The Imperium of Mankind has stood for over ten millennia and spans a million worlds across the galaxy. At its heart sits the Emperor, the beacon whose light touches the billions and billions of Humanity unquestioned and blesses them all. Some though, feel his benign imperial blessings more than most. For they are the lucky ones. They have been chosen from amongst the teeming masses to serve him through one of his great servants elevated in great service to forward the Emperor’s divine might and ensure the safety of the empire. At the direction of such a patron, these Imperial Citizens will gain privileges far beyond that imagined by their fellows—the chance to travel and see worlds far beyond their own, enjoy wealth and comfort that though modest is more than they could have dreamed of, and witness great events that they might have heard of years later by rumour or newscast. In return, they will be directed to investigate mysteries and murders, experience horror and heresies, expose corruption and callousness by their patron, whether in pursuit of their patron’s agenda, his faction’s agenda, the Emperor’s will, or all three. Their patron can help them, but not too much lest his involvement become too overt, or it can hinder their efforts, and whilst their success in any mission will ensure they retain his favour, failure can lead to death, exile, or worse. In the Forty-First Millennium, everyone is an asset and everyone is expendable, but some can survive long enough to make a difference in the face of an uncaring universe and the machinery of the Imperium of Mankind grinding its way forward into a glorious future.

This is the set-up for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum, the latest roleplaying game published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment to be set in Games Workshop’s far future of the Forty-First Millennium. In scale it shares much with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, but in terms of tone and scope, as well as what characters the players roleplay, it harks back to Dark Heresy, the very first roleplaying game to be set within the Warhammer 40,000 milieu and published in 2008, the very first roleplaying game that Game Workshop had published in two decades. Dark Heresy would, of course, be later published by Fantasy Flight Games and receive a second edition. Although the scale is similar, there are differences. Apart from being derived mechanically from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition and the Player Characters serving a Patron rather than a member of the Inquisition—although that is a possibility for the Patron—the major difference is the change in setting. Each edition of Dark Heresy had its own setting, and so does Imperium Maledictum. This is the Macharian Sector. Conquered and then founded by General Macharius, later Lord Solar and Saint Macharius, his death would result in the Macharian Heresy as his generals squabbled over who should succeed him and whole worlds he had conquered rebelled in his absence. Order would eventually be restored, but the sector would subsequently suffer further catastrophic losses as the Great Rift opened and the Noctis Aeterna spread, cutting off communication, trade, and psychic links with rest of the Galactic West that lay between it and Terra. Only recently has the mysterious Noctis Aeterna begun to recede, the Days of Blinding ended, and links reforged with worlds lost under its pall and beyond the sector itself. As the Imperium re-establishes and solidifies its authority, there remain dangers from within and without. From within, heretics turn to the Dark Gods with their promises and falsehoods and corruption is rife, wasting the Emperor’s resources and wealth, and from without, there is always the danger of raids by Orks or worse, Tyranoids.

Play in Imperium Maledictum does not begin with character creation, but with the selection and creation of a Patron. For the Game Master and her players, this is the most important NPC in the roleplaying game. The Patron, a powerful individual, employs the Player Characters, directs and supports missions he assigns to them, and rewards them for their successes. The Patron comes from one of nine factions—Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Ministorum, Astra Militarum, Imperial Fleet, Infractionists, Inquisition, and Rogue Trader Dynasty—and each has a degree of Influence within the faction and owes a Duty to faction. Two roles are suggested for each Faction, for example, Astropath and Sister of Silence for Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and Criminal Mastermind and Guildmaster for Infractionists. These provide the Boon, which the players and their characters will be aware of, whilst the Game Master will secretly select a Liability for the Patron, one per Boon. The Patron has a Motivation and a Demeanour. Apart from the Liability, the creation of the Patron is a collaborative process between the players and the Game Master, and there are tables upon which can both roll for during the process.

Patron Faction: Imperial Fleet
Influence: +2 with the Imperial Fleet
Duty: Voidship Captain
Duty Boon: Voidship
Boon: Astropathic Communication
Liability: Dealbreaker
Motivation: Unity
Demeanour: Sombre
A Player Character in Imperium Maledictum is defined by his characteristics, Origin, Faction, and Role. The nine characteristics are Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower, and Fellowship. The Origin is the Player Character’s homeworld, such as a Forge World or a Hive World, and it which provides bonuses to some of the characteristics and an item of equipment. The faction is the organisation which trained the Player Character and to which he belongs to. It provides bonuses to the Player Character’s characteristics, skills and skill specialisations, a Talent, Influence with the Faction, and equipment. These can either from the generic list or a Duty , which provides a complete package. For example, the Duty option for the Adeptus Administratum consist of Clerk, Officio Medicae, and Scrivener. A Player Character has a Role, of which there are six in Imperium Maledictum. These are the Interlocuter, typically investigators and diplomats; Mystic, Psykers who use Warp powers; Savant, scholars who conduct and retain knowledge; Penumbra, spies, thieves, and assassins who specialise in stealth; Warrior, skilled fighters; and Zealot, ultra loyalists who often put their loyalty before their lives. To create a character, a player rolls for his characteristics on 2d10+20 each, and then for Origin, Faction, and Role. At each stage—as per Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition—the player can make choices or keep the results of each roll. If he does the latter, he earns extra Experience Points to spend on improving his character. That is, except for Role, which the Game Master—as the Patron—can select and the Player Character earn more Experience Points or choose himself and gain none. In addition, a player can roll for, or choose, a name, appearance, and connections, and then through answering a few questions develop some background, a Divination, and some goals for the character.

