Retrospective: Swords of the Daimyo

Japanophilia was a significant pop cultural force in North America and Europe during the 1980s. This manifested not simply in the enjoyment of anime featuring giant robots but also in an increased interest in the history and legends of feudal Japan, an interest that no doubt built upon the already existing 1970s obsession with Asian martial arts. That Dungeons & Dragons would eventually embrace these interests would have surprised no one who had been paying attention to the matter. The first treatment of samurai in D&D appeared in issue #3 of Dragon (October 1976), for example, while ninja appeared in issue #16 (July 1978) – and both of these postdated the monk class from Blackmoor (1975). There was thus never any doubt that TSR would eventually publish a book like Oriental Adventures. The only question was why it had taken the company so long to do so. 

Of course, releasing a rulebook devoted to adding classes, spells, magic items, and monsters inspired by Japanese legendry (and, to a much lesser extent, those of other Asian cultures) is one thing. Illustrating how to make good use of them in the context of D&D is another. Oriental Adventures devotes a mere six pages to sketching a fantasy setting – Kara-Tur – inhabited by the bakemono, hengeyokai, shukenja, and other Eastern additions offered by the rules. Despite its title, there are no sample adventures presented in OA, leaving referees and players alike to their own devices to figure out what to do with all the new material it provides.

That's where Swords of the Daimyo comes in. Written by David Cook, author of Oriental Adventures, and published in 1986, it consists of two 32-page booklets intended to provide referees with everything they need to kick off a campaign set in Kara-Tur – or, more specifically, a small portion of it called Kozakura. The island of Kozakura is a clear analog to medieval Japan's Warring States period, when rival warlords openly vied with one another for control of the empire. This makes it a good fit for the default assumptions of D&D, with adventurers wandering about freely. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that this sort of situation makes even more sense than many D&D settings, where the social order is still largely intact. 

The first of the two integral booklets details three adventures set in Kozakura. The first of these, "Over the Waves We Will Go," is optional and intended only for referees who wish to transport characters from an existing Western-style campaign into the world of Oriental Adventures. As its title suggests, the scenario focuses on a seagoing journey to the lands of Kara-Tur. As adventures go, it's quite unusual, in that it focuses primarily on the ins and outs of a long voyage across the ocean. There's a large – and somewhat impressionistic – map divided into encounter areas the characters must navigate. The referee then uses their position to determine not only how long it takes them to cross the distance to Kozakura, but also what set or random encounters they may have. Equally important is the "mutiny rating" of the crew, a value that goes up or down based on how well the characters do along the way. 

The other two scenarios can be played by either non-native or Kozakuran characters, with the module providing eight sample PCs generated using the Oriental Adventures rules. These characters are surprisingly useful, even if you're not using them directly in play, since they provide little details about both the setting and what "typical" OA characters might be like, especially when compared to those of standard AD&D. Of most immediate interest is that several of them come from families or clans that are immersed in the Kozakuran setting. They're not rootless wanderers without any social ties and that, I think, is key to understanding how an OA campaign might differ from many, if not most, Western campaigns.

The second booklet provides lots of information on the Miyama province of Kozakura, the location of the adventures presented in the first book. The information includes many of the usual things, like history, geography, and politics. Much more interesting – and useful – is a hex-by-hex gazetteer that includes lots of little adventure seeds for the referee to develop as needed. Coupled with the large number of maps, both large and small scale, it's an excellent primer for a neophyte referee looking to get a better sense of just Kozakura is like and the kinds of scenarios that might take place on the island. In many ways, it's the more useful of the two booklets, since it provides the referee with the tools he'll need to keep his campaign going.

When it was released, I was very happy to have a copy of Swords of the Daimyo, since it offered a solid collection of ideas and aids for use with Oriental Adventures. I'd already had some experience with Bushido by this point, but it was good to have access to the additional resources this module provided. Moreoever, Oriental Adventures assumes a more strongly fantastical world than does Bushido, so the guidance Swords of the Daimyo provided in this regard was quite helpful. I made good use of it when I was in college and ran a short-lived but memorable OA campaign with my friends. Looking back on it now, I recognize that, even at this late a date, TSR was still producing some solid material that hadn't wholly bought into the principles of the Hickman Revolution. Whatever its shortcomings, Swords of the Daimyo feels like a throwback to the Golden Age of D&D rather than a product of the mid-Silver Age and that's more than good enough in my book.

