Drmg108, Dragon
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DRAGON
1
SPECIAL ATTRACTION
49
12
Mutant Manual II Various authors
Another collection of GAMMA WORLD@ game creatures
87
OTHER FEATURES
Leomunds Tiny Hut Lenard Lakofka
Ideas for adding variety to AD&D® game monsters
The role of nature Bruce Humphrey
Systems for bringing physical environment into play
The ecology of the pernicon John Nephew
Dont let a bunch of these bugs get to you
The pernicon: a new version John Nephew
Suggestions for toning it down and tuning it up
9
Publisher
Mike Cook
Editor-in-Chief
Kim Mohan
Editorial staff
Patrick Lucien Price
Roger Moore
Editorial assistance
Eileen Lucas
Art, graphics, production
Roger Raupp
Kim Lindau
Subscriptions
Pat Schultz
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22
25
28
Cantrips for clerics Arthur Collins
Introducing the orison, 0-level magic for those other casters
A different design Lisa R. Cohen
Making tournament adventures requires a special outlook
Agents and A-bombs Thomas M. Kane
The TOP SECRET® game comes of age nuclear age, that is
After the blast Roger E. Moore
How to play it right, in case anyones left
The plants of Biurndon Eric W. Pass
Creating customized greenery for your campaign
ORIGINS Awards nomination ballot
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36
40
42
Advertising
Mary Parkinson
Contributing editors
Ed Greenwood
Katherine Kerr
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68
The Grey Stones Josepha Sherman
Its whats inside the stones thats really important
This issue's contributing artists
Brian McCrary
Larry Elmore
David Trampier
Joseph Pillsbury
Edward B. Wagner
Roger Raupp
Richard Tomasic James Faulkenberg
Stephen Hearon
THE ARES SECTION
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High Tech and Beyond James Collins
Globe crackers and smart computers in TRAVELLER® gaming
An Honorable Enemy Gregg Sharp
Oni, the greatest enemy of Japans CHAMPIONS villains
Old Yazirians Never Die Peter C. Zelinski
Age and aging in the STAR FRONTIERS® game
The MARVEL®-Phile Jeff Grubb
The humorous side of the Marvel Universe
More Mutant Fever John M. Maxstadt
Even germs are strange in the GAMMA WORLD® game
DEPARTMENTS
Janet Aulisio
Jeff Butler
Dave Cockrum
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86
90
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4
6
64
Letters
66 TSR Profiles
98 Dragonmirth
World Gamers Guide
93 Convention calendar
99 Snarfquest
The forum
96 Gamers Guide
102 Wormy
TSR Previews
COVER
Hidden Danger has a special status among DRAGON Magazine cover paintings
its the only work of art weve ever printed that almost died of old age before it ap-
peared. Larry Elmore, the good ol' boy of TSRs art department, offered us this paint-
ing as a cover piece a couple of years back. We were glad to get it, and Larry agreed to
let us hold onto it as an escape hatch,
to be used if our supply of covers ever ran a
little low. Well, that hasnt ever happened, but we finally decided it was high time to
use it anyway. Now maybe Larry will do another cover for us. . . . Larry? Larry?
2 A
PRIL
1986
The joke is
not on you
Modern-day akasa
the stipulation (on page 46) that these classes
were for humans only, since the regular (lawful
good) paladin was also originally designed as a
human-only class. Unfortunately, we neglected to
remove all the demi-human references from the
later sections of the manuscript. (Hey, folks,
were only human, too.)
Its pretty easy to tend to the things we forgot;
just delete references to demi-human members of
these classes wherever they appear: To fix the
Race of follower tables, combine the entries for
human and same race as the (whatever) into
one category with a single die range; for instance,
on the myrikhan table a result of 9-18 indicates a
human follower. KM
This issue of DRAGON® Magazine is a
concession to those of you who think that
April Fools features are a waste of space.
This column is dedicated to those of you
who think the opposite. Because of last
years fiasco, we (in other words, yours
truly) decided not to use any Foolish stuff
in this years April issue.
Time does heal all wounds, but the
process is sometimes a slow one. Up until
a month ago, we were still receiving letters
of outrage and expectation from people
who misunderstood the intent of the face-
tious column and the facetious letters to
the editor that appeared in issue #96, and
who apparently didnt see the apology/
retraction in #98.
I dont want to go through anything like
that again, nor do I want to disappoint or
distress any of you. I also dont want to
further irritate the people who thought
Nogard was a stupid module. (Of
course it was stupid. That was the point.)