Name: Gaius
Origin: Hive World
Faction: Adeptus Ministorum (Missionary)
Role: Zealot
Divination: Mercy is a sign of weakness
XP: 200

CHARACTERISTICS
Weapon Skill 31 (3) Ballistic Skill 37 (3) Strength 36 (3) Toughness 31 (3) Agility 39 (3)
Intelligence 27 (2) Perception 31 (3) Willpower 39 (3) Fellowship 27 (2)

SKILLS
Discipline 49 (Fear 54), Lore 37, Melee 36 (One-Handed 41), Presence 44, Rapport 37

TALENTS
Faithful (Imperial Cult), Flagellant, Martyrdom

EQUIPMENT
Ugly Filtration Plugs, Autopistol, Chainsword, Laud Hailer, Robes, Holy Icon, Backpack, 200 Solars

APPEARANCE
23, old eyes, orange hair, pox marks

Mechanically, Imperium Maledictum is a percentile system for both characteristics and skills. Notably, there is a relatively limited number of skills, which are quite broad in what they cover, and then three specialisations per skill. There is a limit of how many advances that a Player Character can have assigned to a skill or a specialisation—four or a total of twenty points each—and an advance is worth a flat five-point increase. So, in comparison to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, there is a certain streamlining to skills, specialisations, and advances in Imperium Maledictum. The core roll is of the percentile dice versus a characteristic or a skill or a specialisation. Success Levels determine how well a Player Character or opponent did and are determined by deducting the tens digit of the dice result from the tens digit of the characteristic, skill, or specialisation being tested. The situation or a Talent can alter the number of Success Levels generated. Advantage in a situation enables a player to swap the tens and unit dice around if it benefits his character, whilst Disadvantage forces the player to swap the tens and unit dice around if it penalises his character. Rolling the same numbers on the dice indicates a Critical result if successful or a Fumble if a failure, especially in combat.

Throughout the game, players will keep track of two important factors. One is Influence, ranging from ‘+5’ and ‘Honoured’ to ‘-5’ and ‘Hunted’, for each Faction. It can be derived from a Player Character’s own or Personal Level or it can from a Patron, although there may be consequences for bringing the Patron’s Influence to bear on a situation depending upon the circumstances. Influence not only represents standing with a Faction, but when Social Tests are made, indicates the number of extra Success Levels to be added to the roll, and these can, of course, be positive or negative, depending on the Influence value. Influence can be gained or lost through play. The other factor is Superiority, a group resource, which the Player Characters can gain via good play and preparing for situations and in combat by good rolls, and is then spent to add Success Levels. However, it can also be lost for the reverse. Superiority is also measured against the Resolve factor of an NPC and if greater can make the NPC desperate or even run away.

Combat in Imperium Maledictum uses the same core mechanics, typically fought out over two or three zones. As you would expect, the rules cover movement, the environment, actions, and more, with options or miniature or grid-based combat if the playing group prefers. A Player Character has a single action and a single movement per round. If an attack is successful, the number on the units die indicates the location of the strike. Critical wounds are gained when either a Critical roll is made on an attack or when the damage suffered exceeds the defendant’s total number of Wounds. There is a set of Critical Hit tables for each body part at the back of the Imperium Maledictum book. The rules also cover vehicles and vehicle combat.

A Player Character also begins play with three points of Fate. This can be spent or burnt. It can be spent to reroll a failed Test, to gain Advantage on a Test, add a Success Level to a test after it is rolled, to gain the Initiative in combat, and to ignore the effects of a Critical Wound or remove a Condition. It can be burnt to avoid dying (‘Die Another Day’), completely avoid one source of incoming damage (‘The Emperor protects’), to not develop a rolled mutation (‘Steel Your Soul’), choose the results of a test (‘For the Emperor’), and to gain Superiority (‘Turn the Tide’), especially when the Player Characters have none. It is also possible for a Player Character to gain Corruption, ranging from one points and Minor Corruption to four points and Major Exposure. This can include witnessing a Lesser Daemon or having contact with a Chaos Mutant or being exposed to the site of a Chaos Ritual or making a deal with a daemon. It can be resisted by a Fortitude Test or a Discipline Test, depending on the source of the Corruption, reducing the Corruption suffered by one point per Success Level rolled. If the amount of Corruption becomes too much, a Player Character can succumb to the Corruption and suffer from mutations or malignancies—and there is a table of both results.

It is also possible to play a Psyker, such as a Sanctioned Psyker of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and who have taken the Mystic Role during character creation. A Psyker can have minor psychic powers like ‘Call Vermin’ or ‘Jinx’ and study disciplines such as Divination or Pyromancy. To use a power his character possesses, a player rolls a Psychic Mastery Test, modified by the difficulty of the power, and if successful, applies the effect. The Psyker also gains Warp Charge for using the power, and as long as the total Warp Charge does not exceed the Psyker’s Warp Threshold—equal to the Willpower bonus—he has everything under control. To bleed off Warp Charge, the Psyker’s player must successfully roll a Purgation test, although is only required to do so in stressful situations, like combat. This also requires a roll on the ‘Psychic Phenomena’ table and gives results such as ‘Rot and Decaying’ destroying any foodstuffs in the area or unleashing a ‘Banshee Howl’. If total Warp Charge does exceed the Psyker’s Warp Threshold, a successful Psychic Mastery Test will still keep it under control, but if failed, the power of the Warp contained within the Psyker’s body is bled off catastrophically, requiring a roll on the ‘Perils of the Warp’ table, with results such as ‘Gibbering Wreck’ which causes the Psyker to scream as the insights of the Warp twists his mind, stuns him, and exposes him to Moderate Corruption or ‘Daemonic Emergence’ in which a daemon forces its way out of the Warp. Once a character has the Psyker Talent, he immediately gains a Minor Psychic Power and access to a Discipline, and can later spend Experience Points to purchase further Minor Psychic Powers and Powers within a Discipline. Purchasing the Psyker Talent grants access to another Discipline.

Imperium Maledictum has an extensive equipment list, which includes classic Warhammer 40,000 weapons like the boltgun and the power sword. Services and transport are also covered, as is augmetics, the replacement of missing body parts. There is guidance too, on what the Player Characters can do during between missions, which might be endeavours, like combat training, commissioning a new piece of gear, engaging in religious worship, and more. For the Game Master, there is a very good overview of the Imperium and how the Macharian Sector is tied to the Imperium, and in more detail, Macharian Sector and its history. The various factions and their motivations in the sector are discussed, there are descriptions of each of the major planets—nearly forty of them—and their notable features, personalities, particular cults, and so on. There is also a good bestiary, which provides details of various NPCs such as a Manfactorum Labourer of the Adeptus Mechanicus or a Voidsman of the Imperial Fleet, with advice on how to use them as well as their stats. Enemies include a range of cultists, rogue psykers, daemons, and more.

