REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "The Ecology of the Piercer"

When issue #72 of Dragon (April 1983) was released, it contained, in addition to the usual assortment of not particularly funny April Fool's articles, a very short article – one page of text plus a one-page illustration – called "The Ecology of the Piercer." Written by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards, it had originally appeared in the pages of the UK fanzine Dragonlords. That in itself is pretty remarkable, as I cannot recall another Dragon article that was in fact a reprint of something that had appeared elsewhere (though I'm sure my readers will quickly point out many examples that falsify my memories). More remarkable, I think, is how modest an article "The Ecology of the Piercer" is and yet, it was the acorn from which a mighty oak would eventually grow.

The idea of monster ecology articles is now so well entrenched in the minds of long-time D&D players that it's almost unnecessary to discuss the actual contents of this seminal article. More to the point, "The Ecology of the Piercer" is, as I just noted, a very short article, written in the form of an address given by the wizard Pyrex to the Wizards Guild of Kabring, where he discusses the physiology and habits of the piercer. There are no game stats included with the article; instead it focuses on trying to make sense of one of the game's more bizarre creations. This the authors do by postulating that the piercer is a mollusk using a stalactite as protective covering/weapon in much the same way that a hermit crab does with seashells. It's a pretty simple idea but a clever one that goes a long way to lending plausibility to what would otherwise be just a goofy monster.

The response to "The Ecology of the Piercer" was very positive, so much so that nearly every issue of Dragon  that followed it for many years included an "Ecology of ..." article in its pages. These articles were foundational to the Silver Age, being sophisticated (or decadent, depending on one's point of view) outgrowths of Gygaxian naturalism. I think it worth noting, too, that the origin of this series was in the UK, where RuneQuest rivaled and may have even exceeded Dungeons & Dragons in popularity. Among RQ's many virtues was its dedication to creating and presenting fantastically plausible monsters, with 1982's Trollpak probably being the epitome of the genre. I suspect that Trollpak had an influence on "The Ecology of the Piercer," as evidenced by the illustration that accompanied the article. It showed a dissected piercer that reminded me, even then, of the famous illustration of a troll's innards I've discussed previously.

I liked the early "The Ecology of ..." articles more than the later ones, mostly because they were short and focused more on explaining away goofiness in a reasonable manner than in providing the definitive portrait of a particular monster's nature. They were thus much more easily "plug and play" than what came later, which increasingly seemed to rely on very specific presentations of iconic monsters, often to the point where those portrayals became canonical at the expense of earlier alternatives. But then that was one of the characteristics of the Silver Age and, judging from the popularity of these articles, it fed a real hunger many gamers – or at least Dragon readers – had.

The Articles of Dragon: "An Army Travels on its Stomach"

Though I continued reading Dragon for sometime longer, issue #94 (February 1985) marked one of several turning points in my feelings toward the magazine. From its feathered-hair-and-fringed-leather ranger on the cover by Clyde Caldwell to Gary's overly complex clarifications regarding the ranger class to the uncharacteristically banal "Ares Section," this issue contributed further to my growing sense that the magazine's own Golden Age was long since at an end. As I've noted before, by this time, I was already growing dissatisfied with the direction of D&D and reading articles like Katharine Kerr's "An Army Travels on its Stomach" did little to dissuade me of this perspective. The article is a lengthy discussion of how "to role-play wars and troop movements properly" (emphasis mine), thus revealing the twin obsessions of the Silver Age: realism and narrative verisimilitude.

To be fair to Kerr, her article isn't rules heavy. Indeed, there's scarcely a rule to be found anywhere in its many pages. And unlike many other Silver Age Dragon articles, this one doesn't focus on how D&D's rules are wrong so much as how the reasoning behind them is unclear and needs to be teased out so that gamers can understand them and thus be able to roleplay them better. Looking back in hindsight, I think it says a lot that this article was written and published. Most fundamentally, it reveals that, by 1985 at least (though probably much earlier), the hobby had fewer and fewer participants in it who knew much about wargaming or medieval warfare. When I entered the hobby in late 1979, I was on the young side and had only the barest minimum education in wargaming, thanks in large part to teenagers and older guys who'd been roleplaying for several years beforehand. I suspect that those who entered the hobby after me had even less of an education in these matters, hence articles like Kerr's.