For those of you who enjoy and appreciate
Foolish stuff, I hope this column will serve
as an explanation so that you wont have
to spend time and effort writing in to ask
why we didnt acknowledge the day like
weve usually done.
Mean and cruel humor is not funny,
and weve never purposely indulged our-
selves at the expense of your feelings. But
apparently its hard to know in advance
what will be seen as cruel humor. Like I
said in #98, if I thought that anyone
would think that Howe Audacious was
a real person, I wouldnt have used that
letter.
It isnt my intention to disappoint any-
one who enjoys funny stuff, and I apolo-
gize to those of you who feel that way. But
thats the way it has to be . . . at least
until next April. In the meantime, keep
reading and keep smiling.
Dear DRAGON,
I found The laws of magic in issue #106
extremely helpful. It has opened new doors for
my campaign plans. I would like to incorporate
some twentieth century adventures for my players
by sending them to a modern world. Conse-
quently I have some questions. Does akasa exist
in modern times, or has it burned out? If it
does, my magic-users and clerics will have magic
(and metamagic) ability. But what of modern
people? Can a magic-user teach a twentieth
century person to manipulate the akasa? And can
modern clerics receive spells?
Bryan Winter
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Invisible problems
The answers to these questions depend on how
you define a modern world. Within the context
of the game, we can call it a parallel world, one of
the infinite number of alternate Prime Material
Planes that exist in the multiverse of the AD&D®
game.
But is a twentieth-century world one in which
magic works the same way that it does in the
player characters native world? Personally, Id
say its not. Taking a cue from Robert Schroecks
reasoning in The City Beyond the Gate (issue
#100), you can rule that this particular parallel
world is too far removed from the source of akasa
(the PCs home world) and thus is magically
null, as Robert put it. Visitors from the PCs
home world could use the spells they had stored
in their minds when they made the trip, and they
might be able (by praying or studying) to regain
certain spells while theyre there. But natives of
the alternate world cant manipulate the akasa,
either because it doesnt exist, it isnt strong
enough, or they are simply incapable of doing so.
Of course, the other view is that (for the sake of
your version of the game or the sake of whatever
adventure youve concocted) magic does work on
this parallel world the same way that it works on
the Prime Material Plane that the PCs came
from. If youre willing and able to make this
theory work in practice, more power to you. It
seems like a mind-boggling task to me, but
maybe your mind doesnt get boggled as easily as
mine does. KM
Dear DRAGON,
According to the author of the article Seeing
is believing (issue #105), About 2 is how far
the invisibility extends. If the invisibility extends
in all directions, the floor below him would be
invisible for 2 down and over at an upward
slope. Isnt there a special ruling that he [the
author] should have made about this? If not,
invisibility is useless because when a moving
patch of invisibility saunters into a room. it
would take a really dumb monster not to know
something was amiss.
Brian Roessler
New Providence,
N . J .
Dear sirs:
Physical invisibility, as described by Seeing is
believing (#105), is caused by bending light
waves around the object so made to vanish. Such
a method would undoubtedly cause the recipient
to become temporarily blind. This is because no
light could reach the one rendered invisible.
A similar problem is reached if one considers a
substance that renders the subject perfectly and
completely transparent, to the extent of eliminat-
ing light refraction, as in The Invisible Man by
H.G. Wells. This is because light would pass
through the retina unless one considers the Detec-
tion of Invisibility Table (DMG p. 60) is for
determining of you notice a pair of eyeballs
floating about the room. This does not matter if
the object is inanimate or if blindness would not
normally affect it, but a PC would usually suffer
even more than the monster he is attacking.
For humans only
Erik Burch
Stuyvesant, N.Y.
Dear DRAGON,
In Christopher Woods article on paladins
(issue #106), it is said on page 46 that These
paladin types are also exclusively human. On
page 55 in the description of the Arrkihan, it
mentions halflings and dwarves as eligible in that
class. So are these classes open only for humans,
or can other races be part of them?
These and other letters weve received about
the invisibility article demonstrate how difficult
it
can be to describe an imaginary concept in con-
crete terms. Brian and Erik have made good,
logical points, and the only way I can see to
address them is to make arbitrary and pragmatic
judgments about how to handle those aspects of
invisibility in the play of the game. We encourage
our authors not to be arbitrary and pragmatic,
which is why problems of this sort are sometimes
(Turn to page 97)
Sylvain Robert
Trois-Rivieres, Quebec
In a word . . . oops. During our review and
editing of the manuscript, we decided to insert
D
RAGON
3
Dear DRAGON,
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