The advice for the Game Master includes game set-up and Session Zero, getting the tone right for the players, how to create and run investigations, and general advice on handling various aspects of the rules, like encounters and giving out rewards for the Player Characters. There is a map of the Marcharius Sector inside the front and back cover. What there is not in Imperium Maledictum is a beginning scenario and that is its biggest omission. There is plenty of background from which the Game Master can create her own scenarios, but there is no starting point to get the group playing straight away.

In terms of play style, the Player Characters do have limited, but powerful agency and motivation. Theirs is the agency to conduct investigations on behalf of their Patron, but also at his suffrage. If they fail, they embarrass their Patron at the very least, at the very worst they could be discarded and replaced by their Patron just as easily as he plucked them from their ordinary obscurity to serve him. They are also at the mercy of their Patron’s enemies, likely as equally powerful, if not more, so they have to be careful of Imperial factional politics in the Marcharius sector in a way they never had to be before. Consequently, potentially running foul of the system presents almost as much danger as the cultists, rogue psykers, Chaos daemons, and other threats they might face as the obvious dangers to the Imperium. This balance between the ordinary and the outré is one that really did call for a scenario to see how it works and to showcase how an investigation is handled in Imperium Maledictum.

Physically, Imperium Maledictum is very well presented with great art as you would expect from a volume with access to Games Workshop’s vast library of artwork. The book is also decently written and the rules are easy to grasp and understand.

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum looks both backwards and forwards. Backwards to Dark Heresy and the first Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game published in 2008 with its emphasis upon investigations into dark cults, Chaos, corruption, and mysteries in the Forty-First Millennium on a par in terms of power level with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but forwards because Cubicle 7 Entertainment uses its own setting and also a streamlined version of the same mechanics as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, but designed for slicker, faster play. The result is that Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum is a solid introduction to roleplaying in the Imperium of Mankind and facing its perils.

 The first chamber on the right is the Cenotaphs of the Vampire Queen's Council of Advisors.  Each is a stone monument erected for her council of 20 advisors.

The Vampire Lords are as follows. Each stone has a brief description of the vampire lord or lady whose ashes are inside.

1. Corvus Nox - A brooding lord wielding shadows like weapons.
2. Amara Tenebris - A cunning duchess, weaving webs of intrigue in moonlit courts.
3. Zale Moondragon - A tempestuous warrior, leading their coven with fiery passion.
4. Silas Ember - A melancholic scholar, haunted by memories of their mortal life.
5. Seraphina Thorne - A seductive siren, luring prey into an alluring abyss.
6. Lyander Blackwood - A stoic sentinel, guarding ancient secrets amidst crumbling ruins.
7. Esme Wysteria - A whimsical trickster, dancing on the edge of chaos with laughter.
8. Cassius Vervain - A noble alchemist, seeking an elixir to gain true immortality.
9. Luna Sanguis - A fierce huntress, stalking the night with unerring instincts.
10. Erebus Umbra - A cryptic oracle, whispering prophecies in forgotten tongues.
11. Isolde Morraine - A vengeful spirit, driven by an undying thirst for retribution against the gods of light.
12. Lucian Fane - A charming storyteller, weaving illusions with silken words.
13. Nyn Obsidian - A master of shadows, vanishing like smoke on the wind.
14. Aurora Vesper - A radiant anomaly, defying the darkness with a defiant glow.
15. Darius Argent - A skilled strategist, playing pawns in a grand, blood-soaked game.
16. Lillian Crimson - A fiery rebel, sparking revolutions against oppressive elders.
17. Caspian Hawthorne - A gentle healer, offering solace in the heart of darkness.
18. Amara Whisperer - A silent assassin, leaving only whispers of their victims.
19. Zephyr Dusk - A fleet-footed scout, mapping forgotten paths across forgotten lands.
20. Thanatos Requiem - A harbinger of death, wielding a chilling scythe and a bone-chilling smile.

The Cenotaphs are hollow with an earn inside containing the ashes of these vampire lords and ladies. If any are mixed with living blood the vampire lord will return to unlife. They 8+1d6 HD.

Here the PCs will find Treasure Types Ax10, Hx4 & Mx2 stored here.

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. One aspect of Crawling Under a Broken Moon is that it is designed to be played using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and not the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, despite it presenting a post-apocalyptic setting. Not so Mutant High School.

Mutant High School is a fanzine inspired by The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ’Em High, Weird Science, et al—and although it does not list it, at least tonally, the roleplaying game, Teenagers from Outerspace, published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc. Published by Goodman Games, Mutant High School is set in No-Go City, some time in the near future. Formerly the city of Fresno, California, the radioactive waste capital of North America, an earthquake burst the underground storage tank for the waste, causing a geyser to erupt and shower the inhabitants in mutagenic goo that not only mutated every single one of them, but also made them sufficiently toxic themselves that any encounter with them who is not already mutated, has a chance of mutating them. So, the authorities swept in, locked down the city, built a wall around it, and with the enactment of the ‘Maximum Extreme Disproportionate Response to Emergent Mutations Act’—also known as the ‘MEDeR’M’ act—strictly controlled access to the city, with guards in hazmat suits on the walls and the ever-present buzzing of surveillance drones. Both internet access and mobile connection have been severely curtailed. Since Ooze Day, the former Fresno has been dubbed No-Go City or the Mutant Quarter.

As a consequence, the inhabitants of No-Go City have to get by on limited resources and information access. Which includes its students at Bullroar High School. For example, with no other high school to compete against, Coach Phelan, a Plantient strain of the coffee plant, has set up rival teams. Elsewhere, the inhabitants of No-Go City have been forced to recycle over and over, including turning vehicles into rough and ready jalopies (or rickety rides), cloths and so on, whilst there is a thriving black market—if the smugglers can get it past the guards and the roly-polys (or robo-police, who only have an occasional identifying No-Go City inhabitants as actually being human!)—for almost everything else. Alternatively, the inhabitants have access to their own homegrown drugs, including ‘27/7 Dust’, a potent stimulant, and ‘Telepathashish’, a telepathic weed that is sentient and encourages everyone nearby to say, “Just say yes”.

