the ited, The Mill, Rathmore Road, Cambridge daylight). Spectres will flee from sunlight residents of the destination plane will CB1 4AD, United Kingdom. whenever they encounter it, and will resent having an undead monster dumped This month, “Sage Advice” returns to the never enter it willingly. Spectres regain into their midst. topic of monsters in the AD&D® game, last their powers immediately upon leaving covered in issue #131. direct sunlight. Can psionically aware creatures attack intelligent undead with Can a cleric turn a banshee? Undead attack mode A, assuming that they According to the rules, no. Individual meet the requirements for using DMs might allow them to be turned as this attack on nonpsionic beings? Undead, as a general class of mon- special monsters, however. Can intelligent undead be domi- sters, are immune to sleep, charm, nated? I assume the undead immu- and hold spells. Does this immunity What is a lesser vampire? nity to charm prevents this. A lesser vampire is created when a also extend to web spells? There is no reason why any undead that In general, no. Any creature with a vampire drains a victim of life energy, and is capable of independent thought should corporeal body can be ensnared by a web the victim (now a normal vampire, though not be subject to psionic attack, including unless it possesses some special form of possibly with extra abilities carried over domination (this is not charm, per se). protection, such as a from life) remains under the vampire’s ring of free action. Mindless undead, such as skeletons, are Of course, incorporeal undead such as control; see the Monster Manual, page 99. immune to psionic attacks. Individual DMs wraiths, spectres, groaning spirits, ghosts, might choose to rule that all undead are and vampires in gaseous are immune form immune to psionic attacks unless they Can a vampire drain energy levels to webs. themselves use psionics. after a stake has been driven through its heart? If it can, will sim- Can normal persons speak with Can undead be psionic, assuming ply touching its body cause the undead? that the creature in question was energy drain? Unintelligent undead do not converse; psionic in life? A stake through the heart totally inca- they simply attack living things. The more Only those undead which can retain pacitates a vampire. It cannot move, powerful, intelligent, corporeal undead character abilities, such as vampires and attack, or use its special abilities; it is not such as vampires and liches do speak. liches, can retain psionic abilities in their destroyed, however, until additional steps Whether or not other undead speak is up undead states. are taken (see the Monster Manual, page to the DM. In general, undead are malevo- 99). All touch-delivered attacks, including lent beings who hate life and are not an undead’s energy drain, require a suc- prone to talk. However, having an undead Are wights, wraiths, mummies, cessful melee hit from the creature deliv- monster speak for dramatic effect is per- vampires, and spectres affected by ering the attack. Simply touching an active fectly acceptable. magic missiles, lightning, and magi- vampire will not cause energy loss. cal fire? Which creatures can become See the individual monster descriptions undead? Is it possible to have vam- for each creature’s immunities; note that AD&D game module GDQ1-7 piric purple worms or spectral Queen of the Spiders (pages 70-71) all undead are immune to charms, holds, trolls? Or is undead status limited to speaks of a vampire striking away a paralyzation, sleep, and poison. Any attack humans and demi-humans? If so, which is not prohibited is allowable. holy symbol and suffering 2-12 hp what happens to other creatures damage. The Monster Manual, on the who are slain by “undead-creating” other hand, says that holy symbols undead? How does a skeleton see? What do not harm vampires. Please Some DMs rule that only humans about other creatures that don’t resolve this contradiction. become undead, but it is more common to have eyes? No contradiction exists. The line in the include all the PC races and their NPC One can assume that the magic that Monster Manual is meant to convey that subraces. Animals and monsters never animates a skeleton also grants it 60’ infra- holy symbols have no effect when used become undead unless their remains are vision. Other eyeless creatures don’t see at against vampires as weapons. Any lawful- magically animated as skeletons or zom- all; they navigate by touch, smell, or hear- good holy symbol, however, is an effective bies. Such creatures simply die when slain ing. Such creatures are never fooled by barrier against a vampire. The rather by undead. invisibility spells. unusual vampire in the module chose to

12 OCTOBER 1988 force its way through the barrier instead Extraplanar monsters these monsters actually gain the of bypassing it as most vampires do (see abilities of their new forms? Also, the Monster Manual, page 99). The dam- My DM recently ruled that my par- how great a change in size is age is the consequence of the vampire’s ty’s cleric could not plane shift a allowed? unusual action, not a character's. Note also type V demon because the spell These creatures’ shape change abilities that if a character tries to use a holy sym- requires a touch and the demon is are not the same as the ninth-level magic- bol as a weapon, it ceases to function as a immune to normal weapons. The user spell; they are similar to the more barrier; the vampire can return the attack cleric’s hand, my DM said, is not a limited druidic ability. The ability is only without penalty. This is similar to what magical weapon. useful for disguise and deception, to con- happens when a paladin voluntarily Your DM is wrong. While a character’s ceal these creatures’ demonic natures. breaks his protection from evil in order to hand is not a magical weapon, immunity These demons are limited to the forms of melee an extraplanar creature. to normal weapons does not confer immu- creatures that are identified as “persons” nity to touch-delivered spells. While a on page 45 of the Players Handbook and touch-delivered spell does require a suc- similar creatures from the FIEND FOLIO® Miscellaneous monsters cessful melee hit, it is not a melee attack tome and Monster Manual II. The disguise per se. Some DMs allow a spell-caster to is complete, however, and the demon How do spells affect nilbogs? Are keep a touch-delivered spell “on hand” receives all of the racial abilities of the there limits on nilbogism — such as until he touches something; thus, if the new form. For example, a succubus shape range, save, or limits on total hit first attempt to touch the target misses, he changed into a dwarf would be able to dice or levels affected? can try again. Holding a spell on hand spot unsafe stonework, determine depth, “Harmful” magic gives nilbogs hit points requires minor concentration which can etc. Remember that character levels are on a one-for-one basis. Death magic dou- be broken voluntarily or by an attack that not a racial characteristic. I suggest limit- bles a nilbog’s current hit points. Curative damages the spell-caster. As long as the ing the change in size to 25% of the origi- spells harm nilbogs. Spells which cause no spell is on hand, it will be discharged nal creature’s actual height and weight. damage work normally on nilbogs. Any whenever the caster’s hands touch any- creature that can see or affect a nilbog is thing or anyone. The demon in your exam- Can a character pay a noble time subject to nilbogism’s peculiar effects (if it ple is entitled to its magic-resistance roll elemental to move him to a time tries to do anything to the nilbog). Nilbo- even if the touch succeeds. when an adversary was only 1st gism has no range, level, or hit dice limits, level, so he can be easily killed? or saving throw. Both the succubus and the alu- Where is the plane of Time? demon have the ability to shape It might be possible for player charac- I can’t find the statistics for the change into humanoid creatures of ters to convince a time elemental to move amphisbaena. roughly their own sizes. Is this a them in time. Time elementals are merely This monster is listed on page 88 of the true shape change ability, in that Continued on page 77 Monster Manual, under the heading “Snake, Giant.”

Can a character get lycanthropy from a lycanthrope’s claws? No, only from the bite. When characters fight lycanthropes, it’s best to keep sepa- rate track of the claw and bite damage each character suffers. My character was recently over- whelmed by a horde of small scorpi- ons that swarmed out of a barrel. I later discovered that these tiny monsters have 2 + 2 HD, three attacks each, and move as fast as an armored man. Isn’t that a bit much for normal arachnids? For normal arachnids, yes. But a 2 + 2 HD scorpion is not a normal creature. This creature is listed in the Monster Manual II as small, which means it’s smaller than a normal human — but easily 3-4’ long. (See the introductory sections of the monster tomes for explanations of all the terms used in monster descriptions.) A horde of them could not fit in a barrel; your DM made a mistake. A swarm of biting or stinging insects or arachnids inflicts 1-2 hp per round at most. If they have poison, one save per round will suffice. How many hit dice does a huge patch of green slime have? A 2-HD patch of green slime is about 3’ in diameter, or about seven square feet, enough to fill a typical doorway. Larger patches have one additional hit die per each additional three square feet. DRAGON 13

by Craig Schaefer

The Black Book and the Hunters

New items for Chaosium’s CALL OF CTHULHU ® game

out, leaving only the very edge of the The other unusual spell is used to sum- Before his untimely death in 1934, the picture. It remains to be seen what the mon a creature not previously described renowned professor and occultist, Howard picture was and what importance it had. in the other books of occult lore I have Brimley, had consulted nearly every tome The first page past the torn sheet holds a perused. Called the Hunter of Shub- relevant to the Cthulhu Mythos in his popular prayer to Shub-Niggurath. It reads Niggurath, this entity appears to belong to search for a way to destroy the Elder Gods (when translated): a powerful servitor race, not unlike the once and for all. Although he never found Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath. Recently, I the solution to his quest, he compiled set about to conjure and study one of “O friend and companion of night, many notes dealing with nearly every those servitors, and I was able to learn thou who rejoices in the baying of dogs facet of the mythos. Presented here is a something about it. and spilt blood, who wanderest in the portion of his recently rediscovered manu- The Hunters of Shub-Niggurath are midst of shades among the tombs, who scripts — a fragment dealing with one of fortunately seldom encountered. Unlike longest for blood and bringest terror the lesser-known works of the mythos, their “brothers,” the Dark Young, the to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand- The Black Book of Shub-Niggurath. It is Hunters are never called to preside over faced moon, look favorably on our hoped that this information will be of use cult ceremonies or to perform similar sacrifices!” to investigators everywhere. functions. They are called into service and controlled only by high priests or by Shub- MS: #02025 book catalog The Black Book is filled with doggerel Niggurath herself. DT: 10/29/1925 such as this, as well as several sets of The Hunters are called from their home RE: The Black Book of Shub-Niggurath instruction for ceremonies to Shub- world for one purpose only — to hunt. Niggurath. While the spell Call Shub- When summoned and given the descrip- I acquired The Black Book two years Niggurath is well known to many tion of a victim, a Hunter tracks down the ago, purely by chance. Since then, I feel I magicians and practicers of the dark arts, target and will not stop until either it or have sufficiently analyzed it to give a the adaption in The Black Book is unusual the target is dead. The Hunter has a spe- proper description of its contents. in that it summons Shub-Niggurath, places cial sense which allows it to home in on a As every serious student of the occult her in a form of stasis, and forces her to person when provided with something the knows, the deity Shub-Niggurath is a god- answer any questions the caster of the person has recently touched (such as a nail dess concerned with fertility. The Black spell asks. The spell is apparently used to clipping or a lock of hair). Book clarifies this, as it seems to be some force the goddess to appear at important The Hunter that I conjured was about 8’ kind of prayer book for her earthly cult ceremonies. tall; it stood on two legs and walked erect. priests. Not only is it full of prayers to this The book holds several other spells as The Hunter was massive and vaguely monstrous goddess, it also contains materi- well, only two of which are unusual. One humanoid in appearance, being covered in al relevant to Nyarlathotep. It is yet of the magical formulas is for the creation filthy brownish-gray fur. Its head was unknown what kind of connection the two of a Knife of Power, a potent weapon used merged with its torso so that it had no gods have, or if there is any true connec- most often by cult priests to slay sacri- neck whatsoever and no true face, except tion between them at all. fices. According to The Black Book, the for its yellow, pupilless eyes and a mass of The Black Book is a hardbound tome Knife (note that I am judging by extrapola- tentacles between and below them. Its with a flat black cover; its dimensions are tion; I have not taken the time to create hands were humanlike, except for the 8” x 11” x 1½”. The copy I found is one of my own) stores the power of those merging of two fingers and the presence written in archaic Latin, comprising 368 slain with it. On command, a bolt of of webbing between the other digits. pages and no illustrations of any sort. energy powered by the souls within the Short, ironlike talons projected from each Nevertheless, this version of The Black blade spring forth from the dagger’s tip. finger. Despite its bloated appearance, the Book has evidence of a color drawing on The bolt itself is a very powerful weapon Hunter seemed quite agile and restless, the very first page. When I received the with apparently enough energy to blast a and paced back and forth on its rootlike volume, however, the page had been torn hole through a sheet of metal. feet, its facial tentacles writhing and curl-

16 OCTOBER 1988 ing like serpents. In certain ways, it resem- turers find. Consequently, nearly every had at the time of its death. That, how- bled one of the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, powerful priest of Shub-Niggurath pos- ever, is just half of the special power of the though it lacked wings. sesses a copy. knife. Upon command, a beam of energy is The Hunter did not speak except in Spells are gained from The Black Book in emitted from the tip of the knife, automat- grunts and low squeals (perhaps its native the following order: ically hitting the chosen target. Before language), though it is capable of a crude 1. Summon Dark Young of Shub- firing, though, the user must specify how communication through a rough form of Niggurath many POW points he is expending. The empathy, which transmits the Hunter’s 2. Bind Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath POW used in the attack is gone from the intentions and emotions to nearby beings. 3. Call Shub-Niggurath knife forever, having changed into energy Apparently, Hunters are unable to control 4. Bind Shub-Niggurath (new spell) to fuel the beam. The effective length of this ability; thus, they project their mental 5. Contact Nyarlathotep the energy beam is 10 meters per point of conditions (such as they are) constantly. 6. Enchant Power Knife (new spell) POW used. From the one Hunter I summoned, I 7. Summon Hunter of Shub-Niggurath Next, the victim matches his POW received very powerful feelings of impa- (new spell) against the POW used in the beam’s attack. tience and anticipation; it doubtless 8. Voorish Sign If the beam is overcome by the victim’s desired to go on a hunt. The majority of these spells are POW, the attack has no effect and the The Hunters’ point of origin is as yet described in the CALL OF CTHULHU game POW used by the knife is wasted. On the unknown. They could be from an entirely rule book. The three new spells follow: other hand, if the victim is overcome, he different dimension, or they could be the Bind Shub-Niggurath: This powerful must roll the result of his CON x 3 or spawn from a nearby planet in our own spell summons Shub-Niggurath, who lower on 1d100. If the victim succeeds, he solar system. appears at the caster’s location in a form takes 1dl0 damage from the beam. If he All in all, The Black Book of Shub- of stasis from which she cannot escape fails the roll, he is instantly blasted to Niggurath is quite valuable, especially to until the caster frees her, she makes a roll ashes. Because of this weapon’s evil devotees of that deity. Otherwise, its value of 10 or less on 1dl00 (made every min- nature, it is seldom used by investigators depends on the individual investigator. ute), or she is attacked. In the case of but can often be found in the hands of a Probably the best use of this tome is to being allowed to leave, there is a 20% high priest of Shub-Niggurath. The knife is study the spell knowledge it contains, chance Shub-Niggurath will kill the caster only usable by its creator. though I have faithful copied the summon- before she goes. In any other case, Shub- Summon Hunter of Shub-Niggurath: This ing riyal for Shub-Niggurath; if indeed Niggurath automatically attacks anyone in spell is identical to the other Summon this creature is summoned in a helpless sight before disappearing. This spell is spells, and it requires an idol of either condition, more the better to destroy it in commonly used by cultists to bring Shub- Shub-Niggurath or a Hunter to work. As a relatively safe fashion. One can only Niggurath to preside over certain special described in the text given earlier, this hope for the best. . . . ceremonies. Her displeasure is hopefully spell summons a single Hunter. eased by placing many sacrificial victims around her summoning point. Hunter of Shub-Niggurath Game notes This spell has another use, however — (Greater Servitor Race) For Keepers who wish to use The Black one that is of potential interest to wizards. Book, the Hunters of Shub-Niggurath, and When Shub-Niggurath is held in stasis, the Description: A full description of this any of the new spells in this article, the caster may ask any questions of the deity. creature is provided in the manuscript following statistics are included. Under the influence of the spell, Shub- supplied by Howard Brimley, given earlier The Black Book of Shub-Niggurath gives Niggurath is compelled to answer them in this article. 5% Cthulhu Mythos knowledge, with a (unfortunately for the caster, she is under spell multiplier of 2. The Black Book may no obligation to answer truthfully). Also, Notes: A Hunter, as stated earlier, is only be found in several different languages, every question asked adds 5% to Shub- summoned to hunt down beings who have most commonly English or Spanish. The Niggurath’s chance of escape (calculated somehow offended Shub-Niggurath or her SAN loss for reading The Black Book is every minute). Of course, when freed, the representatives. It has a sense that allows 1d6. Since this book is fairly low-powered deity will not hesitate in slaying the mage, it to home in on its target. Once its mission (in terms of knowledge gained), it may be even to the extent of sending a Dark is complete, it disintegrates automatically. one of the first Mythos works the adven- Young or a Hunter if her prey escapes. Only the most powerful or foolish wizards Characteristics Average use this spell for this purpose. STR 5D6 + 20 37-38 This spell costs three permanent POW CON 5D6 + 10 27-28 points to cast, with another POW lost SIZ 5D6 17-18 upon the word to release Shub-Niggurath INT 2D6 7 from her prison. The spell requires special POW 1D6 3-5 candles, a pentagram, and several other DEX 4D6 14 ceremonial items that cost at least $200 to Hit points 30 procure. Move 10 Enchant Power Knife: This is one of the Enchant Item spells described in the CALL Weapon Attk% Damage OF CTHULHU game rule book, pages 76- Claw (2) 60 2d6 77. To create a Power Knife requires a Facial tentacles 90 5d6 silver knife worth no less than $350, a sacrifice to Shub-Niggurath of at least 10 Armor: A Hunter has thick hide worth 4 SIZ worth of victims, the permanent loss points. of 3 POW, and a sanity loss of 1d10. It Spells: A Hunter has no spells, but it has takes two days to cast this spell, and the the homing ability described previously. result is a very formidable weapon. Skills: Sneak 95%, Hide 55%, Climb 80%, When the Power Knife is completed and Swim 50%. is used to kill a being while a prayer to SAN: Seeing a Hunter of Shub-Niggurath Shub-Niggurath is spoken, the dagger costs 1d10 points of SAN. A successful literally absorbs the POW that the victim SAN roll still costs 1d6 points of SAN.

18 OCTOBER 1988

by Tom Moldvay most. The best subplots would be adven- tures in miniature, each having a logic all its own. Good subplots have their own beginnings and ends, with crises that must be resolved. The Skeletons The skeleton listing is not based on traditional lore and was invented for the game. Skeletons are, however, universal symbols of death and the dead. Skeleton costumes are traditional for Halloween, Ungrateful the night when the dead return to join the living. The Grim Reaper is often depicted as a giant skeleton wielding a scythe. The major arcana card of Death in the tarot deck often shows a skeleton. Skeletons that move defy the laws of nature. They Dead are a logical choice when making up a class of undead. In the AD&D game, skeletons are magi- cally animated by clerics or magic-users. More often than not, the spell-caster is evil, since disturbing the dead is not some- Expanding the ranks of the ghastly host thing encouraged by the forces of good or neutrality. The corpse used for the ani- mate dead spell has been buried for so long that only bones remain (or perhaps The term “undead” was popularized by creatures described in later books, there all flesh is destroyed in the process of Bram Stoker in his novel, Dracula. He used appear a number of “classical” undead, animation, leaving only bones). Skeletons it as a synonym for “vampire,” but he archetypes that form the basis of the are the weakest of the undead. In game implied that there might be other kinds of entire category of undead monsters. Clas- terms, their function is to try to swamp undead besides the minions of the Count. sical undead have three things in common: low-level characters by sheer numbers. Vampires in general (and Dracula in partic- 1) By all rights, such creatures should be A traditional monster from English ular) have proved a continual source of dead; 2) Most such creatures have some folklore similar to skeletons is Bloody inspiration for the horror genre [see sort of physical form; and 3) Most such Bones. The monster’s full name is “Hearts of Darkness,” from DRAGON® creatures are hopelessly evil and attack Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones, and it is some- issue #126, for more on this topic]. In the living beings on sight. times referred to as Old Bloody Bones or proliferation of horror movies, the word This article will examine three of these Tommy Rawhead. Samuel Johnson, in his “undead” came to be used for a variety of classical undead in detail: skeletons, zom- l7th-century dictionary, defined the crea- monsters, most of which had some con- bies, and ghouls. In particular, this article ture as “the name of a spectre, mentioned nection with vampires. will look at the background of each kind to fright children.” (Here, spectre is, of Undead monsters are an essential part of undead, the function of each undead course, used generically, and bears no of the AD&D® game. For example, the type in game terms, possible variations on relationship to the AD&D game monster ability of clerics to turn the undead is one the basic monster listings, and suggestions of the same name.) of the prime functions of that class. for adventure subplots. In Folklore Society County Publications Undead are frequently encountered in The background section of each listing (of England), Ruth Tongue quotes two adventures and fit well into nearly any will try to answer questions like: What informants who described Bloody Bones as plot, because their motivations are simple inspired the idea for this monster? Are living in dark shadowy places such as in and easy to understand — they hate the there traditional myths dealing with this deep cupboards, inside closets, or under living and seek to destroy all life. kind of undead? Does the monster appear the stairs. Those who are heroic enough to Indeed, the undead are the archetypes often in books or movies? peep through a crack might get a glimpse of monsters. They are evil and deadly, If the Dungeon Master understands the of the dreadful crouching creature, with with frightening powers. Their hatreds game function of any particular monster, blood running down its face, seated wait- are unreasoning; their attacks are guaran- he or she can use the creature to maxi- ing on a pile of bones that once belonged teed. Characters facing the undead have mum effect. It also becomes easier to alter to children who told lies or said bad but two choices: fight or run. the monster slightly for its surprise value words. However, if you spied upon the The term “undead” literally means “not or design a new creature that serves a monster, it knew about it and got you dead,” with the implication that such crea- similar function. Variety keeps the players anyway. tures are also “not living.” Undead thus guessing; an element of uncertainty keeps Most creatures classed as “nursery have the semblance of life in that they an adventure interesting. bogies” are based on earlier legendary have bodies but are not truly alive. To While an entire adventure based on the tales of monsters. In Lancashire and York- provide high-level clerics with foes, the undead might be too heavily slanted shire, Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones is a kind concept of “undeath” has been expanded toward the cleric character class, a sub- of evil spirit haunting old marl pits and in the AD&D game to include ghostlike plot dealing with the undead fits well into similar places. In Cornwall, Old Bloody creatures from other planes of existence, any adventure. (Perhaps the undead haunt Bones lives in abandoned mines, especially but even the ghost can semi-materialize to a small cemetery or roam a deserted castle those near the sites of ancient battles. attack by touch. tower near the main adventure area.) Bloody Bones lies waiting to grab victims Of the more than 350 monsters in the Subplots should be kept reasonably small, who pass nearby, dragging the unwary Monster Manual I and among the other dealing with a half-dozen encounters at down into deep forbidding lairs.

22 OCTOBER 1988 BLOODY BONES effects of a fear spell. SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below For the effects of damage vs. a bloody SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil FREQUENCY: Very rare bones, treat the creature as if it were a MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard NO. APPEARING: 1 (30% chance of 2-12) skeleton (i.e., one-half damage from sharp INTELLIGENCE: Non- ARMOR CLASS: 7 weapons, etc.). The chance of a cleric ALIGNMENT: Neutral MOVE: 12” turning a bloody bones is the same as the SIZE: M HIT DICE: 3 cleric’s chance to turn a shadow. PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil % IN LAIR: 50% TREASURE TYPE: 40% chance each of J-N In films such as Jason and the Argonauts Skleros are skeletons made from the (B in lair if more than 1) and the various Sinbad movies, model- corpses of highly trained warriors (fight- NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 animator Ray Harryhausen created some ers of 4th level or better) that still magi- DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-10 spectacular special effects. One such spe- cally retain some of their past fighting SPECIAL ATTACKS: Fear cial effect was that of skeletal warriors skills. Their better armor class is due not SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil wielding swords and carrying shields. Ray only to the shields they carry but to their MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard Harryhausen’s skeletons are fast and nim- heightened dexterity (equal to 15). They lNTELLIGENCE: Low ble, appearing to be more formidable usually fight with long swords. Because ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil opponents than the skeletons in the AD&D they “remember” many of their old fight- SIZE: M game. This has inspired a variant monster: ing habits, skleros attack as if they had 2 PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil the skleros. Skleros is Greek for dry and hit dice; they would thus have a THAC0 hard, and is a root for the word “skeleton.” (score to hit AC 0) of 16. Clerics have the Bloody bones are the undead, animated same chances to turn skleros as they corpses of evil criminals cursed to con- would zombies. While skleros have no tinue their horrid trade long after they SKLEROS treasure of their own, they often act as should have died. They look like bloody treasure guards. skeletons with a few shreds of flesh hang- FREQUENCY: Rare ing on the bones. In fact, they resemble NO. APPEARING: 3-24 A classic Walt Disney cartoon featured corpses left hanging on gibbets (a tradi- ARMOR CLASS: 5 (6 without shield) dancing skeletons, and animated skeletons tional punishment for criminals). MOVE: 12” often appear in cartoon features. Such Bloody bones lair in hidden caves or HIT DICE: 1 + 1 skeletons not only dance but trade heads, deep concealed pits. They venture forth % IN LAIR: Nil fall into piles of bones, and reform into only to kill and rob victims. At the sight of TREASURE TYPE: Nil skeletons again. The skeleton variation a bloody bones, a character must make a NO OF ATTACKS: 1 herein called dry bones is inspired by the saving throw vs. spells or else suffer the DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-8 antics of cartoon skeletons. The name “dry bones” comes from the song of the same Bloody Bones name (“The leg bone’s connected to the hip bone,” etc.).

DRY BONES

FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 2-20 ARMOR CLASS: 7 MOVE: 12” HIT DICE: 4; see below % IN LAIR: Nil TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Non- ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: M PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil

Dry bones are the same as skeletons with one important difference. They can only be destroyed when all their bones are pulverized or otherwise completely destroyed. Each dry bones has 4 HD (with 32 hp) but attacks as a 1-HD creature A dry bones taking a total of 8 or more hp damage collapses into a pile of bones. After one round, the bones re-form into a skeleton and attack again. The process continues until the dry bones has taken a total of 32 or more hp damage in combat, at which point the dry bones falls apart forever. Dry bones often masquerade as mere

DRAGON 23 piles of old bones, being able to dismem- on a traditional system of magical symbol- age and take damage at the same time. ber themselves at will until they are ism that ties various stones to the so-called The safest way to strike the “shock bones” destroyed. Clerics have the same chances “Seven Magical Planets” (cf. Occult Philoso- would be with a weapon having a wooden spoon to turn dry bones as they would zombies. phy or Magic by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, handle, such as an axe or spear. While dry bones have no treasure them- originally published in 1510). selves, they often act as treasure guards. Ruby eyes have the burning eyes spell, which is essentially the same as the first- SHOCK BONES Skeletons could be used as the undead level magic-user spell burning hands repositories for enchanted magical items. (except the flames radiate from the gem FREQUENCY: Very rare The actual threat from such skeletons eyes instead of the hands). Treat the spell NO APPEARING: 3-18 would come from the items carried, not so as if cast by a 9th-level magic-user (hence ARMOR CLASS: 7 much the skeletons themselves. One sim- it does 9 hp damage). This power is usable MOVE: 12” ple but effective example of this is to give three times per day. HIT DICE:1 a skeleton a pair of enchanted gems for Sapphire eyes grant luck to their anima- % IN LAIR: Nil eyes. These gems would normally glow tor, if within 60’ of such a magic-user. All TREASURE TYPE: Nil with magical light. As a general class, such saving throws and “to hit” rolls made by NO OF ATTACKS: 1 skeletons could be referred to as “gem the spell-caster gain a +2 bonus. This DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-12 eyes.” The actual creature names, how- power has no set limit on duration, though SPECIAL ATTACKS: Electricity ever, would depend on the type of gem it ends if the gem eyes is destroyed. SPECIAL DEFENSES: Electricity used for eyes (hence ruby eyes, diamond Diamond eyes have the power to double MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard eyes, etc.). their movements and attacks, the same as INTELLIGENCE: Non- the third-level magic-user spell haste, ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil three times per day. SIZE: M GEM EYES Amethyst eyes have the power to cast PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil illusions, as per the third-level magic-user FREQUENCY: Very rare spell phantasmal force. Two such illusions Shock bones are skeletons animated by NO. APPEARING: 1-12 may be cast per day. both magic and electricity. Their attacks ARMOR CLASS: 7 Opal eyes can appear to duplicate them- do damage from electrical shock. Anyone MOVE: 12” selves, as per the second-level magic-user hitting a shock bones with a metallic HIT DICE: 4 + 2 spell mirror image. This spell may be cast weapon that conducts electricity automati- % IN LAIR: Nil three times per day. cally takes 2-12 hp damage. Clerics have TREASURE TYPE: Special Pearl eyes cause opponents to fall asleep, the same chances to turn shock bones as NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 as per the first-level magic-user spell sleep, they do zombies. While shock bones have DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 up to three times per day. no treasure themselves, they often act as SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells Obsidian eyes radiate darkness, as per treasure guards. SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil the second-level magic-user spell darkness A shock bones might also be created by MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard 15’ radius. This power may be used three an alchemist or sage in a sort of Dr. INTELLIGENCE: Low times per day. Frankenstein-type experiment. Such a ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil Emerald eyes weaken opponents, as per monster would not truly be undead, and SIZE: M the second-level magic-user spell ray of though it would conform to the above PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil enfeeblement, by touch. This power may statistics, it could not be turned by clerics. be used three times per day. Gem eyes are special undead creatures The magic of the gemstone eyes is so A variation of a monster listing is one created by powerful magic-users. Each powerful that it temporarily endows these close enough to some other listing that it skeleton has a pair of glowing gems for skeletons with limited intelligence (enough was probably inspired by the latter. An eyes, and each pair of gems holds one to cast the spells effectively). The treasure affnity is a listing that has some similar- magical spell. The power of the eyes is of gem eyes lies in the value of their eyes ties to another listing, usually either in the linked to the “unlife” of the creature. themselves; each gem is worth 1,000 gp. visual description of the monster or some Hence, the magical power leaves the gems Gem eyes can be turned by clerics as if the connection in traditional folklore. (When when the skeleton is reduced to zero or creatures were ghasts. Any gem eyes listing a monster name from one of the less hit points. turned away take their gems with them, of three books, (MM1) stands for Monster The magic-users who create gem eyes course. Manual I, (FF) stands for the FIEND take special care to make the skeletal life If designing a unique variety of gem FOLIO® tome, and (MM2) stands for Mon- force stronger than normal (hence the eyes, the DM should be careful which ster Manual II.) 4 + 2 hit dice). The magic-user must be at spells are put into the eyes. Since it takes Undead variations of skeletons include least 11th level. Instead of animating 11 at least a 9th-level magic-user to animate the huecuva (FF) and animal skeleton skeletons with an animate dead spell, the the dead, and an 11th-level magic-user to (MM2). A skeleton variation that is a nor- magic-user animates one gem-eyes skele- animate gem eyes, certain spells such as mal monster is the crypt thing (FF). ton with more hit dice. Theoretically, any fireball or lightning bolt are simply too Monsters with an affinity for skeletons magical spell could be put into the eyes powerful for low-level adventures. include the bone devil (MM1), eye of fear (using enchant an item or permanency), and flame (FF), babau demon (MM2), and but two factors limit the gems’ magical Electricity is a basic and primal force. It the galley beggar, an unusual ghost found power. The spells used in the gems are is easy to picture electricity as the power mostly in the north of England. It was first normally fourth level or lower; and spells used to animate the dead (it worked for mentioned in Reginald Scot’s book: The tied to the “natural” power of the gem the cinematic Dr. Frankenstein). A classic Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). A galley types are easier to make permanent. biology experiment uses electricity to beggar is a very thin spirit, often looking When designing varieties of gem eyes, make a dead frog’s leg twitch. If electricity like a skeleton. Its main purpose seems to the DM may wish to refer to pages 26-27 is the force powering a type of skeleton, be to terrify anyone it encounters; in fact, of the Dungeon Masters Guide (“Reputed then combat can be unusual. Anyone the first part of its name, “galley,” means to Magical Properties of Gems”). The follow- hitting the monster with a metallic weap- frighten or scare. Galley beggars have the ing eight varieties of gem eyes are based on, such as a sword, will both cause dam- same game statistics as do phantoms (Mon-

24 OCTOBER 1988 voodoo sorcerers. A bokor gains control of the gros-bon-ange of a dying person by sucking out the soul magically, trapping it in a magic vessel, or substituting the soul of an insect or small animal for the human soul. At midnight on the day of burial, the bokor goes with his assistants to the grave, opens it, and calls the victim’s name. Because the bokor holds his soul, the dead person must lift his head and answer. As he does so, the bokor passes the bottle containing the gros-bon-ange under the victim’s nose for a single brief instant. The dead person is then reanimated. Dragging him from the tomb, the bokor chains the dead person’s wrists and beats him about the head to revive him further. Then he carefully closes the tomb so no one will notice it has been disturbed. Led by the bokor and his assistants, the victim is first taken past his own home. It is believed that this trip will insure that the victim never again recognizes his home or tries to return there. Finally, the corpse is taken to the bokor’s house or a voodoo temple, and there is given a secret drug. The drug may be an extract of poi- sonous plants like datura or belladonna, used by slaves in colonial times to kill their masters. The zombie is then a corpse- slave, held in thrall to the bokor. The zombie walks with a distinctive shambling gait. It has an extremely low intelligence and can only follow the sim- plest orders, and it keeps its eyes down- cast. If it talks at all, it will babble gibberish in a nasal voice. Usually, the Galley Beggar zombie does not answer if spoken to and is bereft of the usual marks of sanity. One of the most sensational “true” zom- ster Manual II, page 100). are based on traditional voodoo myths, bie tales was related by Constant Polynice Ruth Tongue, in Folklore Society County especially those from the island of Haiti. to William Seabrook, as recounted in his Publications (vol. VIII), reports a headless Voodooism is a strange combination of book, The Magic Island. The spring of galley beggar that used to toboggan on a African and Roman Catholic beliefs, with a 1918 was a big cane season for Hasco, the hurdle down the hill between Over and bit of American Indian lore and European Haitian-American Sugar Company. The Nether Stowey, his head tucked firmly occult practices thrown in. Voodoo is factory, which owned various plantations, under his skeleton arm and shrieking with based on certain African religions whose offered a bonus for new workers. laughter. It was only on dark nights that practitioners believe they can temporarily One morning an old black headman, Ti he rode, but a strange light surrounded be possessed by their various gods and Joseph of Colombier, appeared leading a him, and he would slide, yelling with goddesses. Voodoo has strong connections band of raggedly dressed people who laughter, right down into the street to sorcery, witchcraft, and magic. shuffled along behind him, staring dumbly between the two villages. A voodoo worshiper believes that the like people walking in a daze. As Joseph The galley beggar is a ghost in the tradi- spirit of a god cannot take over his body lined them up for registration, they all tional sense and bears no relation to the unless his soul is first displaced. The soul stared, vacant-eyed like cattle, and made ghost of the AD&D game. The DM can use is believed to consist of two spirits: the no reply when asked to give their names a galley beggar in an adventure to make gros-bon-ange (big good angel) and the ti- Joseph said they were ignorant people the skeleton guards of a treasure more bon-ange (little good angel). The ti-bon- from the slopes of Morne-au-Diable, a effective (since only those characters who ange is like a person’s conscience. The roadless mountain district near the Domin- made their saving throws against fear gros-bon-ange is his essential soul, every- ican border, and that they did not under- could confront the skeletons). thing that makes him a unique individual. stand the Creole dialect of the plains. They Galley beggars favor strange, almost Without the gros-bon-ange, the ti-bon- were frightened, he said, by the din and zany antics. Their senses of humor are ange and the body lose contact. The gros- smoke of the great factory, but under his both macabre and frightening. Including bon-ange is displaced during possession direction they would work hard in the them is an easy way to add an unusual and also leaves the body after death. Great fields. The farther they were sent from element to any adventure. care is taken to provide the disembodied the factory, from the bustle of the railroad soul with a safe alternative dwelling place. yards where most of the workers congre- The soul is recalled by the hungan, the gated, the better it would be. Zombies voodoo priest, during a special ceremony Ti Joseph’s workers were assigned to and placed in a sacred jar. It then becomes distant fields beyond the crossroads, and Zombies are dead bodies brought back an ancestral spirit that will advise and they camped there, keeping to themselves. to a semblance of life by magic. They are protect the hungan’s family. In the evening, when each village group of little more than walking corpses. Zombies Zombies are created by bokors, evil workers gathered around one big common