The other thing the article suggests to me is that the Silver Age's drive toward ever greater "realism" was in fact fueled by a desire for greater dramatic coherence rather than the mere anal retentiveness toward which so many gamers seem prone. That is, the need to know about how many calories a warrior needs to consume each day to stay in fighting trim or how much grain a given acreage of land can produce in a year isn't driven by a desire to know these things for their own sake but rather to present adventures that allow for more "realistic" and believable roleplay. What's interesting, too, is that articles like this confirm my feeling that the early Silver Age began, at least in part, by ruthlessly applying the logic of Gygaxian naturalism to a wide variety of topics, all in the effort to make settings and adventures that provided greater scope for roleplaying. As Kerr herself puts it in this article:

Including logistics in a campaign does more than add a certain sour note of realism to play. Gamers forced to operate within the limits of their armies will have to make fascinating strategic decisions, while gamemasters can add those extra touches that keep campaigns dangerous to the overbold and rewarding to the clever.

I find this perspective fascinating, even though I've never found it particularly compelling. It's not far removed from the argument made by some that "realistic" falling damage actually leads to better roleplaying because it forces players to make decisions based on real world considerations of life and death. I can certainly see the logic of it, but it's not something that's ever mattered much to me.

The Articles of Dragon: "The Ecology of the Piercer"

When issue #72 of Dragon (April 1983) was released, it contained, in addition to the usual assortment of not particularly funny April Fool's articles, a very short article -- one page of text plus a one-page illustration -- called "The Ecology of the Piercer." Written by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards, it had originally appeared in the pages of the UK fanzine Dragonlords. That in itself is pretty remarkable, as I cannot recall another Dragon article that was in fact a reprint of something that had appeared elsewhere (though I'm sure my readers will quickly point out many examples that falsify my memories). More remarkable, I think, is how modest an article "The Ecology of the Piercer" is and, yet, it was the acorn from which a mighty oak would eventually grow.

The idea of monster ecology articles is now so well entrenched in the minds of long-time D&D players that it's almost unnecessary to discuss the actual contents of this seminal article. More to the point, "The Ecology of the Piercer" is, as I just noted, a very short article, written in the form of an address given by the wizard Pyrex to the Wizards Guild of Kabring, where he discusses the physiology and habits of the piercer. There are no game stats included with the article; instead it focuses on trying to make sense of one of the game's more bizarre creations. This the authors do by postulating that the piercer is a mollusk using a stalactite as protective covering/weapon in much the same way that a hermit crab does with seashells. It's a pretty simple idea but a clever one that goes a long way to lending plausibility to what would otherwise be just a goofy monster.

The response to "The Ecology of the Piercer" was very positive, so much so that nearly every issue of Dragon  that followed it for many years included an "Ecology of ..." article in its pages. These articles were foundational to the Silver Age, being sophisticated (or decadent, depending on one's point of view) outgrowths of Gygaxian naturalism. I think it worth noting, too, that the origin of this series was in the UK, where RuneQuest rivaled and may have even exceeded Dungeons & Dragons in popularity. Among RQ's many virtues was its dedication to creating and presenting fantastically plausible monsters, with 1982's Trollpak probably being the epitome of the genre. I suspect that Trollpak had an influence on "The Ecology of the Piercer," as evidenced by the illustration that accompanied the article. It showed a dissected piercer that reminded me, even then, of the famous illustration of a troll's innards I've discussed previously.

I liked the early "The Ecology of ..." articles more than the later ones, mostly because they were short and focused more on explaining away goofiness in a reasonable manner than in providing the definitive portrait of a particular monster's nature. They were thus much more easily "plug and play" than what came later, which increasingly seemed to rely on very specific presentations of iconic monsters, often to the point where those portrayals became canonical at the expense of earlier alternatives. But then that was one of the characteristics of the Silver Age and, judging from the popularity of these articles, it fed a real hunger many gamers -- or at least Dragon readers -- had.

Retrospective: Night's Dark Terror

Most of my retrospective posts focus on games or game products produced between 1974 and 1983, the period I call the Golden Age of D&D, because it's the period when the game was still expanding outward rather than inward. It's also closely associated with my early involvement in the hobby, when I paid a lot more attention to the games and game products released than I did in later years. Consequently, if I remember a product published after 1983, it must be memorable in some way, whether good or bad.