In terms of characters, a player takes the role of either a Mutant, Manimal, or Plantient, but not Pure Strain Human, who is a high school student. Otherwise, Player Characters are normal, First Level rather than Zero Level, and instead of rolling for Background, a player rolls for Archetype, such as Band Geek, Goth, or Punk. This provides some equipment and a special ability. For example, the Motorhead starts play with a rickety ride, a piecemeal toolkit, and +1d on all attempts to repair automobile and small engines. Besides their mutations, each Player Character is also ‘Best in Town’ at something, making them stand out, whether that is a specific form of attack, using a mutation, a skill check, and so on, and possesses a ‘Cool Mutation’, a mutation that makes them physically stand out even more, but which does not provide any other detail.
Since the inhabitants of No-Go City have the misfortune to live there, they are prone to bad luck. Instead of Fleeting Luck as per Mutant Crawl Classics, the inhabitants and thus the Player Characters have ‘Oozing Luck’. Gained for rolls of natural twenty and good play and lost for rolls of natural one, Luck ion No-Go City tends to either stick around or ooze away. It can actually go below zero and impose a penalty to the Player Character’s Luck attribute. The use of Oozing Luck is tied into the ‘Mute-Guffin’, which is badly named because it is not a silent ‘guffin’, but rather an NPC with an agenda that is connected to the one of the Judge’s storylines. A Player Character can earn a point of Oozing Luck for successfully identifying the ‘Mute-Guffin’ and for successfully supporting the ‘Mute-Guffin’, but lose a point if the ‘Mute-Guffin’ is identified incorrectly. There is an option suggested for the opposite of a ‘Mute-Guffin’, the ‘Anti-Mute-Guffin’.

Running to just sixteen pages, there is still a lot of background in Mutant High School, covering studying and exams, find equipment, the wall surrounding the city, and various factions in and outside the city. Inside the city, ‘The Church of the Burbling Redeemer’, a law-abiding new cult lead by the mutant fusion of five interfaith council members who preach the beneficence of mutating slime and want to spread its effects beyond the wall; the sheriff and his Robo-Polys in near constant conflict with the criminal motorcycle gang, the Ultras; and the ‘Toxic Truthers’, outsiders who refuse to believe in Ooze Day and its effects, and resent not being able to walk about the twenty-five square miles blocked off by the wall as every true patriot should be allowed to do. Some even believe that the toxicity of No-Go City will cure all manner of ailments, which is why big pharma is denying them access!

Rounding out Mutant City High is a set of descriptions of various events that happen in No-Go City and an adventure hook, ‘Prom Night’. There is just about enough here to help a Judge get a mini-campaign started.

Physically, Mutant City High is decently produced, as you would expect for a release from Goodman games. It is lightly illustrated, but everything else is well explained, although the background does come after the rules for character creation, so that does read oddly, at least initially. A map of No-Go City would have been useful.

Mutant High School offers an alternative to the post-apocalyptic future of Terra A.D. of Mutant Crawl Classics. On one level it reads an alternative roleplaying setting of the nineteen eighties, but there is contemporary strand to it that effectively makes Mutant High School a Lockdown-era roleplaying setting, although one seen through a weird and wacky lens. Mutant High School packs a lot into its scant few pages, its combination of the weird and the familiar making it easy to develop further content for by the Judge, but really Mutant High School deserves more than just the one issue of the fanzine and even its own supplement.

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry and Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Some fanzines though, do traditional fantasy, but not in the way that you might expect.

Pregame Lobby Issue #1 is a fanzine for .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG. Published by Project NERVES, .Dungeon is a storytelling game which plays around with ideas and conventions behind the play of a MMORPG, using this to help the players build and explore a shared experience of playing in a shared play space. The conceit behind Pregame Lobby Issue #1 continues that of .Dungeon as a MMORPG in that it moves the online game from a beta test and into full release, presenting the space onscreen in the game where the publisher can gives updates about the game, a player can find other players, and so on, before leaping into the game’s first event. So there is a ‘Your friend’s list’, a list of your friends that are playing and what their current status and an introduction to the game’s launch event quest. This primarily focuses upon the release of a new play area, ‘Snowbleak’, and even carries the warning, “Don’t fast travel to Snowbleak”. Snowbleak is also a hexcrawl in terms of the pen and paper roleplaying and it turns out that the village and its surrounds atop the wintery mountain are infested with zombies. Zombies that are very difficult to kill! At every server reset, a fresh blanket of snow drops onto both mountain and village and every day at 12:01 Pacific Standard Time, all of the surviving zombies get up and make a co-ordinated attack on the village. The problem is that it takes a lot of co-ordinated damage—for which the players/Player Characters—are going to have to work together to inflict. If they succeed, the zombie is removed from the server, but if they fail, the zombie just gets up again. Worse, if a player/Player Character loses all of his Connection (to the server)—the equivalent of Hit Points in .Dungeon—he will not only die, but a zombie will rise in his image, thus increasing the number of zombies blighting Snowbleak!

As a hexcrawl/region to explore, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 includes a PVP Arena, a cave home to a roaming boss monster, a couple of NPCs to encounter, the location of Snowbleak, and a table of random encounters. The ‘PVP Enabled Dueling Arena’ allows an aspect of the MMORPG to be brought into the traditional roleplaying, which the latter traditionally avoids, and that is player versus player combat. Or rather, the conceit of it. For whilst ‘PVP Enabled Dueling Arena’ includes tables to generate players to face in the arena in .Dungeon, these are, of course, not Player Characters in the traditional roleplaying sense. In this way, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 continues the conceit of .Dungeon. Several NPCs are detailed, including Colossus, a roaming Boss monster which the players/Player Characters can persuade to help them if they know how.

Snowbleak—variously described as a city and a village in Pregame Lobby Issue #1, but definitely a randomly generated settlement from pre-beta best known for the ease of the beginning quests in and around the area. All that seems to remain is a few buildings around a river crossing, inhabited by those NPCs who not yet been driven out by the zombies. The descriptions do feel underwritten, in particular, it would have been useful to have included a Quest or two that the players/Player Characters can undertake. That said, there is plenty of scope for the Game Master to develop these and further content in and around Snowbleak, including on the backside of the mountain, given a cursory description in its own region/hexcrawl at the back of the fanzine. Pregame Lobby Issue #1 is rounded out with a list of cheat codes for .Dungeon to further enforce its conceit.

Physically, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 eschews the landscape format of .Dungeon, but not the bold colours and bitmapped style font for its titles. The layout feel perfunctory, but the artwork throughout is excellent.