DRAGON 25 pot of food, Joseph’s group always had own empty grave and began clawing at Zombies are unnatural creatures to two pots, one for him and his wife Croy- the stones and earth to enter it again. But begin with. One simple variation of the ance, the other for the workers. The food as their cold hands touched the earth of listing is a zombie that must be literally made for the workers was tasteless and their own graves, the zombies fell and lay chopped apart before it stops attacking. unseasoned — for, as Ti Joseph knew, there, now rotting carrion. Even then, it can be a nuisance. Dismem- zombies must never be permitted to taste That night, the people of the village, bered hands will grab victims; severed salt or meat. Salt is generally believed to after restoring the bodies to their graves, heads will bite. Such zombies might be be the best ingredient to restore a zom- sent a messenger on muleback down the termed “walking dead.” Walking dead are bie’s memories, but it must be ingested. mountain. He returned the next day with superzombies, more difficult to stop than One Sunday morning, Joseph left for the name of Ti Joseph and a stolen shirt normal ones because they are both strong- Port-au-Prince as usual, with his pockets which had been worn next to Ti Joseph’s er and hardier. full of money. It was lonely in the fields skin. From the shirt, the villagers made a with just zombies for company, and Croy- deadly ouanga fetish to gain their revenge. ance was filled with pity for the poor Just in case the ouanga was slow to work, WALKING DEAD creatures. “Perhaps it will cheer them a they also set an ambush for the man. Soon little to see the happy crowds and proces- afterward, Joseph was found on a lonely FREQUENCY: Very rare sions at Croix de Bouquet,” she thought. path. His head had been hacked off with a NO. APPEARING: 2-12 Since all the Morne-au-Diable people had machete. ARMOR CLASS: 8 gone back to the mountains to celebrate. The most feared consequence of releas- MOVE: 6” Fete Dieu at home, no one was likely to ing a zombie from bondage is that the HIT DICE: 6 recognize a dead relative’s face among the zombie will seek revenge before returning % IN LAIR: Nil zombies. to the grave. The revenge could be merely TREASURE TYPE: Nil When noontime came and Croyance sat physical, in that the zombie tracks down NO OF ATTACKS. 1 eating savory dried herring and biscuits the bokor to kill him. The bokor could run DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-12 with a cup of wine, she pitied the zombies or hide, but the zombie is tireless and will SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil even more. They did not seem to be hav- eventually find him. The zombie could SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil ing any fun. Every day they worked faith- even attack the bokor magically, turning MAGIC RESISTANCE: See below fully in the cane fields and brought Joseph the sorcerer’s own magic against him. INTELLIGENCE: Non- money, but the zombies got nothing. Then Unlike most superstitions, zombie tales ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil a woman passed by crying, “Tablettes! continue to be current. The late dictator SIZE: M Tablettes pistaches! T'ois pour dix cobs!” of Haiti, Dr. Francois Duvalier, had a pri- PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Tablettes are a sort of candy with the size vate army that was dubbed the tontons and shape of cookies, made with brown macoute, after the name of a kind of trav- Walking dead are undead animated cane sugar. Sometimes they have pistaches eling voodoo magician. Many Haitians corpses that keep attacking until com- (peanuts in Haiti) or have coriander seed. believed that some of the soldiers were pletely destroyed. Like zombies, they are Croyance thought, “These tablettes are not actually zombies under the control of immune to sleep, charm, hold, and cold- salted or seasoned; they are sweet and can “Papa Doc” Duvalier. based spells. Their six hit dice represent do no harm to the zombies just this once.” But the baker of the tablettes had salted Lesser Colossus the pistache nuts before stirring them into the dough. As the zombies tasted the salt, they knew that they were dead and made a dreadful outcry. Arising, they turned their faces toward the mountain where lay their own homes. No one dared stop them, and they shuffled out of town and soon disappeared down the path toward the mountain. When these walking dead drew near their own village on the slopes of Morne-au-Diable, the people of the village recognized among them fathers, brothers, wives, and daughters whom they had buried months before. Most of the vil- lagers realized the truth — that these were zombies who had been dragged from their graves. But others hoped that a blessed miracle had taken place and rushed for- ward to greet the returned loved ones. But the zombies shuffled through the marketplace, recognizing no one. As they turned left up the path leading to the graveyard, a woman whose daughter was in the procession of the dead threw her- self screaming in front of the girl, clinging to the girl’s shuffling feet and begging her daughter to stay. But the grave-cold feet of her daughter and the other dead tramped over her, and the zombies continued onward. As the zombies neared the graveyard, they began to shuffle faster and then rushed among the graves. Each went to its

26 OCTOBER 1988 their extreme tenacity. As the walking dead take damage, however, they become less effective (as they start losing vital LESSER COLOSSUS GREATER COLOSSUS parts of their bodies). For every 9 hp dam- age a walking dead takes (9 hp being the FREQUENCY: Very rare Very rare equivalent of losing 2 HD), it gains a —2 to hit and does —2 hp damage (minimum NO. APPEARING: 1-2 1 damage is zero hit points). Clerics have the ARMOR CLASS: 8 8 MOVE: same chances to turn walking dead as they 12” 18" HIT DICE: hp) hp) do wights. 11 (50 33 (150 % IN LAIR: Nil Nil A classic modern horror picture with TREASURE TYPE: Nil Nil NO. OF ATTACKS zombielike monsters is George Romero’s 1 1 DAMAGE/ATTACK: Night of the Living Dead (which is part of 3-18 10-60 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil Nil a trilogy that includes Dawn of the Dead Nil and Day of the Dead). In these movies, the SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard man-eating zombies that stalk the night Standard INTELLIGENCE: Non- Non- can only be killed by a shot or blow to the ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil Neutral evil head. This idea actually makes more logical SIZE: L (11’ tall) L (33’ tall) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Nil sense in the AD&D game than it does in the movies. The life-force magically ani- mating the corpse might be mystically contained in only one part of the body (something like a magic jar spell). The now hit the vital area. them. A cleric has the same chance to turn zombie would be invulnerable to all Note that hungry dead do less damage a lesser colossus as he would a mummy. attacks except those against the area hold- per attack than zombies. Furthermore, The greater colossus is in the “special” ing the animating force. such is their unnatural hunger that once a category regarding turning it away by a victim is slain, 2-5 hungry dead will stop cleric. attacking to feed on the slain victim. Hun- Note that the actual Colossus of HUNGRY DEAD gry dead will not eat other undead, only Ylourgne and many other monsters and fresh slain corpses. characters created by Clark Ashton Smith FREQUENCY: Rare Clerics have the same chances to turn appear in the section on Averoigne, which NO. APPEARING: 2-20 hungry dead as they do ghouls. is part of the D&D module X2 Castle ARMOR CLASS: 8 Amber (Chateau d’Amberville). While most MOVE: 6” In a story entitled “The Colossus of sections of that module were completely HIT DICE: 2 Ylourgne” by Clark Ashton Smith, the evil made-up, the Averoigne section was based % IN LAIR: Nil Nathaire created a terrifying giant undead on the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton TREASURE TYPE: Nil creature. “The Colossus of Ylourgne” was Smith and was written with the express NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 first published in the magazine Weird permission of the Clark Ashton Smith DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 Tales (June, 1934) and has since been estate. SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil published in hardback and paperback as A skeletal version of this monster, the SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below part of the collection of stories entitled bone colossus, appears in the AD&D mod- MAGIC RESISTANCE: See below Genius Loci and Other Tales. ule GDQ 1-7 Queen of the Spiders, page INTELLIGENCE: Non- Nathaire was a powerful alchemist, 111. This colossus even regenerates its ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil astrologer, and necromancer. Working wounds! SIZE: M with his 10 students, he robbed a grave- PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil yard of all its corpses. In a kind of magical Le Grand Zombi means “the great zom- assembly-line, the corpses were stripped bie.” Le Grand Zombi would be a kind of The hungry dead are undead corpses of all clothing, then the flesh and bones king of the zombies. Unlike normal zom- that return from the grave to feed off the were separated into separate vats and bies, Le Grand Zombi would be intelligent living. Like zombies, they fight until rendered down to a pliable mass. All the and could even cast spells. It has been destroyed or turned away, and are bones were then reshaped and rehar- speculated that Le Grand Zombi is actually immune to sleep, charm, hold, and cold- dened to form a huge skeleton. Finally, the a kind of lich, the spirit of an extremely based spells. skeleton was once again fleshed out. The powerful magic-user/cleric who special- The return of the hungry dead is usually separate ingredients were thus used to ized in necromancy (magic dealing with triggered by an evil magic-user or cleric. create a giant zombie. Along similar lines, the dead). The animating force is always concen- the lesser and greater colossus herein may trated in one single area of the body. be added to the AD&D game. Except in that area, the hungry dead are A colossus is essentially a giant zombie LE GRAND ZOMBI immune to physical attack. The area of magically made from many corpses. A concentration is usually the head but at lesser colossus is about 11’ tall (between FREQUENCY: Unique the DM’s discretion could be any part of the size of a hill giant and a stone giant). A NO. APPEARING: 1 the body (heart, stomach, etc.). greater colossus is an amazing 33’ tall ARMOR CLASS: -3 Hungry dead look exactly like zombies. (larger than the largest titan). Either one MOVE: 9” At first, however, “to hit” rolls of a natural can rip up a whole tree to use as a club, HIT DICE: 13 (65 hp) 19 or 20 are needed to affect them (simu- doing double-normal damage. Otherwise, % IN LAIR: 25% lating an attack to one particular area of colossi use only their massive fists. TREASURE TYPE: E the body). After the first attack accidental- Colossi have the same invulnerabilities to NO. OF ATTACKS: 2 ly succeeds, the characters will realize the magic and cold as do normal zombies, and DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-20 problem and try to aim for the vulnerable they always lose initiative from their slow- SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells area; thus, all natural rolls of 15-20 will ness. Holy water does 2-8 hp damage to SPECIAL DEFENSES: +1 or better weapon

DRAGON 27 to hit the flesh of the dead. It is thought to be an From his vantage point, he saw a maiden MAGIC RESISTANCE: 25% inferior order of the jinn (jinnee or genie of extraordinary beauty seated on the INTELLIGENCE: Supra-genius in the singular, djinni in the AD&D game). balcony above him. For most of the night ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil The jinn is a race of a vrariety of different he watched and listened, fascinated by her SIZE: M beings created out of black smokeless fire. enchanting voice and dazzling charms. PSIONIC ABILITY: 200 The usual dwelling places of jinn are On the following morning, Abdul-Hassan Attack/Defense Modes: All/all ruined houses, water cisterns, rivers, proceeded to make inquiries concerning wells, crossroads, and marketplaces. Iblis the lady. Eventually, he learned that she Le Grand Zombi looks like the worst is the father of the jinn and their chief. was the only daughter of an eminent moldering zombie. It is able to control all Ghouls inhabit lonely places, not only philosopher. Though the father’s learning skeletons and zombies (and all their graveyards but also deserts and isolated was profound, he had little wealth and undead variants), being a sort of lord of mountains. In many ways, ghouls are the could afford only the poorest dowry for the undead. Le Grand Zombi’s main attack personifications of the terrors of the his child. The lady, who was a paragon form is its ability to cast spells as if a 22nd- wasteland. Ghouls also personify the hor- instructed in every art and science, was level magic-user/cleric. Instead of choosing ror of starvation and forced cannibalism. thus unmarried. 84 different spells, it is easier for the DM In their true forms, ghouls are usually All thoughts of the prearranged mar- to consider Le Grand Zombi to have any hideous and loathesome, with fangs and riage fled from Abdul-Hassan’s mind. first-through sixth-level magic-user or talons. Sometimes one may have only one Instead, he told his father what had hap- clerical spell it needs. Higher-level spells eye or a set of wings growing out of its pened and begged that he might choose for Le Grand Zombi follow: back. But ghouls generally share the his own wife. The doting merchant found powers of jinns, which not only include it impossible to deny his son’s request. The Seventh-level Seventh-level invisibility but also shapeshifting. Ghouls next day, he visited the house of the phi- clerical magic-user can thus take on the semblance of human losopher and made formal arrangements Destruction Mass invisibility beings and quite often do so. for the marriage. Unholy word Phase door Theoretically, a ghoul could be of either After a brief courtship, the marriage Wither Power word, stun sex. Perhaps because of the strong patriar- was celebrated with much splendor. Sev- chal nature of Islam, in most tales the eral weeks passed in a state of extreme Eighth-level Ninth-level ghoul is a female. Sometimes the ghoul happiness — yet Abdul-Hassan noted that magic-user magic-user appears as a beautiful woman; at other his wife Nadilla would never partake of an Mind blank Imprisonment times, it appears more like its true form — evening meal. She excused herself by Power word, blind Energy drain half-woman and half-fiend. In female explaining that she had become used to Trap the soul Power word, kill form, the ghoul can even bear children. It the frugal and severe diet forced upon her is often represented as luring travelers out when she was growing up. In addition, Le Grand Zombi has all the of the way to lonely and remote ruins, One night, however, after a few weeks monster summoning spells (I-VII). The where it falls upon them suddenly and had passed, Abdul-Hassan awoke from a spells will only summon variants of skele- devours them, greedily sucking the warm deep sleep to find that he was alone in the tons and zombies as shown below: blood from their veins and sharing the bed. At first he took no heed, but he grew flesh with its children. anxious as the hours passed. His bride did Spell Summons There are several tales of ghouls in The not return to bed until shortly before I 2-16 skeletons Thousand and One Nights, the classic dawn. On the following night, he only II 2-12 zombies, skleros, or shock collection of Arabic and Persian folktales pretended to sleep and carefully watched bones (sometimes also titled The Arabian Nights). his wife instead. After she believed him to III 2-8 dry bones or hungry dead Two such tales are “The Story of the be soundly asleep, she quietly got out of IV 1-6 bloody bones Prince and the Ghoul” and “The Story of bed, threw on a long dark cloak, and V l-4 walking dead Sidi Nouman.” But the legends do not silently slipped away. Abdul-Hassan hur- VI 1-4 gem eyes belong only to the remote past. Mathias de riedly dressed and followed her. To his VII 1-2 lesser colossi Giraldo recounts a story he was told in his surprise, she soon left the main streets of travels about a more recent ghoul (Histoire the town and made her way to a remote If Le Grand Zombi attacks physically, it cureuse et pittoresque . . . etc., published cemetery reported to be haunted. does 1-20 hp damage, but it prefers to use in 1846). Tracking Nadilla carefully, he saw that spells. Le Grand Zombi can only be hit by About the beginning of the 15th century, she entered a large vault. With the utmost magical weapons, has 25% magic resist- in a pleasant suburb of Bagdad, lived an caution, he ventured to steal a glance ance, 200 psionic ability points, and all elderly merchant and his only son. Having inside. The vault was dimly lit by three psionic attack and defense modes. Le amassed a considerable fortune, the mer- funerary lamps, and to his horror, he Grand Zombi is in the “special” class for a chant naturally wanted grandchildren, beheld his young and beautiful wife seated cleric’s chance to turn it away. and he decided to arrange a match with with a party of hideous ghouls, about to the daughter of an old friend. Unfortu- partake of a loathsome feast. One of these Undead variations of zombies include nately, the lady was far from comely. Upon monsters brought in a corpse which had the coffer corpse (FF), son of Kyuss (FF), being shown her portrait, the son, Abdul- been buried that day; the corpse was juju zombie (MM2), and monster zombie Hassan, asked for a delay that he might quickly torn to pieces by the company, (MM2). A normal monster variation of the consider the proposed union. which devoured the reeking gobbets with zombie is the yellow musk zombie (FF). One evening, Abdul-Hassan was ram- every evidence of satisfaction amusing bling alone by moonlight through the themselves meanwhile with mutual countryside near his father’s house. While embraces and the drone of a mocking Ghouls contemplating the impending marriage, he dirge. heard a voice of enchanting sweetness Fearing to be caught by the ghouls, The word “ghoul” comes from the Ara- singing love lyrics with great skill and Abdul-Hassan fled back to his house as fast bic word ghul, used to refer to a kind of tenderness to the accompaniment of a as he could. When his wife returned, he demon of the wilderness. Ghul itself is lute. Following the music, he came to a appeared to be soundly asleep. Through- derived from ghala, which means “to small but elegant house. Unable to contain out the whole of the next day, he gave no seize.” In Oriental folklore, a ghoul is an himself, Abdul-Hassan leapt over a garden sign of what he had discovered. In the evil spirit that robs graves and feeds on wall and managed to hide in the garden. evening, as Nadilla was excusing herself

28 OCTOBER 1988 from joining him at supper, he insisted Ghulah are Oriental ghouls (especially of Other Monsters). that she stay and eat; she steadfastly Arabic-Persian tradition). They usually The AD&D game monster ghast is essen- declined. At last, filled with anger and appear as either beautiful women or hid- tially a variation of a ghoul, derived from disgust, Abdul-Hassan cried out, “So then eous half-woman, half-monster creatures. the word “ghastly” which comes from the you prefer to keep your appetite for your Ghulah are evil kinfolk to djinn. They Anglo-Saxon gastlic, literally meaning supper with the ghouls!” cannot be affected by sleep, charm, or “ghostly.” The word “ghastly” suggests the Nadilla turned pale; her eyes blazed, and hold spells. They have the power to cast horror aroused by the sight or suggestion she shook with fury. But she gave him no the magical spells of invisibility and poly- of death (a good choice for a root word reply and retired to bed in silence. How- morph self. Clerics have the same chances when inventing a type of undead). Ghasts ever, about midnight, when she thought to turn ghulah as they would ghasts. are tougher and have more powers than that her husband was fast asleep, she ghouls yet are so like ghouls as to be com- exclaimed, “Now, wretch, receive the While the roots for ghouls lie in Oriental pletely indistinguishable from them punishment for thy curiosity!” At the same mythology, the popular concept of the (except for their smell). time, she set her knee firmly on his chest, ghoul in fantasy literature and gaming has In the AD&D game, the ghoul marks a seized him by the throat, with her sharp been strongly influenced by the writer H. change in the game function of the nail tore open a vein and greedily began to P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s ghouls are not evil undead. Skeletons and zombies threaten drink his blood. spirits but a terrifying race of quasi characters by sheer numbers. With Abdul-Hassan managed to slip from humans who live in vast mazes of under- ghouls, the emphasis begins to shift to the beneath her. Springing to his feet, he ground tunnels. The tunnel systems are, terrifying powers of the undead. Ghouls struck her with a sharp knife with which more often than not, under or near ceme- roam in packs, and their numbers can still he had been careful to arm himself. Nadil- teries and crypts. Ghouls only leave their be deadly. But their paralyzing touch is la fell down, mortally wounded, at the side tunnels in search of prey; usually they even more deadly and introduces an ele- of the bed. Abdul-Hassan called for help, feast on corpses, but they are not above ment of extreme randomness into combat. and the wound in his throat was dressed. preying on the living. A string of lucky hits by the ghouls coup- On the following day, the remains of his Ghouls may once have been human, but led with unlucky saving throws by the wife were duly interred. their unspeakable practices have warped characters can suddenly decimate a party. However, three nights afterward, even their physical features. Other hor- Ghouls have affinities both to zombies although the doors were locked, Nadilla rors live underground, mostly aberrant and vampires. It would be as easy to clas- appeared at exactly twelve o’clock in her inhuman races that worship the Old Ones sify the hungry dead mentioned earlier as husband’s room. She attacked him with — Lovecraft’s bizarre alien gods. At some a ghoul instead of as a zombie; in some superhuman strength and ferocity, tearing time in the past, the ghouls mated with myths, ghouls return from the dead and at his throat. His dagger proved useless some of these underground otherworldly drink blood besides eating flesh. now, and his one chance for safety lay in races. The physical appearance of ghouls A type of ghoul found in Haiti is the speedy flight. Somehow managing to is both frightening and disgusting. An baka. A baka is similar to a zombie with escape, he gathered a group of armed encounter with a ghoul can be enough to several important differences. The corpse friends. Together they tracked Nadilla to shatter the sanity of a normal person. which forms a baka belonged to a member the tomb where she was now living. Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, a number of of a secret magical society that practices Despite her strength and fury, the men writers have written horror stories with ritual cannibalism. The cannibalism is managed to overcome the ghoul. related backgrounds. These stories are believed to give the eaters magical powers A great pyre of dry wood was built, with generally grouped together to form the and is a form of necromancy. frankincense, aloes, and costly spices “Cthulhu Mythos” (so named because of While a baka has to be animated like a added. The corpse, writhing and foaming the demon-god Cthulhu invented by H.P. zombie, the baka is no mindless slave. In at the mouth, was placed on the pyre and Lovecraft). Most of the stories were writ- the realms of death, the dead person has reduced to ashes, which were collected ten by friends and correspondents of H.P. merged with certain evil spirits and now and scattered on the Tigris River to be Lovecraft in the 1930s, but recent writers has their powers. This supernatural mon- carried away and dispersed amid the have made their own contributions to the ster can bring luck, power, or wealth to its waves of the Persian Sea. Cthulhu Mythos. The classic ghoul story master. But the baka must be treated in Since so many ghouls are female in by H.P. Lovecraft is “Pickman’s Model,” the proper manner (which includes a Arabic folklore, I have used ghulah, the which can be found in the short-story steady diet of fresh corpses), or the owner feminine form of ghul, to refer to Oriental collection entitled The Dunwich Horror will be destroyed by uncontrollable magi- ghouls. and Other Tales. Ghouls, or the hints of cal energy. In fact, the baka is often quite ghouls, appear in other Lovecraft stories willing to return from the grave to con- such as “The Rats in the Walls” (The tinue the horrid practices of its life. Dunwich Horror and Other Tales) and GHULA “The Hound” (Dagon and Other Macabre BAKA Tales). The ghoul race and the hero of FREQUENCY: Rare “Pickman’s Model,” Richard Upton Pick- FREQUENCY: Very rare NO. APPEARING: 2-20 man, are also featured in the H.P. Love- NO. APPEARING: 2-16 ARMOR CLASS: 5 craft novel The Dream Quest of Unknown ARMOR CLASS: 6 MOVE: 12” Kadath. Other ghoul stories of the Cthulhu MOVE: 12” HIT DICE: 5 Mythos include “The Grinning Ghoul” by HIT DICE: 3 % IN LAIR: 25% Robert Bloch (Mysteries of the Worm), “It % IN LAIR: 10% TREASURE TYPE: E Will Come to You” by Frank Belknap Long TREASURE TYPE: C NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 (The Dark Beasts), and “The Ghoul” by NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-12 Clark Ashton Smith (Other Dimensions). DAMAGE/ATTACKS: 1-8 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells Recent writers have continued the tradi- SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil tion of the ghoul in fiction with stories SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard such as “Quietly Now” by Charles Grant, MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Very “Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair” by INTELLIGENCE: Average ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (both collected in ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil SIZE: M Necropolis), and “Problem Child” by Brian SIZE: M PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Lumley (in Vampires, Werewolves, and PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil

DRAGON 29 Baka are the animated undead corpses MAGIC RESISTANCE: 50% A spiritualist told her that her dreams of members of a secret cannibalistic socie- INTELLIGENCE: Average were not dreams at all but projections. ty. They have gained some demonic magi- ALIGNMENT. Chaotic evil Constance had, at the seances, acquired cal powers and have the clerical spells SIZE: L (7’ tall) the power of astral projection, but she had command and hold person. Baka can influ- PSIONIC ABILITY: 100 no control over the power and was being ence the luck of their enemies. Anyone Attack/Defense Modes: E/F/G forced to project into areas controlled by fighting a baka has a -1 to hit, to do evil entities. This projection was uncon- damage, and to all saving throws for the A gelloudes is a kind of demon, with the scious and usually happened during sleep. duration of the combat. lower body of a giant serpent and the A medical expert was consulted. His Baka are essentially a variety of ghoul, upper body of a woman. The serpent body advice was that Constance immerse her- and clerics have the same chances to turn has a pair of scaley legs with webbed self in recreation, seeing her symptoms as them as they do ghouls. Like ghouls, baka talons. The woman’s hands end in claws; a kind of nervous breakdown. The girl are immune to sleep and charm spells. she has vampirelike canines. A gelloudes went to the seaside for a vacation and has dragonlike wings that aid both flying attended all sorts of balls, concerts, and In Greek legends, the gelloudes are a and swimming. plays. But the annoyances and bad dreams kind of female demon that steals and then Gelloudes attack with hand claws (1-6 hp continued. devours young children. The prototype damage each) and foot talons (1-8 hp dam- Constance was a beautiful girl and had for the gelloudes was the maiden Gello age each). If any attack succeeds, the countless admirers. Eventually she became whose ghost, according to the ancient victim is pulled close to the demon but is engaged to Alphonse Mabane, the only son poetess Sappho, returned after her not held. On the next round, if it gains the of a wealthy widow. Shortly before the untimely death and was said by the people initiative, the gelloudes can bite its victim day of the wedding, Madame Mabane died of the isle of Lesbos to have caused the (roll to hit at +2) and drain an energy of a stroke. Every one, especially Con- early deaths of children. By the 10th cen- level every round thereafter unless the stance, was overwhelmed with grief. Prep- tury A.D., Gello had become a demon of the victim breaks free of its bite, requiring an arations were made for an impressive Greek Orthodox Church. Her various open doors strength roll. If the roll is not funeral. minions were the gelloudes. made, the victim can be struck on follow- On the afternoon of the day before the Just as a ghoul is the personification of ing rounds at +2 to hit with claws and funeral, Constance was struck with a the wilderness and the fear of cannibal- talons (and automatically by the bite) until violent headache. She went to her room to ism, the gelloudes are the personification he breaks free. The victim gains no saving lie down in order to get rid of the pain. of the fear of infant mortality. In cultures throw against the energy drain. As the Two hours later, Madame Armande heard without modern medical techniques, victim loses energy levels, he seems to strange footsteps coming out of Con- infant mortality can result in a 20% death grow younger. When the victim has no stance’s room and bounding down the rate. With one out of five children being levels or hit dice left, he dies. stairs. Madame Armande ran to see who born dead or dying soon after birth, it is This reverse aging is something of an might be there and was astonished to see not surprising that the cause was attrib- illusion and is not necessarily permanent. Constance — but a Constance she hardly uted to demons. If the victim dies from the attack, then the recognized. Her daughter’s eyes shone In Greek folklore, gelloudes have 12½ corpse will be that of a young child. If the with beastlike ferocity, and a grim, savage secret names. The names (transliterated victim can be freed before death from expression distorted her face. She passed from the Greek) are: 1) Guloy — a form of energy draining, he will immediately right by her mother without even noticing Gello; 2) Mora — a kind of lamia; 3) Budzoy return to his normal age (the life-level loss the woman. Her walk was a light, stealthy — a sucker of blood; 4) Marmaroy — is permanent). tread, utterly unlike her usual walk. “heart of stone”; 5) Petasis — “fly like a As minor demons, the gelloudes rank in Madame Armande was too startled to bird”; 6) Pelagia — “swim like a fish”; 7) the “special” category when being turned stop Constance or even talk to the girl, Bordona — “swoop like a hawk”; 8) Aple- by clerics. who was gone before her mother could toy — “insatiable”; 9) Khamodrakaina — recover. Madame Armande told her hus- “lurk like a snake”; 10) Anabardalaia — One aspect of the topic of ghouls deals band what had happened, and he tried to “soar like a hawk”; 11) Psychanaspastria — with creatures from the Negative Material find his daughter, but no one in the village “snatcher of souls”; 12) Paidopniktria — plane that exist in spirit form. They seek had seen her. “strangler of children”; and 12½) Strigla — to possess the material bodies of their About an hour before bedtime, there a kind of stirge. victims and force them into ghoulish prac- came a violent ringing at the front door Gelloudes are related to lamias, stirges, tices. The case of Constance Armande is bell. It was Alphonse Mabane, and he type V demons, and succubi (all from related in Elliot O’Donnell’s book Were- looked pale and ghastly. MM1). While their prime purpose is to wolves. It is supposed to have taken place “Have you found her?” Monsieur and prey upon children, they are not limited to in the French province of Brittany around Madame Armande cried, catching hold of that function and are likely to attack any- the turn of the century. him and dragging him into the hall. one when the man-eating urge becomes A young girl named Constance Alphonse nodded. “Let me sit down a too great. Armande, much against the wishes of her moment first,” he gasped. “It will give me family, took up spiritualism. At the time to collect my senses. My nerves are seances, she evidently came into contact all to pieces!” He then proceeded to tell a GELLOUDES with earth-bound spirits of the lowest sort horrifying story. — murderers, lunatics, and worse. They “When I heard that Constance was miss- FREQUENCY: Very rare attached themselves to her psyche and ing, I wanted to join the search for her. I NO. APPEARING: 1-6 followed her back to her home, where was in my bedroom putting on my over- ARMOR CLASS: 7 they began systematically tormenting her. coat when my valet Jacques entered. His MOVE: 6”/18”//12" They rapped on walls and played similar face was white as a sheet. He begged me HIT DICE: 5 poltergeist tricks. They invaded her to go with him upstairs, to the room % IN LAIR: 5% dreams, causing her such frightening where my mother was laid out ready for TREASURE TYPE: 1 nightmares that she quickly feared sleep the funeral. We stopped outside the door. NO. OF ATTACKS: 4 and would often wake up screaming. She ‘Listen,’ he whispered, ‘do you hear that?’ DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-4/1-4/1-6/1-6 told her parents that the evil spirits were “From inside the room came a curious SPECIAL ATTACKS: Energy drain trying to prevent her from waking, to noise like munching — a steady gnaw, SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil keep her with them. gnaw, gnaw. We armed ourselves with

30 OCTOBER 1988 walking sticks and lights. Then, throwing open the door, we rushed into the room. “The lid of the coffin was off, the corpse was lying huddled up on the floor, and crouching over it was Constance. For God’s sake, don’t ask me to describe more — the sounds we heard explain every- thing. When Constance saw us, she emit- ted a series of savage snarls, sprang at one of the maids, scratched her in the face, and before we could stop her, flew down- stairs and out into the street. As soon as our shocked senses had sufficiently recov- ered, we started off in pursuit but have not been able to find a trace of her.” At the conclusion of Monsieur Mabane’s story, the search was continued. The police were summoned, and a general hue and cry raised, with the result that Con- stance was eventually found in a cemetery digging frantically at a newly made grave. Brought to bay in the chase that ensued, Constance plunged into a river, was swept away by the current, and drowned. A spirit-ghoul is a type of ghoul which is actually some poor unfortunate victim possessed by an evil entity. The entity warps the physical appearance of the person so that the individual looks like a ghoul. The possession attempt is a long drawn-out process and has no bearing in combat (i.e., the spirit cannot take over some other body during melee).

SPIRIT-GHOUL

FREQUENCY: Very rare Spirit-Ghoul NO. APPEARING: 1-6 ARMOR CLASS: 5 MOVE: 12” these spirit-ghouls as they can normal of the English Counties, reproduced a tale HIT DICE: 3 ghouls. about Black Annis the hag, as told by an % IN LAIR: 15% evacuee from Leicester in December 1941. TREASURE TYPE: B, Q, T A monster related to ghouls is Black The description seems to show that the NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 Annis. Her legend is part of the basis for tradition of Black Annis was still alive as DAMAGE/ATTACK: 3 the AD&D game monster annis (MM2). late as World War II. The hag was said to SPECIAL ATTACKS: Paralyzation Black Annis is a man-eating hag with a be “ever so tall and had a blue face and SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below blue face and iron claws. She is supposed had long white teeth.” The hag ate people MAGIC RESISTANCE: 20% to live in a cave in the Dane Hills in Leices- and only went out when it was dark. INTELLIGENCE: Average tershire England. There was a great oak at When Black Annis ground her teeth, peo- ALIGNMENT Chaotic evil the mouth of the cave in which she was ple could hear her in time to bolt their SIZE: M said to hide; she would leap out from doors. They kept well away from the PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil behind the oak to catch and devour trav- windows, too, in case she reached inside elers. The cave, which was called Black and grabbed for villagers (which was why A spirit-ghoul is the end result of a Annis’ Bower Close, was supposed to have Leicestershine’s cottages lacked a lot of big human victim’s possession by unknown been dug out of the rock by her own nails. windows). When Black Annis howled, demonic entities. Once so possessed, the On Easter Monday, it was the custom people could hear her five miles away. victim becomes immune to sleep and from early times to hold a drag-hunt from Even the poor folk who lived in huts fas- charm spells, and has paralyzation powers Annis’ Bower to the Mayor of Leicester’s tened skins across the windows and put like normal ghouls. Such spirit-ghouls look house. A drag-hunt is an overland hunt in witch-herbs above them to keep Black just like normal ghouls, and the two can which the hounds follow the scent of a Annis away. often be found together in a pack. Exor- dead animal that has been dragged over Black Annis personifies the spirit of cism will work against a spirit-ghoul. A the ground to make a trail. The bait death and fears of the wilderness. It seems detailed examination by a high-level cleric dragged was a dead cat drenched in ani- likely that she was once a goddess-figure will reveal the possession. Thus, unlike seed. The bait was symbolically important; that had to be ritually propitiated. Perhaps normal ghouls, a spirit-ghoul is not neces- aniseed is associated with the second part she was the dark side of Anu (Dana), a sarily doomed to be a ghoul forever. In of Black Annis’s name. Black Annis was Celtic mother goddess. If so, it shows the fact, if a spirit-ghoul is knocked uncon- also associated with a monstrous cat, a staying power of memories of horror. The scious but not killed, it can be bound so kind of pet or familiar. The drag-hunt good aspects of the mother goddess (fertili- that the demon can later be exorcised. A custom died out at the end of the 18th ty, rebirth, and the cycle of the seasons) character killed by a spirit-ghoul does not century. have been forgotten, and only the evil risk becoming a ghoul. Clerics can turn Ruth Tongue, in her Forgotten Folk-Tales aspects remain.

