Imagine Magazine: Issue #27

Issue #27 (June 1985) of Imagine features a very striking cover by Pete Young. As with most of the past issues, this one is devoted to a theme, in this case magic and magic-users. It kicks off with "Magic: Miracle or Menace?" by Mike Lewis, which discusses the place of the magic-user in a fantasy society, with special attention given to the ways that the presence of magic might lead to social and political upheaval. The article is brief and its points are fairly elementary, especially to old hands, but Imagine seems to have been focused on beginning roleplayers, so the presence of pieces like this make sense. 

Next up is "New Magic User Spells" by none other than Gary Gygax. The article is a reprint of Gygax's earlier (November 1982) article from Dragon, presenting spells that would later be included in the pages of Unearthed Arcana. I remember enjoying the original article – and others like it – but somehow, when UA was finally published, much of the material didn't seem quite as attractive anymore. One thing this reprint has going for it, though, are some delightful illustrations, like this one, depicting the spell stoneskin.

"Rhyme nor Reason?" by J.A. Robertson is an attempt to provide a rationale for D&D's magic system by postulating the existence of True Speech, a primal language, knowledge of which grants the speaker varying degrees of command over reality. It's an intriguing idea and the author is quick to point out that it's not meant to be a definitive rationale, only a possible one that he's used successful in his own campaigns. "A Familiar Liability" by Mark Davies tackles the subject of familiars, looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the spell as presented in AD&D, along with suggestions on how to improve it. While I have never cared much about this topic, I must confess Davies made me more interested in it, which is the sign of a good article in my opinion.

Chris Felton's Pelinore article describes the town of Burghalter, another small settlement in the County of Cerwyn. Burghalter is notable for having a secret cult whose members worship rakshasas, monsters that may or may not actually exist in the town. "One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night" by Paul Emsley is a level-agnostic AD&D adventure set in Pelinore and takes the form of a murder mystery. Its level agnosticism is unusual, at least in published adventures, but it makes a great deal of sense in the case of scenarios like this one, which consists almost entirely of investigation. Good stuff!

Kevin Smith's "Alcain and the Swamp Demons" is an amusing fantasy short story about a barbarian chieftain, the titular Alcain, and his interactions with a high priestess called the most beautiful of all women. It's a fun, clever little story and I enjoyed reading it. This issue's reviews cover adventures for AD&D, Middle-earth Role Playing, and Chivalry & Sorcery, along with Twilight: 2000. The review of the last product is overall positive (with a few caveats) and notes

this is a good game, well worth clubbing together for, if you belong to a group of experienced players who like free-running games and whose referee can run a scenario from minimal notes. If your referee has no experience of 'winging it' and needs all the details worked out in advance, this is not the game for you. Unfortunately, there are far too many of these around, so the game will probably sink into oblivion within the year.

 Ouch!

Colin Greenland's "Fantasy Media" offers reviews of several movies and books, starting with John Carpenter's Starman, which he dislikes a great deal. He is much more taken with The Return of Captain Invincible!, a movie I'd never heard of till now and that, based on what I've read about it, sounds awful. I guess there's no accounting for taste. Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" discusses the matter of character beliefs and how they affect playing them. Musson uses the example of Norse culture to illustrate his point. As usual, it's a good article that provides some excellent food for thought. Musson is by far my favorite author in the pages of Imagine. I wonder whatever became of him.