1986's Night's Dark Terror is pretty solidly in the former category. Written by Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher, this "Special Basic/Expert Transition Module for Levels 2-4" was one of the last products of TSR UK, whose legacy is still a matter of debate amongst fans on this side of the Atlantic. The module thus combines dungeoneering with wilderness travel and a thin structure in order to provide the PCs with purpose as they adventure throughout the uncharted reaches of the Dymrak Forest of northeastern Karameikos. The module book itself is 56-pages long, contains extensive maps, and 120 die-cut counters for use in adjudicating the siege of a trading outpost by humanoid raiders. Even if its contents hadn't been excellent, Night's Dark Terror is an impressive artifact in its own right.

But, as I stated above, module B10 is indeed excellent, something all the more remarkable given the date of its publication. If one were to examine TSR's output in 1986, there are few standouts among its adventure modules. Between the large number of Dragonlance offerings, the "super-module" compilations, and a large number of licensed properties, such as the Red Sonja modules, one cannot really call 1986 a banner year for the company. More importantly, module design had, by 1986, begun to seriously embrace the principles of the Hickman Revolution, making Night's Dark Terror, with its rambling, (largely) unfocused presentation seem like even more of a throwback than it was.

For the most part, module B10 is a location-based adventure. The characters travel from place to place as they wish, either purely for their own reasons or to follow up on clues and hooks they've encountered earlier. There are times when NPCs or circumstances somewhat heavy-handedly point, "This way to adventure!" -- such as the capture of an NPC's brother by goblins and dogged pursuit by agents of a powerful slaver whose headquarters is nearby -- and these do weaken the module somewhat. However, in its authors' defense, I should point out that they take pains throughout the text to state that "There is no set order in which [fixed encounters] take place," meaning that it is up to the referee to determine how and when to use them rather than sticking to a rigid structure or timeline independent of player decisions.

Night's Dark Terror is a solid Silver Age module, filled with Gygaxian naturalistic details, such as weather and moon phase charts, designed to enhance verisimilitude and facilitate certain encounters (such as the presence of lycanthropes, for example). Indeed, it's filled with details of all sorts, providing the referee with dozens of random and fixed encounters to use as the PCs wander throughout the uncharted wilderness. While far from a true Judges Guild-style hexcrawl, Night's Dark Terror nevertheless provides a mini-sandbox setting that has great utility even after the antagonists and threats that it details have been defeated. There are plenty of unexplained elements, unresolved conflicts, and mysteries in its pages that an enterprising referee could easily use it for many, many sessions without exhausting its possibilities.

It's often said that the "basic" D&D line had a great deal more going for it throughout the Silver and Bronze Ages, when compared to AD&D, at least as far as its modules and supplementary material go. I'm not yet convinced that's true as a blanket statement, but I do believe there are some forgotten gems in the line, Night's Dark Terror being a prime example. It's a pity that the model it puts forth was not more widely embraced and employed by TSR (or the hobby generally), but that's no reason for the old school renaissance not to do so. In fact, I'd love to see a new module written in this style. Something to do after I finish Dwimmermount perhaps?

In Praise of Larry Elmore II

Larry Elmore catches a lot of grief round these parts for his seminal role in establishing the look of Silver Age Dungeons & Dragons (not to mention Dragonlance) and I make no bones about that. Elmore's a very talented artist on a technical level and many of his pieces are quite evocative, but there's also a crisp sameness to much of his output that just doesn't sit well with me nowadays -- at least as far as fantasy goes.

I was recently looking over my collection of Gamma World materials and spent a lot of time poring over its 1983 second edition, which I consider its best presentation to date (heresy in some quarters, I know). I noticed that Elmore did all the interior art for this edition, something I suppose I always knew but to which I'd previously never given much thought. I was struck by just how good all the art is and, more precisely, how appropriate it is. I know there are some who favor a more Otusian fever dream interpretation of Gamma World, but I've long felt that the game demanded a solid grounding for its flights of fancy, lest it degenerate into utter lunacy (or parody). Elmore's "fantastic realism" provides such a solid grounding in my opinion.