Free Lord Ksárul Now!

From the letter page of White Dwarf #57, some Tékumel-related postal humor:

White Dwarf: Issue #57

Issue #57 of White Dwarf (September 1984) features a cover by an artist credited only as Tweddell. The image is certainly an eye-catching one that, for me at least, evokes some of the pre-vanilla strains of fantasy that flourished prior to the 1980s. Perhaps it's the weird mounts of the two warriors that does, I don't know. In any case, I find myself strangely fond of this particular cover, more so than I would have expected. 

Ian Livingstone's editorial uses Games Workshop's release of its Judge Dredd and Doctor Who games as an opportunity to ponder the matter of licensed RPGs. He wonders why there are now so many games based on pre-existing characters and settings when Dungeons & Dragons, a generic and open-ended game without a direct media antecedent, remains the best-selling RPG. The matter of roleplaying games based on media properties is something I've thought a lot about over the years and re-reading Livingstone's brief comments on the matter have brought them to mind again. I may need to write a post about it in the coming days, if only to attempt to organize my own inchoate thoughts on the subject.

 "Mind over Matter" by Todd E. Sundsted tackles the ins and outs of psionics in AD&D and other fantasy RPGs. By and large, the article's intended as advice to the referee and, on that level, is fine if uninspired. Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is the usual collection of snarky reviews mixed with occasional praise, with the latter being heaped on Frederik Pohl's Heechee Rendezvous and Gordon Dickson's Lord Dorsai. Langford also takes the opportunity to tie his reviews into roleplaying games, when he uses the "Neanderthal ethics" of E.E. Smith's Subspace Encounter as a springboard for discussing the "moral bias" of adventure scenarios. He doesn't dwell on the topic at any length, however. His intent seems merely to have been to get referees (and players) to consider the matter rather than simply ignore it.

"Open Box" starts with a quartet of (mostly negative) reviews of Mayfair Role Aids releases: Elves (3 out of 10), Dwarves (3 out of 10), Dark Folk (3 out of 10), and Wizards (6 out of 10). While there's no question that most Role Aids books weren't very good, I can't help but feel the reviewer, Robert Dale, is being unduly harsh here. Much more positively reviewed is The Traveller Adventure, which receives a well-deserved 9 out of 10. Powers & Perils, a game whose mere existence continues to baffle me, is given a very generous 8 out of 10, largely, it seems, on the basis of how much of its contents might be adapted to other fantasy RPGs. Finally, James Bond 007 is given a mediocre 6 out of 10.

"Sky Rig" by Paul Ormston is a Traveller scenario with a classic set-up: the characters are tasked to investigate why contact was lost with an orbital refinery in a gas giant. It's a fun little adventure in an unusual locale and I made good use of it in my youth. "For the Blood is the Life" by Dave Morris offers up an alternative to the traditional Gloranthan vampire in the form of the vampyr (and demi-vampyr). Morris's complaint is that, mechanically, there's no good reason for Gloranthan vampires to drain blood, which he considers an important part of the lore of the creature, hence the alternative version he offers, whose continued existence depends on blood. 

The second article in the "Night's Dark Agents" series by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards provides game mechanics for better integrating ninjas AD&D, RuneQuest, and, believe it or not, Bushido. Once again, I note how quintessentially 1980s it is to have an article like this in a gaming magazine. "The Life of a Retired Wizard" by Lewis Pulsipher is a consideration of what magic-users, whatever their level, might do with themselves after they stop adventuring. Though short, it's a thoughtful article whose intent seems to be to encourage referees to give some thought to the question of how magic works and is used in his setting. 

Part 2 of "The Sunfire's Heart" AD&D adventure by Peter Emery is as good as the first part. The scenario has some excellent maps and challenging encounters, as well as some delightfully old school elements, such as riddles that provide clues to the adventurers. This month's "Thrud the Barbarian" introduces readers to Eric of Bonémaloné and his demon sword Stoatbringer, while "Gobbledigook" and "The Travellers" continue to chug along somewhat less memorably. "The Staurni" by Andy Slack presents a version of the aliens from Poul Anderson's The Star Fox for use with Traveller. 