Pregame Lobby Issue #1 is both a lovely little supplement for .Dungeon and slightly disappointing. It does feel underwritten, as if there should be more to the location of Snowbleak. Some of that is due to the conceit, that .Dungeon and thus the region of Snowbleak is a MMORPG and their play is not as demanding or as involving as a traditional pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying game typically is. However, .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG is actually played as a traditional pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying game, so the details and the involvement required are greater. Ultimately, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 provides a good introductory setting for .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG, but the Game Master will probably want to add her own content to flesh it out further...

 The first room on the left is a Ritual Room.

This room has altars and ritual spaces dedicated to the demon lords Akelarre and Orcus, the arch Devil Dispater, and to the dark gods Ereshkigal, Hecate, and Hel. The last and central altar is to the Vampire Queen herself.

There are treasures here upwards of 100,000 gp, but all are cursed.  Removing them from this room requires a save vs. Death or die. A Remove Curse can be used, but it must be done on each item. There are seven altars here.

There are no creatures here.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Then there is also Old School Essentials.
Carcass Crawler is ‘The Official Fanzine Old-School Essentials zine’. Published by Necrotic Gnome, Old School Essentials is the retroclone based upon the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1981, and Carcass Crawler provides content and options for it. It is pleasingly ‘old school’ in its sensibilities, being a medley of things in its content rather than just the one thing or the one roleplaying game as has been the trend in gaming fanzines, especially with ZineQuest. Carcass Crawler #1 focused on Classes and Races alongside its other support for Old School Essentials, whereas although Carcass Crawler Issue #2 does provide new Races and Classes, it instead focuses on general support for the Player Character and playing Old School Essentials. Carcass Crawler Issue #3 continues the fanzine’s thread of providing new Classes for Old School Essentials.

Carcass Crawler Issue #3 describes five new character Classes and four new Races. What this means is that it follows standard Old School Essentials rules in that it allows for ‘Race as Class’ as well as supporting the separation of Race and Class as per Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. ‘New Classes and Races’ by Gavin Norman opens with the first of its new Classes, the ‘Beast Master’. This Class gains a number of loyal animal companions equal to its Level, can identify tracks, and can come to understand the speech of animals and communicate with them. Essentially, this is a Class is going to see the Player Character controlling a pack of animals for various purposes depending upon the animal. Exactly what each animal can do is going for the player and the Game Master to decide. The ‘Dragonborn’ is the first of the four ‘Race as Class’ options in the issue and the first which harks back to an earlier edition of Dungeons & Dragons, in this case, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. The Dragonborn has a breath weapon and partial immunity according to its draconic bloodline, and so on, and is generally similar to the Dragonborn of Dungeons & Dragons. The ‘Mutoid’ is the first of two radically different Classes. It consists of a demihuman with randomly determined mismatched body parts, such as Beast Ears for improved hearing and Spring Legs for a leap attack. The Class has several Thief skills, plus Mimicry, and can eventually set up a secret lair and start a Thieves’ Guild, but in general, are shunned by society. The second radically different Class is the Mycellian, a humanoid mushroom who can emit a spray of Fungal Spores—either pacifying or hallucinogenic, grow in stature increasing its unarmed combat damage and natural Armour Class, and relies on telepathy for communication. Once a Mycellian reaches Sixth Level it can found an underground stronghold and create a fungal zombie as a minion. The Mycellian is a pleasingly personal take upon the mushroom men-style monster of Dungeons & Dragons. The last of the new races is the second to be obviously drawn from a previous version of Dungeons & Dragons, this time from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. The Race is the Tielfling and it has Fiendish Heritage, Fiendish Appearance, and a Fiendish Gift, typically a spell or resistance. It also has the power to Beguile with its words and knows the Thief’s stealth skills.
These are all a nice selection of Classes, presenting the Game Master with plenty of choice in terms of deciding what Races she has in her campaign and she is given advice to that end. All five Classes though are presented in the standard two-page spread for Old School Essentials, making them highly accessible. Four of the ‘Race as Class’ Classes—Dragonborn, Mutoid, Mycellian, and Tielfling—are in turn presented as Races. This enables their use in combination with a Class as per Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy.
Also by Gavin Norman is ‘Expanded Equipment’. For Adventuring Gear, this adds thing such as the bucket, magnifying glass, sledgehammer, and more. Weapons & Armour lists padded armour, furs, studded leather, banded mail, and full plate, so encompassing the wider range of armour found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, whilst new weapons include bastard sword, blackjack, blowgun, bolas, and more. These also have weapon qualities, like Entangle for the whip and Versatile for the bastard sword, which can be used one-handed or two-handed. Overall, it expands the range of equipment and options available to a campaign and the players and their characters.
Donn Stroud pens ‘Woodland Monsters’. This is a bestiary of eight creatures. It includes the ‘Bracketfolk’, humanoid bracket fungi who live in families on a single tree; ‘Burlbug’ are gnarled nocturnal, and territorial simians who howl when disturbed or annoyed and like to collect gems; the ‘Corpse Vine’ is a carnivorous plant that hangs from trees and pulls up its victims to constrict and slowly digest them, tempting them with prior victims turned into twitching corpses; the ‘Ghoul-Stag’ is a horrible decaying corpse of a deer animated after the bite of a Ghoul; the Skull Spider Nettle is a mobile carnivorous plant which occupies skulls and scuttles around injecting its spores into its victims using its lashes; the ‘Spell Croaker’ is a giant tree frog infused with magic as a tadpole, which can randomly disgorge a spell, whilst the ‘Spell Croaker Tadpole’ is the immature form, which flies around disenchanting magical items and spell-casters; and lastly, ‘Stick-Children’ are insects which cover themselves in branches they saw from trees with their mandibles, giving them a humanoid appearance. There is a good mix here which the Game Master can pick and choose from to populate the woodlands in her campaign.