DRAGON 31 Black Annis is a man-eating hag with a for the whole winter. WENDIGO blue face and iron claws. Her cat is a giant In Canadian Indian myths, Wendigo was cat, larger than a sabre-tooth tiger, having a terrifying creature of the wilderness. FREQUENCY: Unique blue-black fur. While sunlight does neither Part god and part monster, the giant Wen- NO. APPEARING: 1 Black Annis nor her cat any real harm, digo roamed in search of human flesh. ARMOR CLASS: -5 both of them prefer darkness and are The Indians believed that anyone who saw MOVE: 24” normally encountered at night or in deep Wendigo and lived had been forever HIT DICE: 30 (135 hp) caverns. marked by him and was bound to turn to % IN LAIR: Nil Black Annis has the following spells: cannibalism. Even thinking about him or TREASURE TYPE: Nil darkness 15’ radius, detect magic, dispel saying his name aloud was dangerous. NO. OF ATTACKS: 2 magic, clairaudience, clairvoyance, dig, Hence, Wendigo was often referred to by DAMAGE/ATTACK: 3-30 confusion, and animate dead. Her cat has epithets such as “the cold one” or SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below three attacks (claw/claw/bite); Black Annis “windwalker.” SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below MAGIC RESISTANCE: 75% INTELLIGENCE: Supra-genius ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil SIZE: L (15' tall) BLACK ANNIS HER CAT PSIONIC ABILITY: 250 Attack/Defense Modes: All/all FREQUENCY: Unique Unique NO. APPEARING: 1 1 Wendigo sometimes appears as a giant ARMOR CLASS: 4 6 spectral being, part human and part ani- MOVE: 15” 18” mal, but his appearance varies because HIT DICE: 11 9 Wendigo is so chaotic that his body con- % IN LAIR: 50% 50% stantly changes. Everyone who sees Wen- TREASURE TYPE: I,X Nil digo sees him differently, since Wendigo’s NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 form reflects a person’s deepest fears. DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-12 2-8/2-8/2-16 In addition to his physical attacks, Wen- SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells Nil digo can summon 2-24 ghouls, 1-6 ghasts, SPECIAL DEFENSES: Ni1 Nil and 1-3 wind walkers, one group each per MAGIC RESISTANCE: 50% 25% day. Wendigo can use this summoning INTELLIGENCE: Exceptional Average power once per turn until, after three ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil Neutral evil turns, he has summoned each kind of SIZE: L (10' tall) L monster. PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Nil Anyone looking at Wendigo must save vs. spells or be affected by fear. If the save fails, the person must make a second saving throw against death magic. If this has only one, which could be either a Anthropologists refer to the extreme second save also fails, then the individual physical attack or a spell. Black Annis is fear of cannibalism, coupled with a kind of becomes a servant of Wendigo and will be sometimes encountered alone, but her cat “cabin-fever,” as Wendigo psychosis. They under his complete control. The control will be encountered only if the hag is also hypothesize that the fear itself, if it grew can only be broken by reducing Wendigo present. too great, might trigger a psychotic hallu- to zero or less hit points, slaying him. Because of her close association with cination of Wendigo. death, Black Annis could be considered an Indian myths of Wendigo were carried In Greek folklore, the callicantzari are undead spirit seeking living victims. If so, over into more modern Canadian folklore, hideous, man-eating monsters that some- she would be in the “special” category though the single entity now became times take on human form. They are regarding turning. But Black Annis does numerous creatures, half phantom and described differently in different regions not have to be a type of undead — she half beast, who live in the forests and prey of Greece, but in general there are two could merely be an evil spirit haunting the on human beings, particularly children. main types of them: small and large. night. The final choice whether or not to These wendigos might be people who The small callicantzari are not man- make her undead is left strictly to the DM. entered into a pact with certain evil spirits eaters, and are less hideous to look at and that lurk in the forest and help these less numerous than the larger variety. In If ghouls personify the fear of the wil- people kill their victims. Perhaps these fact, the small callicantzari are closer in derness and Black Annis personifies the wendigos were humans gazed upon the nature to the European faerie races than fear of death, Wendigo personifies the fear mythical being Wendigo, as in the Indian to any kind of undead. of cannibalism. The origin of Wendigo myths. The larger callicantzari are malicious comes from the Indian tribes of Canada. The legend of this creature has been and deadly. Their size varies from human- The Canadian wilderness can be a terrify- immortalized in Algernon Blackwood’s size to twice the height of a cottage. Usu- ing place in the winter for people who short story “The Wendigo,” first published ally, they are about 6-8’ tall. have only a subsistence economy. Living in 1907. Versions of Wendigo have worked Callicantzari have dead-black skin. Most by hunting is always a chancy life. There their way into some of the stories of the of them are covered with a coat of shaggy are times of plenty, but there are also Cthulhu Mythos; in fact, the Old One black hair, but a bald variety is sometimes times when game is scarce. During lean named Ithaqua, the Wind Walker, is essen- mentioned. Their heads are huge, out of times, food can be gathered from the wild. tially a reworking of the Wendigo legends all proportion to the rest of their bodies. During the winter, however, food is often to fit into the mythos. Their faces are dark black, and their eyes unavailable. In the past, when there were Like Black Annis, Wendigo is on the glare redly. They have the ears of goats or few good methods of preserving food, borderline between the undead and other asses. From their huge mouths, blood-red there was the very real possibility that kinds of monsters. Even if the DM chooses tongues loll out, flanked by ferocious- food would run out before spring. The to consider Wendigo as undead, the mon- looking tusks. Their bodies are generally problem was increased by the natural ster would be too powerful to turn, so the lean and tall, but some are shorter and tension of people cooped up together choice makes little practical difference. thick-set.

32 OCTOBER 1988 Callicantzari have the arms and hands of monkeys. Their nails are as long again as their fingers, and are curled like the talons of a vulture. Some have the legs of a goat or an ass, some have one human leg and one bestial one, and some have human legs with the foot so distorted that the toes come out where the heel should be. Hence, it is not surprising that these mon- sters are often lame, but even so, they are swift of foot and terrible in strength. They run with a peculiar shambling gait which, while appearing awkward, still allows them to run quickly. Sometimes a callicantzaros (the singular form of callicantzari) appears to be a nor- mal human; sometimes a callicantzaros appears in completely animal shape. In general, the callicantzari are neither whol- ly human nor wholly bestial but a blend of the two. It is possible that, in ancient times, “callicantzari” was a general term to describe animal-human combinations. Creatures like the centaurs, satyrs, and sileni (like satyrs, but part ass) were spe- cific kinds of callicantzari. If so, the gener- ic meaning has long been lost, and callicantzari has evolved into a term to describe specific monsters. From dawn to sunset, the callicantzari hide in dark and dank places — in caves or beneath mills — feeding on the loathsome food there (snakes, snails, insects, etc.). But at night, they issue forth and run wildly to and fro, rending and crushing those who cross their paths. Destruction, waste, greed, and lust mark their courses. Despite their uncouth shapes, the mon- Wendigo sters delight in dancing. Sometimes a person can trick them into dancing all back after the mule, looked again, and Meanwhile, dawn was breaking. Soon night. But people must beware, for the said, “Here is a pack on this side and a the neighbors saw the callicantzari, and callicantzari delight in the taste of human pack on that side, and the top-load in the they hurried off to the priests and told flesh. middle, but where is the man?” them. The priests immediately set out with Fortunately, the callicantzari are stupid, So they ran on in front, fearing that he censers and sprinkling vessels in their gullible, and extremely quarrelsome. They had hastened on home before his mule. hands to chase the callicantzari. The mon- have little discipline or sense of planning, But when they could not find him, they sters fled right through town, spreading which adds an interesting aspect of role- returned again, then went back a second havoc in their path as they were hotly playing to an adventure as the PCs try to time toward the mill. This went on many pursued by the priests. At last, when they figure out ways to trick these monsters. A times. were clear of the town, one callicantzaros smart, alert person usually has no difficul- The mule needed no one to guide it; it began to lag behind, and by a great effort ty getting the better of them, as the follow- had traveled the path many times. While the foremost priest ran up to him and ing story from the island of Scyros shows the callicantzari were running to and fro, struck him on a hind foot with a sprin- (related in Modern Greek Folklore and the mule steadily trudged home. When the kling vessel. At once the foot fell off. The Ancient Greek Religion, by John Cuthbert beast stopped at the door of the man’s callicantzaros replaced it as best he could, Lawson): home, the callicantzari were close behind. but he got it on backward. Thus came A man of Scyros was returning home The man called to his wife, and she about the phrase “callicantzaros foot,” to from a mill late at night, driving his mule opened the door and he entered safely. describe their peculiar kind of lameness. before him laden with two sacks of meal. When the callicantzari saw how he had Callicantzari are on the borderland When he had gone about halfway, he saw tricked them, they knocked at the door in between the undead and other monsters. before him some callicantzari in his path. great anger. The woman, fearing that the While the final choice of whether or not to Realizing his danger, he at once got upon monsters would break in by force, prom- make them undead is up to the DM, I have his mule and laid himself flat between the ised to let them in on the condition that classed them as undead because, in leg- two sacks and covered himself up with a they first count the holes in her sieve. To ends, they operate only at night, can be rug, so as to look like another sack of this they agreed, and she let the sieve scared away by unarmed clerics, take meal. Soon the callicantzari were about his down to them by a cord from an upper damage from holy water, are man-eaters, mule, and he held his breath and heard window. Straightaway, the monsters and traditionally appear only at the 12 one say, “Here is a pack on this side and a began to count the holes, and they count- days of Christmas — a time, like Hallow- pack on that side, and the top-load in the ed round and round the outermost circle een, when the harriers between the dead middle, hut where is the man?” of holes in the sieve and so never got to and the living are weak. So the callicantzari ran back to the mill the middle. Frustrated with the lengthy Callicantzari are a kind of undead mix- thinking that the man had loitered behind. counting process, they only counted more ture of animal and human traits. They But they could not find him and came and more hurriedly as a result. have black skin and shaggy hair, oversized

DRAGON 33 heads with goat ears, and red eyes. Their Callicantzaros feet are either animal feet or distorted so that the heels are where the toes should be. Callicantzari are big, stupid, malicious man-eaters that roam at night seeking prey. Daylight does not actually hurt them, but they will avoid it if at all possible. The traditional leader of the callicantzari is the Great Callicantzaros. He has the power of confusion (as per the magic-user spell, usable three times per day); anyone who fails the saving throw against it will be influenced toward mindless destruc- tion, greed, and lust as long as the Great Callicantzaros is within sight. Clerics and cavaliers of good alignment, including paladins, are immune to the confusion. Any other character of good alignment gets a +2 on the saving throw. The callicantzari are hopelessly stupid and easily tricked. They often work at cross-purposes since they are incapable of organized action. The Great Callicant- zaros, by himself, acts in an intelligent manner. But even he cannot exert enough influence to alter the stupid behavior of his fellow callicantzari. Clerics can turn callicantzari with the same chances as they have against wights. The Great Callicantzaros cannot be turn- ed, but he will flee if the majority of the callicantzari flee. Holy water causes 2-8 hp damage per vial against callicantzari.

34 OCTOBER 1988 GREAT CALLICANTZARI CALLICANTZAROS

FREQUENCY: Rare Very rare NO APPEARING: 2-20 1 ARMOR CLASS: 5 -1 MOVE: 15” 18” HIT DICE: 6 18 (90 hp) % IN LAIR: 10% 10% TREASURE TYPE: D I NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 1 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-12 6-36 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil Nil MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard Standard INTELLIGENCE: Low Very ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil Neutral evil SIZE: L (6-8’ tall) L (10’tall) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Nil

Undead variations of ghouls include the centaur (MM1), satyr (MM1), djinni (MM1), ghast (MMl) and sheet ghoul (FF). Ghoul werewolf (MMl), minotaur (MM1), ogre variations which are not undead include (MMl), troglodyte (MM1), troll (MM1), the psrudoghoul (MM2) and the succubus (MM1), type V demon (MMl), pseudoghast (MM2). windwalker (MMl), yeti (MMl), annis Monsters that would have an affinity to (MM2), and kech (MM2). ghouls Include the carnivorous ape (MM1),

by Ed Friedlander

New ways drive fantasy characters insane

As a medical pathologist, I must often Faerie Queene.” Mary Shelley’s Franken- types of magical eye-cusps or breathing consider how mental changes in patients stein describes the emotional torment of the spores of myconids will cause acute may have resulted from disease. In a simi- the original flesh golem. Stephen Donald- psychosis. Very aberrant behaviors result lar way, this article reviews the role of son, the son of a physician, incorporated from using certain magical items like insanity (actually, mental illness) in the psychiatry’s insights into his contemporary tridents of yearning, chimes of hunger, or AD&,D® game, showing how it can be an adult fantasies, The Chronicles of Thomas eggs of desire. Gary Gygax suggests that appropriate part of an adventure game Covenant the Unbeliever. characters stranded for millennia on the and offering some practical ways to make Many things make AD&D game charac- Astral plane might become insane (see it playable. ters go crazy. The indigo layers of prismat- “The Astral Plane,” in DRAGON® issue #67, ic spheres, walls, and sprays cause page 29). Fantasy lunacy... insanity unless saving throws vs. wands Depending on the campaign, insanity Mental illness is a fairly common occur- are successful. Seeing a magic-user’s sym- could have other causes. Slight variations rence in fantasy fiction. It appears in bol of insanity causes insanity (confusion of the symbol of insanity spell might pro- Greek myths and in the epics of chivalry, in the Players Handbook), and so does duce different symptoms. Other magic- including the Arthurian cycles, Ariosto’s tasting an elixir of madness or being users may have researched new versions “Orlando Furioso,” and Spenser’s “The attacked with a scarab of insanity. Mixing of power word, eyebite or truename spells

38 OCTOBER 1988 that cause insanity. The clerical heal spell cripples perhaps one adult in every two diseases. The elements of the DMG’s list cures most mental illnesses, so one use of hundred. Even relatively minor problems seldom reappear elsewhere (for example, its reverse (harm) might be to cause them. like compulsive stealing (kleptomania), fear basidirond psychosis does not resemble Certain bestow curse, cause disease, and of public places (agoraphobia, surprisingly any of them). glyph applications by imaginative clerics omitted from the DMG), and eating distur- might cause brief mental illnesses. Illusion- bances are major handicaps. And few The new system ists probably have spells to cause halluci- would argue that pathological lying, sado- When mental illness strikes a character, nations and delusions. (An illusionist using masochism, homicidal mania, or suicidal it should take a form drawn from heroic a valuable moonstone in the chromatic orb mania (see also the magic-user spell fiction, rather than one that may have spell might cause lunacy.) The gaze of Leomund’s lamentable belabourment) are touched the life of a player. Most fictional Stephen Inniss’s durocib familiar causes particularly fun to role-play. insanity involves the acquisition of single insanity (DRAGON issue #86, page 21). So The DMG is a monumental work, and fixed ideas and the behaviors that result; might the bite or gaze attacks of certain the AD&D game has brought enjoyment insanity caused by magic should always be hordlings, demodands, slaadi, etc. Rogue into the lives of many people. But real of this type. If insanity is to be used in a modrons may be insane, and Ssendam mental illness affects too many real people game, the simple options given in Table 1 calls himself “Lord of the Insane, whatever and should not be a part of any game. are recommended. My experience sug- that means. Clerics of Azathoth are Insanity is very important in the CALL OF gests that players find these easy and described as insane in the first edition of CTHULHU® game from Chaosium, Inc., enjoyable to role-play. Roll 1d12 for ran- the DEITIES & DEMIGODS™ cyclopedia. but its creators selected kinds of insanity domly distributed results; otherwise, The planes of Limbo may have many described in H.P. Lovecraft’s fantasies, not select an appropriate result. insane inhabitants. those from medical psychiatry or pop Exactly what the victim thinks about will Nearly any creature in the AD&D game psychology. The same thinking probably be determined by what was happening at can be affected by insanity. Kuo-toans are led the originators of the AD&D game to the time the insanity was acquired. No especially vulnerable, and magical frustra- avoid clinical descriptions of physical amount of arguing will restore an tions can drive even elementals and aerial servants crazy. However, creatures with minds altogether unlike ours (creatures Table 1 from the Positive and Negative Material Random Insanity Table (roll 1d12) planes, quasi-elementals, evil fungi, etc.) might be immune to insanity, and unintelli- 1. Alter ego: The victim manifests a victim immediately obeys all but gent creatures probably cannot go insane. second personality, having the same self-destructive commands. Devas, most hierarch modrons, and the alignment but otherwise as radically 8. Fantasy role: The victim thinks he undead might never be affected. Very high opposite to his normal personality as has become some famous personage intelligence, wisdom, or charisma scores can be. The second personality will from myth or legend. The personage might protect against some causes of remain in control until the insanity is is not always powerful but is usually insanity. Serten’s spell immunity could cured. known to all local PCs as a “myth.” offer some safety, and a mind blank spell 2. Creature complex: The victim has 9. Monty Haul syndrome: The victim is might provide immunity to certain forms the delusion of being a creature of deluded that he is an unbelievably of acquired mental illness. an NPC race, usually a monster. His powerful character. Depending on behavior will generally conform to the flavor of the campaign, the ...meets reality the class of creature, though the victim might be the Emperor of Elaborate rules explain the effects of victim will always be able to speak, Atlantis, 5,217th-level fighter-magic- mental illness; twenty types are listed on move, and fight normally. user-thief, the ki-rin queen, or the pages 83-84 of the Dungeon Masters 3. Exaggerated fear: The victim is like. Gods and religious leaders Guide, with the warning that the catego- abnormally fearful of some creature might be inappropriate choices. ries are not clinically correct. Yet insanity or situation, and he will flee or 10. Quixotism: The victim believes rarely appears in modules or gaming cower whenever confronted by it. common objects to be wonders from articles (the last DRAGON Magazine article The victim will also ask about this heroic fantasy; a cheap inn is a on the subject was in issue #18), and I creature or situation in any conver- palace, a washbowl is a magical have not personally seen this illness used sation. helmet, windmills are evil cloud in any campaign. Why? 4. Exaggerated hatred: The victim giants, etc. The victim will act In our world, mental illness probably conceives a loathing for some type accordingly with great enthusiasm. causes more unhappiness than even of creature (not a character race or 11. Visual hallucinations: The victim arthritis, heart disease, or cancer. Alcohol- class) and will attack that creature sees enemies that are not there. This ism (dipsomania in the DMG) causes havoc without any reason or restraint. The happens in any combat situation or in one out of every three homes. Schizo- victim raises the topic of that crea- whenever a saving throw or ability phrenia (known by numerous names in ture’s existence in any conversation. check is required. the DMG, including dementia praecox, 5. Exaggerated liking: The victim con- 12. DM’s choice: The DM chooses from schizoid, hebephrenia, catatonia, halluci- ceives a strong affection for some the above list or invents a type of natory insanity, delusional insanity, and kind of creature. He speaks of this fixation appropriate to the situation. paranoia) affects millions of people who creature whenever possible. The victim may openly and casually also lack adequate care. Schizophrenia 6. Exaggerated suspicions: The victim commit minor antisocial acts (local- itself is confused in the DMG with multiple suspects everyone of secretly being ized arson or petty thievery), personality, a different disorder which we an enemy. He expresses his suspi- develop a peculiar craving (hang now know to occur in victims of child cions openly. gliding, eating shrieker, owning an abuse. Mental retardation (feebleminded- 7. Extreme suggestibility: The victim is otyugh), or show an odd interest ness) affects many millions and has terri- very easily influenced by others and (alchemy for a fighter, archery for a ble effects on families. In our complex gets no saving throw vs. any charm, cleric, dwarven history for a wood world, both adults and children are at risk command, or suggestion spell. Even elf, etc.) Some groups enjoy rhyming for depression (melancholia) and suicide nonmagical suggestions require a or punning manias. Sexual aberra- (suicidal mania). Mania, either alone or as check vs. wisdom on 1d20 or the tions are never appropriate choices. part of a manic-depressive cyclic disorder,

DRAGON 39 4. The dwarf starts making side trips to DMG’s section on psionic blast effects on exterminate underdark rats, and soon nonpsionic creatures (page 78). These buys larger and more dangerous weapon- rules are cumbersome, and the attack ry with which to exterminate all rats eve- results for a creature of a given intelli- rywhere. gence and wisdom are too predictable. It is 5. The dwarf starts catching and taming especially easy to kill creatures of animal rats. He shows his new pets to every stran- intelligence; characters with wisdom and ger and starts a huge rat collection, intelligence sums in the 30-33 range are 6. The dwarf starts accusing everyone typically feebleminded by the first psionic else of conspiring with “those rats” to blast and killed by the second. These rules subvert everything decent and good. are fun-spoilers. 7. The dwarf become uncharacteristical- The following is a new way to determine ly cooperative and tractable, and often the results of psionic blasts on nonpsionic obeys even the most stupid suggestions, beings. For each such attack, roll 1d20 and such as “Go soak your head.” add the result (plus bonuses) to the vic- 8. The dwarf starts introducing himself tim’s intelligence. The sum determines the as the Pied Piper of Hamelin and offering result on Table 2 of this article. his services. He buys a flute, which he Insanity caused by a psionic blast strikes plays (badly) while dancing (badly) when- as soon as a current combat situation ever he meets rats. ends. Cavaliers and paladins, who are 9. The dwarf starts introducing himself relatively immune to certain mental as “Lord Rodent Ratslayer, King of the attacks, are allowed to retain 90% immu- Multiverse, Boss of the Underdark.” He nity to such insanity. Monks from the insane person’s insight. However, several gives orders to other PCs and literally Players Handbook gain the bonuses given basic rules set limits on the abnormal laughs in the face of terrifying danger them on page 31 of that text. DMs may behavior. Insane characters can speak, with absurd self-confidence. also want to add other DMG modifiers. move, and fight normally. They will not 10. The dwarf, whenever he becomes One advantage to this system is the ease leave the party — even a victim of exagger- excited, attacks rocks and stalagmites, to which it can be adapted on a character ated suspicions who has been forcibly calling them “the giant rat Bubonus and its sheet. Thus, for a human fighter with restrained will not desert his comrades. In filthy minions.” intelligence 6, the following applies: no case will alignment behavior or reli- 11. The dwarf sees rats that aren’t there. gious faith be compromised, though lawful This happens during any hostile encoun- types may feel the need for an atonement ter, as well as when he stumbles, gets Roll Result when they recover. tired, and so forth. He attacks the “rats” in 15+ No effect Recognizing that another creature is preference to any other opponents. 13-14 Temporary insanity insane may be easy or difficult, depending 12. The DM has a choice and will take 11-12 Permanent insanity on the campaign and the DM’s judgment. into consideration both the character of 9-10 Rage In our world, some psychotics are quite the dwarf and the personality of the play- 7-8 Attack nearest creature convincing. Detect disease or ESP spells er (“I must find . . . a shrubbery!” ). 5-6 Panic may help, and so might defect balance or 3-4 Stun psionic empathy or telepathy, Once a The insanity table is referred to in the 2 or less Coma character is recognized as insane, he receives an automatic -50% on most reaction dice, and no one will place any Table 2 confidence in such victims, especially Effects of Psionic Blasts on Nonpsionic Beings those with creature complex or Monty Sum Result Haul syndrome. Needless to say, good- 21+ No effect aligned party members should never allow 19-20 Temporary insanity (lasting one day per point of attack strength) an insane comrade to be humiliated, 17-18 Permanent insanity injured, or abandoned — perhaps an 15-16 Rage (attacks own party if no opponents are available; lasts one round adventure in itself. per point of attack strength) Using this system in practice, suppose 13-14 Attacks nearest creature with weapon or spell (lasts one round per the PCs are mind-blasted twice by hidden point of attack strength) mind flayers, then attacked by wererats. 11-12 Panic (runs away; lasts one round per point of attack strength) The forms of insanity listed in Table 1 9-10 Stun (no attacks, -4 to AC and saving throws; lasts one round per herein might affect a male dwarven fight- point of attack strength) er in the following ways: 7-8 Coma (but clearly alive; lasts one day per point of attack strength) 1. The dwarf announces that he is an 6 or less Dead (automatically at -10 hp) elven magic-user princess. He shaves his beard, looks for elven clothing for females, Bonuses and blames his (constant) spell failures on +4 Dwarf, gnome, halfling, or dragon; Serten’s spell immunity magic-user magic resistance, magnetic forces, hostile spell dwarves, or whatever. +2 Elf or cleric 2. The dwarf announces he is a giant rat. +1 to +4 High wisdom (15-18) bonus He travels on all fours and occasionally -1 to -3 Low wisdom (7-3) penalty squeaks. He tells everyone he meets about -2 Surprised being a rat, then asks them for cheese. -4 Kuo-toan 3. The dwarf is suddenly terrified of all Others DM’s judgment; see DMG, page 78, “Saving Throw Dice Adjustments” rats. He climbs on an elf’s shoulders in Immune Charmed or insane characters; characters already affected by mind dungeons to be safe. He tactlessly inquires blast; nonpsionic devas, modrons, and undead; all golems; mind blank about rats when seeking night lodgings. If magic-user spell, amulet of life protection any real rats appear, he flees screaming.

40 OCTOBER 1988 Whether or not psionics are retained in magic-users will not rely on helpful clerics bonuses) is allowed. Victims roll on the the rules revision, psionic blasts should every time they cast this spell. Restoration Random Insanity Table herein, or the DM remain as the mind-flayer and su- should be required, and the cleric’s illness selects an appropriately bizarre response. monster’s distinctive attacks. Depending should last for a number of days equal to Certain lawful-good clerics might gain on the campaign, a psionic blast of any the distance to the plane contacted. The cure insanity as a second-level spell. strength might affect a nonpsionic being, cleric could adjust his fee accordingly. Druids are devoted to preserving the and the number of such attacks delivered The spell cure insanity exists in various balance (both natural and mental), and per round or surprise segment could be unofficial forms in many game campaigns. they gain the spell at third level. Devas can limited to one. Different DMs may place it at different cast it once daily, and other great minions Curing insanity spell levels and may require various mate- of good can use it even more often. The Clerics give good counsel and — better rial components, etc., depending on the spell may damage or dispel certain crea- yet — they heal. A shukenja’s calm cures innate curative powers of the spell. Its tures of Limbo, as the DM decides. Some temporary insanity and might quiet all powers may overlap with exorcism in the chaotic clerics, such as those dedicated to crazy people for a while. Cure diseases AD&D game and with dispel evil in the Azathoth or Ssendam, gain cause insanity might help in some campaigns. Heal is the D&D game. as a second-level spell. Tribal spell-casters usual remedy for most forms of insanity can gain the spell normally in either form. and could probably reverse the effects of a Cure Insanity (Necromantic) Reversible Referees can invent other magical items psionic blast. The DMG (page 42) says that Level: 4 Components: V,S related to insanity. Certain cursed books heal will not cure serious mental disorders Range: Touch CT: 1 round can cause it in any reader; beneficial not related to spells or inflicted by injury Duration: Perm. ST: None books can describe methods of detecting to the brain; however, restoration cures AE: Creature touched and curing it. A charge from a staff of any and all forms of insanity (DMG, page Explanation/Description: This spell curing might help a crazy person, and a 43), and a shukenja might cast restore immediately curses insanity due to most cure insanity potion would be worth 300 spirit for similar results. causes. The spell must be administered xp and 500 gp. Scrolls of protection from Using restoration to cure insanity would while the patient is exhibiting insane insanity might require slaad blood for age a cleric three years. An alternative is symptoms. It can also heal one conscious their manufacture. Perhaps the party will suggested by the D&D game rules, which victim of the effects of psionic blasts, find a couch of counseling on which the specify that casting restoration to restore hallucination-causing spores, or a confu- reclining victim can ventilate his deepest a drained level temporarily drains the sion spell. It will calm a river spirit-folk emotions and thus be cured. caster of one level, without unnatural character (from Oriental Adventures) Mental illness in the AD&D game should aging. Instead of being aged, the cleric during flood time. The spell will not cure be very different from its form in our curing a particularly virulent mental ill- insanity brought about by casting a con- world, both in symptoms and curability. To ness might briefly acquire the patient’s tact other plane spell, nor will it control enjoy playing nutty characters, the mad- insanity. behaviors caused by lycanthropy. The ness must fit the environment. Insanity caused by casting contact other reverse, cause insanity, requires a touch, plane should be very hard to cure, so that and a saving throw vs. spells (with wisdom

by Eileen Lucas as a result of hemorrhaging under the skin. There was a 33% chance that the swellings would discharge and heal, lead- ing to the patient’s recovery. Otherwise, the afflicted died within six days. Somewhere along the way, bubonic plague often developed into pneumonic plague, which was much more contagious because it was spread by the breath of the carrier. Its primary characteristics were the spitting of blood (from severe lung infection) and a painful death that The End occurred within two days. The coughing up of blood became equated with almost certain death. In both types of plague, an extremely foul odor was given off by the body of the victim and everything which issued from it (breath, sweat, blood, etc.). of the World Understandably, depression and despair were common among such victims, some- times leading to the point of madness. Occasionally, the most potent form of plague, septicemic plague, appeared simul- Of taneously. This variation involved a mas- plagues, player characters, sive infection of the bloodstream and often killed too quickly for symptoms to be and campaign worlds relevant; the victim would be fine one minute, then rapidly exhibit one symptom of plague and die within hours. Buboes had no time to form. “Geoffrey the Baker Maybe you have an old, tired fantasy The mechanics of plague wrote of people who went peacefully to game campaign that’s going nowhere, one For the purposes of this article, the term bed and were dead the next morning, that you and your players are really sick “plague” refers to the bubonic plague and while Simon of Covino described priests or of and seems to be beyond hope. But you its variants. Commonly known to medieval doctors who were seized by the plague hate the thought of trashing it altogether, man as the “great pestilence,” the plague whilst administering spiritual aid, and, after all the work you’ve put into establish- was often made up of several related often by a single touch or a single breath ing cities, terrains, weather, etc. What can diseases — bubonic, pneumonic, and septi- of the plague-stricken, perished even you do? cemic plagues — each differing in the before the sick person they had come to Well, perhaps a plague can help. severity and speed with which they spread assist.“¹ Fortunately, this type was less In a fantasy campaign, a raging epidemic and killed. These different diseases were frequent than the rest. (a disease which descends suddenly upon linked by a common origin (the bacillus To determine whether or not a character a community, burns itself out, and goes carried by rats and fleas). As a result, the contracts the plague, consult the disease away) or pandemic (the worldwide occur- type of plague in any given area changed rules and tables listed on pages 13-14 of rence of such a disease) can eliminate from one sort to another in a confusing the Dungeon Masters Guide. Use the table unwanted NPCs en masse. Political, eco- fashion, sometimes changing with the entitled “Chance of Contracting Disease” nomic, and social systems can be totally seasons. At times, only one type would on page 13 to determine this chance. Use restructured. Countless new adventures infect an area, while all three might be the table entitled “Adjustments to Occur- with interesting twists for PCs can be present simultaneously in other regions. rence and Severity Die Rolls” on page 14 introduced. Then, too, the physical aspects Generally, the plague worked its havoc in as a modification to the chance of con- of the campaign that you like will remain 3-6 months and dissipated, but in some tracting the plague, based on constitution unharmed, and your favorite NPCs can be places, particularly in regions with high and other factors. miraculously saved — with your interven- population densities, it seemed to disap- Each PC has a chance of being immune tion, of course. pear, only to flare up again in a month or to the plague bacillus; if his constitution Historical precedent can guide you. so (often after winter) and hang on for score or less is rolled on 1dl00, the PC is Throughout history, civilization has been another year. immune to the plague. If it is determined beset by numerous outbreaks of plagues As a general rule, symptoms of the that a character has contracted the plague, of varying intensities. One of the worst of plague appeared rapidly. Chills, high fever, consult Table 1 in this article to determine all plagues occurred during the Middle restlessness, a staggering walk, and mental what type of plague the character catches. Ages, the time frame in which most confusion were followed by prostration, Then consult Table 2 to determine the AD&D® game campaigns are set. Known delirium, shock, and coma. The different resulting effects and survival chances. If today as the Black Death, this plague raged types of plague produced further and the DM so desires, characters may be across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East differing symptoms, but all were charac- given an additional fighting (or losing) between 1346 and 1351, wiping out terized by their contagious and fatal chance against the plague by applying the approximately one-third of the population natures. modifications listed in the “Adjustments to of those regions (modern estimates range Bubonic plague was the first type of Occurrence and Severity Die Rolls” table between one-quarter and one-half — high- plague to appear. It was characterized by on page 14 of the DMG. In this case, the er in some limited areas). The purpose of buboes (swellings of lymph nodes) behind figures listed there are applied to the die this article is to give you, the DM, some the ear, in the armpit, and in the groin. roll prior to consulting the “Chance of historical information about the Black These swellings often grew to the sizes of survival” column in Table 2 herein. Table 3 Death and to provide some ideas on how eggs or apples and were very painful; they is provided as a suggested encounter table such an event might be incorporated into were followed by black or red spots like for use in cities stricken by plague; this your campaign. bruises appearing anywhere on the body, table may be used or altered at the DM’s