"Majipoor Monsters" by Graham Drysdale details seven monsters for D&D drawn from the works of Robert Silverberg. Having never read Lord Valentine's Castle and its follow-ups, I can't really speak to the fidelity of these write-ups. "Racy Bases" by Gary Chalk and Joe Dever looks at how to improve the bases of miniature figures. I found the article oddly compelling, even though I've never been much of a miniatures user (let alone painter). "Words of Wisdom" by Kiel Stephens concludes the issue with some thoughts on a handful of new and unusual ways to make use of D&D spells, such as using levitate as an attack against an unwilling target or magic mouth as an alarm.

There's a lot to like about this issue of White Dwarf – or so I thought when I first read it all those decades ago. Even now, I think both "Sky Rig" and "The Sunfire's Heart" are well done and could easily imagine making use of them in a fantasy or science fiction RPG I were refereeing. That's more than I can say about many issues of this or any other gaming magazine I've owned over the years.

Master of Light and Dark

Dave Trampier sometimes catches some flak in old school circles for the supposed "sameyness" of his art, particularly the faces of any people who appear in his work. While I don't agree with that criticism, I understand it. For me, though, Tramp's real strength lay in his use of light and dark, a talent of which I was reminded when I looked at this panel from the installment of Wormy that appeared in issue #100 of Dragon (August 1985). What an amazing piece of work!

Pulp Fantasy Library: The White Sybil

I am regularly struck by the industry demonstrated by the writers of the Golden Age of the Pulps. The sheer number of stories they collectively produced during the period between the two world wars is simply staggering. Despite the large number of professional, paying magazines actively soliciting submissions at the time, there was no way these periodicals could keep pace with the torrent of fiction being penned. For that reason, even established wordsmiths of the caliber of Clark Ashton Smith sometimes had to turn to amateur fanzines or limited run anthologies if they hoped to see some of their works to see print.

Such was the case with Smith's "The White Sybil," completed in mid-1932 and reluctantly rejected by Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, who considered it more a prose poem than a story proper. This was a common – and I daresay fair – criticism of many of Smith's submissions. He was by training and temperament a poet and even his best works of "pure" fiction nevertheless evince the incantatory rhythms of verse. For this reason, "The White Sybil" only saw print in 1935 as part of a limited (500-copy) anthology produced by William L. Crawford, the young science fiction fan behind Marvel Tales and Unusual Stories, two short-lived but important semi-pro periodicals.

"The White Sybil" tells of Tortha, himself a poet, who after having "wandered in the quest of that alien beauty which had always fled before him like the horizon," returns to his native city of Cerngoth in Hyperborea. During his travels, Tortha had "beheld many marvels," which is why he was surprised to behold an even stranger marvel while he wandered the streets of Cerngoth, namely, the fabled White Sybil of Polarion. 

He knew not whence she had come, but suddenly she was before him in the throng. Amid the tawny girls of Cerngoth with their russet hair and blue-black eyes, she was like an apparition descended from the moon. Goddess, ghost or woman, he knew not which, she passed fleetly and was gone: a creature of snow and norland light, with eyes like moon-pervaded pools, and lips that were smitten with the same pallor as the brow and bosom. Her gown was of some filmy white fabric, pure and ethereal as her person.

In wonder that turned to startled rapture, Tortha gazed at the miraculous being, and sustained for a moment the strangely thrilling light of her chill eyes, in which he seemed to find an obscure recognition, such as a long-veiled divinity, appearing at last, would vouchsafe to her worshipper.

The White Sybil was a " mysterious being who was rumored to come and go as if by some preterhuman agency in the cities of Hyperborea." None knew her name or her origins, only that she often "utter[ed] cryptic prophecies and tidings of doom." Indeed, she had long ago pronounced the destruction of Hyperborea and its civilization and, for that reason, men feared her – except for Tortha.

In that single glimpse, he had found the personification of all the vague ideals and unfixed longings that had drawn him from land to land. Here was the eluding strangeness he had sought on alien breasts and waters, and beyond horizons of fire-vomiting mountains. Here was the veiled Star, whose name and luster he had never known. The moon-cold eyes of the Sybil had kindled a strange love in Tortha, to whom love had been, at most, no more than a passing agitation of the senses.

 Overcome by "wild Uranian ecstasy," the poet determines to seek out the White Sybil by ascending a snow-capped mountain where he believed she could be found. The ascent was both physically and mentally arduous, yet he never once considered turning back, so great was the "unearthly fervor and exaltation" that she engendered in him. Eventually, he succeeds in finding the object of his quest.

With timid steps, with eyes that faltered before her mystic beauty, and a flaming as of blown torches in his heart, he entered the arbor. From the bank of blossoms on which she reclined, the Sybil rose to receive her worshipper. . . .