Lastly, Gavin Norman gives advice on monsters in ‘Creating Monsters’. It is a very straightforward piece, suggesting that the Game Master begin with tweaking or re-skinning an existing monster rather than starting from scratch. However, if that does not work in the given situation, it guides the Game Master through an eight-step process, looking at factors to consider at each step. This starts with the imagination and then goes through Hit Dice, Armour Class, Movement Rate, Attacks, and Special Abilities before calculating Derived Stats and taking into account any final details. To be honest the article is one the like of which has been written again and again about Dungeons & Dragons-style monsters and their creation. This does not mean that the advice or the article are poor. In fact, this is a useful article which lets the Game Master look at monsters from another angle.
Physically, Carcass Crawler Issue #3 is well written and well presented. The artwork is excellent.
Carcass Crawler Issue #3 feels as if it is capping off a trilogy that comprises a character Class compendium for Old School Essentials. Indeed, Necrotic Gnome could present all of the Classes and Races to appear in the pages of the fanzine and it would be a serviceable supplement providing further options for player and Game Master alike. Hopefully, future issues will contain fewer new Classes and open up the otherwise excellent support for Old School Essentials that Carcass Crawler provides to wider content. That said, Carcass Crawler #3 is a solid issue and its Classes and monsters are interesting and the fanzine continues to be an enjoyable old school-style publication.

 How about something to lighten the mood around here.

This was shared by a friend. I had seen it on my feed, but he reminded me that it would be good for today.

Periodic Table of Elementals, by Catilus

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catilus/periodic-table-of-elementals-by-catilus?ref=theotherside

Catilus is giving us something that honestly we should have all figured out decades ago. But here we get her fantastic art and 5e monsters.

Catilus has been putting out some high-quality and fun 5e books for a while now, and I expect this one will be her best yet.

From her project page:

Periodic Table of Elementals is my third book on Kickstarter and (by far) my largest book to date. It features unique elemental creatures inspired by every actual chemical element, with lore and abilities based on each element’s chemical properties!

What’s in the Periodic Table of Elementals?

• 118 fully illustrated unique elementals representing ALL chemical elements
• Abilities and mechanics based on real chemistry
• Familiars, steeds, and gargantuan summonable elementals
• Science-inspired lore for each elemental
• An actual, fully usable periodic table with all the elementals from the book
• Adventure hooks, optional rules, tables, synergies, and more tools
• More than 120 detailed illustrations, including art for each elemental, by me!

Sounds fantastic really.  I am not really into D&D 5e these days, but my issues are with WotC/Hasbro not with independent creatives like Catilus. There will be plenty to convert over to other systems should you want.

 This large opening leads to the grand burial chambers of the Vampire Queen herself. There is a flight of stairs going down, opening to a large chamber.

The chamber has five exits: two to the left, two to the right, and one ahead.  

Between the party and these exits are a hundred or so skeletons. 

This chamber has 6d20+10 skeletons that will rise up and attack.

 Well. I didn't expect to be doing this today. I just got word that my old High School and College DM, R. Michael Grenda, died yesterday.  The cause of death is unknown, but it is suspected it was a heart attack.

I have mentioned him here many times, usually not by name, I don't name people unless they have explicitly said it was fine. But we began playing in my early high school days. We met via our school's theatre group. Yeah, we were both theatre kids. We bonded over our shared love of D&D and the fact that we both owned TRS-80 Color Computers. 

He had his world, based mainly on the World of Greyhawk and I had mine, based on the Known World, or what would later be known as Mystara. And we would go back and forth between these worlds. Eventually, we would merge them and he made a map for it that I would eventually lose and then much, much later find the Mystoerth map I still use today. We played chess together often, had similar tastes in fiction, and discovered computer games together.

When I left town to go to University, he eventually followed me there. He was a computer science major and would eventually end up working with databases for the State of Illinois (which is as much archaeology as it is computer science) and met his future wife while we were all at school together. His wife (then his girlfriend) introduced me to Gopher sites and even this new thing called the World Wide Web.

Much of what happened in our games lives on in my work here.  The "Big Bad" of my Buffy campaign "The Dragon and the Phoenix" was Yoln Shadowreaper, one of his NPCs. The entire background of TDaTP was my big War of the Dragons, which was our world-ending battle before college.

Our "D&D on the Computer" game BARDD was largely written by him. When I6 Ravenloft came out I bought it and then made him run it. Back in college, we even did the "Dreams of Barovia" campaign where the characters shifted from one reality to the next, with him running House on Gryphon Hill and me running the original I6. I ran my first test of my witch class with him and we tried out his Riddle Master, Beastmaster, and Shadowmaster classes.

We had met up recently, back in July, and that was great. We had not seen each other in a long time. Family, jobs, kids. You know the story.  I hate to say it, but when his wife called me last night, I was not 100% surprised. I thought he looked a little unwell. But hell, we are all in our 50s now. None of us look "great."  

I have not quite processed it all yet, to be honest.  I owe a lot of my my current writing to him and the games we played. Thought we might roll some dice one more time, but I guess not.

I'll end with him flipping me off at a party a bunch of us were at in college. He would have found it funny.

 A secret door here is similar to the one in Room #18 to Room #19.  Finding that one makes finding this one easier; an extra 1 (on a d6), a +16% (d%), or +3 (on d20).

This room contains Treasure Types A, G, and H. There is also a sword +3 here. The sword and all the treasure here is cursed. Removing any of it from this room results in the possessor needing to make a saving throw vs. Magic or begin losing 1 point per turn to a random ability: d6 1=Strength, 2=Intelligence, 3=Wisdom, 4=Dexterity, 5=Constitution, 6=Charisma. To stop the drain the items must be returned to this room.  

Only magic can restore ability loss. 

Cover by Dean Morrissey

What’s new

• The Dungeon Masters Guide is out!
• New column – Up on a Soap Box
• Full board game – The Awful Green Things From Outer Space

The Dungeon Masters Guide

• Extensive Q&A with Gygax about the DMG
• It’s an attempt to give more structure to the game to avoid the craziness OD&D could lead to and allow campaigns to go longer without the players becoming too powerful too quickly (ha, rather different to 5e)
• He doesn’t envision there being a lot of supplements like OD&D – the 3 books will be sufficient – there may be a second edition but it will be a long time in the future
• And female dwarves have beards
• And a bunch of comments by a panel of people involved in its creation – mostly about which sections they like the most

Sorcerer’s Scroll

• Gygax delves into the evil alignment, particularly what it means to be lawful vs chaotic or neutral

Articles

• The Politics of Hell – a half real-world mythological/half made-up account of the history of hell
• A Short Course in D&D – describes an experience of teaching D&D to 55 people and the logistics involved
• Six Guns and Sorcery – Allen Hammack gives a character conversion table between Boot Hill and AD&D, both from and to
• Fantasy Smith’s Notebook – a new column about miniatures – in this one reviewing various manufacturers

Up on a Soap Box

• Conventions: The manufacturer’s view – Gygax gives a good overview of the various costs vs profits an exhibitor can expect – basically it costs a lot but that’s the price of exposure

Variants

• Level Progression for Players and Dungeon Masters – a way of scoring yourself – x amount of XP for DMing a campaign, for having a character die etc and then being able to say something like I’m a level 4 DM and a level 7 player, one of those nice ideas that will never take off

Giants in the Earth

• Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark
• Lord Dunsany’s Welleran

Bazaar of the Bizarre

• Len Lakofka gives us Potions of Forgetfulness, Rings of Silence, Horn of Hadies, Chime of Warning, Book of a Magic User, Leomund’s Plate and Cup, and Apparatus of Spikey Owns (!?)