44 OCTOBER 1988

crisis. Distracted by wars, weakened by Given the pressures of disaster, local Table 1 malnutrition, exhausted by his struggle to prejudices are likely to become exagger- Type of Plague Contracted win a living from his inadequate portion of ated. Additionally, superstition and preju- ever less fertile land, the medieval peasant dice are not functions of rational minds; 1d8 Plague type was ready to succumb even before the therefore, the conclusions drawn as a 1-4 Bubonic plague blow had fallen.“² Add to this problem the result are only rarely entirely logical. 5-7 Pneumonic plague peculiarities of climate (intense cold and Worse yet, in a fantasy campaign there are 8 Septicemic plague severe rainfall) and a series of disastrous fantastic beings and spell-casters around harvests, and you had a set of conditions that can cause disease or otherwise tor- that were ripe intellectually, emotionally, ment humanity. Imagine how many insane and physically for a plague of monstrous wizards and evil high priests there are in discretion, depending on campaign cir- proportions to strike. the average fantasy campaign (not to men- cumstances. At least some of these conditions should tion demons and the like). If an innocent All rolls for plague type and survival be present in a fantasy game campaign magic-user produces a cloud of foul- should be made in secret. Whether or not before a full-scale plague is introduced. smelling smoke prior to a plague outbreak, a PC is doomed to die from the plague, the Whether the DM sticks with the historical he would be instantly suspected of bring- DM should roll the appropriate dice as if causes of plague in his campaign (i.e., rats ing on the disease. the character were to die from the malady and fleas) or creates a unique cause of his One must keep in mind the magnitude of anyway, thus determining the time until own (such as a curse or other magic- the Black Death to understand the effects the infection reaches its worst point. Dur- related cause), some clues as to the of fear and panic on the people of the 14th ing that time, the DM applies the appropri- plague’s origins should be prepared for century. In one London neighborhood ate penalties to the PC as given in Table 2. inquisitive PCs. Much of the information during a two-month period in 1349, some PCs who survive the plague recover from should be confusing and misleading, much 200 people were buried in one particular the penalties in time, but they heal at the as it was in medieval times. cemetery every day. Multiply that by the usual rates (magic may help). Lost ability Some of the causes of the plague sug- number of neighborhoods, the number of points are recovered at the rate of one gested by contemporaries of the Black counties, and the number of countries, point every two days. Death included the belief that something and you begin to see why people became foul in the air was drifting across the so irrational. They literally believed the world (possibly fumes released from world was ending. The causes of plague below the ground by earthquakes), that Of course, the people of the Middle Ages God was destroying mankind for man- didn’t know that there were three differ- kind’s sins, and that various groups were Introducing the plague ent types of plague. All they knew was poisoning wells and food sources. In many Where did the Black Death really begin? that people were dying by the thousands instances, these theories were combined Historians seem to agree that it started all around them because of some horrible and twisted together. Thus, while God or somewhere in Central Asia and was sickness. They also didn’t know the truth the movements of the planets might have spread by invaders and merchants into the about what caused this dreadful sickness, caused the plague to germinate, human eastern Mediterranean region, then even- what caused it to spread, or what cured it. agents were accused of contributing to its tually into Europe. They did have some ideas about these spread. The story of the siege of Caffa (Kaffa) in things — most of which were wrong and the 1340s is illustrative of one possibility some of which were as destructive as the of how the plague traveled to Europe. The plague itself. Plague and society town of Caffa on the Black Sea was under The actual culprits of the plague were If you’ve ever read The Mask of the Red attack by Tartars when bubonic plague rats and fleas. The rat was the carrier of Death by Edgar Allan Poe, you have some broke out among the Italians taking refuge the plague-causing bacillus (Yersinia idea of the panic inspired by this terrifying there. There were stories of the bodies of pestis). The plague was passed from rats disease. The wealthy and powerful are plague victims being catapulted over the to the fleas that bit them; the fleas then likely to stop at nothing to insure their walls by both sides to spread the infection, passed the plague along to humans by own safety, even to the point of murder. In with the result leading to so many deaths biting them as well. The number of rats A Distant Mirror, Barbara Richman tells of on both sides that the siege had to be and fleas in a given area correlated highly a manor lord who found out that plague lifted. The Tartars dispersed, carrying the with the number of plague deaths. With had broken out in the nearby village. In plague to Russia, India, and China, while both rats and fleas in plentiful supply in order to keep the disease from spreading Italian traders escaped by ship to Genoa, the 14th century, the bacillus had plenty to his manor, he had the entire village bringing the plague to Europe with them. of carriers. burned. It is said that plague deaths began the day The plague had actually been endemic People have a tendency to look for some- after the traders’ ships dropped anchor in (i.e., confined to certain local areas) in one to blame whenever anything goes Genoa. many parts of the world for centuries wrong, and the Middle Ages were no There are many ways to introduce the before a number of factors combined to different. During the Black Death, Jews plague into a fantasy campaign. For exam- provoke the disaster that was the Black were often accused of poisoning wells and ple, a ship may sail into a major seaport Death. The 11th and 12th centuries in were terribly persecuted as a result; old, with disease-carrying rodents on board. Europe had been a time of relative pros- single women were often labeled as witch- Infected sailors on shore leave, rodents perity and economic growth. During that es, blamed for the disaster, and slain. Any scurrying to land even quicker than the time, the population of Europe grew at a minor and unpopular fantasy cult or sailors, and goods (with infected fleas rate that exceeded agricultural produc- group would be a likely target for such snuggled up inside) that are delivered to tion. With the latter half of the 13th centu- accusations. For example, picture a village local shops are three subsequent ways the ry and the opening of the 14th century, in which dwarves are disliked. Into this plague then arrives. For more dramatic the tides began to turn and things began village rides a group of adventurers, one effect, a mysterious ship might arrive in to get rough for those already living at of whom is a dwarf. Several days later, the the harbor — the captain dead at the subsistence levels. “In the great population innkeeper’s wife comes down with the wheel, the sailors slumped over their oars, centers, from which the peasantry could plague. Who’s the most likely suspect for and only the rats left alive. In the confined or would not move, the end of the thir- its cause? Our dear dwarf may have to get quarters of a ship at sea, plague could teenth century was a period of acute out of town, and fast. easily have such an effect (there were

46 OCTOBER 1988 actual cases of such “ghost ships” roaming the seas or running aground with all aboard dead). If no seaport exists, an over- And no bells tolled, and nobody wept no matter what his loss land caravan or travelers on foot or horse- because almost everyone expected death. . . . And people said back can do the trick easily enough. and believed, “This is the end of the world.” Finally, if you don’t want your campaign world to be decimated by plague but want A chronicler of Siena writing of the Black Death your PCs to experience one, you might have them travel, knowingly or unknow- ingly, to a land already stricken with the disease. women sought to divert the attention of selves, they can reduce their risks of infec- Plague years are a bad time to wage war, God from the sinful ways of the world by tion. But remember that anyone or any- as the transportation of troops and sup- acts of public penance. They would walk thing with which they come in contact plies provides a great method of transport- in long processions (often lasting for a might harbor rats or fleas and is thus a ing the disease. Some historians believe month at a time) from town to town, potential plague-carrier. that Scotland might have escaped the chanting and praying. “Dressed in cowled Failing complete isolation, high constitution plague except that the Scots decided to white robes with red crosses on their scores might provide some kind of protec- attack England while that country suf- chests, the Flagellants did not shave, tion against the disease (perhaps +1 or +2 fered from the plague. Upon the return of bathe, or change clothing while involved to saving throws). Like many diseases, the soldiers to Scotland, the plague was in a procession. When they would come to plague was most devastating to the malnour- introduced to this previously untainted a town, they would form circles and beat ished and sickly, which was one of the rea- country. Movement of troops between upon their backs with scourges, rejoicing sons the poor suffered a high mortality rate England and France in the Hundred Years and singing as they did so. Some women (although no class or social group was com- War also contributed to the spread of the had cloths ready to catch the blood and pletely immune). Of course, magical devices disease, to the extent that there were long smear it on their faces, saying it was preventing illness would also be of help. periods during which the plague caused miraculous blood.“³ After such a perform- Just as there was no real knowledge of the war to be put on hold. ance, the flagellants would move on to what caused the plague, the ability to treat However the plague arrives, tie it in with another town and repeat the scenario. it was limited. Physical as well as spiritual other circumstantial events (such as earth- Sometimes their processions got out of attempts to deal with the sickness were quakes, unseasonable weather, changes in hand, and they were given to even wilder often made, generally with little effect. political leadership, the arrival of new acts than those that they protested. Worse yet, attempts at treatment were religious groups, etc.) and you’ll create a hampered by the victim’s foul smell and Prevention and treatment confused hodge-podge of possible causes the sight of buboes and sores. Comeliness Consider the following poem: which simulate the historical circumstanc- and charisma scores would definitely fall es behind the real plague. Attempts to Ring a ring of roses, (perhaps by as much as -3 to -6 points) relate the plague to other events in an A pocket full of posies, to reflect this. The symptoms of the dis- area were common, and superstition tend- Achoo, Achoo, ease were often so awful as to inspire ed to muddle things up even worse. For All fall down. disgust rather than pity. example, if a new ruler comes to power Although medical understanding of the (particularly if by force) and the plague As the forerunner of what is now a causes of infection was lacking during the breaks out, some opposing group may chant in a simple children’s game we call Black Death, it was obvious to any observ- suggest that the gods are not in favor of “Ring Around the Rosie,” this seemingly er that going near those who were sick the new leader, and thus call for his execu- innocent rhyme speaks of the hopeless- tended to increase the chances that you tion. Or, if an earthquake is followed by an ness of trying to stave off the plague. would get sick, too. Even the clothes and outbreak of plague, the panic-stricken folk Despite precautions like placing a ring of personal possessions of the afflicted were of a community may fear that the end of rose petals around oneself or carrying feared; people believed that by touching the world is near, and this belief could give pockets full of flowers, simply being the sick or dead, one could catch the rise to all kinds of strange activities. sneezed upon by another person could dread disease. Actually, there was some One of the most eccentric groups in often lead to death. truth in this, because any infected fleas existence during the Black Death was that The best prevention against the plague hanging around the victim might just jump of the flagellants. Believing that the end of was isolation. If the PCs in a plague- on and bite anyone else who came close the world was coming, these men and infested area can totally isolate them- enough. Thus the sick were often left

Table 2 Effects of Different Types of Plague

Name (major symptoms) Chance of survival (onset of death) Penalties Bubonic (buboes with black or red bruises) 33% (death in 3-6 days) Class 1 Pneumonic (spitting of blood) 25% (death in 8-48 hours) Class 2 Septicemic (vomiting and rapid disability) 20% (death in 3-12 turns) Class 3

Class 1 penalty: -10% of normal hit-point total (down to 90% of normal total) and -1 point from strength, constitution, and dexterity (down to scores of 3 each) per six hours. Class 2 penalty: -10% of normal hit-point total (down to 90% of normal total) and -1 point from strength, constitution, and dexterity (down to scores of 3 each) per hour. Class 3 penalty: -10% of normal hit-point total (down to 90% of normal total) and -1 point from strength, constitution, and dexterity (down to scores of 3 each) per five rounds. Survival chances and the times until the onset of death have been altered somewhat for use within game campaigns and may not match real-world values for the same.

DRAGON 47 alone to suffer, and even family members turn the displeasure of the powers that be and over was also believed to help. And deserted their kin because of fear, super- into a more favorable attitude by prayer carrying the remains of a holy person or stition, and the survival instinct. Many a and good works. Those who are saved some holy object couldn’t hurt, either. local priest fled to avoid risking his own may attribute it to their gods’ favors and Sapphires and rubies were believed to health by caring for others. If the charac- become even more devoted in worship. be of particular use in warding off the ters come upon a community already in The DM must determine which direction plague. These could be worn on rings or the throes of plague, it is very possible his populace is likely to go (and there may pendants, or placed in a cup from which that the local clerics will have fled, as well not be a consensus) based on the role of water would be drunk. Flowers and herbs as many others who formerly served as religion and religious leaders in his world. were thought to be helpful in warding off leaders of the community. In an AD&.D game world, magic is very the disease, and if nothing else, they On the other hand, there were many likely to come into play in relation to the helped to cover the foul stench of the stories of kind souls who did minister to plague. The use of magic in treating the sickness. Streets would often be strewn those in need. “In Italy, some members of plague would generally take on the form with fragrant herbs before any kind of the clergy took a part in the fight against of prayers or incantations (or combina- procession would be allowed to pass. The the plague. Especially the friars made a tions of the two), with the possible use of DM should exercise imagination in provid- valuable contribution to the work of the magical items. Both clerics and magic- ing creative preventions and treatments health authorities, often braving condi- users come heavily into play here, as reli- for the plague. tions of unspeakable horror and nearly gion and pure magic are closely always at the risk of their own lives.“4 intertwined in matters of disease. The Aftermath Records are scarce, however, because belief that some god or demon is responsi- There were a multitude of changes after most of those who helped also died. But ble for this terrible occurrence usually the Black Death, some a direct result of then, there was often the general impres- leads to the belief that these otherworldly the disaster and others being more sec- sion that everyone was going to die any- beings might be influenced to bring relief. ondary in nature. Underpopulation was way. Characters of good alignment in the An example of a mystical practice of the the first and most obvious result. As time AD&D game should feel some motivation era in question might be as follows: Write went on, most of the political, social, eco- to help the sufferers of plague, though the a special prayer with some specific sub- nomic, religious, and cultural systems practical means by which others could be stance (perhaps blood or ink made from were challenged and changed. helped may be few indeed. an herb with healing properties) on the Depopulation itself was a complex situa- And yet this belief that all will die can inside of a cup, then fill the cup with tion. There were fewer people around to also bring out the worst in people. “If water. After the inscription has dissolved, work the fields, so many crops were left we’re all going to die, we might as well the water should be drunk or bathed in. to rot, and fewer fields were planted in have fun” was a common school of Another remedy might read as follows: subsequent years. But there were fewer thought. Thus, plenty of thieves and ban- Take one pinch of bayberries that have people to feed, too, so starvation was not dits could be found robbing the bodies and been dried in the sun for a day and beaten usually a problem, except where there uninhabited homes of the deceased. In to a powder. Mix with ale or wine, and were people with no access to food due to addition, strange hedonistic cults were drink. Then sweat a goodly amount, and the breakdown in markets and transporta- formed by groups of people who followed follow with a long sleep. Whether such tion. As a result of this labor shortage, the “party till the plague gets you” line of cures actually work is up to the DM to free men could demand higher wages; it reasoning. decide; in a magical world, everyone will was also easier for serfs to slip away from Every statement involving the cause of sooner or later attempt to use magical feudal bonds and become free men. The the plague produced a multitude of reac- means to save themselves. landlord’s position became more difficult tions from people. For example, it was Other “cures” abounded. Intentional to manage (for those landlords who sur- commonly believed that Gods displeasure vomiting as a purge was often recom- vived), and legislation to keep this more with man had something to do with the mended. Whole, peeled onions were also independent low and middle class in line plague. One typical reaction among NPCs laid on the floor around the bed (or even contributed to later agitation by peasantry in a fantasy campaign would be a turning in the bed) of a sick person, in order to for even more freedom. Such a situation away from the gods believed to have aban- soak up the evil humors. Tubs of butter- could be replicated in a game setting, doned them (as happened on Krynn in the milk might do the same; if the milk cur- leading to the downfall of autocracies. DRAGONLANCE® novels after the Cata- dled, it was a good sign that the milk had Because the plague took on different clysm). On the other hand, some may be absorbed some of the “plague stuff.” forms at different times and places (some- moved to try everything in their power to Repeating holy names with praises over times being more virulent than at others), the mortality rates varied from place to place. It is entirely possible for a large Table 3 town in your campaign world to be heavi- Random Urban Encounters During a Plague ly visited, a small village to be entirely depopulated (between death and flight), 1d20 Encounter and an isolated hamlet to be totally 1-2 Soothsayer of prophet of doom untouched. Groups living in close quarters 3-5 Death cart hauling bodies of the dead (such as in monasteries, ships, and sol- 6-8 Town guard looking for disease carriers diers’ barracks) are in great danger of 9-10 Beggar (1) or bandit (1-4) being completely wiped out unless precau- 11-14 Dead body (50% likely to have no possessions of any value) tions are taken. During the Black Death, 15-17 Raving sick man or woman up to two-thirds of the population of 18-20 Pack of rats major cities (with populations of 10,000 to 100,000) would perish; some small towns When a random encounter in a plague-stricken urban area is called for, consult this were abandoned and overgrown. table instead of the normal encounter tables 50% of the time. All infected beings As Boccaccio, a survivor of the Black increase the risk of infection among PCs by 10% if approached within 5’. The game Death, wrote in The Decameron, the con- statistics for these encounters should be constructed by the DM, as appropriate to the fusion of the plague years continued in the urban area in question. aftermath: “Various fears and superstitions arose among the survivors, almost all of which tended toward one end — to flee 48 OCTOBER 1988 from the sick and whatever had belonged to them. Gathering in those houses where no one had been ill, they shut themselves Poor and rich went together; there was no other way of in. They ate moderately, avoiding luxuri- burials . . . for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious ousness, with music and whatever simple numbers that fell in such a calamity as this. delights they could have . . . allowing no one to speak to them, and avoiding news A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe of either death or sickness. . . . Others, arriving at a contrary conclusion, held that plenty of drinking and enjoyment, singing might rise to the tops of their orders Plague in Seventeenth Century Tuscany, and free living, and gratification of the because of vacancies above them. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, appetite in every possible way, was the On the other hand, the PCs may find 1979), page 1. 5 best course.“5 themselves hunted down for crimes com- Gottfried, The Black Death, page 78. 6 Although the landowner’s position mitted during the disaster. Perhaps they Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, (New became more challenging in terms of will be blamed and hounded from place to York Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), page 98. finding hired hands, there was suddenly place. Much depends on the direction the much more land available. PCs may find DM wishes to see his campaign take. Bibliography large ownerless estates ripe for the taking. Finally, remember that although the Black Barrett, W.P. and the Shakespeare Assoc. After the Black Death, there were many Death was one of the worst outbreaks of Present Remedies Against the Plague. newly orphaned or widowed female land- plague in the history of civilization, your Oxfordshire, England: Oxford University owners looking for a strong male to take campaign world need not be subjected to an Press, 1933. the place of the deceased head of the outbreak of such horrific proportions. Many Cipolla, Carlo M. Faith, Reason, and the house. milder occurrences preceded and followed Plague in Seventeenth Century Tuscany. Another complication of life in a post- the Black Death; your characters can face Trans. by Muriel Kittel. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor- plague world involves the depletion of varying degrees of this experience as suits nell University Press, 1979. your needs. You have just a small livestock and other animals. “In the coun- can Dols, Michael W. The Black Death in the tryside peasants dropped dead on the plague, if you’d like. Middle East. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton roads, in the fields, in their houses. Survi- University Press, 1977. vors in growing helplessness fell into Footnotes Gottfried, Robert S. The Black Death. apathy, leaving ripe wheat uncut and ¹ Philip Ziegler, The Black Death, (New New York: The Free Press, 1983. livestock untended. Oxen and asses, sheep York: The John Day Co., 1969), page 19. Tuchman, Barbara. A Distant Mirror. and goats, pigs and chickens ran wild, and ² Ibid., page 30. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. 3 they too. . . succumbed to the pest. . . . In Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death, (New Ziegler, Philip. The Black Death. New remote Dalmatia bolder wolves descended York: The Free Press, 1983), page 69. York: The John Day Co., 1969. upon a plague-stricken city and attacked 4 Carlo M. Cipolla, Faith, Reason, and the human survivors. For want of herdsmen, cattle strayed from place to place and died in hedgerows and ditches.“6 Generally tame animals may go wild, and wild ani- mals may become emboldened by massive depopulation. But rather than causing things to change, a plague is more likely to acceler- ate and exaggerate changes already in the works. Keep this in mind when picking up the pieces of your campaign after the plague has worked its worst. These trends will tend to be reinforced by other minor recurrences of plague in the future (per- haps every 4d6 years or so). Exactly what kinds of changes take place depend upon the circumstances of your own campaign. Are you tired of a particu- lar ruling family? Perhaps a war of succes- sion might follow the plague as a result of the demise of many of the most likely candidates. If the local temple was having a hard time getting people to worship and financially support its particular god, the situation might be made better if the cler- ics were helpful during the disaster (or worse, if they were not). Perhaps one of the PC clerics helped a town during the plague; afterward, he might be asked to stay and set up a new shrine or temple. The role of PCs in this postplague world depends on what they did during the plague. Did they survive because they hid out? Perhaps now they’ll want to explore and conquer depopulated areas. Merce- naries will certainly be needed to fill the depleted ranks of local armies. Clerics

DRAGON 49

Index to Advertisers

AMAZING® Stories ...... 101, insert card American Heart Association...... 35, 41 Armory ...... 43 Bantam Books (Spectra) ...... 85 Bard Games ...... 49 Britton Designs (Elysian Field) ...... 54 DC Comics, Inc...... 34 Donning Company (Starblaze) ...... 13 Doubleday Book & Music Clubs, Inc. (Science Fiction Book Club) ...... 20-21 DRAGON® Magazine ...... 5, insert card DUNGEON® Adventures ...... 69, insert card Game Designers' Workshop ...... 89, 104 Game Systems, Inc...... 86 Games Workshop US (Citadel Miniatures) ...... 88, center insert GEN CON® '89 Game Fair ...... 67-68 Magicware ...... 11 Mayfair Games, Inc...... 65 Palladium Books ...... 19, 50, 55, 66, 95 POLYHEDRON™ Newszine ...... 37, insert card Prince August Ltd.(Mithril Miniatures)* ...... 42 Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc...... 1 Shadow Graphics ...... 35 Tropus, Inc...... 18 TSR, Inc...... inside front cover, 4, 7, 14, 36, 41, 54 64, 75, 87, 91, 103, inside back cover, back cover Twenty-First Century Games ...... 51 U.S. General Services Administration ...... 51 West End Games ...... 10 Wotan Games * ...... 102

* United Kingdom by Martin Landauer In 1960, a light source strong enough to melt metal was developed by Dr. Theodore Maiman. This form of light energy, the laser, has now revolutionized many facets of industry, medicine, and communication. Its military applications have been much Putting theorized — and recently realized, tested, and adopted in many fields of warfare. Lasers have shot down Sidewinder mis- siles and are used in missile guidance systems and telescopic sights. President Fire into Reagan’s plan for the Strategic Defense Initiative has heightened research into laser-light weaponry; undoubtedly, the Soviet Union has an equal interest in the subject. Documentation on the existence Firepower of personal laser weapons is not available at present, but possession of such weap- ons would certainly be treated confiden- tially by any government. For TOP SECRET® game purposes, it is assumed that laser weapons are extremely Laser weapons in the original rare and are found only as prototypes. ® Nonmilitary lasers are commonly found in TOP SECRET game major hospitals, universities, and certain factories, where they are kept under tight security. Lasers should never be issued or sold to agents, nor should they be included in adventures for inexperienced agents. Instead, adventures involving lasers should require their recovery, theft, sabotage, or transportation. Lasers should be treated as object targets, not as special equipment, though desperate agents may use them briefly as weapons.

Lasers: how they work A laser beam is formed by exciting atoms within a glass tube until they give off radiation in the form of short bursts of light energy called photons. The atoms can be supplied by a variety of substances, including gases, crystals, and color-dyed liquids. In most cases, gas is used in porta- ble laser weapons because of its ability to produce great surges of power. In a gas laser, a stimulator made of two electrodes excites the atoms with electrical discharges. Once excited, these atoms create millions of photons ricocheting around inside the laser tube and stimulat- ing other atoms in like fashion, until the photons pass through a small hole at one end of the tube in a uniformly straight ray. All this activity takes place in a few nano- seconds. At the firing end of the glass tube is often found an item called a Q-switch, which acts as a shutter to delay the laser burst. The longer the Q-switch remains shut, the more energy is built up within the tube, so that the beam is more power- ful when released. There is an 80% chance that a nonmilitary laser has a lock built into its mechanism to prevent unwanted use; all military lasers have locks. Five different kinds of frames may house a laser apparatus. Only certain sizes of laser tubes can be fitted into each frame, and frame type also affects each laser’s Projectile Weapons Value, Weapon Speed, and other characteristics. The five different frame designs and corresponding. 52 OCTOBER 1988 Table 1 Portable Laser Design Statistics

Maximum Maximum Laser type tube radius tube length PWV PBR SR MR LR WS HWV Weight Type 1 ½ ” 12" 80 0 -10 -40 -90 S 13 9 lbs. Type 2 1" 8" 60 +5 -5 -70 -120 BA 11 8 lbs. Type 3 1¼" 9" 65 0 - 5 -60 -100 S 15 10½ lbs. Type 4 1” 7" 45 0 -20 - 8 5 -140 S 12 9 lbs. Type 5 ½ ” 6" 35 0 -30 -110 -180 F 4 2½ lbs.

statistics are listed in Table 1. Of all of the laser housings listed, only type 5 is con- cealable; it can be held as a pistol and Table 2 decreases the bearer’s Deception by -8 Laser Strength/Damage Determination (provided the power pack is concealed or unattached). The weight includes both the Table size Damage by delay of blast (in seconds) frame and the laser apparatus. (cubic inches) 0 2 4 6 8 1-3 1 3 4 5 6 Power sources 4-8 2 5 678 The main bugbear in developing a laser 9-14 4 7 8 9 10 is the question of a power source for 15-19 7 9 9 10 10 exciting the atoms. While fixed lasers can 20-24 9 10 10 11 11 draw their power from wall sockets or 25-30 10 11 11 11 11 larger sources, portable types need to be 31-36 11 11 11 11 12 connected to portable power packs, as the 37-44 11 11 11 12 12 large amount of electricity needed to fire them cannot be stored inside a laser’s apparatus. Aspiring laser-users must real- ize that using a laser weapon involves carrying a power pack the size of a small check Table 4 to see whether or not the video recorder, which may encumber the material ignites. (The Administrator user. This power pack may be housed should only estimate the chances of target Table 3 within a rucksack or attache case. ignition because of the great number of Laser Gas Factor The capacity of a laser’s power pack may variables such as beam heat, combustion not exceed 20 charges. The base weight of rates, laser strengths, etc.) The reduced Multiplication the pack is 10 lbs., and the fuel cells gener- damage result is used if the laser hits Gas factor ally weigh an additional ½ lb. per charge. another obstacle or person after passing Carbon dioxide 1.0 It is possible for an advanced laser to through the material. The strength of the Dd: YAG* 0.8 carry a 1-lb. magazine containing enough material may be modified as the Adminis- Oxygen or argon 0.5 fuel cells for four charges. Power packs trator sees fit. As a rule, mirrors reflect Helium, neon, or krypton 0.33 may be recharged from batteries, wall laser beams if the laser-strength value is sockets, or any other more powerful less than nine. Smoke obscures laser * Neodymium: source of electricity at a rate of 10 min- beams and water scatters them, each yttrium-aluminum garnet utes per charge. A charge is used up each reducing a beam’s power by one point of time a laser is activated, regardless of damage per 1’ of smoke or water. Laser whether or not the Q-switch is open. beams travel ad infinitum otherwise. Injuries caused by laser-fire result in Laser applications concentrated, intense third-degree burns, laser fires at an enemy agent through a One advantage that laser weapons have affecting only a small area of the body. 1” -thick wooden partition after keeping over conventional weapons is the ability to The amount of damage a person receives the Q-switch shut for four seconds. The drill through many kinds of materials. To when hit by a laser is determined by the laser is kept inside a type 3 frame (PWV see if a laser beam passes through a mate- tube’s volume, the time the Q-switch has 65) and, after taking into account the rial, first find the normal damage result remained shut before firing, and the type agent’s Offense and other modifiers, the from Table 2 (which determines laser of gas used to give off photons. First, the hit determination is set at 62%. The damage by strength) and Table 3 (which tube’s volume (in cubic inches) is calcu- Administrator rolls a 39 (a hit) and checks lists the gases which may be used in porta- lated using the formula: V=1 r² (the Table 2 to find the laser’s strength. Next, ble lasers). As some gases generate more tube’s length times pi times the tube’s he multiplies this result (11) by the 0.5 energy than others, each gas has a factor radius squared). Length and radius are value argon has on Table 3 to get a total of listed in Table 3 which is multiplied by the expressed in inches. The volume is then 6 (rounded to the nearest even number). result on Table 2 to produce a final dam- cross-referenced on Table 2 with the num- The wooden partition absorbs 3 points of age result. From this final damage result, ber of seconds to which the Q-switch is set the laser’s strength before the beam hits subtract the strength of the material the to delay the laser burst. A Q-switch cannot the target, which in turn receives the beam is to penetrate, as shown on Table 4. be shut for more than eight seconds with- remaining 3 points of damage. Laser If the damage result is greater than zero, out risking a malfunction (see Table 5). beams add +20 to rolls on the Bullet Use the laser beam has passed through the For example: An agent armed with a Against Vehicles Table in the TOP SECRET material. The Administrator must now stolen, experimental, 26-cubic-inch argon game’s rule book, page 38. DRAGON 53 Damage to the laser A laser or power pack may be damaged if either device is submerged, dropped Table 4 from a height of more than 5’, overheated, Strength and Inflammability of Materials hit by gunfire (the Hit Weapons Table in the TOP SECRET game’s rule book, page Material Thickness Strength Ignition chance * 25, need not be consulted), has its Q- Metal ½ ” 4-20 0-10% switch shut off for more than eight sec- Plastic 1” 1-9 0-100% onds, or receives any other kind of rough Glass ¼” ¼-4 0-20% treatment the Administrator considers Fabric ¼” ¼-8 5-90% harmful. Should any of these events occur Wood 1” ½-7 5-90% percentile dice are rolled on Table 5 to Brick or plaster 1” 3-18 0-75% find the result. If the result is “damaged,” Most liquids 2” 0-2 0-100% the device affected is rendered inopera- tive. There is, however, a 25% chance of * Depends on nature of substance. repair if there is access to a well-stocked laboratory and a technician with AOK scores of 100+ in electrical engineering

Table 5 Laser Malfunction

Malfunction result

Event Chance of malfunction Damaged Short-circuit Explosion Submerged 10% per second underwater 01-60 61-98 99-00 Overheated * 40% per 50°C (122°F) per minute 01-55 56-80 81-00 Hit by gunfire* 85% 01-70 71-80 81-00 Overdue laser blast * * 50% per second after 8 seconds 01-60 61-90 91-00 Dropped 25% per foot dropped over 5’ 01-90 91-95 96-00

* Add 30 to roll when checking damage severity if laser uses oxygen. * * Q-switch kept closed for too long.

and physics. A “short circuit” result means Conclusion laser technology hasn’t grown as quickly both the laser and power pack are The Administrator should avoid making as the microchip’s has in the past few destroyed. The chances of repair remain lasers too common, portable, or powerful. decades. As a result, when designing a the same, though separate rolls are made For instance, a laser weapon found in scenario, do not set the stage in a quixotic for each piece of equipment. If the result module TS001 Operation: Sprechenhalte- way. If you are prepared to design and is “explode,” then both the power pack and stelle might work (given experienced play with realism and good judgment, you laser weapon are damaged beyond repair, agents), but one used in TS004 Operation: can expect to have an innovative and and anyone within 10’ of both items suf- Fastpass or TS005 Operation: Orient exciting game. fers 2d10 points of damage. As oxygen is a Express will probably cause problems highly inflammable gas, lasers using it from the start. It is also wise to remember have a +30 modifier when checking for that except for its use in reading bar codes the severity of damage on Table 5. in stores and other handy applications,

54 OCTOBER 1988 DRAGON 55

he boy limped into Erich’s battlefield encampment at the end of the longest, hottest day of summer. His long, thin Between face was white beneath a griming of sweat and dirt, his grey eyes wide and wounded. He could not have seen more than nine years. Even for that Lightning number he was small. The smell of smoke followed him like a ghost from one of the burned farmsteads along the southern bend of the Rill. Erich had torched one of those steads; the invader Vorgund had fired the others. & Thunder Kin-reft and wandering, I thought, some farmer’s orphaned son. He could as easily have found himself in Vorgund’s camp as in ours. I had seen so many of his like in the twenty years I’d fought beside the old lord and the five I’d been with his son Erich. They stagger wherever their legs will carry them. Some stay — the women as camp followers, the men to join the fight in search of by Nancy Varian Berberick vengeance. Others pass through a camp as though it did not exist, bound for some place to rest or to die. These are the ragged phantoms of the day before yesterday when there was no war. This lad, likely all that was left of some farmer’s bid for immortality, was one of those silent ghosts. As he passed me, he stumbled a little over nothing but his own exhaus- tion. I caught his arm and steadied him. He did not bother to free himself from my grip, but staggered on as though I had not touched him. His vacant refugee-stare was unbroken. It is a thing peculiar to war that one battle will fill a warrior’s heart with the blazing anthems of glory; another will leave him empty as thunder’s echo. This day only hollow echoes dwelt in my heart. Bone tired I was, with the roar of battle still bellowing inside my skull, screaming in my axe-weary arms. I wanted a fire and a full skin of wine, and I did not have it in me to treat with a heart- ruined refugee. The ghosts in his eyes were cold, frightening reflections of the ones that haunted me. His kin were torn from him. I would have none. The skalds tell that in ancient times there were among the dwarfish race kings and necromancers who trespassed into the realms of immortality. For that transgression the gods decreed that our generations be numbered and our birthright of immortality taken from us. For five genera- tions whose lives spanned a count of years three times that of a human, our race awaited the arrival of those they For Doug Clark named Laestan, the Last. with Garroc’s appreciation and mine I am among the Laestan. We watch our fathers die and know that there will be no younglings to provide shelter for their spirits. I turned away from the stumbling-lad. I had not the heart for being haunted by ghosts stirred to cold life by a boy with empty grey eyes.