And that's when it hit me. As strongly associated as Elmore is with fantasy, I actually think he's a far better artist of science fiction. His Star Frontiers cover, for example, is for many gamers of a certain age the iconic representation of the genre. Indeed, his work on that TSR RPG is almost uniformly excellent, the "crisp sameness" I described above being a virtue when illustrating a high tech setting, whereas (for me anyway) I find that the same quality grates in the context of (most) fantasy. Granted, I speak primarily of his black and white figural work rather than his color outdoors pieces, many of which are quite good for fantasy. Still, looking at Gamma World 2e today really did open my eyes to a possibility I hadn't considered before, namely that Larry Elmore makes a fine SF illustrator.

Retrospective: Dungeoneer's Survival Guide

If the Silver Age had a paradigmatic book, 1986's Dungeoneer's Survival Guide is a good candidate. Despite its name, the DSG wasn't really all that focused on "dungeons" in the traditional sense. Rather, its subject matter was subterranean locales, specifically caves and cave complexes -- the "wilderness" beneath the surface of the world. A better name would have been the Spelunker's Survival Guide, but I admit that it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. The DSG is also notable for having first introduced the term "Underdark" to D&D, which has proven remarkably resilient, surviving both as an appellation and as a concept virtually unchanged through multiple editions of the game, a feat even the Outer Planes have not managed.

Dungeoneer's Survival Guide covers a lot of ground, offering up an overview of the many obstacles adventurers might encounter underground, along with rules for adjudicating them. So, we're treated to discussions of cave-ins, subterranean waterways (and flooding), poisonous gas, vulcanism, oxygen deprivation, and more. These discussions all go a long way toward bringing the Underdark to life as a physical environment rather than as merely a backdrop against which to battle the drow or mind flayers. The Underdark itself is thus the biggest "monster" of them all and the DSG does an excellent job of making all these details seem integral to the creation of a challenging subterranean adventure.

When this was released, I was entranced by it. I very quickly became an advocate of the DSG and attempted to employ it in my home campaign. Being a fan of Verne and Burroughs, the visions author Doug Niles conjured up of the Underdark were difficult to resist -- a perfect antidote for a young man tired of "boring old dungeons" and looking for new and exciting ways to challenge his players in subterranean locales. In practice, all the detail and advice Niles provided was easily forgotten, however, because it (mostly) got in the way. Nice as it was to know, for example, how long a character could hold his breath or leap across a chasm, never mind the effects of underground lava flows, it was just too much for me and proved quite dispensable in play.

I still adored the book, which was fun to read and quite inspirational, but very little of its contents ever found a permanent home in my game. The exception, of course, was non-weapon proficiencies, which eventually became an integral part of AD&D. Though originally introduced in Oriental Adventures, it was in the DSG (and its 1986 twin, the Wilderness Survival Guide) that concept really took hold. Again, at the time, I thought non-weapon proficiencies were brilliant and added much needed depth to characters. In retrospect, I can see that they were a well-intentioned mistake that laid the groundwork for many of the worst excesses of 2e. But I wasn't alone in my love for them, which is why, despite their optional status in the Zeb Cook-edited Players Handbook, I never met a single player or referee who did not use them and lean increasingly on them for adjudicating almost any non-combat action in the game.

Dungeoneer's Survival Guide is also notable for popularizing another indulgence of the Silver Age: isometric maps. The DSG promoted this style of "3-D" mapping as the best way to represent the complexities of subterranean environments. And, again, I won't deny that I was much impressed with them. These maps really were beautiful to behold and did seem to make it easier to design "realistic" underworlds, with multiple elevations and the like. As with much of the Silver Age, though, functionality was sacrificed in the name of esthetics. Nice as isometric maps are to look at, they're much less useful in actual play, not to mention much more time consuming to produce than traditional orthographic maps. Nevertheless, TSR regularly used isometric maps in their products during this period.

In the final analysis, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was a brilliant failure and emblematic of many of the trends I eventually came to dislike about the direction of AD&D in the later years of TSR. It was -- and is, I'd still contend -- an inspirational book, one whose text often conveys the beauty and wonder and horror of subterranean locales so well. As a rulebook, though, it's less than ideal, simultaneously being too nitpicky and too easily cast aside. And its intention of adding new depths (no pun intended) to both the physical environment of adventures and to adventurers themselves was another nail in the coffin of the Old Ways. It's a pity, because, despite it all, I still have a fondness for this book, even though its publication was another step down a path whose ultimate destination I strongly dislike these days.