Of all that followed, much was forgotten afterwards by Tortha. It was like a light too radiant to be endured, a thought that eluded conception through surpassing strangeness. It was real beyond all that men deem reality: and yet it seemed to Tortha that he, the Sybil, and all that surrounded them, were part of an after-mirage on the deserts of time; that he was poised insecurely above life and death in some bright, fragile bower of dreams.

He thought that the Sybil greeted him in thrilling, mellifluous words of a tongue that he knew well, but had never heard. Her tones filled him with an ecstasy near to pain. He sat beside her on the faery bank, and she told him many things: divine, stupendous, perilous things; dire as the secret of life; sweet as the lore of oblivion; strange and immemorable as the lost knowledge of sleep. But she did not tell him her name, nor the secret of her essence; and still he knew not if she were ghost or woman, goddess or spirit.

The last paragraph is, I think, quite effective in the way it struggles to describe the painful, delightful, and contradictory human experience of beauty and the desire to somehow possess it, not to mention the equally human experience of being unable to do so, no matter how much we might wish it.

There are two endings to "The White Sibyl," the one published in Crawford's 1935 anthology and Smith's original ending, the former of which can be found via the link above and which offers a somewhat more hopeful conclusion to Tortha's sojourn. Much as I like the tale, neither version strikes me as the kind of thing that would likely have appealed to the typical reader of the Unique Magazine and I can hardly blame Wright for having rejected it. "The White Sybil" is not a weird tale as generally understood, but rather an extended meditation on longing and the futile lengths to which we will sometimes go in an attempt to sate it – hardly the stuff of rousing adventure but a worthy topic for introspection and one especially well suited to the talents of Clark Ashton Smith.

Born in Arizona, Moved to Babylonia

Today marks the centenary of Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings. I would have thought this would be more widely celebrated in mass media, given the status of King Tut in the popular culture of the last hundred years. Unless I've somehow managed to miss it, the coverage of this significant anniversary seems to be much more low-key than that which accompanied the "Tut-manias" of the 1920s and 1970s. For good or for ill, there don't appear to be so many trinkets, toys, T-shirts, and posters – or songs – this time around.

More than a decade ago, there was an exhibition of artifacts from Tut's tomb and my family and I got the chance to see them while it was in town. Though the famous gold burial mask was not among the artifacts present, there were plenty of other remarkable items. Looking at them, even behind protective glass, is an amazing experience, especially if you're cognizant of just how old they are. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Carter, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn, and Arthur Callender to have first laid eyes upon them, the first people to have done so in more than 3000 years (aside from some grave robbers). 

In his 1923 book with A.C. Mace, Carter described the experience of opening the tomb in this way:

At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.

This is some of what they saw:

The photograph at the top is obviously the original, while the one at the bottom was colorized decades later. I included the colorized version in an attempt to convey some of the wonder Carter and company must have felt upon seeing the antechamber to the tomb and its grave goods. At the same time, the photos also convey a contradictory feeling, a recognition of just how ordinary the scene actually is. Certainly there are many gilt artifacts within but there are also an equal number of relatively mundane things, like unadorned chests, wooden shelves and furniture, and spare chariot wheels. If it weren't for their antiquity, they could almost be the contents of someone's garage rather than the treasures of a god-king from three millennia ago.

I find this all weirdly comforting. Mind you, I get the same feeling when I look on photographs of people from the past, especially from the time shortly after the invention of photography. What sticks with me is the realization – or perhaps reminder is a better word – that people in the past were just people, little different from us, except in the most superficial of ways. They were no better or worse than we are today and I think we do ourselves and them a disservice by looking on the past as either a Golden Age the likes of which we shall never see again or a time of unique ignorance and viciousness that we have somehow transcended. 

For me at least, Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun a century ago is a bit like those old photographs. It's a reminder that, while the past is a foreign country, that country was populated by human beings who, like us, probably gave little thought to the possibility that the world they knew would one day disappear into the mists of time – again, like us.

Retrospective: Cities of Hârn

The issue of White Dwarf I discussed this week included a review of 1983's Cities of Hârn, the first major supplement for the Hârn fantasy setting published by Columbia Games. Written by Hârn's creator, the late N. Robin Crossby, Cities of Hârn is one of only a handful of Hârn materials I owned until relatively recently. I did so at least in part because of the ads I saw in the pages of Dragon, which highlighted its wonderful maps. I also did so because I find the mere idea of cities in a fantasy setting absolutely captivating. I blame Lankhmar.