Erich had hunted Vorgund’s war band through all that long, golden day. It seemed to matter little to him that a village and several outlying farms were razed in the hunt. He wanted Vorgund’s head. In pursuit of that head he harried Vorgund’s band until he drove them at last to the forests near the northern arm of the Rill. After a battle as Illustrations by Stephen E. Fabian DRAGON 57 bloody and ferocious as any I have known, Vorgund, pack is kept at bay.” beaten, his back to the dark wood, abandoned the field None stands more alone than an orphan. and fled with his men into the forest. For all my studied indifference, my own words found He styled himself a son of the unthroned Witch-Kings, an empty place in me to echo, and those echoes were dark did Vorgund. So completely did he and his tattered band and painful. vanish that some among Erich’s army wondered. For my Once I was a skald. I abandoned my craft early and part, I have never considered Vorgund a witch, only a trained my voice to battle cries, my hand to the axe’s sharp-witted warrior whose tenacity and daring were helve. I would rather have listened to the anthems of war understandable in one who fights for what he considers his than sing the birthless, empty songs of a dwarfish skald. I homeland. closed my eyes to the skald leygr, the storyteller’s light. My young lord could have dismissed the talk of Witch- Before I did I crafted the saddest of the sad songs, and like Kings, though not gracefully, had that murmuring not the memory of a hill-flute’s mournful sigh, it was with me been coupled with a whispered mention of the wood imps always. said to haunt the shadowed forest. Superstitious mutter- Of our treasure we are reft, ings can unman a war band as easily as ignominious King and crofter alike, defeat. For all his youth, Erich knew this well. For speak- Stoneman, smith, warrior, skald, ing of witches and wood imps he had one man flogged, We are beggared. two demoted in rank. Of those two, one was Oraf, called the Cruel by soldiers As prayers to vanished gods: whose death-hardened hearts did not often recognize cru- Our proud histories are echoes, elty. Tales told to no one, Like a wounded bear, Oraf stalked the smoky dusk. His Songs sung over empty cradles. small dark eyes smoldered with hatred. Those who did not The light of Oraf's fire shimmered like bright tears in fear the black-haired, barrel-chested warrior did not feel the little refugee’s eyes, gilding the edge of the darkening called upon to discuss the matter of his demotion. Who bruise that stained his face. I turned away, who was too feared him moved quickly aside. One did not move quick- well used to turning away from pain and that which illu- ly enough. That was when I, newly returned from setting minated it. guard watches, knew that the little refugee was with us This was not the first time I had occasion to notice that still. men are absurdly prodigal of their children. Small claims Crouched before Oraf's fire, the lad looked up when the they are on immortality, but they are claims that the gods big warrior’s black shadow cut across him. His grey eyes will honor nonetheless. had regained some life, though they were not yet a boy’s I, who could make no bid for immortality, took the wine eyes. They cleared a little at the sight of Oraf. The boy from Dyfed and settled down to a determined retreat from caught up a wineskin from the ground and held it up to those empty echoes, from the boy, and from my own pain. the warrior. I had no time to retreat farther than a swallow. Stravar It would be easy to say the boy made a wrong move. summoned me in Erich’s name. “And quickly, if you will, The truth of the matter is that he could not have made a Garroc.” The old captain’s smile was wry. “He is sorely right one. Oraf snatched the wineskin and struck the boy out of temper.” in the side of the head with almost the same motion. Dyfed laughed and told Stravar that he brought no Though he fell hard, though he must have seen the very fresh news. Erich’s temper had been short, dark, and foul stars of night dancing before his eyes, the lad made no cry. since we set up camp. I, pleased to leave behind my con- He got his legs under him and scrambled to his feet. Rub- templations of emptiness, tossed Dyfed the wineskin and bing the side of his head with a grubby hand, he edged followed Stravar through the hot, purpling twilight. back into the light of Oraf's fire. One-eyed Dyfed, my fire mate, shook his head and The light of candles and oil lamps burnished Erich’s wondered if the lad were dull-witted. yellow hair to gold, made his face seem sculpted of black “Likely not,” I said, “and if he’s war-stunned, his shadows. He looked up, raked me with his hawk’s eyes, instincts are still running good. He’s found the strongest and nodded greeting. He was young then, my lord, hav- man in camp to align himself with.” ing seen only twenty summers. In those days he wondered Dyfed took a long pull on his own wineskin and wiped if he were equal to keeping the lands his father had broken the back of his hand across his mouth. “Why would he do himself to win. that?” In the matter of age it might be supposed that my own “Why not? Look at the boy: clearly he’s a refugee. dwarfish kin would not have reckoned me much older Orphaned likely. None stands more alone than an orphan. than he for all that I had walked through sixty years. In his place I would do the same thing. When you run Sometimes a young man’s understanding bridged the with the biggest wolf, none of the lesser wolves will hurt distance between Erich and me; other times he remem- you.” bered that his lifetime was but a small part of my own. “But he still has to fear the biggest wolf.” This night he made me his contemporary. He jerked his I shrugged. “It’s a price the boy is likely willing to pay. chin at the far wall of the tent where the shadows of his And not such a great one at that. We’re all wolves to him. advisors ran tall and dark up the canvas. “Old women, Me, I’d rather have one to watch and know the rest of the those,” he growled. “Stay, they say, wait. If they had their

OCTOBER 1988 way, this army would wait here by the river until I unsheathed my dagger and handed it to him. “Can Vorgund’s stripling sons are old enough to take up the you use this?” fight.” The boy jerked his wrist so deftly, so swiftly, that I hard- “And you, my lord?” ly knew he’d moved. My dagger quivered in the dry “I will take the fight to Vorgund.” ground between Dyfed’s feet. There is a look in a man’s “Into the forest?” I had the feeling that I’d be getting eyes when a blade hits the target he choses for it. The look little sleep this night. cannot be feigned. It graced the boy’s fog-colored eyes My feeling was true. Erich wanted scouts to find then. Vorgund’s camp, and he wanted me to captain them. Oraf hissed an oath, but Dyfed only laughed and Dyfed, he chose, my thin and lanky fire mate. A woodcut- retrieved the dagger. He handed the weapon to the boy ter’s son turned soldier, his hand was fell and deadly in and cuffed him lightly. battle, his head cool. “He can use it, Garroc.” “And take Oraf,” he said, “I want to end this talk of He could indeed. “Boy, tell me where they’d be most old Witch-Kings and wood imps. Let him see Vorgund’s likely to camp.” band for what they are, men who drink the same ale he He dropped to his haunches, the moon’s light over his does,” He smiled sourly. “And who lose it the same way shoulder, and smoothed out the hard dirt. The map he he does. That will stop the witch-talk fast enough. As for sketched showed Erich’s encampment, the Rill racing the wood imps” — he lifted his shoulders in a careless swiftly to our left, and a broad hollow. The river curved shrug — “I doubt you’ll find those.” around to the north and wound behind the hollow. He I would like to have told him that I did not expect to be stabbed a dirty finger at the hollow and looked up at me. able to report one way or another, legend having invested “How far?” those creatures with invisibility. But, having an interest in He did not speak to me, but to Oraf, hulking and dark retaining both my rank and my skin, I did not think it over his shoulder. “You could get there before moonset,” wise to relate youngling’s tales now. I said that I did not he whispered. anticipate trouble with wood imps. I studied the boy’s sketch again. When I looked up, it “Find Vorgund’s encampment, Garroc, and bring me was to see the lad studying me as closely. I saw my image back the best map you can of the paths to it. Leave reflected in those grey eyes as clearly as though I were tonight. You know what I need.” looking into a still pool. Something else I saw, and what I did: the clearest path to the enemy, then the most moved in me then frightened me. It is bad enough to live logical path of attack, and then the least likely. Erich was with an old and unhealing wound. To find it freshly bleed- like his father in this; he would see all around the battle- ing in this boy’s soul caught me hard between fear and ground well before his men set their feet on it. pity. Like wind moaning around a cairn came, unbidden, He had no more orders, I no questions. I left him to my song. collect Oraf and Dyfed. Vacant the halls of our hearts: Cold and cold the arms We were not three who met beyond the light of the Which hold no fair child. army’s campfires, but four. Oraf had his little refugee in I wanted to get away from the boy. Or catch him to me tow. When I questioned him, he assured me that the lad, and soothe away the grief. The one would have been stu- having been raised on a farm nearby, would know the pid, the other rebuffed. I scowled. “What, boy?” paths of this forest better than any of us. He looked away as though he had not heard me. I eyed the little waif sharply. “Is it so, boy?” Oraf's huge hand caught the lad hard in the back of the The lad nodded. head and knocked him flat. “Speak when you’re told,” he “What do they call you?” snarled. He moved to follow his blow with a kick. He shrugged as though it did not matter what he was Lean, tall Dyfed moved before I could. He blocked called. Among men one’s name is given only when trust Oraf's kick and stiff-armed him away from the boy. has been earned. The boy’s silence in the matter was elo- “Leave off,” he growled. Anger gleamed in his one blue quent. I wondered if Oraf had the boy’s name. eye like moonlight on ice. He had not moved for the boy’s I glanced up at the big warrior, and the sullen, hard sake, but from his own well-known scorn for Oraf. look of him gave me my answer. Oraf might be the lad’s “Both of you leave off,” I snapped. Dyfed stepped proof against lesser marauders, but he was not anyone the away. Oraf, his big fists balled, turned on me. He was boy trusted. This one would pay the price for protection, rigid with fury. My axe came to hand before I could think. but he was giving nothing he was not obliged to give. “I’ll take you off at the knees, Oraf,” I warned coldly. And Oraf was amply paid. It is the way of a bully to His eyes tracked the silver run of moonlight along the keep near him those who are more frightened than he so axe’s blade. Though he towered over me by half, Oraf that he may measure his courage against their fear. From had long ago learned that my axe could well defend me. the look of the new bruises on the boy’s face, I knew that The pace he stepped back was distance enough and admis- Oraf had been taking the slim measure of his own courage sion that he wanted no quarrel with me now. frequently. I’d never liked Oraf before this. That misliking I pulled the lad to his feet and never minded that he was turning to disgust. went cool and stiff beneath my hand. “Back to your map, I cocked my head at the boy. “Are you weaponed?” boy.” He shook his head. He dropped again to his heels on the path. Dyfed stood DRAGON 59 over him; Oraf did not move. As I leaned on my ground- hound will when scenting the way. Never once did he look ed axe, a cloud slipped in front of the moon. The night back at me. It was as though he did not care that I fol- deepened and was growing quickly older. lowed. During one of those pauses he turned, and the I questioned the boy about the hollow; he answered moon’s clear light fell across his face. Oraf's bruises silently, only speaking when a gesture would not do. Still stained his pale skin like dark shadows. he satisfied me that he knew the forest. According to him, Oraf had a dog once, a yellow mongrel bitch. Slat- there was no other place but the hollow where Vorgund sided, with one blue eye and one brown, that ragged- could rest his war band. The woods were too thick here tailed, crooked-eared beast worshiped a deity, and the and thicker beyond the river. god’s name was Oraf. When he thought to, Oraf fed the “Well enough,” I said at last. I had formed a simple bitch from the scraps of his meals. He did not bother to plan of movement. As Erich had, I, too, learned warfare gift her with a name. In the dark watches of an icy winter from the old lord who had no patience for any but the night the bitch gave birth to a litter of pups. After two most direct and unembroidered schemes. nights their whimpering outside the barracks annoyed “Dyfed, you angle north and east.” I barely paused Oraf. He drowned, them, one by one, in the Rill. When before I went on, and in that moment I took my first step the bitch, frantic to save her young, put herself between toward a decision I could not then have imagined. “Take him and the remaining pups, her deity, Oraf, called the Oraf. The boy and I will move north and west. If you find Cruel, cut her throat and left her to die on the river’s the hollow empty, cross it and meet us at the river. If you banks. find it occupied, skirt it like ghosts and mark well every I thought of that mongrel bitch then, and shivered in rock and path. Join us when you see us.” the hot night. I was haunted by the memory of the hill- Dyfed nodded. His thin mouth was a hard, grim line. flute and by the boy’s pain. We were going now in search of enemies. “The gods’ As smoke on the wind: grace, Garroc,” he said. Our bold histories fade, I told him not to give away what he might need himself, Graces conferred upon no one, and watched him and big Oraf slip beneath the wood’s Songs whispered over empty cradles. dark eaves. Oraf would have taken the rear had Dyfed not gestured him forward. If Dyfed did not like all that black Fading the light of our souls: anger at his back, I could not blame him. Empty and empty the eyes The little refugee looked suddenly lost, abandoned Which see no youngling’s smile. again. Surely, I thought in amazement, he cannot count it Still certain that I cherished my emptiness, for I had any but a grace that he can walk for a while without long ago judged it better than being filled with pain, I Oraf's hard fist hovering like a threatening storm over his pretended that I did not hear or remember my song. I head! followed the lad until the trees began to thin, until the His grey eyes widened as though they would follow game trails he tracked took an abrupt turn to the east. All Oraf until he’d vanished into the forest’s gloom. Indeed, unlooked-for we stood in a narrow clearing. had I released the lad, he would have loped after Oraf like Only several strides wide, the clear ground ran in a a pup after his master. large circle to the north and south and was bordered by He was alone with one of the lesser wolves. I saw by his tall, thick-boled oaks. Rock oaks, my people call these skittish movements that he did not know what this lesser giants. Seen in a flood of moonlight such as washed this wolf might do. He was prepared to bolt. With a gentleness clearing, their uneven grey bark gives them the seeming that surprised me, I took the lad’s shoulder and turned of being hewn from stone. Now the moon slanted her thin him west. “Lead or follow, boy?” light directly across their rough trunks. They looked like a Without a word he moved out in front. If I’d had any stockade, those ancient trees. Or a barricade. The boy doubt that the boy knew the forest, it vanished then. No pointed silently to the oaks. one moves in complete silence through the wood. Still that I had the sudden thought that the trees had not grown lad passed over the age’s dead leaves and brought only the up in that perfect circle by nature’s whim. We failing faintest whisper of protest. None could have discerned the Firstborn are a superstitious race. While we may smile at boy’s footfalls over the shrill and scream of the night firelight tales of wood imps, we scent omens on the wind insects. Clearly, a skilled hunter had taught the lad his and read fates in the play of starlight on a boulder’s crag- woodcraft. gy shoulders. I thought of Witch-Kings and my blood Though I could not see it for the screening brush and chilled. Witch-kings who set no guard but ward them- trees, I heard the Rill running on my left for all our jour- selves with magic. ney. The wind, a faint sigh of air, moved from the south. I “The hollow,” I whispered, my throat suddenly tight knew we were traveling north when I felt its hot breath on and dry, “beyond those oaks?” my neck. He nodded once, and I cursed my absurd fears low The boy led me true, finding thin deer trails, skirting under my breath. I was becoming as foolish as Oraf. The the boggy ground near the unseen river’s banks whenever Witch-Kings had long been run to ground. Years before, he could. I set in memory all his turns and the look of Erich’s father and his kind had burned the last of those each game trail we followed. He was tracking to the hol- magic-users. The smoke of that great burning had hung low because he knew Oraf would be there. stinking in the air for weeks. Though canny Vorgund From time to time he would stop, lifting his head as a might style himself a son of those long dead kings, he was

60 OCTOBER 1988 not. sign, and he, a lean, dark phantom, tow-hair gilded by Yet I could not imagine that he would camp, even in clear moonlight, slipped from behind a broad oak to the this hidden and secure place, without posting guards out- west. Oraf, bear large, followed. side this tree-formed stockade. “There is no war band Here is one, I thought bitterly, who will happily believe here,” I said flatly. in Witch-Kings. From where I stood I saw the gleaming The boy dodged a little, then held deer-still waiting for whites of the big warrior’s eyes. Though he was a long my anger to fall upon him, a blow or a kick. I took him by moment about it, the boy moved to Oraf's side. the shoulder, not to strike, though I was angry. The anger Dyfed nudged me. “Is Vorgund such a witling that he was partly for my own credulous acceptance of Vorgund’s posts no guard?” fear-screen, partly because the boy was so calmly certain I did not think so; I have never thought Vorgund in that I would pay him for his error in Oraf's coin or worse. want of wits. “Boy, I am not going to hit you.” “Witch,” Oraf whispered. Almost the word was a sigh. He didn’t believe me, but strained back from me, eyes “It’s none of that,” I growled. narrow, face as stiff as a dead man’s. Once more I saw “What, then?” the big man challenged. His right hand fear in his eyes. Once more I wanted to hold him, to shel- was full of his sword, his broad face sheened with sweat. ter him from his grief and terror. I did not, though I “An odd moon’s light and a warlord too secure in his should have. Aye, I should have. Instead, turning aside hiding.” yet again from a pain that too closely mirrored my own, I Oraf said nothing; Dyfed grunted. “A ghost could drift released him. in there and find the right of it.” His sky-colored eye glit- “Be easy, lad,” I said gruffly, “you made a good guess. tered sharply. “Or a ghost-footed scout.” But good guesses do not always bring the right answers.” “Aye, though you’ll not go alone.” He swallowed, a hard gulp, and raised his head. That He shook his head. “Yes, alone. None moves quieter in little chin had a stubborn set to it, the first I’d seen all the wood than I do. You know it, Garroc. Wait up here for night. Almost I applauded his hard-jawed defiance. me; I’ll not be long about it.” He saw my doubt and “They have to be there,” he said, his voice so low I quirked a good-humored smile. “I’ve a fine regard for my barely heard his words. “There is no place else for them own skin, friend dwarf, never fear.” to be.” He did not boast of his skill who was known for it. Too, I shook my head. “There are no guards.” I knew that my thought was his own: Erich would be well I saw him consider it. For that moment his expression pleased if we brought back not only knowledge of was free of fear. I had been granted a look at something Vorgund’s hiding place but the count and condition of his that might never be seen again: the boy’s guard was whol- warriors. I let him go. ly down. Beneath his grime and bruises he was a likely The moon’s strange light veiled Dyfed the moment he looking lad. stepped beyond the sentinel oaks. We saw him vaguely, Having thought, his wariness returned. He gave me a like a fok weard, a fog ghost, drifting down the side of the quick, gauging look then darted through the moon’s clear hollow. light to the oaks. So close were those trees that he had to Beside me Oraf whispered an oath to a god I did not lean, either hand on a trunk, to peer into the hollow. He know. The little lad whimpered, and I looked around. looked for a long time, the moon’s sharp light argent Oraf gripped his shoulder hard enough for me to see the across his shoulders, white in his black hair. He gestured whitening of his knuckles in the moon’s light. I did not me forward. speak, but prised the man’s digging fingers from the boy’s The hollow was deep and very broad, a giant’s chalice. flesh. Oraf snarled like a wolf whose prey has been On all sides it sloped steeply down for nearly fifteen yards. snatched from its jaws. I didn’t care, but turned back to It’s floor leveled in a grassy sward. The moon’s light, clear the hollow, searching the moon-fog for Dyfed. as water here on the hollow’s lip, was strangely milky in Ghost-footed, he’d said, and ghost-footed he was. the green bowl. Behind me I heard the chirrup of insects. Through the thick, covering fog I saw him pause to loose From the hollow I heard nothing. his sword. He cocked his head to listen, moved to see Figures I made out, still and silent. Vorgund’s standard, everything the fog did not shroud. Almost I could hear the crowned eagle rampant, fluttered lazily in the warm him thinking: that is the wind and not one of Vorgund’s southern breeze. Other than that pennon, nothing moved. men creeping through the thinly ranked saplings; that is a Every man of them seemed to be sleeping. Had Vorgund boulder, not a sentry. Satisfied, he went on. grown so careless in this secret place that he set no watch? I was not satisfied: something was not right. It took me I steadfastly refused to consider Witch-Kings. a moment to realize that while the trees striped the ground Beside me, though, the boy trembled beneath the cold with their thin shadows and boulders crouched in dark breath of fear. His small hand touched mine on my axe’s pools, Dyfed moved shadowless through the strange, thick helve. Despite the heat of the night, his fingers were like light. ice. “The light,” he whispered, “something is wrong with With half the distance to the floor of the bowl yet to be the light!” covered, he vanished. “The moon’s angle,” I muttered, “and her light has to A shadow's hiding him, I thought. I waited for as long fall through leafed branches.” as I could hold my breath, straining to see through the The harsh chak! chak! of a golden brown wheatear milky moon-fog. Dyfed did not reappear. chopped through the night: Dyfed’s signal. I returned the I sounded the wheatear’s call once, then again. My one-

DRAGON 61 eyed friend did not respond. I took the risk and called low through me: I was losing the boy! for him. The southern breeze, as though listening for his Lights, globes of fire the size of my fist, red, blue, and reply, fell still. Then I heard his voice, high and oddly green, swirled before my eyes. Skimming the night bright. between me and the boy, they spun and rounded as “Garroc! Come down! The hollow is empty!” though in some patterned dance. I saw his face, white and Relief ran through me, followed by a sudden crawling set, through their rainbow play. A voice, light and soft, fear. Either my eyes lied, or Dyfed did. The hollow was no whispered ghost-words in my ear. The words were more empty now than it had been before Dyfed stepped matched by an image, shadowy as a dream half- into the moon-fog. Men still lay prone upon the ground. remembered: something that was not Dyfed reached for Though the breeze had fallen dead on the lip of the hol- the boy. low, down below Vorgund’s standard still moved sleepily. I will call him back, release his hands. Beside me Oraf voiced another oath. When I did not surrender my grip, blue flame skittered The rustle of an approach from below was loud in the between our bridge of hands. The lick and sear of light- hot, still night, threaded through with the bright, silver ning raced through my bones and muscles. Instinct freed song of crickets and sounding like panthers in the brush. the lad’s hands where will would not. Before I could raise The skin on the back of my neck prickled. I thought of my burned hands to my mouth the pain cooled and van- Witch-Kings. I should have been thinking of wood imps. ished as though it had not been. “Garroc, there’s no need to hang back now.” Dyfed’s The blue fire-sphere separated from it’s companions, was the voice of a man who has found bounty where he moved through the air with effortless grace, and tumbled expected to find enemies. Though he must have stood along the length of the skeletal arm until it lay up against only a reach away, I could not see him clearly for the mist. the moon-fog. Dyfed reached out of the moon-fog, and they were no Free the child, the light’s voice murmured. In my mind, fleshed fingers which pierced that grey veil, but the death- behind my real sight, a hand edged with blue fire lifted in pared bones of a skeleton. Mist clung to those bones, and command. You have violated the Sacred Hollow and you are ours. the moon’s pale light gleamed along the moisture like an Within the Hollow there is death-life, outside it you are bones and evil silver chasing. dust. But the boy makes no choice to enter. Free him! Ta‘alyn Wood When that fell hand touched Orafs wrist, the big war- Imp, speaks. rior’s scream, high and piercing, tore the dark fabric of Wood imps! Not invisible, as legend claimed, but trans- the night, lightning rending black storm clouds. parent as flame. Cold sweat traced icy paths down the He moved swiftly, did Oraf the Cruel. He jerked hard ridges of my ribs. and freed himself from that hideous grip. The boy, Dyfed’s bone-fingered hand fell away. Rising like a instincts afire, grasped Orafs arm with both hands and wolfs howl, his desolate cry spun up to that pitiless lady, clung. Did Oraf see the boy as an obstacle to flight or as the moon. For a breathless moment I saw one-eyed Dyfed something to be cast between him and Death’s hand? I as no more than a cold moon-mist. Then that, too, was don’t know; likely, he did not know either. He howled gone, and a sleeping figure lay at the edge of Vorgund’s again and threw the boy off. encampment where none had been before. Shaking as though his very bones rattled with terror, his Half in the moon-fog, the boy did not move. eyes huge and dark, the boy reached for Oraf again. The Ta’alyn’s disembodied voice softened. You are free, young big man whipped around and kicked the lad hard in the human. stomach. I felt the pain of that kick in my own belly. And, The boy’s shoulders slumped, tears the color of spider’s stunned, I felt the abandoned child’s aching, cold empti- webs traced glittering paths along his cheeks. Ta’alyn ness as though it were my own heart despairing. moved closer to the lad. Fury overrode sense. I spun on Oraf when I should When the boy did not move, Ta’alyn’s light wavered have leaped for the boy. My axe, a flash of steel and silver and dimmed as though the wood imp sighed with pity. in the night, caught Oraf full in the side. His ribs splin- Here is not your place, young human. See the lands where you tered beneath the blade. A scarlet cowl of blood dimmed belong. the axe’s flash. As the boy must have, I saw the sun, full and warm, The boy’s scream smothered Oraf's, and I, my axe lying across golden fields; moonlight graced a river with bloody, my heart roaring like thunder, spun again to see an argent filigree. A boy ran across the field to chase the that skeletal hand, like some huge, unclean spider, grip- wind; in a hunter’s camp beside the river he slept in the ping the lad’s shoulder and pulling, pulling. arms of a tall, grey-eyed man. I knew, without under- I struck at that bony wrist — Dyfed’s! My blade turned standing how I came by this knowledge, that the grey- on it as though it were iron. Fire lanced through my arms, eyed man was the boy’s father. my wrists ached with the pain of that blow. I struck again, Go back now. To the blood-warmed. and my axe fell from nerveless hands. The thing that had Incredibly, the boy shook his head. It was the heartsore been Dyfed dragged the boy to the very lip of the hollow. gesture of one who abandons the field of battle. Ta’alyn “No!” I roared. The lad was rigid with terror and drifted between the boy and me. Plainly, he had not con- incapable of either scream or whimper. sidered that a “blood-warmed” would ever seek other I grabbed the boy’s hands in my own two and hauled. I than life. might as well have pitted myself against Death’s own grip. There is only death-life below, young human. Only continuing, Dyfed’s strength was not mortal. Fury and horror tore continuing, never ending. It is the fate decreed for the violators of

62 OCTOBER 1988 the Sacred Hollow. He did, his eyes flinching, tear-drowned. “You killed It might be that blue-lighted Ta’alyn could read the him,” he whispered. boy’s heart. Surely, he spoke to me before the boy ever I did not understand, and would not had Ta’alyn not made another gesture. Heart-reft this young one is. Father- given me the picture of the boy’s feeling. It was I the boy killer he names you, Firstborn. Ta’alyn flared, bright blue. saw in his head: a yellow-haired, thick-bearded dwarf Black shadows scurried across me and death-still Oraf. leaning on a deadly, blood-sheathed war axe. Behind me Father killer! The epithet drew blood from an old and stood Oraf, Dyfed, hawk-eyed Erich, and countless other familiar wound: heart’s blood. I saw little difference, then, nameless, weaponed soldiers. He saw a farmstead burn- between the fatherless and the childless. The cold, hollow ing, his tall, grey-eyed father hacked and bleeding in the pain was the same, and it cast me, shivering and dust. bereaved, into dark, dark places filled with lightless I heard cold whispers from my own empty, aching plac- hearths and broken circles. es: the ghosts of dead cradle-songs. “No, lad,” I groaned, That image was not created by Ta’alyn. I’d lived with it shivering in the icy wind of our bereavement, “don’t look too long not to know it for my own. From it had come the at that again.” saddest of the sad songs. But, seeing it, the boy could not turn away. The wood As the frost kissed mountain rose: imp blazed and then paled again. He pitied me, I think, Our brave histories wither, as much as he did the boy. Love given to no one, “Let it go, boy!” I dropped my next words like bitter Songs wept over empty cradles. stones into the boy’s silence. “Your father is dead. And . . . And I’d lived with it long enough to know that I dared I grieve with you.” not stay in that empty place. I dragged myself, hurt and He lifted his head, saw Ta’alyn, and smiled a little. He shaking, back to the forest and the moonlight. was choosing. Ta’alyn had addressed me as Firstborn. As the gods’ Oh youngling, I thought, what would be better? Eterni- failing but still loved first child I answered. “I did not kill ty among the wood imps or your life’s span among men? the boy’s father. I killed this one.” I spat upon Oraf’s And who had given the lad any reason to choose for life? corpse. “He earned the axe.” None. Not Oraf, not I. My heart felt like hard stone So the gods set you to judge, did they? against my ribs. And well it might: I had spent most of I might have been damned for my arrogance; I did not my life making certain that, soon or late, it would become think of that then. “I do not ask the gods’ permission each stone. time I lift my axe.” In that moment the boy seemed as transparent as Again Ta’alyn flared, the blue deepened. Ah, then they Ta’alyn drifting between us. He appeared emptied of the ask you to kill for them when they see the need? hard, real life of men, of his kind, ready to be filled for a A handspan from me the boy sobbed and bowed his god’s eternity with the light of the wood imp. If I turned head. aside now, he would choose Ta’alyn. And if I let him do Behind my sight were black, yawning pits, cracked vessels, and things once living, now dead. To my left and right, the green and red globes, Ta’alyn’s companions, dimmed their lights and left the clearing in pity or disgust. You must call him, Firstborn, or I shall. And if I do, he will live, not as a blood-warmed, but as my kind. I call him? How could I, who so many times before should have called him to me and did not? Where would I find the strength? I pitied him, but I could not, even now, look too deeply into those desolate grey eyes for fear of seeing my own emptiness. Oraf's bruises showed purple and black along his thin arms, on his white face. Ta’alyn drifted closer to the boy. I did not move with thought, but with the same instinct that would impel me to pull a child from the path of a runaway horse. Still, my attempt was a weak one. “Boy,” I whispered, “I did not kill your father.” He did not look up, but back behind him to the moon- fog as though it was enough that someone there wanted him. Blue Ta’alyn hung between the boy and me. “Who was your father, boy? Is he dead? Is he war- killed?” That did something to his stony silence. A whimper leaked through it like water past a cracking dam. “War killed? By Erich’s men, or Vorgund’s?” Ta’alyn paled again, I saw the boy clearly now. “Boy, look at me.” DRAGON 63 that, no amount of wishing would make my own heart I would not turn aside again. My arms, too long empty of anything but stone upon which were graven the words I a child’s warmth, were full. The hollow places inside me had made. knew light and the grace of a son. Of our fading kind we stand last, He would never forget his tall, grey-eyed father. But he King and crofter alike, burrowed his face into my shoulder and tangled a small Stoneman, smith, warrior, skald. hand in my beard as though to tell me that, if I wished to, We are childless. I might stand in his father’s stead. “Youngling!” My cry sounded to me as desolate as I wished to and the boy knew it. He felt my own weep- fated Dyfed’s. And I do not know yet for whom I pleaded, ing. the boy or myself. When I could speak again, I asked him his name. He stiffened, then looked up at me slowly. “Hinthan,” he whispered, wiping a hand that was yet I went down on my heels, held my hands out to him, dirty across his face. “It means ‘hunter.’ I am named for my arms wide and empty as any prospect I had of siring a my — for my father.” son. “Youngling, come to me.” I gently erased the dirty trails of his tears with both He hung there for a long moment. I offered him no thumbs and kissed him, who had never kissed a son before answer, nothing but the chance to live with loss and pain. now. Then I lifted the boy, snatched up between a wood It is not much to choose for. I felt like one who offers a imp’s lightning and war’s thunder, and carried him back poor and shabby gift. to Erich’s camp. As though he did not agree, Ta’alyn’s light filled the The lord received the word of Oraf's death and Dyfed’s clearing. in stony silence. When he did speak, it was not to regret The boy shuddered. Staggering like one drunk, he the loss of two men. Erich was not one to dwell upon that stepped and then stepped again. I dared not move, but which he could not change. He nodded to the boy asleep watched him stepping and stepping, away from eternity. on my shoulder. “What of him?” “Youngling,” I whispered. “Like me,” I said simply, “he survived.” He turned those grey eyes on me, and they shone like Erich dismissed me with a flicker of his sharp blue eyes. beacons. I knew him well enough to know that fire burned behind “Garroc?” those cold eyes. He had been cheated of Vorgund’s head, He’d never spoken my name before now. I trembled to a prize for which he had waged battles across half his hold- hear it echoing in the empty halls of my heart. “Aye, ing to win. youngling. Come to me now.” I took the dismissal gratefully. He staggered a little, reaching for me the way a blind That night the boy Hinthan slept curled against me, his man reaches for a wall. His hands clutched my arms and head on my shoulder, his small hand tangled again in my he sobbed once. I felt the ache in him, the sharp-fanged beard. As I listened to him breathe, I came to understand gnawing pain of his loneliness. Kin-reft, I thought, and that I had unmade a shadow and the saddest of the sad who should know better about that reaving than one songs. whose race, twilit now and failing, will not increase? It remained to be discovered whether I might ever craft Ta’alyn’s light, blue and cool, burst like a fireball over a new song. Then I did not think I would. Still, in the us then vanished. Flash blind, the boy flung his arms most fleeting of my dreams, dim yet and hesitant as around my neck and finally wept, a raging storm whose though it were not certain of its welcome, shone the skald violence might have shaken his soul from his body had I leygr, the storyteller’s light. One day, it promised, one day not held him. there will be another song. And, holding him, my own stone heart at last softened.

64 OCTOBER 1988 DRAGON 65

©1988 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser ment is to his liking for a specific charac- ter. Character training starts at the Acad- emy. Depending upon how well each character completes his studies, his rank is increased, which leads to better pay (from 1,500 credits for a Private to 45,000 credits for a Grand Admiral), which leads to a greater total of earned team credits, which can be used to buy better ships and The Role equipment for the missions. Star Command assigns all missions. The successful completion of an assignment not only earns credits but also allows additional training for personnel. On their way to each mission, characters can of Computers explore planets in search of valuable ele- ments, which can be stored in the ship’s cargo hold for sale upon return to Star- base. If an insect warrior ship or pirates are met and defeated, additional credits can be earned in excess of the mission There are no rules stipulating that role- fantastic or historical background. Grant- credits. Players can also board intact ene- playing games must take place in fantasy ed, there is no magic involved in World my ships and fight their foes man-to-man. settings. Although the majority of comput- War II simulations or science-fiction space This has the advantage of allowing a play erized RPGs place characters in dungeons operas. However, some of the weaponry er to commandeer the enemy ship and or wilderness and have them use spells or incorporated into science-fiction games tow it back as salvage for even more swords, such games have also expanded to operates like sorcery. One such role- credits (and promotions in rank). We have played steadily the far reaches of space. Several of the playing space scenario is Star Command Star Command flight, submarine, and ship simulations from Strategic Simulations, Inc. The gam- for nearly a month and have neither run also require a player to take on an unfa- ing environment is as rich in detail and out of missions nor become bored. Most of miliar role to achieve success. full of adventure as any fantasy game. On our personnel began their lives as Corpo- Every role-playing game focuses on our one-to-five star rating system, this one rals, with one lucky character going strategic gamesmanship, regardless of its is almost at the top. through Officer’s School and starting as a Sergeant. Most of our characters are now at least Second Lieutenants, with one a Strategic Simulations, Inc. Chemical Weaponry only to Soldiers; Major and another a Brigadier. We have 1046 North Rengstorff Avenue Heavy Arms only to Marines and Soldiers; also performed three ship upgrades, start- Mountain View CA 94043-1716 Scouting/Recon only to Marines; etc. Some ing with the Hornet-class Scoutship and (415) 964-1353 skills, like Light Arms and Medical, are moving up to a Fire-Drake-class Corvette. open to all classes. Upgrading your ship increases your ves- Star Command ****½ Character creation assigns numerical sels armor, power, defense bonuses, maxi- IBM micros/compatibles version $49.94 values to specific attributes, as is common mum movement per round, fuel, and the number of dropships carried (the small Star Command possesses all the ele- with most role-playing games. In Star survey craft flown from your starship to a ments that make for fine gaming in any Command, these attributes are Strength, role-playing environment. You build eight Speed, Accuracy, Courage, Willpower, planet’s surface for scientific or assigned characters, each with a specific training Esper, and Intelligence. The range of investigations). skill. Training skills are usually allotted to points is from 30 to 70 in each attribute, Initially, all combat will be ship vs. ship, specific classes of characters. Astro Gun- generated randomly by the computer. The so make certain your craft is equipped ner skill is open only to Pilots and Espers; player decides when the total point assign- with Hypervelocity Rockets in all positions, even to the extent of not purchasing armor or weapons for the crew. When you finally start earning money, be certain Star Command: that the minimum armor you buy for each Pirate Troopers are crew member is the Infantry Exo Armor. bad news early in the game. Even with puny hand weapons or light weaponry, the armor could save a lot of lives before a mission is completed. An excellent starting crew consists of two Pilots, three Marines, two Soldiers, and an Esper. When selecting their skills at the start of your game, allocate points to Light Arms skills. Don’t worry about Heavy Weaponry and Heavy Arms skills until you can afford to buy more sophisti- cated weapons. Be certain that one of your Marines trains in Scouting/Recon, as this talent will be used throughout the entire game. Another Soldier or Marine experi- enced in Explosives and a Marine or Sol- dier experienced in Chemical Weapons will also be helpful. These weapons are usually inexpensive (compared to other weaponry) 70 OCTOBER 1988 and are most effective in hand-to-hand combat situations. The Bard's Tale III: One of the most economical ships in the Rainbow dragons are game is the Hornet class, equipped with at not pleasant. least one Hypervelocity weapon. This will leave your crew with enough money to purchase some good shields and defensive armor for the ship. Lastly, the Castro Gun- ner skill is critical to success; make certain that the Copilot and the Esper characters possess at least Level 2 skill in this area to make better use of your ship’s weaponry and survive the early missions. Star Command requires a CGA or EGA card for play. A variety of screens offer menus for many activities, such as ship refueling, selling and buying equipment, star navigation, starship and personal combat, and the investigation of planets and individual locations (such as the bar). These screens are handled with little complication. The only boring aspect of the game is an unchanging animated The Bard's Tale III: sequence used each time you fly a drop- Automapping is ship to a planet for an assignment or for extremely handy in scouting activities. However, the final dungeons. mission (to uncover the insectoid aliens’ plans for invasion) is one that’ll leave you gasping for air as you duel with their main battleships.