Dragon’s Bestiary

• Slinger

Out on a Limb letters

• Various rants about D&D that aren’t worth detailing

Cover by Thomas Canty – you can’t beat a knight on a horse!

What’s new

• New Dragon title logo! The logotype would essentially remain the same till #274, albeit with lots of variations including a change to a 3D style in #225
• At the start of volume IV, Kask takes a look back at what they’ve achieved with the Dragon and what plans they have – more Tom Wham games, contests, more colour, layout re-designs, etc

Sorcerer’s Scroll

• Guest column by Bob Bledsaw from Judges Guild about what they’ve done to help D&D with all their playing aids

Articles

• Brief report by Gygax on Cangames ’79 – says it was great
• A quick look at Dwarves

Variants

• Elementals and Philosopher’s Stone – creates some sort of 18 sided thingy that adds more elements such as dry, cold, etc and the corresponding elementals
• Mythos of Africa – you know the drill

Giants in the Earth

• Alan Garner’s Durathor
• Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
• Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter of Mars

Bazaar of the Bizarre

• Gygax – Bag of Wind and variants

Dragon’s Bestiary

• The Horast

Out on a Limb letters

• Rebuttal to the harsh LOTR movie critique in #25

Ads of note

• Best of The Dragon – on sale at at GenCon XII (August) and shipped by mail Sep 1

This sure is an odd product. You can read a bit about the background here: https://2warpstoneptune.com/2013/11/25/the-story-of-troubador-press-an-interview-with-malcolm-whyte/

If that doesn’t work, try the archived version.

The book is initially a bit confusing. On each double page spread there are 3 sections – a full page illustration, and then a facing page with a top half that has a story that goes along with the illustration, and a bottom half that has rules for a dungeon game you can play by yourself. What is confusing and gradually becomes apparent is that the story and the game have absolutely nothing to do with each other!

The story has the party coming across all the biggest monsters in D&D, including Tiamat. The adventure has none of that.

The adventure is called, prosaically, “Adventure In The Dungeon”. There’s a map in the middle and some very basic rules about how to move and fight the monsters in each room. The connection to the AD&D rules is by the thinnest thread. There’s even a monster that doesn’t appear anywhere else – the Iron Skeletons of Grusyin.

Anyway, the story is fairly silly. A lot of it is taken up with descriptions of the monsters, mainly the colours of all their parts so that you know how to colour between the lines in the, shall we say, serviceable illustrations.

I guess the next attempt to capture the young market would be the D&D cartoon.

Date Information

Well on Goodreads, someone has put June. In the interview linked above, Malcolm Whyte mentions that shortly after it was published, James Dallas Egbert went missing, which was on August 15, 1979. So June and July are likely. I’ll happily go with June.

Cover by Roger MacGowan

What’s new

• New assistant editor Gary Jaquet. Joe Orlowski has moved on to TSR Hobbies as GenCon Co-ordinator from TSR Periodicals
• Reintroduction of Featured Creature as The Dragon’s Bestiary
• New Giants in the Earth column by Lawrence Schick
• New column Bazaar of the Bizarre – new magic items/spells etc

Sorcerer’s Scroll

• Gygax talks history, saying the act of role playing (separate from specific rules) had been a part of wargaming for years before D&D, some history about the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association, the C&C Society, etc. Gygax’s sand table sounds awesome. And then finally the history on the publication of D&D and supplements. He then goes on to talk about how AD&D is a different game – whereas D&D is wild and woolly and can be used in all sorts of crazy loose ways, AD&D is meant to be much stricter and have more rulings about how things work, reducing grey areas. This will mean players can move from group to group more easily and tournament play can be more easily judged.

Articles

• Deck of Fate – basically using a Tarot deck as a Deck of Fate and the results that will happen to a PC for each card
• D&D Meets the Electronic Age by Rick Krebs who wrote Gangbusters – basically a description of his group using BASIC to do things like roll dice and determine hit success and even provide simple text adventure stuff like “You are standing in an east west corridor. Which way?”

Design Forum

• Putting together a party on the spur of the moment – Gygax discusses quickly creating a party, for example at a convention, and gives a bunch of tables to generate said party – unlike a lot of these random table articles, this one is actually good
• The Thief: A deadly annoyance – some suggestions for players of thieves to do more than just climb walls and pick pockets
• Hirelings Have Feelings Too – bunch of considerations to not treat hirelings as just dumb yes-men
• Notes from a Very Successful D&D Moderator – awful article by an awful puffed up DM who ends it all by wishing his players -8 on their saving throws – what a douche-bag

Variants

• Chinese Undead – various special vampires and such
• Another View of the Nine-Point Alignment Scheme – a table showing a bunch of things and the alignment’s approach to them – eg whether someone of that alignment would use poison
• Strength comparison table – extending the strength table down to 0 and up to 27

Giants in the Earth

• Jack Vance’s Cugel the Clever, Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane, Talbot Mundy’s Tros of Samothrace

Bazaar of the Bizarre

• Overly detailed instructions on how to create a lich

Dragon’s Bestiary

• The Barghest

First cover by Phil Foglio!

What’s new

• Editorial notes that although the letters column has been revived, it’s already in serious doubt of continuing due to lack of submissions
• Not a lot of D&D in this one – lots of Gamma World and other stuff

Sorcerer’s Scroll

• Gygax discusses why character generation in D&D doesn’t have random tables for social class – basically it will be highly dependent on the DM’s campaign – the setting, government etc, so it’s not sensible to have generic tables
• As an example campaign setting, the World of Greyhawk gets a mention – which wasn’t published till August 1980, one and a half years later
• He mentions that the DMG is practically finished! He thanks a bunch of people

Articles

• An article categorising orcish miniatures from various manufacturers
• Varieties of Vampires – a whole bunch of variations from the real world to spice up your campaign
• To Select a Mythos – some suggestions for creating your campaign setting

Out on a Limb letters

• Critique of the new (animated) Lord of the Rings movie – pretty harsh!