Cities of Hârn begins with an overview of cities in general before offering up specific information on each of the seven cities of the setting. The overview focuses on the kinds of "realistic" details that are the hallmarks of Hârn's Anglo-Norman-inspired fantasy. There are discussions of guilds, markets, governments, and of course taxes and fees – lots of taxes and fees. I probably make this sound less appealing than it is, because most of these discussions are brief and add to the verisimilitude of the setting rather than getting bogged down in minutiae. 

The real meat of Cities of Hârn lies in the sections that treat each of the seven major cities of the island of Hârn: Aleath, Cherafir, Coranan, Golotha, Shiran, Tashal, and Thay. Though there is some variation between the write-ups, each section follows the same pattern. There's information presented on each city's history, government, and economy, followed by two keyed maps of the entire city, one in color and one in black and white. In addition, each city includes a keyed map for a single important location within it. For example, the section on Aleath includes a map of The Sword & Sceptre, a three-story tavern, while the one on Shiran includes the Pamesani Arena. These location maps are quite useful, both because they provide the referee with a potential setting for a scenario or an encounter and because they offer some insight into the city in question. The aforementioned Arena highlights Shiran's role as "the pleasure capital of Hârn," where all manner of entertainment is available to those with the money to afford them.

The keyed maps are the main draw of Cities of Hârn. Though perhaps not as lovely as the large-scale maps included with the original Hârn, those in this product are still quite attractive, especially in their colored versions. More than that, they are useful, showing the locations of all the important places within a given city, as well as the area in the immediate vicinity of the city itself, such as rivers, roads, fortifications, and the like. Sometimes, extra detail is provided, like the sites of the underground tunnels beneath Tashal. 

The map keys are of the same spare and utilitarian style that is typical of Hârn. The individual entries usually consist of only a line or two, with only the most important details given much space. The entries all include information on the number of typical inhabitants in a given building, the quality of the goods available there (if applicable), and their prices (again, if applicable). This is all presented in a system-neutral way, since the Hârn line was originally presented as a series of "generic" supplements for use with any fantasy roleplaying game system. Consequently, Cities of Hârn does require some work on the part of the referee to use effectively. Even leaving aside the matter of rules, there are many buildings and other locales in each city that are not keyed. Mind you, this leaves plenty of space for the referee to personalize the cities, which I consider a boon.

In the end, Cities of Hârn is, I think, pretty typical of the early Hârn products in being more like a "sketch" the referee is expected to fill in according to the needs of his own campaign rather than a fully fleshed out product ready to be used "out of the box." At the same time, its lovely maps and their keys are precisely what I wanted out of a product like this and more than justified the cost and relative difficulty it took to obtain a copy. Even though I never succeeded in running a Hârn-based campaign, I made good use of some of the maps in my own setting, which is about as high praise as I could have given a RPG product in those days.

Thrud to the Rescue

 From White Dwarf #56:

Secrets of sha-Arthan: Adept

An adept by Zhu Bajie

Hit Dice: 1d6
Maximum Level: 14
Armor: Light or medium armor, no shields
Weapons: Any
Languages: Janeksa

An adept practices mental self-control to channel powers of the mind known as disciplines. The origin of this practice is shrouded in mystery, but it may be as ancient as the Makers themselves. Regardless of the truth, it is now widespread across sha-Arthan, particularly in those lands that were once part of the Empire of the Light of Kulvu.

Combat

An adept can use light or medium armor but does not have the training required to use heavy armor or shields. She can use any weapons.

Disciplines

An adept uses her inherent psychic ability to activate a number of disciplines individually or in combination, according to the Adept Level Progression table below. Disciplines are chosen by the player from among the following:

• Clairvoyance: An adept can see through or into opaque or solid material within 30’ for up to 1 turn per level.
• Control Self: An adept exerts psychic control of her own body for 1 turn per level, during which time she can suspend normal bodily functions (stop or slow heartbeat, respiration, etc.) without a detriment to normal physical or mental performance; gain total recall of memory; or perform minor feats of strength, agility, and/or mental prowess. The referee has final say on the effects of these feats.
• ESP: By concentrating for 1 round, an adept can perceive and understand the thoughts of living creatures within 60’ for 1 turn per level. A target detects the adept’s use of this discipline with a successful WIL check. An unwilling target may make a mental attack save to resist. While reading thoughts, the adept may move but cannot attack.
• Fear: An adept can cause a target within 120’ to flee for 1 turn per level, unless it successfully makes a mental attack save.
• Healing Trance: By meditating intensely for 1 turn, during which time she is insensate and unable even to defend herself, the adept can heal herself 1d6+1 hit points per use. At 6^th level, the trance heals 2d6+2 hit points per use. Alternately, the trance may be used to grant a +4 fortitude save bonus against one poison or disease per use.
• Illusion: An adept can create a visual illusion of her choosing so long as she concentrates. Within a range of 120’, an adept can animate an illusion within a 6’ cube +1’ per level. Targets who succeed at a mental attack save recognize the illusion for what it is. Illusory enemies have DR 10 and vanish if successfully struck. Damage dealt by such enemies is not real. A character who appears to die actually falls unconscious, a character petrified is paralyzed, and so on. Such effects last 1d4 turns.
• Mind Shield: An adept can shield her mind for 1 turn per level, granting her a +4 bonus to any saving throws against mental attacks of any kind for its duration. This discipline requires little concentration, so the adept is free to attack or use other disciplines while it is in effect.
• Mind Blast: An adept directs a blast of psychic energy at a target within 60’, dealing damage equal to 2d6 + 1 per level of the adept. A successful mental attack save halves the damage.
• Psychometry: The adept sees into the past of whatever single object she touches, understanding its function purpose, origins, and who has touched it in the last 10 years per level.
• Suggestion: An adept’s words take on a supernatural potency. Up to one HD of persons per level of the adept must make a successful mental attack save or follow her suggestion for 1 round per level of the adept. (If the suggestion would endanger a subject, that subject automatically saves). This discipline is language-dependent and may be used in conjunction with telepathy. The subject is unaware of the manipulation, but, after its duration, he realizes he has been psychically influenced. Suggestion may only be used once per turn against the same subject.
• Telekinesis: An adept can move solid objects with a remote psychic “hand.” The remote hand can be projected to a range of 20’ + 5’ per level and lasts for 3 rounds per level. The amount of weight manipulated is equal to 3 +1 per level VIG (see Encumbrance). Movement speed is 10’ per round per level.
• Telepathy: An adept can establish bidirectional mental communication with one other living intelligent creature within 90’ for 1 turn per level. Every four levels, the adept can add another such creature to her mental communication. The creature need not share a language with the adept. Communication is limited to conscious thoughts but can include visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory components.

Frequency of Use

Twice per day per level, an adept may use any combination of the disciplines she has developed. For example, a 2nd-level adept has developed three disciplines and may use any combination of them four times per day in total. For example, the adept could use ESP and suggestion once each and telepathy twice or ESP twice and suggestion and telepathy each once, or in any other combination.

Using Disciplines

An adept must spend a round concentrating in order to activate a discipline. This precludes moving, attacking, or taking any other actions.

In combat: Like spell casting, using a discipline can be disrupted in combat (see Spell Casting). The use of mental disciplines must be declared before initiative is rolled.

White Dwarf: Issue #56

Issue #56 of White Dwarf (August 1984) features a cover by Chris Achilleos, who's probably most well-known for his contributions to Heavy Metal magazine. This particular illustration doesn't do much for me personally, but it's very much in keeping with the brash tone of the magazine during this time. In his editorial, Ian Livingstone sees a possible silver lining in the troubles of US game companies like TSR, namely, the emergence of "a thriving British RPG industry." Games Workshop certainly benefited from the decline of TSR in the mid-1980s; whether any other UK companies did so is an interesting question.

Speaking of the mid-1980s, what could be more appropriate than an article about ninjas? "Night's Dark Agents" by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards is fairly typical of this surprisingly resilient genre of article. Rather than focus on how to include ninjas into any specific RPG, the authors instead talk about the reputed training, skills, weapons, and attire of ninjas in history and legend. It's fairly well done for what it is, but it's hardly groundbreaking in an era when nearly every gaming periodical published multiple periodicals of this sort.