Questron II **** IBM micros/compatibles version $44.95 Here is one remedy for those of you who own IBM microcomputers or compat- ibles and complain that IBM game selec- tions are limited in number. Many IBM game conversions are simply ports from a graphically rich operating system to either monochrome or CGA video-display mode on the IBM (which is not a good choice for rich graphics). Thank heavens for Westwood Associates, a company that has sion of Questron II should become a mem- turing party. been writing some of SSI’s recent game ber of any IBM gamer’s library! This fantasy role-playing game has more conversions for the IBM system. than 84 dungeon levels and seven dimen- Westwood Associates has managed to Electronic Arts sions. The mission is no easy task for even convert Questron II and, at the same time, 1820 Gateway Drive the most experienced questers. There are enable players to run the game in either San Mateo CA 94404 (thankfully) some new and powerful spells EGA or VGA graphics modes. When play- (415) 571-7171 with which to counter over 500 creatures. ing one of these converted games, the Of even better news is the fact that now player is asked (after the main menu selec- The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate *** you can save your game in progress at any tion) which graphics environment he Commodore 64/128 version $39.95 time (a much-needed improvement). Auto- wishes to use. With the EGA/VGA selec- Highly touted and long awaited, The mapping has also been added, which tion, the rich graphics provided rival that Bard's Tale III fantasy role-playing game reveals exactly where the party is in any of any computer system (except perhaps from Interplay Productions is now availa- dungeon as well as the party’s location in a those of the Commodore Amiga or Atari ble. This third scenario finds that village of city. This feature is activated with a press ST computers). If other vendors would mystery, Skara Brae, left in rums by the of the ? key. The walls and doors of under- find companies to convert their games as crazed machinations of the Mad God Tar- ground corridors and tunnels are revealed well as Westwood Associates has done for jan Do you remember Garth’s Equipment on-screen. You can also use your com- SSI, the current popularity of IBM gaming Shop? Well, it’s gone, as well as some other puter’s cursor keys to move the map in would encourage a flood of new games for locales that were so important in The any direction to check the known areas. PC users! Bard's Me I and II. There are now 13 character classes, Questron II continues the adventure The mission in this third scenario is to including the new Geomancor and from Questron and requires that you keep halt this evildoer’s revenge on the Six Chronomancer types. A Geomancer is the Evil Book of Magic from being created. Cities of the plains. The Review Board is basically a fighter who now prefers a life The dungeons are presented in three- still in its original location, and some parts of magical prowess. In order to gain this dimensional form, and automapping of the city are still familiar. It helps to ability, however, some special talents are ensures that you will have a pretty good maintain a sharp eye for a building located lost, such as multiple attacks and, if the idea of where you are located within their extremely close to the now-charcoal character was a Bard, the Bard’s song dank confines. If you confront a creature, entrance of Skara Brae. This particular skills. A Monk loses his armor-class you’ll see it on-screen in full color. In our edifice contains certain important items bonuses and multiple-hit capability, while opinion, the Westwood Associates conver- that can help all members of your adven- a Hunter loses his critical-hit ability. Never-

DRAGON 71 Accolade, Inc. 550 South Winchester; Suite 200 San Jose CA 95128 (408) 296-8400 Power at Sea: *** The view from the Power At Sea bridge. Commodore 64/128 version $29.95 Accolade is coming on strong! This game company was once relatively unknown, offering few classy products and next to nothing in the way of promotional cam- paigns. It has certainly turned its future about with recent releases. Power At Sea is a simulation of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in which the Japanese make their move to capture the Pacific during World War II. In C64/128 format, the graphics and sound enhance play. Commanding a battleship, an aircraft carrier, and a troop ship, you not only launch naval gun barrages against enemy cave emplacements but also direct assault forces to capture beachheads in enemy-held territory. The only fault with theless, such characters can still use their resulting from being attacked. There is no the game lies in its repetitiveness; after armor and weapons (including any magical chance to talk your foes out of attacking you’ve shelled five, or more islands, the ones) as Geomancers. A Chronomancer or bribe them to leave you alone. Addition- scenes get tiresome. In addition, there is becomes a highly trained and potent travel ally, it seems as though every time you really no way to control the landings with agent for the party, with the power to cast turn around in the dungeons, some foul your own strategies. Other than that, dimensional teleportation spells. However, creature is at your heels. Pity the poor Accolade continues to impress us with its he sacrifices all other spells he knew characters that start this game with little simulation software. before changing to this class. A character or no experience at all! Our 13th- and Activision, Inc. cannot become a Chronomancer until he 14th-level warriors and magic-users were 3885 Bohannon Drive has learned all of the spells of three mage constantly besieged by creatures, especial- Menlo Park CA 94025 classes. Note: This game cannot be won ly in subterranean locales. Just when (415) 329-0800 without a Chronomancer! you’re trying to figure out an important You initiate your quest from the Refugee trap, determine where a spinner has pro- Shanghai ***** Camp, where you can build a party from pelled you on the map, or produce light in Commodore Amiga version $39.95 scratch or by transferring characters from perpetual darkness, the nasties pounce on As a computerized version of mah-longg, The Bard’s Tale I or II, Ultima III or IV, or you. After more than 40 hours of play, Shanghai is a success. This version is so Wizardry I, II, or III adventure-game sys- The Bard's Tale III wasn’t fun anymore! No good that several friends and neighbors, tems. Thankfully, we had some potent folk matter how hard we worked on puzzle after seeing the game in play on our com- from our copy of The Bard's Tale I and solving and treasure hunting (the meatier puters, rushed out to purchase it for brought them into play with great effect. aspects of the game), along came the rot- themselves. As a result, this evaluatron Not once were we defeated in battle in ters to spoil the fun. encapsulates the feelings of numerous over 48 solid hours of play! (This did Constant destruction and killing are not other players, some of whom felt that it become somewhat boring, however.) what fantasy role-playing games should was the finest strategy game they’d ever What did defeat us, and in the end perpetuate. Certainly combat is crucial, played. It requires a great deal of thought, caused us to give The Bard’s Tale III a less but your table-top adventures include all superb memory, and concentration. After than perfect score, are the continuous sorts of activities, such as learning ways to you win a game, the tiles reveal the three- battle conditions in the game. This was a avoid certain combat, to communicate dimensional blinking eye of a dragon purely personal preference based on our with various races, to proceed down behind the game screen. Programmed by belief that a fantasy game should possess dungeon corridors as a team while search- Brody Lockhart (who we feel is one of the much more than combat scenarios to ing for treasure, and to maintain one’s premier programmers in the field), any create an effective environment for gam- own alignment. Other computer-based version of Shanghai is worth the purchase ing There is no other recourse in The fantasy role-playing games also offer a for hours of strategic entertainment. Bard's Tale III but to engage in one of the variety of options, such as Ultima V following acts: (described in DRAGON® issue #137). So, The Avalon Hill Game Company Attack Foes (those within 10’ of the despite the fact that The Bard’s Tale III has 4.517 Harford Road group); an updated plot and more spells and char- Baltimore MD 21214 Defend, Party Attack (take on one of acter classes, and even with material (301) 254-9200 your own adventurers, in case he has rewards offered as payment for slaughter, become a rotten apple in the group), the fighting leaves players tired of the Wooden Ships & Iron Men ** Cast a Spell (which requires a four-letter entire event. Commodore 64/128 version $35 spell code); If you particularly enjoy combative Based on the popular board game of the Use an Item (such as missiles or a magi- environments, then The Bard's Tale III is same name, this offering would have made cal Item like the Dayblade); for you. If not, seek a world more reflec- more of an impact if MicroProse had not Bard Song (allowing you to play one of tive of true fantasy role-playing games — released Pirates! As it is, Wooden Ships & eight such songs, such as the new Rhyme one where brawn and brain are required Iron Men has many problems: extremely of Duotime), and for success. Perhaps we are too familiar limited graphics, ineffective sounds, and a Hide in Shadow (used in the dark recess- with this game series, having played the combat phase that reveals nothing of the es of city streets or at night) ongoing Bard’s Tale series for months. final outcome until the computer declares Every selection is based on an action (Does familiarity breed contempt?) a winner. As a result, Wooden Ships &

72 OCTOBER 1988 Iron Men is a poor substitute for Pirates! well. With these objectives, you must This game closely follows the film’s story- In our opinion, this offering would have return the platoon safely to base. This line, and players join the screen stars on a been best left as a board game and not simulation is for the IBM PC and clones, journey racing through dungeons, travers- even brought to the computer unless the Atari ST, and C64/128 computers. Prices ing dark woods, blasting through ice graphics could have been updated to the for these versions are $39.95, $44.95, and caves, and battling fierce Nockmaar sol- minimum acceptable technological levels $29.95, respectively. diers who threaten their quest. Players are in use today. On a C64/128, we’ve seen Two new programs have also been free to take on different roles along the graphics that were truly amazing for an 8- released with distribution arranged way until their pursuit of the villainous bit machine. The Avalon Hill Game Compa- through Electronic Arts. The first is Cos- minions of Bavmorda meets with victory. ny may know a lot about board games, but mic Relief, a multi-level, animated action Supporting both EGA and CGA boards, few of their computer games have come adventure. Your goal is to halt an asteroid Willow is for IBM micros and compatibles up to par. Leave this one alone! that is heading toward Earth. The only at $39.95. man who can stop the impending doom is News and new products Professor Renegade — and you’ve got to PBI Software, Inc. find him! You select one of five famous 1163 Triton Drive Cinemaware, Inc. adventurers to find the professor, take on Foster City CA 94404 4165 Thousand Oaks Drive a wide range of strange adversaries, and (415) 349-8765 Westlake Village CA 91362 collect equally strange items needed for (805) 495-6515 your trek. This program has been released Two new entertainment offerings have for the Atari ST ($34.95), Commodore been released by PBI. The first, Galactic Previously distributed by Mindscape, Amiga ($34.95), and C64/128 ($24.95). The Conquest, is a futuristic version of the Cinemaware is out on its own (with a new second offering is Napoleon in Russia — company’s Strategic Conquest strategy and address) and should be quite successful in Borodino 1812, which recreates the battle tactics game. This multiplayer, space-based its ventures. For example, they now offer that was the turning point of Napoleon’s game has the player attempting to control The Three Stooges, a unique and hilarious fortunes. You can practice with short the entire universe by expanding his game for the Commodore Amiga, C64/128, skirmishes or fight the entire three-day power base to produce more forces to and IBM micros and compatibles, in which battle, in command of infantry, cavalry, conquer other planets (and eventually the famous trio rescues a retirement and artillery divisions. The game is availa- entire solar systems). This offering is for home. Cinemaware also plans a fall release ble for Atari 8-bit computers and the C64/ the Apple IIGS. The second new game is of The Lords of the Rising Sun, the first 128 ($24.95). Both of these games were Alien Mind, a space arcade adventure that real-time historical environment dealing released in IBM and Apple II formats this has nine different levels and requires with the Japanese Civil War of the 12th summer. players to neutralize hundreds of adver- century. Historically accurate, this war saries to regain control of an experimental game lets you command entire armies in Epyx, Inc. research space station. This game is also real time. Encounters can be negotiated, 600 Galveston Drive for the Apple IIGS. and individual troops ordered into action. P.O. Box 8020 There are five interactive arcade scenarios Redwood City CA 94063 Spectrum HoloByte within the game. If you get too good, the (415) 366-0606 A division of SPHERE opposing generals send out ninjas to do 2061 Challenger Drive away with you! As is the case with SSI, Two interesting games that we recently Alameda CA 94501 Cinemaware is most considerate of the announced in this column have now (415) 522-3584 IBM micro consumer. Included in each shipped. The first is 4 x 4, an off-road package is a 5¼” and 3½” disk format, racing game that lets you race a four- The first torpedo boat simulation has with graphics modes covering CGA and wheel drive vehicle to victory across sand, been released for the Macintosh. Entitled EGA. There’s no need to send in a coupon mud, mountains, and ice. You can custom- PT-109, this program was written by the for another disk format. Defender of the ize your truck to suit whatever special folks at Digital Illusions. It is a masterful Crown is also now available for the Apple needs will be required for your particular follow-up to their earlier GATO submarine IIGS, as is the company’s controversial and racing event. The second offering, The simulation. The software puts the player provocative King of Chicago adventure Games, includes seven Olympic events that at the helm of the PT-109, the most famous “movie.” All in all, Cinemaware is destined were presented in Calgary, Alberta. Down- PT boat of World War II. There are several to be one of the leading entertainment hill skiing, slalom, luge, figure skating, ski South Pacific theaters of action, including software producers for a variety of com- jumping, cross-country skiing, and oval- the Solomon Islands. There are also 45 puter systems. track speed skating are offered. As many missions (both day and night), four 90° as eight players can be involved in this bridge views, a binocular view, detailed Data East USA, Inc. computer-based competition. Opening, maps and damage reports, realistic enemy 470 Needles Drive closing, and awards ceremonies are all ships and planes, control panels and San Jose CA 95112 depicted using the actual Calgary pageant- gauges, variable wave action on missions, (408) 286-7074 ry. Both of these games are for the C64/ a save-game option, a practice-tactics 128 computer. mode, flares and smoke screens, and life- Popular motion pictures have always like explosions and sound effects. The been great grist for the software devel- Mindscape Inc. game is $49.95, with versions for IBM oper’s mill. For example, not only is Wil- 3444 Dundee Road micros and compatibles and the Apple IIGS low being developed into a software Northbrook IL 60062 coming soon. adventure (see the entry under Mindscape (312) 480-7667 elsewhere in this column), but Platoon is Strategic Simulations, Inc. also being written into a software simula- Willow, the fantasy film from George Though SSI is working away on its tion by Data East. As in the movie, Platoon Lucas and Ron Howard, is now an enter- AD&D™ computer games, the company does not have a winner. The user parallels taining computer adventure from Mind- hasn’t neglected other new products or the movie experience through various scape. Willow follows the exploits of an the conversion of popular programs for a steps. The goal is to keep a platoon of five unlikely hero in a battle that takes him variety of systems. The latest offering men alive through various missions, and from his peaceful village into a world filled from SSI’s entertainment stable is Stellar keep their sanity and morale intact as with giant Daikinis, brownies, and fairies. Crusade, initially released in Atari ST

DRAGON 73 formats. Two groups have embarked on a tron II has also been released in formats Might and Magic (New World wild race to control a vital star cluster. for the Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari ST, and Computing) Though small in size, this star cluster Commodore Amiga (see the review else- Accept Percella’s offer at Section A2-0,15 possesses some valuable planets that where in this column). As a final note, all to find a King’s Pass. Here is the order for either the player or his opponent will SSI games are now distributed by Elec- silver messages: F, E, D, B, A, C. Once they want. Ownership requires might, and tronic Arts. are in this order, read them from top to might requires starships. You design your bottom. The order for the gold messages is own starships in a variety of models rang- Clue corner 8, 5, 3, 9, 1, 4, 6, 2, 7; you read them the ing from scouts to battlecruisers, all same as the silver ones. Finally, remember assigned to their own task forces. Seven Autoduel (Origin Systems) each section and dungeon is based on a 15 separate scenarios are included with this First, if you are in the middle of a no- x 15 grid. space-action delight. win situation, such as being stuck on an David Methven SSI (like Cinemaware, Inc.) is one of the open road with no power in your car’s Norman, Okla. few companies thoughtful enough to power plant, or perhaps under attack by include both 5¼” and 3½” format disks four laser-using cars, simply hit Quit and The dungeon in the Hawkseye Hills is a for their IBM games. Congratulations for reboot the game. You’ll find yourself and giant magical square that happens to be your consideration of the consumer! your car at the truck stop. Second, if you the famous one created by the German The first official AD&D computer game, sell a car at the salvage yard, offer to sell woodcarver, Dürer. The numbers marked Pool of Radiance, was released in August. the entire car. Don’t sell your own vehicle; by asterisks in the following chart are the This is a fantasy role-playing game that, select the option to sell your weapons. numbers you enter on the keyboard: according to SSI, has one of the most Only sell a weapon or two and then offer challenging multiple-character environ- to sell your car again. Once in a great 16 3* 2* 13 ments ever offered to computer gamers. while, you might get an exceptional offer. 5* 10 11 8* Pool of Radiance combines state-of-the-art Third, remember “San Antonio Rose.” Last, 9* 6* 7* 12 three-dimensional and overhead graphics, buy a clone and leave the place where you 4* 15 1* and allows the player to select either purchased it, making certain that you’re detailed tactical combat or computer con- not in Boston or New York. If you get shot Also, search for the prisoner inside trolled combat. Release in C64/128 format or killed, allow your Health to go below Doom’s innards. took place in August; IBM micros and zero. Instead of going to a negative num- Daniel Myers compatibles and the Apple II versions ber, your health will go up to 99! If you go Fairfield, Conn. come this fall. Additional formats are to the Gold Cross after this has occurred My tips deal with Erliquin’s town trea- currently being evaluated. and ask to be healed, they tell you that sure. Create a first-level party in Sorpigal The second AD&D® game is SSI’s first you are as fit as a fiddle. Play on, and don’t (it works best with two clerics and no action game entitled Heroes of the Lance. forget: You still have your clone! archer). Get to Erliquin without dying. This joystick-controlled, single-player Anonymous Then, send your characters out in twos to game is set in TSR’s DRAGONLANCE® Illinois find the treasure (located, among other game world. The player controls the eight Bard’s Tale I (Interplay) places, in the training grounds). Steal the Heroes of the Lance characters. This game Here are a few hints for players who are treasure. One of your two characters will was released this summer in formats for assembling a new group: probably be killed by the traps, so this can the C64/128, Atari ST, IBM micros and 1. Often, if different classes tip the bar- only be done six times. Try to get back to compatibles, and the Commodore Amiga. tender the same amount of gold, he’ll offer the inn. When confronted by the guards, Other system formats are currently being different information. run. Eventually, you’ll make it. Give the evaluated. 2. First-level Monks without weapons treasure to a member of your regular The third AD&D computer game offer- inflict the most damage. party, and the guards won’t stop you. ing will be The Dungeon Masters Assistant 3. El Cid of ATEAM (the preassembled —Volume 1, Encounters. This is the first Repeat this process until all of the tempo- group on the character disk) possesses an rary characters have been killed by the AD&D game-utility program designed for extremely useful Firehorn. traps. This affords your regular party with traditional AD&D game play. The program 4. Poison Needle is the only trap you’ll about 3,600 gold and some 60 gems. includes over 1,300 pregenerated mon- find on wine cellar chests. Grant Reaber sters and characters, as well as more than 5. Don’t use any warriors in your party. Seattle, Wash. 1,000 separate encounters. This utility will Warriors have no special abilities. A pala- be released for the Apple II family, C64/ din, monk, or hunter is preferable to a Wizard’s Crown (SSI) 128 machines, and IBM micros and com- warrior. 1. When confronting Wardpact Demons patibles this fall. Vivek Sharma and White Rabbits, ask for Quick Combat; Another AD&D game forthcoming No address it works much better. includes an interactive, movie-style train- 2. Increase a fighter’s scan and put him ing ground based on TSR’s FORGOTTEN Faery Tale Adventure (MicroIllusions) out front, as fighters are better able to REALMS™ setting. The levels and experi- 1. Seek the dragon’s lair in the moun- protect themselves in the open. ence earned in the training city of Hillsfar tains. 3. Keep anything you find that says will be transferable into other AD&D 2. Use the shell to call a trusty friend. “Reinforcing.” computer games. This offering will be 3. Get the golden lasso, but beware the Russ Mitchell released this winter for the C64/128 and witch’s vision. Newport, R.I. IBM micros and compatibles, with other 4. Kindness can be earned for a price set system conversions to be chosen later. by the golden goose. The response to the Beasties Awards SSI’s AD&D games will present a wide 5. Get the goose with the golden rope. selection process is definitely improving. range of fantasy role-playing environ- 6. Beware the “pits” in the field on the Keep those cards and letters coming in ments for many seasons to come! way to the witch’s castle. and vote for your favorite software enter- Additional new SSI games include a 7. An idol guards the tomb. tainment of this year. Send your votes to: Napoleonic construction set, a B-17 World 8. Find the wand as soon as possible. War II role-playing game, and a new World 9. Magic abounds in the tomb. Hartley and Patricia Lesser War II game set in both the Pacific and Craig “Thor” Pirrall 179 Pebble Place European theaters. The company’s Ques- Scwenksville, Penn. San Ramon CA 94583

74 OCTOBER 1988 Thanks in advance for your response! Until next month, game on!

Computer-Games Conversion Chart Street Sports Soccer to C64/128 Street Sports Basketball to Apple II and IBM micros and compati- Accolade (408) 296-8400 bles (IBM version Test Drive to Apple II family can access CGA and Hercules graphics boards) Destroyer to Apple IIGS Activision (415) 329-0800 Spiderbot to IBM micros and compatibles (can access CGA graph- Maniac Mansion to IBM micros and compatibles (can access VGA, ics boards only) EGA, CGA, MCGA, Deathsword to Apple II series and Atari ST and Hercules graphics boards) Arctic Antics (Spy vs. Spy) to Atari 8-bit computers

IntelliCreations, Inc. (Datasoft) (818) 886-5922 Paragon Software (412) 838-1166 Tomahawk to Apple IIGS Alien Fires to IBM micros and compatibles Master Ninja to C64/128 Electronic Arts (415) 571-7171 Twilight’s Ransom to Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Macintosh, and Alternate Reality: The City to Commodore Amiga and IBM micros C64/128 and compatibles (IBM version can access EGA and CGA graphics boards) Strategic Simulations, Inc. (415) 964-1353 Lords of Conquest to Atari ST B-24 to Atari ST Gettysburg: The turning Point to Commodore Amiga Epyx, Inc. (415) 366-0606 Questron II to IBM micros and compatibles Street Sports Baseball to IBM micros and compatibles (can access Shiloh: Grant’s Trial West to Commodore Amiga and Atari ST CGA graphics Sons of Liberty to IBM micros and compatibles boards only) Wargame Construction Set to IBM micros and compatibles

DRAGON 75 76 OCTOBER 1988 Continued from page 13 Does a protection from evil keep tures may still make ranged attacks, and creatures which exist outside the normal them from attacking? Exactly how can use weapons against the protected flow of time, however. They do not have large are barghests, and what are creatures. Barghests are extraplanar crea- detailed knowledge of the entire continu- their armor classes? How do you tures. A barghest’s armor class and dam- um; thus, the time elemental is able to determine their damage bonuses? age bonus depends on its hit dice: 6 + 6 HD move a character to a location of a charac- Barghests of 8 + 8 HD or less may be = AC 2, Dmg 2d4+6; 7+7HD = AC 1, ter’s choosing by a considerable amount — turned as specials, but barghests of 9 + 9 Dmg 2d4 + 7; etc. Barghests are man-sized say 1,000 years or so, with a wide margin HD or more cannot be turned. Holy water at 8 + 8 HD and below, and large at 9 + 9 for error. Furthermore, once a time ele- inflicts standard (1d6 + 1 hp) damage on HD and above. mental moves a character, there is no barghests. Protection from evil does not guarantee that it will be there to move him keep barghests from attacking, but this back. The plane of Time is a demi-plane, a spell does not prevent attacks from any timeless void located somewhere (or per- other creatures. Protection from evil and haps somewhen) within the Ethereal plane protection from evil 10’ radius keep extra- (see Manuel of the Planes, page 21). planar and summoned creatures from physically touching the protected crea- Can barghests be turned by cler- tures, and gives them armor-class and ics? Does holy water harm them? saving-throw bonuses. The attacking crea-

DRAGON 77 ©1988 by Ken Rolston Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and The Abominable Dr. Phibes (as well as the aforementioned Ghostbusters). Though this style is valid within its own rules and objectives, I hesitate to refer to it as “horror” role-playing. When elements of Role-playing this style are found in role-playing games attempting to support grim horror themes, they may compromise the delicate atmos- phere and tone necessary for horror.

Grim horror Reviews The best known role-playing game of this style is Chaosium’s CALL OF CTHULHU® game (herein referred to as COC). The important features of grim horror are: 1. The monsters are much tougher than the player characters. If there are charac- ters of “heroic” stature in this style, they are generally the monsters. Not even Conan stands a chance against Great Cthulhu. 2. The characters are very likely to lose their lives — or at least their minds — when they confront their supernatural opponents. This isn’t just spook-bashing. In COC, the body count of PCs often outnum- bers the body count of monsters. 3. Magic, the supernatural, and incar- nate evil must be coherent, plausible, and emotionally compelling. The player need not actually believe in magic, the supernat- ural, or incarnate evil in a rational sense. At some emotional level, however, the player must participate (through his char- acter) in a world where horror is very real, where the ironic, scoffing skepticism of the rational man is the greatest ally of the indomitable evil that lurks in every shadow, or just across the tissue-thin boundaries between our world and the Fear and loathing on Beyond. the horror campaign trail Heroism vs. horror The standard model of role-playing, D&D-game-style fantasy, generally exhibits features close to those of lighthearted horror. D&D game PCs typically slaughter The grim horror game master says, 1. The player characters are tougher lots and lots of opponents (called “mon- “There are no heroes in the horror genre. than their opponents, regardless of the sters,” even when sporting only one-half There are only the dead victims — and the apparent awesome powers of the mon- hit dice) in early and middle stages of their surviving victims.” sters, as evidenced by the inevitable tri- adventures. In the end, they often con- The lighthearted horror game master umph of the good guys. front a great and dark power, but it is says, “Hey, lighten up, man. We’re here for 2. The characters are not going to die. almost assumed that there is at least a some fun. You think anybody takes that They will suffer no greater physical or chance (and generally a substantial one) supernatural stuff seriously? Halloween? psychological torment than the typical for the characters to overcome this great Nightmare on Elm Street? Night of the D&D® game character reduced to his last opponent. Further, though character death Living Dead? Come on. That’s hilarious.” hit points. If the PCs are terrified, it is is possible, resurrection magic and the Horror role-playing features two mutu- cartoon terror; they hoot and gibber fran- demands of heroic narrative generally ally antagonistic styles: one that takes tically, but we don’t expect our stalwarts assure most characters of making it to the horror with deadly seriousness and the to suffer any long-term psychological last reel. Finally, though some of the finest other that gently pokes fun at it. For dis- trauma. campaigns offer coherent, carefully devel- cussion, we’ll refer to these two styles as 3. The treatments of magic, the super- oped elements of magic, the supernatural, grim horror and lighthearted horror. natural, and incarnate evil are light, ironic, and evil, many fine campaigns offer only and straightforwardly implausible. Neither marginally coherent and plausible magical Lighthearted horror the campaign narratives, settings, nor elements. The best-known role-playing game of themes need to be particularly coherent in It’s understandable that role-playing this style is West End Games’ GHOSTBUS- tone or logic, because no one is supposed game designers instinctively build horror TERS™ game. The important features of to take them seriously to start with. Some role-playing games on these established lighthearted horror are: examples of this style in film might include elements of fantasy role-playing games.

78 OCTOBER 1988 Unfortunately, since these elements are in exploit in weaving the narrative threads support the atmosphere of the adventure direct conflict with the demands of an that bind together a coherent role-playing and setting. They also provide important effective horror campaign, a designer may campaign. clues and information that the players can weaken the horror elements of his game 2. Tone and atmosphere: Regardless of examine in character and speculate on the as he strengthens the conventional role- Lovecraft’s faults as a writer, he was a significance of each. playing elements. dedicated technician of tone and atmos- phere. Remaining true to Lovecraft’s origi- Tone and setting nal writing, COC and its supplements are Each of the products reviewed below — The “big two” horror games presented with a dry, matter-of-fact intel- the GURPS Horror game, the BEYOND Until the publication of Steve Jackson lectualism, in the voice of the well- THE SUPERNATURAL game (herein called Games’ GURPS Horror and Palladium’s educated, skeptical academic who BTS), Cthulhu Now, and S. Petersen’s Field BEYOND THE SUPERNATURALTM game, steadfastly cleaves to the tools of reason Guide to Cthulhu Monsters — is a useful Pacesetter’s CHILL™ game and COC were when confronted with unimaginable hor- and satisfying supplement for game mas- the only two significant choices for horror ror. Lovecraft’s formal, elevated diction, ters running horror campaigns. However, FRP campaigns. The CHILL game, a with its lovely sesquipedalian vocabulary the least successful features of the GURPS product of the now-moribund Pacesetter, (“What’s rugose, squamous, and taller than Horror game are the consequences of a Inc., was a slick, professionally designed, the Chrysler Building?“), is the trademark light, ironic, or wavering tone in the pre- and well-supported game using Paceset- of the COC style. There are no cheap sentation and the lack of a substantial, ter’s simple role-playing system. Some of laughs here; the tone is dry and grimly dramatically compelling setting for horror its supplements were exceptional (espe- straightforward. The narrators have no role-playing. BTS sustains an effective tone cially Vampires and Creature Feature, doubts about the reality of the horrors and setting for 95% of the book, then both out of print). It even provided the they have faced, and we take the narra- dissipates it carelessly in the last few pages necessary narrative trappings for coopera- tors seriously because they are intelligent, with game master notes and adventures tive PC adventuring, including an organi- well-spoken, and fiercely rational. Abbott completely unsuited for the established zation called S.A.V.E (Societas Albae Viae and Costello Meet Shub-Niggurath? Not tone and narrative setting. Cthulhu Now Eternitata — the Eternal Society of the likely. Sherlock Holmes, with his keen effectively exploits the classic tone and White Way), to which all PCs belong, and weapons of pure reason, is more suited to narrative setting of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu which is dedicated to protecting an igno- this style of horror. Mythos. So substantial are COC’s tone and rant and uncaring world from the malig- 3. Detective role-playing: COC has setting that Petersen’s Guide can even flirt nant entities of nearby dimensions. The become the preferred setting for detective with subtle humor without weakening its game’s system, presentation, campaign role-playing for several reasons. First, no presentation. setting, and adventures were admirably pure detective RPG has achieved much designed and executed. However, with the success. Some years ago, TSR’s GANGBUS- GURPS® Horror game failure of Pacesetter itself, there’s little TERS™ game produced some first-class A GURPS® role-playing supplement prospect for further support for Paceset- detective adventures, and Fantasy Games 96-page book ter game systems and little incentive to a Unlimited’s DAREDEVILS™ game provided Steve Jackson Games $9.95 game master looking for a horror RPG to several hard-boiled detective scenarios, Design: Scott Haring use the CHILL game. but neither system is well-known today. Editing and design: David Ladyman, No one ever praised COC for its elegant Second, COC’s high-toned, intellectual style J. David George, and Steve Jackson system design. For example, the first edi- is well-suited to careful, deliberate Cover: Michael Whelan tion detailed systems for delivering and problem-solving. Third, conventional receiving damage in melee and from fire- monster whacking, the staple of conflict The GURPS Horror game is intended to arms, but neglected to discuss the mechan- and action for most RPGs, is almost useless support supernatural role-playing for a ics of healing. Oddly, it never occurred to in COC. The PCs are almost certain to get variety of settings and role-playing styles. me that this was a fault; I just assumed the pulped, soul-sucked, or driven loony in a It achieves this goal effectively (for the game master was never supposed to leave direct confrontation with even the more most part), but it lacks the persuasive any survivors. From all the evidence, modest shambling horrors. Therefore, charm of a game like COC, which has a nobody else has been all that concerned session time is more likely to be spent in rich campaign background and a narrow- about weaknesses in the COC game system puzzling over enigmas than in shoot-‘em- er focus of tone and atmosphere. design, either. ups. Fourth, the essence of Cthulhu hor- Systems: The greatest strengths of the COC is one of role-playing’s acknowl- ror is mystery. What is going on here? GURPS Horror game are the GURPS game edged classics. Its various supplements Where did all these creatures come from? systems and rules presentation. The over the years have maintained an excep- What do they want? Indeed, most of the GURPS game is a flexible and coherent tional level of quality; several, including antagonists are secret cultists or hapless tactical role-playing combat system — fun Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and Masks of victims in thrall who may not even know to game, not hideously complex, and Nyarlathotep, deserve consideration they serve Cthulhu’s will. Often, the Inves- adapted for use in numerous action- among the greatest pinnacles of the fanta- tigator’s only hope is to identify these adventure genres. Steve Jackson Games’ sy role-playing game design. So what mysterious servants and thwart their design teams provide plenty of concrete makes COC so great? nefarious plots before the Gates to the examples, discussion, and guidelines to 1. Narrative campaign background: Hyper-Geometrical Horrorlands are clarify applications of the abstract rules. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos offers a cornu- opened, ushering the practically invulnera- The GURPS Horror game presents appro- copia of original horrifying monsters of ble Elder Gods into our universe. priate magic spells, skills, and psionics, unimaginable malignancy and provides all 4. Elegant props for adventures: In COC, permitting players to design characters the trappings of origins, motivations, and Chaosium, Inc. and its company of tal- admirably suited for confronting the personalities necessary to bring these ented free-lance designers have pioneered supernatural. The concept of building creatures to life. There are also the and elaborated the use of simulated print disadvantages into characters offers numerous established conventions of the artifacts as sources of clues and back- charming role-playing hooks as well as Lovecraft universe — Miskatonic Univer- ground information in player handouts. additional points for character building. sity in Arkham, the Necronomicon and De Hand-written notes, newspaper clippings, Certain details, particularly the side Vermiis Mysteriis, the Elder Sign, and fragments from ancient manuscripts, effects, drawbacks, and limitations associ- charmingly inbred families like the Whate- business cards scrawled with cryptic ated with psionics, provide a sound foun- leys — for designers and game masters to messages — all are prepared to visually dation for character development.