This was a 4 page promotional flier given to retailers.

More info and a screenshot can be found on The Acaeum.

I’m including this here for completeness even though I haven’t read it.

Date Information – Early 1979

I’m placing this in April for no particular reason.

Cover by Elrohir (Ken Rahman)

What’s new

• now combined with Little Wars again going forward
• Though only 48 pages, not 56, due to paper costs
• Out on a Limb letters column makes its debut
• Joe Orlowski leaving the mag to become convention director for TSR and Gary Jaquet replacing him

Sorcerer’s Scroll

• Melee in D&D – a fairly lengthy but good and comprehensive article reiterating that D&D combat is not meant to be a realistic simulation but instead an abstraction that’s sufficient enough to make it somewhat realistic and also fun without getting bogged down. Gygax also notes that Jean Wells and Lawrence Shick have joined the TSR Design Department

Articles

• Featured Creature #2 – winners announced – low number of entries means they won’t run the competition again – 1st place to Robert Charrette and Erol Outs gets an honourable mention
• The Society for Creative Anachronism – Allen Hammack tells of his experiences (with photos) attending an SCA event – it’s not just about whacking other people with fake swords!

Design Forum

• Keeping the Magic-User in his Place – DM advice of ways to nerf magic-users if they’re too powerful
• In Defense of Extraordinary Characters – a rebuttal against the odd criticism that high level characters are unrealistic – they’re called games people!

Variants

• Chinese dragons – alters and expands what’s given in Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes
• Another look at Lycanthropy – a bunch of extra rules – if you like that kind of thing
• Narcisstics – another one of those really bad humourous monster things
• Psionics Revisited – ugh – when will it ever end?! – this is a bunch of new powers as far as I can tell
• Disease – random charts for duration and symptoms
• The Ramifications of Alignment – an attempt to add extra delineations within the alignments and descriptions of gods that would be appropriate for these – eg Law is further split into things like Harmony, Justice, Knowledge, War, etc

Out on a Limb letters

• Several criticisms of various articles and a bit of defensiveness on the part of the editor in response

Cover potentially done by DCS according to this.

What’s new

• Back to 32 pages as the last standalone Dragon magazine not combined with Little Wars
• Not a lot in this issue due to large page count given to fiction

Sorcerer’s Scroll

• Gygax – random tables for generating lower plane creatures – as indicated, this was included almost verbatim as Appendix D in the DMG, although the article version has some drawings

Articles

• Editorial about conventions, particularly Origins and how it seems a bit of a mess in terms of how it’s administered
• A short article by Gygax about the growth of RPGs at the Annual Hobby Industry Convention and Trade Show
• Notes on the weight of armor – it’s not as heavy as you may think in real life
• Damage Permanency – random tables for damage to create permanent impairments to characters – with an editor’s note that this should not be used in D&D!
• Dungeons & Prisons – a short article suggesting how a DM can use prisons to get rid of high level characters

Variants

• Mind wrestling – a kind of board game marker thingy variant for handling psionics

The image in the bottom left is by Steve Swenston. Otherwise the cover is a complete mess.

What’s new

• Now 56 pages! Because…
• They’ve combined The Dragon and Little Wars into one magazine
• Sneak peek at the DMs Guide! – editorial notes it’s coming out in August at Gencon

Articles

• The First Assassins – real historical stuff
• Bad to Worse – Gygax reviews some amateur magazines – he completely ridicules them – maybe deserved but this kind of thing is so small minded and petty and not worthy of inclusion in the Dragon
• And another comment by Gygax on a review of the Players Handbook in Strategy & Tactics – sigh – get over yourself Gary!
• International DM Search – a massive list of DMs and campaigns
• D&D – what it is and where it’s going – first in an ongoing series – finally a decent article – has interesting data about printing numbers of early D&D – talks about putting out the simplified Basic Set and mentions that newer sets will have a module instead of geomorphs. Funnily, he says he’s not interested in always coming out with new and improved editions every so often and considers AD&D will be somewhat done and final with maybe small alterations here and there. New material will come in the forms of modules etc. Also speculates that there will be computerised D&D in the future.
• First Invitational AD&D Masters Tournament results – using a scenario called “The Quest for the Holy Grrale” (sic) which they say will be published by TSR – though as far as I can tell, they never did. A who’s who of players
• DM’s Guide sneak peek – descriptions of magic items from the G&D modules, attack matrices, assassin, saving throw and psionic tables
• The Nomenclature of Pole Arms – by Gygax – this was surprisingly readable and interesting!

Ads of note

• Ad for B1 – In Search of the Unknown!

Cover by Paul Jaquays – bit sketchy but pretty decent

What’s new

• An adventure! – The Hall of Mystery by Don Turnbull – I actually don’t think it’s all that great
• There’s an error on the cover. It says Vol III No 6 but it’s actually No 7

Articles

• The Other Humorous Side of D&D – an anecdote from a player about a really bad/ridiculous DM
• A bunch of tables to come up with fancy titles for characters like “The Captain General, His All Triumphant Magnificance, The Duke Rogor, The Colossal, Destroyer of Evil”
• Monty Strikes Back – just doesn’t interest me
• Although not D&D related, it’s worth mentioning there’s an extensive article about “Rail Baron” by Gary Gygax

Design Forum

• An article suggesting you spice up your monsters by just picking a real world creature and fancying it up – eg giant scorpion
• An article that’s basically a rogues gallery of NPCs with interesting descriptions and motivations to add flavour to your campaign

Variants

• Inflation in D&D – characters got too much gold? Just inflate the prices of things! Whatever floats your boat I guess
• How To Counter Foretelling Spells – DM tricks to deal with powerful characters
• Sensible Sorcery – how to put some limits on spell research

Reviews

• The Silmarillion! The reviewer, T Watson, is fairly enthusiastic but with notes of caution about how dense it is.

Ads of Note

• Ad for S1 Tomb of Horrors!