"Open Box" reviews Games Workshop's "Battlebikes," giving it 7 out of 10. This game piqued my imagination at the time, but I never saw it in stores, let alone owned it. Also reviewed is "Turbofire" from Auto Ventures, a product and a company of which I've never heard. The product, which is given 8 out of 10, is apparently a multi-system adventure/campaign scenario designed for use with Car Wars, Battlecars, and Highway 2000 – how strange! Hârn, Cities of Hârn, and three installments of the Encyclopedia Hârnica are all reviewed together, collectively scoring 8 out of 10. The reviewer (Simon Farrell) speaks well of all the products; his main critique seems to be that, because they are presented in a system-neutral fashion, the referee will have to do a lot of work creating game stats for NPCs, monsters, etc. Finally, there's a review of Mayfair's The Forever War game, which garners a 7 out of 10.

For a change, Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" includes discussions of books I've actually read, like Donald Kingsbury's Geta (released in the USA under the title Courtship Rite, which is how I know it). It's a strange work of imaginary socio-anthropology about a colony of humans who survive on a hostile planet where only a handful of Earth plants can grow and whose diet must be supplemented by cannibalism. The book is better than it sounds! Langford also reviews Jack Vance's Lyonesse, which he likes less than The Dying Earth and its sequels, an opinion I share. Later in the column, Langford offers his opinions on the best, worst, most pretentious, and most sexist SF authors.

It's an idiosyncratic list to be sure.

Since we're on the subject of bad writers, the next article is devoted to translating the fantasy novels of David Eddings into Dungeons & Dragons. Predictably entitled "The Belgariad," the article by Peter Ransome is thankfully short. Much more worthy of one's time is "The Last Log," a science fiction Call of Cthulhu adventure by Jon Sutherland, Steve Williams, and Tim Hall. Set in the early 23rd century, the scenario involves checking in with a corporate mining planet whose colonists haven't delivered any reports in over seven months. Naturally, something eldritch is afoot and it's up to the player characters to deal with it. I liked this adventure so much that I used a version of it in my college Traveller: 2300 with great success. Even now, I consider it one of the most original things ever published in the pages of White Dwarf.

"Mortal Combat" by Dave Morris is a collection of rules alterations and additions to the RuneQuest combat system. While I have no doubt that articles of this sort were of great interest to RQ fans, it was precisely this obsession with adding complexity to an already complex combat system that has long prevented my wholly embracing the game, which is a pity. Part 1 of "The Sunfire's Hart" by P.G. Emery is an excellent kick-off to an extended AD&D scenario for low-level characters. The initial premise is that the PCs are hired by the Guild of Sages to travel by boat a series of volcanic islands to find out why contact was lost with the last group to travel there – a common theme in many RPG scenarios, it would seem! The islands were once ruled by the defunct Solarian Empire, which maintained power through the use of an artifact called the Sunfire's Heart. The scenario involves not only discovering what happened to other inhabitants of the island but also the secret history of the Solarian Empire. It's far from a perfect adventure, particularly in terms of its presentation, but I am a sucker for adventures where ancient history plays a role.

"Plying the Spacelanes" by Paul Vernon is an alternate take on random starship encounters in Traveller. Vernon does a good job, I think, of expanding on and rationalizing the original tables without complicating them unnecessarily. The next time I referee a Traveller campaign, I might well make use of these. "To Boldly Go" by Joe Dever and Gary Chalk takes a look at sci-fi miniatures, including those produced by Grenadier for Traveller. "High Planes Drifters" is a collection of four D&D monsters from the planes beyond the Prime Material. As you'd expect, they're a mixed bag, with none of them really standing out as must-use additions to the game.

"Don't Touch That Dial!" by Phil Hine is an odd little article, in that it's ostensibly about the introduction of high technology into a D&D but is in reality simply about the introduction of two specific types of high technology: gunpowder and mechanical flight via ornithopters. The former is a perennial topic of interest to fantasy gamers, while the latter seems to stem largely from Moorcock's Runestaff series and Herbert's Dune. It's a mostly forgettable article, much like "The Psytron!" by Carol Hutchins, which reviews a 48K Spectrum game of the same name. I say that not because the game in question is a bad one – the reviewer gives it 9 out of 10 – but because it doesn't seem to have been a particularly successful or influential product. I'd much rather read the latest installments of "Thrud the Barbarian," "The Travellers," and "Gobbledigook," all of which I enjoyed more.

White Dwarf continues to trudge along solidly. At this point in its run, most issues were decent enough to hold my attention without much complaint and would often include one or two articles that I still remember even now. This is one of those issues, largely because of "The Last Log," which is a genuinely clever take on Call of Cthulhu. I look forward to seeing more like it in the issues to come.