DRAGON 79 These flexible, generic role-playing Stomped By Monsters But Are Neverthe- horror classics listed on the preceding mechanics are necessary for a horror less Compelled By Circumstances To Con- pages, the narrative, characters, tone, and supplement that intends to support a wide front Overwhelming Horror Anyway. setting of this scenario aren’t particularly range of horror settings and narratives, Fearless Monster Stomping sounds too memorable. Furthermore, the presenta- but they fail to provide a focus for the much like FRPG hack-and-slash in tone. tion is somewhat awkward and confusing. motivations and personalities of the player COC succeeds in creating a PC role in The introduction of the PCs to the sce- characters. This is good if the game mas- which Just Plain Folks are essentially nario is anything but elegant. A PC ter wants to run a variety of settings and trapped in a long-term campaign — a receives a phone call from a stranger narratives in his campaign, or if he wants subtle trick but most effective for main- offering $1,000 for aid with a supernatural to build his own distinctive horror cam- taining the properly oppressive and terri- matter — a ploy appropriate to the paign setting from scratch, but it’s bad if fying atmosphere of a horror campaign. GHOSTBUSTERS game, perhaps (“Who ya the game master wants to provide an Further, the Cabal, the GURPS Horror gonna call?“), but setting the tone for immediate sense of character and motiva- game’s attempt at proposing an interna- horror is critical, and this is not a particu- tion for his players. tional conspiracy of supernatural villains larly inspiring opening gambit. Sure, this Campaign settings: “The Worlds of as campaign antagonists, is a “loosely knit kind of machinery works in getting an Horror” section describes three possible group of occult beings like vampires, adventure rolling, but it isn’t much of a settings for a horror campaign: Victorian mages, and lycanthropes” — a sort of model for an ambitious GM. England, the Roaring Twenties, and the trade association for Eldritch Horrors. In The presentation of mystery role-playing present. Given for each is a brief historical these weak spots of the “Campaigning” adventures is a most difficult task for a and social overview, a chart for typical section, and in similar places in the “Hor- game designer. In this scenario, the design- jobs and salaries, a chart for costs of vari- ror Bestiary” and “The Worlds of Horror” ers do not begin with a summary of the ous services and equipment, and a time- sections, the necessary elements of a hor- narrative or a discussion of organizing and line. A revision of the basic GURPS game’s ror campaign are clearly recognized and staging the sequence of events. Instead, jobs, pay rules, and provisions for modern appreciated, but the substance and pre- the GM learns what’s going on as he reads weapons is included. The sidebars are sentation are not always persuasive. through the adventure. This has the virtue entertaining and informative, with colorful Creatures: In the “Horror Bestiary,” the of giving the GM a taste of the perplexity treatments of bribery, Prohibition, the lack of a coherent tone or campaign set- his players may have as they puzzle tommy gun, and modern legal procedures. ting is most disappointing for horror role- through the mystery. One particularly nice bit is a collection of playing. This section is similar to an On the other hand, I found the scenario Victorian fictional and historical personali- encyclopedia of horror monsters, with difficult to scan for basic elements. I had ties (for example, Aleister Crowley, Count well-developed examples of mechanics for to read carefully through the whole Dracula, Holmes, and Moriarity), with each of the various types of horror crea- adventure to figure out what was going on brief biographies and game statistics. This tures — aliens, creatures from the deep, and had to backtrack from time to time to material is well done and evokes the flavor demons, dead guys, vampires, ghosts, puzzle out the motivations and roles of of the individual settings. On the other werewolves, cultists, mad scientists, psy- some of the characters. Matters are fur- hand, focusing on one of these settings cho killers, and so on. ther complicated by placing much of the rather than surveying all three might have As a survey of the kinds of creatures essential information in sidebars, thereby yielded a more distinctive, serviceable found in Hollywood horror films, it is giving no clear indication of the sequence campaign background. quite effective. But there are no original in which that material is to be read. This The practical advice in the campaigning creatures here to stimulate the also implies that the sidebars aren’t essen- section is thoughtful and insightful, with imagination, nor are any of the creatures tial to understanding the adventure, when discussions of one-shot vs. extended cam- treated in enough depth to develop the they really are. In general, I admire the paigns, various approaches to presenting subtle shadings of mystery and horror. use of sidebars for marginal notes, extend- the supernatural foes, and techniques for Presumably, game masters can provide all ed examples, and game-mastering tips. making horror scary. The annotations in the detail and atmosphere on their own However, in presenting this scenario, the the excellent suggested viewing and read- from their reading and viewing of classics technique is not used effectively. ing sections reveal a sharp psychological of supernatural and horror — fair enough, Evaluation: Judged on its own objec- sensitivity to the thematic roots and con- but here this supplement is only adequate, tives, the GURPS Horror game is very ventions of horror. But, sensitive as the not exciting. successful. It provides effective systems designers are to horror’s basic elements, The weakness of the lighthearted, ironi- mechanics and ample narrative and stag- they seem to falter in the translation of cal tone used here is clearest when the ing mechanics for horror role-playing these elements for horror role-playing, “Horror Bestiary” describes Cthulhoid campaigns in a variety of occult settings particularly when compared with the monsters (which are referred to as and for a wide range of role-playing styles, more effective treatment available in COC. “Things Man Was Not Meant to Know”). from lightly satirical to earnestly heroic. For example, the GURPS Horror game These rules, guidelines, and the campaign Considering the wide range of subjects, identifies two basic types of PC: Just Plain example, “The Lord Beneath the Ice,” read settings, and tones covered in this supple- Folks and Fearless Monster Stompers. Just like an unremarkable parody of a Cthulhu ment, the treatments are remarkably Plain Folks are correctly identified as less adventure outline. To be fair, the weakness comprehensive and effective. The only suitable for campaign role-playing. Why of tone is only relative. When judged by its real design weakness is in the sample would sensible folk, once having survived own purposes and style, the designers’ scenario, which is serviceable but unex- a horrifying adventure, ever go looking approach here is perfectly appropriate — ceptional and not clearly presented. How- for more horror to mess around with? For good reading and a plausible application of ever, when compared to the industry campaign play, Fearless Monster Stompers the GURPS Horror system. It is only by standard, COC, the GURPS Horror game are recommended — essentially FRPG PC contrast to COC supplements and to BTS lacks a coherence of tone and presenta- parties (Indiana Jones fighters and Dr. that this material seems so weak. tion, and it lacks a persuasive horror set- Strange magic users) hunting otherworldly Sample scenario: The final test of an ting like that of the Cthulhu Mythos. orcs in a 19th or 20th century setting. RPG system and campaign presentation The GURPS system works better than Such characters are workable in a super- lies in the adventure scenario. The adven- COC’s basic role-playing system for tactical natural campaign, but the analysis over- ture here, “The Haunting of Langley role-playing, and those already playing looks the basic COC character type — Just Manor,” is based on a clever plot, is well GURPS games will find the GURPS Horror Plain Folks Who Are Anything But Fearless structured, and has ample staging tips. But game’s mechanics useful. For a heroic And Were Voted Most Likely To Get by contrast with the literary and film supernatural campaign similar in tone to

80 OCTOBER 1988 most fantasy role-playing campaigns (with very sloppiness and incoherence of these else — be it Aldebaran or Dimension X — the PCs as fearless crusaders against evil systems that make them so popular; they with a history and science beyond our occult horrors), this supplement is a suit- invite game masters to tinker endlessly mortal ken. Another charming trick is his able system. For more subtle, sophisticated with them. suggestion that only madmen can perceive horror, as that represented by COC, it is BTS does a good job of creating charac- the totally insane elements of the magical less suitable. For confirmed COC fans, only ter classes for occult role-playing. The world; thus, only the various loony the concise treatments of historical cam- classes — such as Arcanist, Latent Psychic, scholars and artists of the Cthulhu Mythos paign settings are of much interest. Natural/Genius, Parapsychologist, Physical school can qualify as authorities on the Psychic, Psi Mechanic, Psychic Sensitive, history and nature of the unseen world. BEYOND THE SUPERNATURAL™ and Ordinary People — are coherent and BTS goes further than Lovecraft, in a game well motivated, represent a broad selec- fashion quite useful for a horror cam- A horror/supernatural role-playing game tion of characters commonly encountered paign, by providing a fairly coherent 255-page book in occult fiction and film, and provide an rationale for the existence of magical Palladium Books $19.95 appropriate selection of talents and skills. phenomena. This scheme is admirably Design: Randy McCall, Kevin Siembieda, Most PCs have some psychic power — a devised, providing references to ancient and Erick Wujcik good idea, in that it gives the players Chinese geomancy and neolithic megaliths Editing: Alex Marciniszyn and Florence something with which to play, provides a that are full of pseudoscientific gobbledy- Siembieda common bond that cuts across the other- gook and psychobabble. It also provides Cover: Richard Corben wise contrasting PC roles, and sets the PCs informative discussions of ley lines, elec- off from the mundane masses who have tromagnetism, geopsychic energy, the rise BTS has three distinctive virtues: no such intimate communication with the and fall of power according to alignments 1. Its systems are similar to common Beyond. of celestial bodies, and so forth. The so- AD&D® and D&D game variants; as a The character roles are cleverly and called Places of Power are often located at result, those familiar with D&D-game-style persuasively conceived. Take, for example, multiple junctions of ley lines, weak points systems can understand and adapt BTS the Nega-Psychic. Ironically, his psychic in the extracosmic continuum, crossroads with little difficulty. power manifests itself in his adamant of reality, nexus points where extradimen- 2. Player character roles and rationales disbelief of supernatural phenomena. It is sional boojums can enter our universe are well designed for the cooperative because he disbelieves and has such through summonings, or through tempo- party model of role-playing — the model strong psychic talent that supernatural rary cross-rips of epic proportions. most familiar to fantasy role-players. events have less effect on him. This class In all, this campaign framework pro- 3. The occult and supernatural elements neatly provides a role for PCs who openly vides excellent narrative and mechanical in the campaign background and setting ridicule belief in the Other World, while tools for horror/supernatural scenario are well developed and well written. The still providing them with the magical tal- design. The multiplicity of dimensions just underlying rationale for supernatural ents that make role-playing fun. next door are conveniently accessible events in the modern world is at least BTS also provides the other mechanics through man-made and natural rips in the superficially plausible and is supported by necessary for horror and occult campaign- fabric of space-time. This provides the GM many of the trappings of historical and ing. Creatures have a “horror rating,” and with a rationale for introducing almost legendary supernatural lore. The writings characters who fail to save vs. horror lose any creatures or beings of myth or of the fictitious occult scholar, Victor initiative and their first attack. There is a imagination into his campaign. The triads Lazlo, and the straightforward, unsmirk- system for psychic dueling, using spell — large areas of interdimensional instabili- ing tone of the rules and campaign presen- points and various attack modes, with ty similar to the Bermuda Triangle — are tation maintain the atmosphere necessary characters making saves vs. psionic attacks perfect places for supernatural adven- for an effective horror campaign. How- to avoid injury or domination. The treat- tures. The game mechanics based on this ever, the game-master notes and sample ment of insanity has a realistic texture. rationale are appealing. For example, scenarios do nothing to support these The psychological effects, like alcoholism characters receive bonuses to magic points virtues, and are peculiarly inappropriate and drug addiction, are often more plausi- when situated along ley lines, with greater to the systems, PCs, and campaign back- ble than those found in COC. bonuses at junctions of ley lines, and with ground established in the rest of BTS. This Campaign setting: When it comes to quite spectacular bonuses when celestial flaw compromises what might otherwise psychic abilities, magical rituals, places of bodies are properly aligned at equinoxes, have been a solid role-playing package. power, eldritch evils, and all that good solstices, and eclipses. Systems: BTS, like Palladium Books’ supernatural stuff, BTS is at its best. The Presented as excerpts from the writings other RPGs, is based on conventions famil- setting is contemporary. The treatment is of the fictional psychic researcher Victor iar to all D&D game role-players: attrib- earnest, consistent in tone, and takes the Lazlo, this supernatural background mate- utes, hit points, experience points, level supernatural seriously — at least in terms rial is pretty convincing — good enough advancements, and so forth. These sys- of theme, setting, and narrative rigging for for fantasy role-playing at least. Not even tems also incorporate many of the refine- a horror campaign. COC gives a GM such powerful campaign ments commonly found in D&D game A good fantasy campaign framework tools. Lovecraft’s literary universe is cer- variants — percentile skills, more elabo- needs a plausible rationale for the exist- tainly rich in psychology and texture, and rate combat and magic systems, and a ence of magic and the supernatural. This it has plenty of supernatural trappings and profusion of charts and tables for nice bits isn’t so difficult in medieval fantasy set- conventional settings, but it is hardly of chrome and special effects — as well as tings, where we moderns assume that a coherent. As a result, COC doesn’t really a few distinctive developments of D&D belief in magic, the divine, and demonic attempt to analyze or fabricate a logical game concepts. (Palladium’s treatment of powers is common. However, in a modern subtext for a role-playing campaign. In alignment is particularly noteworthy.) 19th- or 20th-century setting, it’s tough to BTS, the subtext is explicit and well suited Criticisms of D&D-game-style systems persuasively assert the existence of vast for scenario and campaign design. are fashionable and appropriate. In most powers and mysterious beings unknown Creatures: Compared with GURPS instances, these systems are sloppy and to recognized historical or scientific Horror, a large proportion of the creatures incoherent, especially by comparison to authority. COC’s Lovecraftian universe in BTS are fairly original or unusual. The later game systems like Chaosium’s RUNE- succeeds with a number of clever end- Tectonic Entity, for example, is a being QUEST® and the GURPS games. However, runs around history and science. For that creates its body out of materials at these games work, as is amply attested to example, Lovecraft often invokes the good hand — old newspapers, garbage, toys, by their popularity. In fact, I think it is the old science-fictional alien from somewhere dirt and rocks, skeletal remains, and so on.

DRAGON 81 The text treatments are detailed and color- tyle role-playing, the systems, themes, Roaring Twenties. ful. In general, this is quite good stuff. tone, and session feel are likely to be The decision not to include statistics and However, only the more powerful beings familiar and satisfying. The campaign mechanics for flame throwers, anti-tank are integrated with the campaign frame- background — in its treatment of magic guns, and Stinger missiles assures COC’s work established in the previous chapter. and otherworldly powers, doors to other continued design emphasis on ratiocina- In addition, the visual presentation here is dimensions, and supernatural beings — is tion (not firepower) to combat the preter- unimposing, with illustrations reminiscent a first-class example of role-playing narra- natural peril. Nonetheless, it’s the thought of the early days of the D&D game. tive and setting design. These virtues are that counts; I appreciate access to the Gamemaster’s section: Up to this strong recommendations for purchasing latest in military hardware for my charac- point, BTS is quite satisfactory — at times, BTS. The game-master notes and adven- ters’ futile gestures in a modern setting. even remarkably clever, equalling or sur- tures, however, are a disappointment and Nuclear weapons? Sorry; Cthulhu just passing its competition in horror/ are out of character with the rest of the reforms 15 minutes later — only now he’s supernatural role-playing. Hereafter, the text. Nonetheless, on the basis of the cam- radioactive, too. Thought you’d like to tone and execution shifts abruptly. The paign materials alone, this is a very valu- know. virtues of the preceding materials are able resource for horror/supernatural The notes on early 20th century and abandoned, and the text strikes out in a role-playing game masters. In some ways, modern forensic pathology (medical crimi- completely different direction. it even outshines its competitor, COC. nology) are fascinating reading and a real With a disconcerting lurch, we are pro- help to GMs trying to add realistic touches pelled out of atmospheric, grim supernatu- Cthulhu Now to scenarios. I appreciate the little medical ral role-playing into the realm of the A CALL OF CTHULHU® game supplement tidbits concerning stiffs — e.g., “Insects of Grade C Hollywood horror-thriller flick. 154-page book (with 26 pages of play aids) one kind or another are always present The accent shifts from plausible campaign Chaosium, Inc. $17.95 within 24 hours, as long as the outside backgrounds and nightmarish monsters to Design: William Barton, Keith Herber, temperature is above 40° F. The body having good-natured, campy fun with the Sandy Petersen, Michael Szymanski, G. begins putrescence in three to five days.” ludicrous conventions of popular horror W. Thomas, William W. Workman, and This is handy stuff to know, especially films. I’m not suggesting that this type of Lynn Willis with the high mortality rate in COC. role-playing won’t work — but it is clearly Cover: Tom Sullivan The adventures: The first adventure, more appropriate to the tone of a game “The City in the Sea,” exploits modern, like the GHOSTBUSTERS game, and it has I have already sung the praises of COC high-tech diving gear and minisubs in an nothing to do with the game we’ve been supplements. Cthulhu Now does not disap- exploration of the Atlantis theme. The reading about for the last 192 pages. point. Cthulhu Now presents supplemen- narrative structure is adequate but a bit Worse yet, these game-master tips are tary systems and notes for modern-day heavy-handed and linear by COC stand- nothing special (even on their own terms). Cthulhu adventuring and offers four good- ards. There’s plenty of background, set- We get a couple of pages of common-sense to-excellent Lovecraftian adventures in ting, and personality detail, but it isn’t GM tips on presenting RPG horror ses- contemporary settings. particularly essential to the development sions, with a rather sad group of tables to System and campaign-background of the scenario. The challenges faced by aid in constructing scenarios. For instance, supplements: First, we are given a brief the PCs are interesting, and the Atlantis step one: roll for source of the paranormal rationale for modern science and scholar- setting is lean but properly Lovecraftian. phenomena (Egyptian, Polynesian, Aztec, ship’s continued ignorance of archaeologi- Its development of the Cthulhu Mythos is etc.); step two: roll for location (Remote cal evidence and occult events adequate but unexceptional. This weakest Wilderness, Rural Farmland, Small Town, demonstrating the existence of the ancient of the four scenario offerings is nonethe- Prosperous Urban Condominium and beings and cultures of the Cthulhu less respectable; it is quite suitable for an Shopping Area, etc.). As an example, a Mythos. This rationale is totally uncon- evening’s entertainment. table for possible sites for a small town vincing and, thankfully, totally unneces- “Dreams Dark and Deadly,” the second scenario is provided; roll for Empty Field, sary. We have already accepted the scenario, is an excellent example of mys- Feed Store, Five and Dime, Diner, etc. This Cthulhu Mythos in spite of its shabby tery role-playing in a horror context. is neither a particularly insightful presen- documentary trappings and will continue There’s an elegant abundance of evidence tation on horror campaign design nor an to accept it for the purposes of gaming and detail: newspaper clippings, letters, inspiring guide to creating scary — or because it’s so delightfully lurid and evil. other player handouts, lots of background, funny — supernatural scenarios. Next, we get a brief update of Investiga- plenty of red herrings with just enough Sample scenarios: There are four tor skills, income, savings, and taxes. This substance to make them seem significant, sample adventures. The first two, “Teeny- is handy but probably not essential. GMs all sorts of misleading appearances and Bopper Terror or The Tomb of the Perpet- can probably figure most of this out on circumstances, and subtle and clever clues ually Cool Adolescents” and “The their own. to the real puzzles behind the events. All Randolph Family Mansion,” exploit none of Next comes the good stuff — in particu- of this detail is integral to the adventure the virtues of character design, mechanics, lar, new equipment. This includes modern without being tied to a narrow chronology and campaign design of BTS. The tone of firearms, bullet-proof vests, and nuclear or sequence of preordained events. It also these adventures is more appropriate to weapons, complete with statistics and provides some glitzy pseudotechnical/ the GHOSTBUSTERS or R. Talsorian’s rules for their use. Also included is an pseudopsychological trappings and TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE™ optional system for wound hit locations, mechanics for elements of the Cthulhu games. The third scenario, “Window on with specific treatments of the peculiar Mythos — a nice modern touch. the World,” is a very nice, atmospheric morphologies of the Cthulhoid menagerie. “Dreams Dark and Deadly” has the ador- introductory campaign session, although I eagerly devoured the rules for firing ably epic scale of the finest Cthulhu adven- the villains seem more appropriate to bursts from AK-47s and Uzis to see if I tures. As usual, if the PCs don’t figure out superhero role-playing than to horror could now dispatch shantaks and shog- the mystery and strike unerringly at the role-playing. The fourth scenario, “City goths with cool, Fearless Monster Stomp- tiny vulnerabilities thereby revealed, the Ruins,” matches the strengths of BTS — ing efficiency. Well, these modern Earth is going to hell in a handbasket. As a but it is only two pages in length and is weapons look like they’ll be a lot of fun, model of mystery scenario design, and a hardly developed enough to use. and they will undoubtedly be tough on classic horror/supernatural scenario, this Evaluation: In BTS, the systems and crazed cultists, but we’re no closer to is my pick of the lot. character development are well suited for going toe-to-toe with Nameless Horrors The third adventure, “The Killer Out of horror role-playing. If you like D&D-game- than were our predecessors from the Space,” is also very good. Something goes

82 OCTOBER 1988 wrong with a space shuttle, which crashes are up to Chaosium’s highest standards. manifestation of the principle of percep- in a wheat field in Kansas. The setting, tive being known to humans as ‘foulness.’ plot, characters, presentation, and hand- S. Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Foulness is a hyper-geometrical organiza- outs are nicely done. There are especially Monsters: A Field Observer’s Hand- tional axis shared by many of the entities fine touches with NPC small talk and char- book of Preternatural Entities described in this handbook; as a concept, acterization bits. I wasn’t happy with a A CALL OF CTHULHU® game supplement foulness is uncomfortably difficult to few details of narrative machinery. For 64-page book summarize, because as humans we one, PC entry into the scenario as present- Chaosium, Inc. $15.95 identify states of being as definitional ed in the text depends too heavily on Concept and text: Sandy Petersen elements rather than as polyclusters. coincidence. The simultaneous conjunction Cover, interior paintings, and illustrations: But, following Isinwyll (1987), we are of the central event, the appearance of Tom Sullivan not the poorer in merely nominating the important NPCs, the investigators, and a Project editing, development, and produc- Hound as a singularity of loathsomeness peculiarly useful plot resource — all in one tion: Lynn Willis and terrifying hunger, considering what location — strains credulity and is a weak- humanity would be like if our under- ness in an otherwise substantial mystery Oh, sure, this is a useful game reference, standing of the Hound was more precise, plot and setting. There is also one cheesy being a handy illustrated guide to the best- more empathetic!” major plot detail where Investigators are known denizens of the hypergeometrical unfairly tricked into mistaking coinciden- realms of the premier fantasy horror Uh-huh. What an elegant way to say that tal phenomena for causally linked events. game, but the ultimate recommendation something nasty does exist that doesn’t Despite these sleazy but essentially good- for this supplement is that it is pretty and exist, and that the sort-of-existent creature natured plot tricks, the scenario is absorb- charming, and that it manages to take is just too nasty for us nice humans to ing and entertaining. itself fairly seriously while maintaining an imagine. “The Evil Stars,” the final adventure, atmosphere of fun. Also highly recommended are the biblio- follows the theme of satanic-style heavy- The entities: Twenty-seven of Love- graphical listings in the back of the book. metal rock stars and their fellow-traveler craft’s greatest hits are showcased here You may have trouble scaring up articles biker buddies on the road to the Ultimate with brief notes and commentary. These like “Ghoul Reproduction in the Northeast- Power Trip. The plot scale is impressive, are accompanied by a full-page color ren- ern United States,” (Proceedings of the and the Cthulhoid feel is right, though it dering of each creature’s comely features, International Metaphysics Society 42:41- struck me as a touch more direct in its a comparative size chart (no surprises; 59) or “A Telestitial Network? Asymmetri- treatment of graphic violence than we humans are rather dinky compared to cal Hilbert Spaces Detected,” (Astrography expect from Lovecraftian horror of the most Eldritch Horrors), and informative News, October 17, 1988, 11-14), at the genteel Twenties (which, given the modern little diagrams revealing the more intimate local library, but tossing a few of these context, is perhaps as it should be). The details of internal organs, methods of references into your campaign scenarios scenario is clearly presented, and NPCs, reproduction, feeding apparatus, and will give your players plenty to think evil plot, and essential game master rig- distinctive behavior patterns of the crea- about. ging are well developed. There is even a ture in question. These are very flattering The portraits: Well, the color portraits handy, self-destructing NPC informant portraits, you may be sure. From Azathoth are real, uh . . . nice. See for yourself. provided to guide dense or unlucky Inves- to Yog-Sothoth, you can learn much more Personally, I found the obvious texture of tigators through the details of the mystery. than you want to know about these little- the canvas a bit distracting, but aside from When the PCs are at a point where the known neighbors from the dimensions that little quibble, the things are very icky narrative thread to the climax is obvious, next door. The nicest details are the indeed. I like the diagrams and compara- the NPC informant is conveniently incomplete, passing references to Things tive height charts even better; their under- removed so the PCs must rely on their Better Not Mentioned, and the simple, stated simplicity seems more in keeping own wits in the final confrontation. enigmatic diagrams of incidental interest, with the academic tone of the book. The plot is open-ended, having a variety with delicately understated commentaries. A “Scientific Key” is also present; this of potential conclusions, and the GM is left For example, consider this entry on the chart helps you quickly identify and distin- to improvise most of the details of the Brain Storage Container, a sample of tech- guish one hyperdimensional species from dramatic resolution — a disappointing nology associated with the Fungi from another. I’m sure it will prove quite useful weakness, since a detailed development of Yoggoth: to hypernaturalists squabbling over one of the possible endings could have whether they have, in fact, just observed a been a guide and inspiration without “The ultimate purpose of this cylinder is Star Vampire or Flying Polyp. railroading both plot and PCs toward a unclear. It contained a living human Evaluation: This is delicious. Buy sev- single conclusion. Of the four adventures, brain when discovered in northern eral for your best friends and hope that this has the most exclusively modern Canada. Note the three plug-ins around some day the gaming hobby will produce theme, and has the setting farthest from the center grill.” works of equal charm to describe mon- the standard COC character roles of schol- strous species for other fantasy and arly or scientific Investigators. Perhaps The text presentation is a perfect exam- science-fiction role-playing settings. these are the reasons why I’m not com- ple of Chaosium’s masterful control of pletely comfortable with “The Evil Stars,” tone and diction. Petersen’s Guide sounds though I recognize in it all the necessary like a matter-of-fact metabiology text in elements of a first-class Cthulhu scenario. the academic style, full of gobbledygook, Evaluation: Cthulhu Now is going to cited authorities, tentative conclusions, make Cthulhu fans happy. The rules and and slyly humorous observations — just background essays for contemporary COC the kind of barely detectable jokes so role-playing are interesting and adequate, popular with scholarly types. Consider, for although misguided tactical gamers hoping example, an excerpt discussing the Hound for more muscle vs. Eldritch Horrors are of Tindalos: barking up the wrong tree. The adven- tures are either quite good or very, very “Frankly, the Hound of Tindalos is good, and the presentation and develop- beyond normal human comprehension ment of scenario materials, player and GM and evaluation. Though it appears so, a background, and handout props and clues Hound is not an organic creature. It is a

DRAGON 83 NEW PRODUCTS FOR OCTOBER

AD&D® Dungeon Master’s Design Kit AD&D® game accessory by Harold Johnson No matter how good you are as a Dungeon Master, this will make you even better! The AD&D® Dungeon Master’s Design Kit takes you through every phase of adventure design, providing you with advice and basic DM’s aids. You also get blank design forms, new monster and dungeon graphics, and guidelines for creat- ing modules in three 32-page books. NEW PRODUCTS FOR SEPTEMBER detectives in this campaign accessory, with all- Suggested Retail Price: $8.95/£6.95 new rules on settings, weapons, and vehicles. Product No.: 9234 GREYHAWK® Adventures Suggested Retail Price: $8.95/£5.95 AD&D® hardcover rulebook Product No.: 7625 MU2 Gamer’s Handbook of the Marvel by James M. Ward Universe #2 You asked for it, and you’ve got it: The com- TSAC5 Commando MARVEL SUPER HEROES®¹ game plete sourcebook on the classic WORLD OF TOP SECRET/S.I.™ game accessory accessory GREYHAWK® fantasy setting! All-new informa- by David “Zeb” Cook by David Martin, Chris Mortika, and tion is presented in this 128-page hardbound Ready to fast rope into a hot LZ? Got the itch Scott Bennie book, designed to be compatible with both the to play with plastique? Interested in STANO Run out of super heroes and super villains for first- and second-edition AD&D® games. Roam gear? This accessory provides 96 pages of hard your Marvel Universe®¹ campaign? Here are the the lands from the Wild Coast to the Sea of information for every TOP SECRET/S.I.™ game best of the best (and the worst of them, too), in Dust, and learn the secrets of this setting. campaign set in the modern world, for special this second of four Gamer’s Handbooks for the Suggested Retail Price: $15.00/£9.95 missions to challenge every spy. MARVEL SUPER HEROES®¹ game. Everyone Product No.: 2023 Suggested Retail Price: $8.95/£5.95 from E to M is covered in this 256-page, loose- Product No.: 7631 leaf volume, each sheet punched for three-ring GAZ8 The Five Shires binders. Full-color illustrations and up-to-date D&D® Gazetteer Stormblade information are found with every character! by Ed Greenwood DRAGONLANCE® Saga Heroes novel Suggested Retail Price: $13.95/£8.95 Halflings: They’re short, and that’s all most by Nancy Varian Berberick Product No.: 6881 people know about them. But in the D&D® A sword is forged by a dwarven smith in the game’s Known World, some of them cast spells, days before the War of the Lance: the great DRAGONLANCE® Legends kill monsters, gain riches, and have powers and Stormblade, a Kingsword that can unite the Trade paperback collector’s edition skills shared by no one else. And then there’s dwarves of Thorbardin. But the sword has been by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman that artifact that they found the other day . . . stolen! As the refugees from the mines of Pax The three novels of the best-selling Read all about it in this 96-page Gazetteer by the Tharkas plead for their aid, the dwarves hunt DRAGONLANCE® Legends trilogy (Time of the author of the FORGOTTEN REALMS™ setting. for Stormblade and fall into civil war over who Twins, War of the Twins, and Test of the Twins) Suggested Retail Price: $8.95/£5.95 should wield the weapon! are now reproduced in their entirety in this Product No.: 9232 Suggested Retail Price: $3.95/£2.50 928-page paperbound volume. Product No.: 8324 Suggested Retail Price: $9.95/£5.95 FR5 The Savage Frontier Product No.: 8327 AD&D® FORGOTTEN REALMS™ GLITCH!/The Hard Sell accessory DOUBLE AGENT™ novels The Midnight Avenger by Paul Jaquays by David “Zeb” Cook/Richard Merwin AGENT 13™ graphic novel North of the lands of the High Moors, beyond In GLITCH!, agent Sebastian Cord discovers by Flint Dille the snug gates of Waterdeep, lies the Savage that the WEB has found a way to infiltrate and In the 1930s, only one man stands between Frontier. This region is ripe for conquest, loot- control computer systems across the world. In freedom and the evil Brotherhood’s plans for ing, and taming — but only the best need try. The Hard Sell, an international arms dealer world domination — Agent 13, the Midnight This 64-page campaign setting provides all you comes to the Fortune Agency to find out why a Avenger! This 64-page, full-color graphic novel need to get your PCs into the outdoors. client has refused to pay him — for a huge captures the best of the pulp thrillers in a slickly Suggested Retail Price: $7.95/£4.95 shipment of weapons! scripted, superbly illustrated tale of intrigue. Product No.: 9233 Suggested Retail Price: $3.95/£2.50 Suggested Retail Price: $7.95/£TBA Product No.: 8286 Product No.: 8431 City System AD&D® FORGOTTEN REALMS™ Prince of Thieves Bimbos of the Death Sun accessory AD&D® Adventure Gamebook #18 TSRTM Books novel by Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb by Chris Martindale by Sharyn McCrumb You want a fantasy city? We’ve got a fantasy You are the Prince of Thieves, and something Murder most foul — at a fantasy/science- city. You want a BIG fantasy city? Here’s one you’ve stolen has set soldiers, demons, and fiction convention! Reprinted by popular that’s so big it has to be printed on 12 poster- others thieves on your trail. You have no idea demand, TSR presents the winner of the 1988 size maps, including an aerial view of the whole why — but if you want to say alive, you’re going Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Original Paper- place and a 3-D view of the city’s main castle! At to have to find out fast! back Mystery, presented by the Mystery Writers last: Waterdeep, the greatest metropolis in the Suggested Retail Price: $2.95/£1.95 of America. Read the most unique murder FORGOTTEN REALMSTM setting, is here for the Product No.: 8968 mystery ever written, in which a game master taking! The 32-page campaign booklet is usable turns detective to solve a quirky crime! with any AD&D® game urban setting. St. John the Pursuer: Suggested Retail Price: $3.95/£1.95 Suggested Retail Price: $12.00/£7.95 Vampire in Moscow Product No.: 8721 Product No.: 1040 TSR™ Books novel by Richard Henrick Unless otherwise noted: TSAC2 AGENT 13™ Sourcebook An ancient sarcophagus is unearthed in the ® and ™ denote trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. TOP SECRET/S.I.™ game accessory Soviet Ukraine. Shortly thereafter, a murderer ©1988 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved by Ray Winninger stalks the streets of Moscow, leaving bodies ¹ ©1988 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. With one World War just past and a second on drained of blood in its wake. The government MARVEL, MARVEL UNIVERSE, MARVEL SUPER HEROES, the horizon, the world of the 1930s is a hard denies that a monster from beyond has been and all Marvel characters, character names, and distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. and dangerous one — and you have it all in this awakened — but who will stop it? 96-page sourcebook for the TOP SECRET/S.I.™ Suggested Retail Price: $3.95/not in U.K. ² AGENT 13 ™ and ©1988 Flint Dille and David Marconi. All game. Meet gangsters, G-men, and hard-boiled Product No.: 8201 Rights Reserved.

84 OCTOBER 1988

Many gamers may have noticed the fold-up decades. FORUM figures and buildings becoming more popular in Several large book companies publish cut-and- TSR products. I would like to give some helpful assemble books with buildings in HO scale — in hints to those gamers who like using these aids, particular, Dover Publications (31 East Second Continued from page 7 in order to expand their uses of these 3-D Street, Mineola NY 11501). Some of these books allow evil paladins and cavaliers. Come up with props. are set in periods corresponding to those popu- some evil adventures. The core rules have Besides the metal and plastic miniatures on lar for RPGs. Two examples follow: always allowed characters to choose evil as their the market, which are rather expensive, acces- Gillon, Edmund V., Jr. Cut and Assemble a alignments; perhaps the game should stop sories for model railroads work well. HO scale is Western Frontier Town. (23736-2, $3.95), for trying to prohibit and scorn the use of such slightly smaller than 25mm, but most models TSR’s BOOT HILL® game; and characters, and do more to enhance the possibil- and other accessories in this scale are compati- Smith, A. G. Cut and Assemble Main Street. ities such characters have. ble enough for all but perfectionists. Diorama (24473-3, $4.50), for TSR’s GANGBUSTERS™ Sean Jump builders have combined the landscaping materi- game. Corbin KY als for HO scale with 25mm-scale miniatures for For gamers who want improvements on the fold-ups in the modules, here are a few tips: 1. Most buildings will not have a base; this saves paper, and the bottom does not show anyway. If the walls do not already have a brace, most will have space on the paper between parts for a narrow, rectangular brac- ing strip to be added at the base of the wall. When scored and folded under, the overlap at the corners will strengthen the corners and make them more square (see figures 1, 2, and 3). It is easiest to do this after all other assem- blies are complete (attaching the roof and any protruding or inserted spaces on a wall, etc.). 2. If the fold-up is not already printed on cardboard or heavy stock, those pieces requir- ing additional strength should be glued to thin cardboard. Be sure the glue is dry before you cut, score, or fold these pieces. 3. Most glues will work, but Elmer’s white glue is probably best; it is reasonably cheap, perfect for porous surfaces, and sets quickly. Don’t rush your assembly if you want your building to stay together. Clothespins help if you don’t want sticky fingers from holding pieces together until they set. Above all, don’t use more glue than you need! You will make a mess of yourself, your building, and your workspace. 4. Last of all, even if you become bored with a module, keep the props! They can be used for other adventures, and props that are not too unusual or unique can be used for nearly any genre of RPG. Use extra fold-up people from other games or modules for those numerous but unimportant NPCs that no one would bother making a fold-up for, such as a mob, a force of soldiers, or pedestrians on the street. Tim Emrick Whitestown IN

I have read many letters in “Forum” complain- ing that low-level magic-users are too weak and die too often. I agree. Magic-users start with very few hit points, one spell, and no armor or powerful weapons. I have a few suggestions which might help. 1. Start magic-users with 1-6 hp instead of 1-4. It will help them survive that difficult 1st level. 2. In my campaign, I let magic-users refer to the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Monster Manual II any time during the game. My reasoning is that magic-users are the most intelligent of characters. Also, you might con- sider starting magic-users with an additional language for the same reason. 3. Allow magic-users to wear leather armor until attaining 4th level. It will give them that extra edge to help them survive. 4. Lastly, start magic-users with three or four scrolls of second- or third-level spells. It solves the “only one spell a day” problem without strengthening spell abilities at high levels. Eric Burns West Buxton ME

by Scott Haring by the rules as player characters are, especially when the rules get in the way of a good story or an interesting characteri- zation. By calling Spulzeer’s sword an unholy avenger I wanted to quickly iden- tify the swords abilities, not its limitations. For the record, Spulzeer’s sword is a one- of-a-kind sword with all the properties of a holy avenger, except that it does +10 hp The Game damage to lawful-good beings. This sword only works in the hands of someone com- pletely, totally, inhumanly evil. How evil? Being evil enough to awaken a 3lst-level lich and murder your entire family at this lich’s request seems evil enough for me. Wizards I also received a few questions about the character Deepshadow, head of the Thieves’ Guild in Athkatla in Amn. Though listed as a 5th-level thief/12th-level assas- Empires of the Sands strikes back sin, Deepshadow is not a dual-classed character. Many of you have pointed out in your letters that such a dual class is not One of the things I looked forward to A look at Amn allowed by the rules. Deepshadow is a when I joined the TSR staff last fall was Another problem: Thayze Selemchant, character with two classes. As a young, my chance to be in the “TSR Profiles” the merchant who brought Amn out of its wily adventurer, Deepshadow (who did section of DRAGON® Magazine. Of course, civil war and heads up the Council of Six, not go by that name then) was content to this feature was discontinued shortly after is noted as having a strength of 18/56. be a thief. But he became dissatisfied with I got here. When I asked what other Since he’s a magic-user by profession, this the way the guild was being run, and he opportunities for magazine fame were is not possible according to the rules. I see got involved with guild politics. He quickly available, everyone suggested I write a Thayze as a physically imposing man realized, however, that he could advance “Game Wizards” column. All I needed was whose real power stems from his political farther and faster in the hierarchy of the a subject — and it wasn’t hard to come up position and his force of will; he also hap- guild if he were an assassin, so he changed with one. pens to know some spells. DMs who want classes. Politically, it was a great decision; I want to talk about my first big project to keep their campaigns letter-perfect his background as a thief made him a at TSR: Empires of the Sands, a source- need to reduce his strength to 18; on the popular choice of the rank and file of the book for the FORGOTTEN REALMS™ other hand, I think his unique strength guild, and his skills as an assassin came in setting. In that product, we invited ques- makes him a more interesting character. handy when dealing with troublesome tions and comments from the players. Besides, he doesn’t gain very much from rivals. Today, Deepshadow has a strong We’ve received quite a few responses — his strength, so any DMs who want to grip on the Athkatla Thieves’ Guild, and thank you! — and this is a good place to keep it at 18/56 are welcome to do so. that doesn’t seem likely to change soon. deal with some of your questions. Someone asked how the Council of Six, which closely regulates magic-users in On to Calimshan The map problem Amn, treats visiting mages. I suppose that In the description of monsters appearing The first thing to clear up is a problem any wizard attached to a visiting trader in Calimshan, I accidentally included the with the pull-out map. As many of you would be given an exemption from the marid, which is a creature inhabiting the with the product already know, one side law, with the trader held responsible for Elemental Plane of Water. This was a mis- of the map has a glaring error. One of the anything the wizard does. If a wizard take; delete the marid from the list. transparencies used to make the map was spent more than six months of any year in Another letter writer thought my popu- reversed during printing, so the coastlines, Amn, he or she would become subject to lation figures for the cities of Calimshan rivers, and lakes are all reversed. After the Amn law regarding magic-users in general. were too high. Calimport is listed with a sourcebook came back from the printer, I Some letter-writers took exception to the year-round population of over two million. spotted that something was wrong with presence of an electrum mine outside the By comparison, the northern metropolis of the map almost immediately (that’s always town of Keczulla, pointing out that elec- Waterdeep barely breaks half a million in the way it works, by the way — a mistake trum is an alloy not found in nature. the busy season. I don’t think this is too you didn’t see every time you checked the Ignoring the obvious arguments about out of line — I see Calimport as a sort of product before it went to the printer leaps what constitutes “natural” and what Mexico City of the Forgotten Realms: huge off the page at you the moment it comes doesn’t in a fantasy world, we can say that and sprawling with a vast population, but back), but it took three of us to finally the electrum found in this mine is a result most of its people are the forgotten poor. figure out the exact problem. of mixing closely intertwined gold and The wealth and power of Calimport is Those of you who wrote us to complain silver deposits under geologic pressure concentrated in a small upper class, so about the map also wanted to know how over thousands of years. The result — Calimport, while still a major city, does not we were going to fix it. Here’s what’s going electrum! wield the economic clout a city of its size to happen: When Empires of the Sands is Other writers took exception to my otherwise might. reprinted, the map will be corrected. At giving Chardath Spulzeer of Spulzeer By the way, the population of Suldol- that time, we will have the printer run a Castle an unholy avenger sword. The phor, southeast of Calimshan and occasion- few thousand extra copies of the new “unholy avenger” name implies that this ally claimed by them, was left out of the map, and we will send them to anyone sword is an evil twin of a holy avenger sourcebook. It is 210,000. who sends us a self-addressed, stamped sword; if that were true, the sword could Zanassu, the Demon Lord of the Spider envelope. An announcement will be made only be used fully by an antipaladin, a Swamp in Calimshan, can return to the in this magazine when the map becomes character class that does not exist in the swamp 10 years after being physically available. We are sorry about the mix-up official rules. All this is true, but I have destroyed. One letter writer asked if this and hope this will take care of it. always believed that NPCs are not bound required the aid of an evil sorcerer on this

90 OCTOBER 1988 plane, and if so, how powerful should that each member of the Company of Eight is And lastly, a number of would-be sorcerer be. I consulted with our expert preceded by a mark that looks like a squig- authors have asked permission to use on extradimensionality, Jeff Grubb, design- gly equal sign . Some letter writers parts of the Empires of the Sands as the er of the Manual of the Planes supplement didn’t recognize it as the mathematical settings for stories and modules submitted for the AD&D® game. He said that in the symbol for “approximately equal to.” Since to DRAGON Magazine and DUNGEON® case of a demon lord like Zanassu, it is each character carries some of his equip- Adventures. Please be my guest! I am most likely that he has taught a chant to ment on his horse and some in his pack, always eager to see what other people his many followers in the swamp?This switching back and forth depending on envision for particular places, characters, chant has no power when used by one the situation, we can only guess at his and countries in the Empires. person or even a small group, but when encumbrance on a record sheet. During Thanks again for all the feedback and enough followers gather in one place and play, of course, each player is expected to comments. I don’t always have time to concentrate on returning Zanassu to the know his character’s encumbrance more answer the mail I get on the various pro- Prime Material Plane, the chant will do so. precisely. jects I work on, but I do read it all. Your How many followers are required? Oh, say Another letter asked about the drow opinions are important to us and help us about 10,000. elves in the Forest of Mir. These drow do make better games. On the eastern borders of Tethyr and live underground, like drow everywhere, Calimshan are some small mountain rang- and have an extensive underground civili- es that are not named on the maps. Geo- zation. But they also spend a good deal of logically, they are extensions of the time above ground, which is unusual for Snowflake Mountain range, and many their kind. Like drow elsewhere, these people call them the Snowflake Mountains. dark elves are also worshipers of Lolth. Residents of the smaller villages in and Yet another letter writer had some ques- near these mountains, however, have their tions about the climate of the three lands own names for them. The mountains on in the Empires of the Sands. Amn is the eastern border of Calimshan are local- located (roughly) between 30° and 40° ly known as the Embooli Mountains, north latitude; Tethyr is between 22° and named after a famous local ruler dead for 30° north; and Calimshan is between 140 over 300 years. In Tethyr, the two moun- and 22° north. The average annual rainfall tainous areas to the east are known as the is 25” in Amn, 20” in Tethyr, and only 8” Eastland and Small Eastland Mountains. in Calimshan. If you want to use the weather system published in the Wilder- Other questions ness Survival Guide, consider Amn to be At the bottom of each filled-out Charac- temperate, and Tethyr and Calimshan to ter Record Sheet, the encumbrance of be subtropical.

DRAGON 91 * Indicates a product produced by a company other than TSR, ARIZONA CON GAMES I, October 7-9 Convention Calendar Policies Inc. Most product names are trademarks owned by the This game convention will be held in Tucson companies publishing those products. The use of the name of at the Plaza International Hotel. The featured This column is a service to our readers any product without mention of its trademark status should not be construed as a challenge to such status. guest is Tom Mulkey, designer for GDW’s TWI- worldwide. Anyone may place a free listing LIGHT: 2000* game series. Over 15 tournaments for a game convention here, but the follow- SUNCOAST SKIRMISHES ‘88 are offered with first-place trophies. A fee of ing guidelines be observed. must September 30-October 2 $20 covers the Friday night social, tournaments In order to ensure that all convention SKIRMISHES presents the eighth-annual on Saturday and Sunday, 24-hour gaming (in listings contain accurate and timely infor- production of this popular gaming extravagan- fantasy, miniatures, and war games), seminars, mation, all material should be either typed za. This event will take place at the Holiday Inn- and admission to the dealers’ room. Preregistra- double-spaced or printed legibly on stand- Ashley Plaza, 111 West Fortune Street in Tampa, tion at the above amount continues until Sep- ard manuscript paper. The contents of Fla. Room rates are $50 for single or double tember 25 (the packet includes “dealer dollars”). each listing must be short, succinct, and occupancy. Events include AD&D®, TRAVEL- Admission is otherwise $25 at the door, or: $5 under 150 words long. LER*, STAR FLEET BATTLE*, and CAR WARS* for the Friday night social, $13 for Saturday, The information given in the listing must game events, along with Napoleonics, Seakrieg, and $12 for Sunday. Write to: Arizona Con include the following, in this order: and board gaming events, a KILLER* tourna- Games I, PO. Box 40998, Tucson AZ 85717; or 1. Convention title and dates held; ment, a dealers’ room, SCA demonstrations, and call: (602) 747-4263. 2. Site and location; many other role-playing and historical events. 3. Guests of honor (if applicable); Hotel reservations may be made by calling: (813) COUNCIL OF FIVE NATIONS 14 4. Special events offered; 223-1351. Registration fees are $18 for the October 7-9 5. Registration fees or attendance weekend. Send your registration fees to receive This role-playing, board-gaming, and minia- requirements; and, the program booklet. Write to: SKIRMISHES, tures convention will be held at the Center City 6. Address(es) and telephone number(s) PO. Box 2097, Winter Haven FL 33883; or call: Convention Center in Schenectady, N.Y. The where additional information and confirma- (813) 393-2146 or (813) 293-7983. convention will have at least two AD&D® game tion can be obtained. tournaments (one sponsored by the RPGA™ Convention flyers, newsletters, and other U-CON 6, September 30-October 2 Network), as well as a number of other AD&D® mass-mailed announcements will not be This adventure-gaming convention will be game events. There will also be TOP SECRET®, considered for use in this column; we held at the Coffman Memorial Union at the RUNEQUEST* , BATTLETECH* , STAR FLEET prefer to see a cover letter with the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. BATTLES *, DIPLOMACY*, and many other announcement as well. No call-in listings Author and game designer John M. Ford will game events. In addition, this convention will are accepted. Unless stated otherwise, all appear, and various AD&D® science-fiction, feature an auction, a miniatures-painting con- dollar values given for U.S. and Canadian miniatures, and historical board games will be test, and costume contest. Gaming areas will be conventions are in U.S. currency. featured. Registration is $5 by September 1, $6 open 24 hours a day, and will include some all- WARNING: We are not responsible for afterward, and $7.50 at the door. Write to: U- night events. Registration is $10 for the week- incorrect information sent to us by conven- CON 6, 700 Washington Avenue SE #1, Minneap- end, if paid before September 22. At-the-door tion staff members. Please check your olis MN 55414. registration is $15 for the weekend, or $4 for convention listing carefully! Our wide Friday and $7 each for Saturday and Sunday. circulation ensures that over a quarter of a JUST-A-CON, October 1-2 Event fees range from free to $3 for each. Write million readers worldwide see each issue. This broad-scope gaming convention will to: COUNCIL OF FIVE NATIONS, c/o The Studio Accurate information is your responsibility. feature AD&D® and TRAVELLER: 2300* tourna- of Bridge & Games, 1639 Eastern Parkway, Copy deadlines are the last Monday of ments, a miniatures contest run by the Char- Schenectady NY 12309. each month, two months prior to-the on- lotte Scale Modelers, lectures, entertainment, a sale date of an issue. Thus, the copy dead- host of role-playing and war games, a dealers’ DRAGON CON ‘88, October 7-9 line for the December 1988 issue is the last room, and more. Sponsored by the Commuter This convention will be held at the Pierremont Monday of October 1988. Announcements Information and Assistance department of the Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, Ga. Guests of honor for North American and Pacific conventions University of North Carolina-Charlotte, this include Alan Dean Foster, Fred Saberhagen, must be mailed to: Convention Calendar, event will be held at the Cone Center on the Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Gary Gygax, and DRAGON® Magazine, PO. Box 110, Lake UNCC campus. Send an SASE to: JUST-A-CON I, Larry Elmore. Registration is $25 in advance, or Geneva WI 53147, U.S.A. Announcements 6335-l Countryside Drive, Charlotte NC 28213. $30 at the door. Add $1.25 per gaming tourna- for Europe must be posted an additional ment entry. Write to: DRAGON CON ‘88, P.O. month before the copy deadline to: Con- TOLEDO GAMING CONVENTION VI Box 47696, Atlanta GA 30362; or call: (800)456- vention Calendar, DRAGON® Magazine, October 1-2 1162 toll-free. TSR UK Limited, The Mill, Rathmore Road, This sixth-annual event will be held at the Cambridge CB1 4AD, United Kingdom. University of Toledo, Scott Park Campus, Toledo, ROVACON 13, October 7-9 If a convention listing must be changed Ohio. This convention will feature a variety of This convention will be held at the Salem Civic because the convention has been can- events, including tournament and demonstra- Center in Salem, Va. (Roanoke Valley). Gaming celled, the dates have changed, or incor- tion games (role-playing, board, and miniatures), events this year will occupy one half of the rect information has been printed, please a miniatures-painting contest and clinics, game coliseum floor, with side rooms available for contact us immediately. Most questions or seminars, computer clubs and dealers, and a workshops and panels on gaming. Julian May is changes should be directed to either Robin game auction (scheduled for both Saturday and the guest of honor; she will be joined by Chris- Jenkins or Roger E. Moore at TSR, Inc., Sunday). There will also be a special competition topher Stasheff, Hal Clement, Judith Tarr, Susan (414) 248-3625 (U.S.A.). Questions or for high-school game clubs, encompassing many Shwartz, Richard Pini, Kelly Freas, Bob Eggle- changes concerning European conventions types of games. Over 125 games and events ton, Jean Elizabeth Martin, Lisa Cantrell, Rebec- should be directed to Rik Rose at TSR UK have been scheduled thus far. Send an SASE to: ca Ore, and Allen Woldour. Film festivals, an Limited, (0223) 212517 (U.K.). Mind Games, 3001 N. Reynolds Road, Toledo OH awards banquet, a costume party, and hundreds 43615; or call: (419)531-5540 Monday through of dealers’ tables will also be offered. Gaming * indicates an Alaskan convention. Friday, between 4 and 8 PM. Coordinator Harry Shiflett is still looking for people to help with game mastering; interested

92 OCTOBER 1988 individuals should write to him at: PO. Box CON*STELLATION VII, October 21-23 Chicago IL 60690; or call: (312) 462-7954. 2672, Staunton VA 24401. For con information, Sponsored by the North Alabama Science write to: ROVACON, PO. Box 117, Salem VA Fiction Association, this science-fiction, fantasy, UNICON II, October 21-23 24153; or call: (703) 389-9400 after 5 P.M. and gaming convention will be held at the To be held at the University of Alaska Anchor- Huntsville Hilton in Huntsville, Ala. John Varley age, UNICON II will offer a variety of board and DUPAGE GAME CON, October 8 will be the guest of honor, and Todd Hamilton role-playing games, including the DIPLOMACY*, This gaming convention will be held once will be the artist guest of honor. Features will RISK*, TALISMAN*, CAR WARS*, and GAMMA again in the SRC Building at the College of include a dealers’ room, art show, video room, WORLD® games, as well as an AD&D® game DuPage on 22nd Street and Lambert Road in open gaming, masquerade, SF and fantasy film tournament. Some games will be set up for Glen Ellyn, Ill. Planned festivities include role- and video contest, and a con suite. Registration younger gamers, and a miniatures painting playing, board, and miniatures game events, is $15 until September 6 and $20 thereafter. contest will be offered. Other activities include including AD&D®, DIPLOMACY*, CIVILIZA- Write to: CON*STELLATION VII, c/o North the running of the entire Star Trek movie series, TION*, BATTLETECH*, and Napfoleonics game Alabama Science Fiction Association, PO. Box open gaming, a dealers’ room, a medieval fight- events. Other events include a dealers’ area, a 4857, Huntsville AL 35815-4857. ing demonstration by the SCA, and demonstra- silent auction, and many prizes awarded in tions by various armed forces. Preregistration is several events. Admission is $5 for the day; NECRONOMICON ‘88, October 21-23 $8. Daily admission is $5, or $12 for all three events cost $2 each, with the winner(s) of each This science-fiction and fantasy convention days at the door. Write to: UAA Gaming Society, event receiving (in the form of prizes) the bulk will be held at the Ashley Plaza Holiday Inn in c/o Union of Students, 3211 Providence Drive, of the ticket revenue collected for the event. Tampa, Fla. Guests of honor are Alan Dean Anchorage AK 99508; or call Greg Gibbs at: Send an SASE to: DUPAGE GAME CON, 6636 Foster and Timothy Zahn. Other guests include (907) 786-4925. West 23rd Street, Basement Apt., Berwyn IL Richard Lee Byers, Richard Louis Newman, 60402; or call: (312) 749-1597. Joseph Green, Mary Hanson-Roberts, Ken and ‘VILLE-CON ‘88, October 21-23 Beth Mitchroney, Ray Aldridge, Ginger Curry, This gaming extravaganza will be held on the FRONTIER WAR V, October 8-9 George M. Ewing, and John Brudy. The fan campus of Northwest Missouri State University The Dungeon Masters Association will present guest of honor will be chosen by a random in Maryville, MO. Special guests will include Jean this two-day event at the Miller Park Pavilion in drawing from all interested members registered Rabe, RPGA™ Network Coordinator; Rick Reid, Bloomington, Ill. Featured events will include by 6 P.M. Friday. The winner will have his mem- Fluffy Quest author; and Skip Williams, role-playing, board, and miniatures games, as bership refunded, receive a banquet ticket, have DRAGON® Magazine’s “Sage Advice” columnist. well as a dealers’ area and open-gaming space. his hotel room paid for Friday and Saturday, There will be RPGA™ Network sanctioned Registration fees are $3 per day, or $5 for the and be allowed to judge the masquerade con- AD&D® game, MARVEL SUPER HEROES® game, weekend. Write to: Dungeon Masters Associa- test. Featured events include author and artist GAMMA WORLD® game, PARANOIA*, and tion, R.R. 2, Box 12, Danvers IL 61732. panels, an art show and auction, a Friday night TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES* tourna- fan cabaret, a full-contact trivia game, a special ments. Other games include DC HEROES*, NOVAG IV, October 8-10 Superman* trivia contest, role-playing games, ROLEMASTER*, WARHAMMER*, TALISMAN*, Sponsored by the Northern Virginia Adven- filksinging, author readings, a Saturday night CYBORG COMMANDO*, and TOP SECRET/S.I.™ ture Gamers (NOVAG), this fourth-annual adven- masquerade, an Official Vampire Pageant, and a games. Also featured will be a dealers’ room, ture gaming convention will be held at the charity auction (scheduled for Sunday after- several war games, and a number of computer Holiday Inn — Washington-Dulles in Sterling, Va. noon). Membership is $10 for three days if paid games. Some of the finest game masters in the The convention will include all aspects of adven- before September 15 and $15 thereafter. One- Midwest will be in attendance. Cost for the ture gaming, from historical board and minia- day memberships are sold at the door at $6 per weekend is $5. Low-cost housing is available, tures games to science-fiction and fantasy day. Dealers' tables are $35 plus membership and preregistration is encouraged. Write to: Tim role-playing games. Vendors and game present- costs for those staffing them. Hotel rates are $48 Beach, Union Office, NWMSU, Maryville MO ers are invited. Write to: NOVAG, c/o Wargamers for one to four persons. Write to: NECRONOMI- 64468; or call: (816) 562-1217. Hobby Shop, 101 E. Holly Avenue, Suite 16, CON ‘88, PO. Box 2076, Riverview FL 33569; or Sterling VA 22170; or call: (703) 450-6738. call: (813) 677-6347. MAINESIL, October 28-30 The Maine Society for Interactive Literature SETCON I, October 8-9 OCTOBERFEST GAMING 1988 will hold this convention at the Hampton Inn in Sponsored by the RPGA™ Network and October 21-23 South Portland, Maine. Featured events will SETGA, this gaming convention will be held at Detroit’s yearly Halloween role-playing games include your choice of three live role-playing the Kingwood Middle School in Kingwood, convention will once again be sponsored by the games, each of which will be run by experi- Texas. Preregistration fees are $8 for both days; Detroit Gaming Center and the City of Detroit enced game masters. These are semireal time, $5 per day at the door. Write to: Chris Liao, Recreation Department. The location is the semireal space games (not board games) con- 3502 Oak Gardens Drive, Kingwood TX 77339. Lighthouse Recreation Center on Riverside ducted over the entire weekend. Costumes and Drive in Detroit, Mich. Kevin Siembieda (ROBO- participatory play are encouraged for these CHICAGO MODEL & HOBBY SHOW TECH*, PALLADIUM RPG*, MECHANOIDS*, events. Awards will be given at the closing October 13-16 HEROES UNLIMITED*, and BEYOND THE ceremonies for best costumes and best charac- Sponsored by the Radio Control Hobby Trade SUPERNATURAL* games) and Erick Wujcik terizations. Registration for the convention and Association, this fourth-annual event will be (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES*, Revised one game is $25. Room rates are $46 a night, held at the O’Hare Expo Center in Rosemont, Ill. RECON*, and NINJAS AND SUPERSPIES* which includes breakfast. Become your charac- The convention has expanded by over 10,000 games) are guests of honor. Events include: ter for a weekend! Contact: Heidi Nilsen, 596 square feet this year in order to accommodate AD&,D®, TRAVELLER*, and other role-playing Dutton Hill Road, Gray ME 04039 (telephone exhibitor demand. Over 2,000 retailers and games; seminars; and a role-playing costume (207) 657-4072); or Kevin and Susan Barrett, 540 distributors attended last year’s show. Write to: contest. Admission for this convention is free. Mammoth Road, Londonderry NH 03053 (tele- CHICAGO MODEL & HOBBY SHOW, 2400 East Tournaments are $2 to $4, with winners receiv- phone (603) 432-5905). Devon Avenue, Suite 205, Des Plaines IL 60019- ing gift certificates from local stores. Write to: 9353; or call: (800) 323-5155 (in Illinois, call: Erick Wujcik, PO. Box 1623, Detroit MI 48231; OCTOBER FANTASY IV, October 28-30 (312) 299-3131). or call: (313) 833-3016. Enjoy a haunting weekend in Milwaukee, Wis., at a gaming convention which will feature SYNDICON II, October 21-23 several RPGA™ Network tournaments, including RUDICON 4, October 14-16 A gaming feast will be served up at the Holi- a three-round AD&D® game Feature, two-round Sponsored by the Rochester Wargamer’s day Inn in Glen Ellyn, Ill. Guest of honor is TSR, AD&D® Masters, two-round CHILL*, and two- Association and Guild, this gaming convention Inc’s Jon Pickens, who is involved with the round TOP SECRET/S.I.™ games. In addition, will be held on the campus of the Rochester creation of the second-edition AD&D® game. other role-playing games, strategy board games, Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. Events RPGA™ Network tournaments will include war games, movies, a silent used-game auction, will include role-playing, wargaming, and minia- AD&D® game Feature, Masters, and extra a dealers’ area, and the fourth-annual raw liver tures features, as well as a dealers’ room and events. Many other games will be available such toss will be held. Ghost of Honor for the week- more. For preregistration or dealers’ packets, as DC* HEROES, BATTLETECH*, ILLUMINATI*, end is Harold Johnson, director of TSR, Inc.‘s send an SASE to: RUDICON 4, c/o Student Direc- CAR WARS*, and more! Fees are $9 until Sep- Consumer Services Division. Preregistration fees torate, One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester tember 15, $12 thereafter, and $15 at the door. are $7 a day or $12 for the weekend until NY 14623. Write to: WCSFA/SYNDICON, PO. Box A3981, October 1 ($8 and $15 thereafter). RPGA™

DRAGON 93 Network members get a $2 discount. For more booths) dealers’ room, miniatures events and and role-playing games. Write to: The Gamemas- information, contact: Keith Polster, 1812 West contests, and the Fifth Annual Rock-Con Auc- ter, 444 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington MA Morgan Drive, Apt 6, West Bend WI 53905; or tion, hosted by Rich Borg. In addition, door 02174; or call: (617) 641-1580. call: (414) 338-8498. prizes will be given away every hour. Admission is $5 for one or both days; there are no game SILVERCON, November 18-20 WAR GAMERS WEEKEND, October 28-30 fees. Send an SASE to: ROCK-CON XV GAME This science-fiction, fantasy, and gaming This convention will be hosted by The Toy FAIR, 14225 Hansberry Road, Rockton IL 61072. convention will feature RPGA™ AD&D® and Soldier, located in Newburyport, Mass. The CHAMPIONS* tournaments (among others), convention itself will be held at the Disabled SAN ANTONIO FANFAIR, November 5-6 open gaming, panel discussions, art displays, a American Veterans Hall (DAV), Route 1, in Bulldog Productions presents this small, fun benefit auction, a dealers’ room, and more. Newburyport, Mass. Events will include fantasy comic-book, science-fiction, and film convention, Dedicated to the memory of Manley Wade role-playing, historical miniatures, and board to be held at a hotel to be announced. More Wellman, SILVERCON will donate its profits to games and demonstrations. Registration for the than 60 dealers’ tables, more than a dozen Mr. Wellman’s widow to help defray her late weekend is $10, and most events are an addi- guests of honor, a masquerade, 24-hour gaming husband’s medical bills. Various science-fiction tional $2. Write to: Chris Parker, c/o The Toy sessions, 24-hour video rooms, writers’ work- and fantasy authors and artists may appear, Soldier, PO. Box 148, Newburyport MA 01950; shops, an open convention suite, and a huge with a special emphasis on North Carolina and or call: (617) 462-8241. Saturday night party will be featured events. the South, and guests from the gaming and The anticipated attendance for this convention comics industries are expected. This convention UMF-CON, October 29-30 is 600. Tables are available for $50-60. Admis- will be held at the Great Smokies Hilton, This role-playing and wargaming convention sion fees are $4 for Saturday, $3 for Sunday, Asheville, N.C. Memberships for all three days will be held at the Student Center of the Univer- and $5 for both days at the door only. Write to: are $20 before November 11, and $25 at the sity of Maine at Farmington in Farmington, Bulldog Productions, PO. Box 820488, Dallas TX door. Write to: SILVERCON, P.O. Box 8342, Maine. Expect miniatures, AD&D®, TOP 75382; or call: (214) 349-3367. Asheville NC 28814. SECRET®, DIPLOMACY*, and board games, along with a costume contest (in honor of Hal- DALLASCON 88 WINTERFEST XANADU, November 18-20 loween), miniatures-painting contest, murder November 11-13 This annual convention will be held at the mystery, and “Kare Bear Krunch II.” UMF-CON is The largest gaming convention in the South- Nashville Ramada Inn, across from the airport. twice as big this year, but the admission fee has west will be held at the Park Inn International Jim Baen is guest of honor, and Wilson Tucker is not changed. Registration costs are still $5, and Hotel in Irving, Texas. All types of board, minia- M.C. Programming includes a costume contest, $2 per game. Send an SASE to: Table Gaming tures, and role-playing game events will be a dance, a 24-hour video room, and many pan- Club, c/o Student Life Office, Student Center, 5 featured, including a WRG Ancients and els. Several RPGA™ Network events are fea- South Street, Farmington ME 04938. AD&D® game tournament. The convention also tured, with other game tournaments sponsored features a dealers’ room, auction, movies, and by a local games store. Registration for all three OMNICON 1988, November 4-6 open gaming. Write to: DALLASCON, PO. Box days is $15 until November 1, or $20 afterward. Sponsored by the North Carolina State Univer- 867623, Piano TX 75086. Write to: XANADU Convention, PO. Box 23281, sity Science Fiction Society, this science-fiction, Nashville TN 37202; or call: (615) 833-1345. fantasy, and gaming convention will be held on SCI CON 10, November 11-13 the North Carolina State University campus in Sponsored by the Hampton Roads Science CONTEX VI, November 25-27 Raleigh, N.C. Miniatures, role-playing, and board Fiction Association, this science-fiction and This science-fiction and fantasy convention, games are featured, with two RPGA™ Network fantasy convention will be held at the Holiday sponsored by Friends of Fandom, will be held at AD&D® tournaments and a CHILL* tournament Inn Executive Center in Virginia Beach, Va. the Hyatt Regency West, 13210 Katy Freeway (at (and possibly others). Science-fiction and fantasy David Brin is guest of honor, David Mattingly is Eldridge), Houston, Tex. Guest of honor will be literature will also be featured. A door-prize artist guest of honor, Bud Webster is fan guest Joel Rosenberg, along with Cat Boxe Theatre, drawing will be held. Registration is $2 for one of honor, and David Cherry is toastmaster. Kelly Jean Elizabeth Martin, and Randy Farran. day, or $5 for the weekend. Registration begins Freas and other guests will be in attendance. Events include panels, merchants, clubs, fan- at 5 P.M. Friday, and the con closes at 6 P.M. Sun- Panels, readings, video presentations, a costume zines, art, workshops, media, filking, costumes, day. Write to: OMNICON 1988, c/o Andrew contest, gaming, an art show, and more will also auctions, contests, and open and tournament Chilton or David Ridout, PO. Box 98052, Raleigh be featured. Memberships are $15 until Septem- gaming. Registration is $15 for three days until NC 27624; or call: (919) 847-6758. ber 30 and $20 at the door. Huckster tables September 30. Write to: Friends of Fandom, PO. (limit of two per customer and including one Box 266996, Houston TX 77207-6996; or call: QUAD CON 88, November 4-6 membership each) are $60 each until September (713) 475-8228. For hotel reservations, call the The RiverBend Gamers Association will hold 30, and $75 thereafter (if still available). Send an Hyatt at: (713) 558-1234. this convention at the Sheraton Hotel, located at SASE to: SCI CON 10, Dept. FA, PO. Box 9434, 17th Street and 3rd Avenue in Rock Island, Ill. Hampton VA 23670. DALLAS FANTASY FAIR, November 25-27 Room rates are at a special nightly rate of $44 Bulldog Productions presents this full-scale for a single and $53 for a double (for reserva- TULARE-CON 10, November 12, comic-book, science-fiction, and film convention, tions, call: (800) 322-9803, or (800) 447-1297 if This science-fiction, comic-book, and gaming which will be held at the Marriott Park Central, calling from outside Illinois). There is over 3,300 convention will be held at the T.D.E.S. Hall in 7750 LBJ at Coit, in Dallas, Texas. This event will square feet of space in the two gaming rooms Tulare, Calif. Guests of honor will include artists feature more than 140 dealers’ tables, 100 and about 2,080 square feet in the dealers’ Ron Lim, Chuck Austen, and Edward Luena. guests of honor, an art show and auction, a room. Featured events include AD&D®, D&D®, Other guests of honor will include special- masquerade, 24-hour gaming sessions, 24-hour BATTLETECH*, CHAMPIONS*, RECON*, effects designers John Goodwin and Scott Alex- Japanimation and video rooms, artists’ and MARVEL SUPER HEROES®, CALL OF ander. Activities will include movies, panels, writers’ workshops, readings, a dance, an open CTHULHU*, and other games, as well as a workshops, and costume, art, and gaming convention suite, and much more. The antici- miniatures-painting contest, microarmor events, contests. Admission is free. For information, pated attendance for this convention is 2,000. an ancients-to-future combat tournament, and a contact: Bob Meyers, c/o Bob’s Office Supplies Admission fees are $15 for all three days if paid costume contest and party (no weapons, please). and Stationers (B.O.S.S.), 227 South K Street, in advance or $20 at the door. Write to: Bulldog Prices are $8 for the weekend, if received by Tulare CA 93274; or call: (209) 686-2896. Productions, PO. Box 820488, Dallas TX 75382; October 1. Otherwise, costs are $10 at the door, or call: (214) 349-3367. or $5 per day. Write to: RiverBend Gamers CONCON: THE CONSTANT CONVENTION Association, PO. Box 8421, Moline IL 61265. November 13-14 This gaming convention is held the second ROCK-CON XV GAME FAIR, November 5-6 Saturday of each month at The Gamemaster in This gaming convention will be held at the Arlington, Mass. This November’s CONCON will Wagon Wheel Resort in Rockton, Ill., from 10 be the first two-day event. Special features will

A.M. to midnight on Saturday and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. include the Northeast Regional BATTLETECH* on Sunday. Guests of honor will include E. Gary Championship and CONCON Cup, and the Gygax, Jim Ward, Tom Wham, and Lou Zocchi. BLOODBOWL* Championship. Other events Events will include an RPGA™ Network multi- include WARHAMMER* Fantasy and 40,000 round AD&D® game tournament, a large (40 miniatures battles, historical miniatures events,

94 OCTOBER 1988

by Joseph Pillsbury 6 OCTOBER 1988 DRAGON 97 98 OCTOBER 1988 DRAGON 99 100 OCTOBER 1988