Editor's Summary of Content:
Tom Wham, the mind behind The Awful Green Things From Outer Space, presents Outside the Znutar, playing pieces and rules for extending the crew’s battle against the green things into timeless space. As a bonus, the god Runngus has consented to reveal to Tom the rules for his very own game, which is found on the same foldout in the front of the magazine. That material is surrounded by a word portrait of Tom Wham, prepared by staff writer Bryce Knorr, which is almost as strange as one of Tom’s games.
Attraction number two (or three) should be a Dragon collector’s dream: The first index ever compiled and published of all articles appearing in The Dragon and The Strategic Review is resting between pages 54 and 55, just waiting to be thumbed through. We hope you enjoy using it a lot more than we enjoyed compiling it.
The colorful flying frogs on this issue’s cover are the product of the imagination and skill of Dave Trampier, a.k.a. Tramp, who is normally seen on these pages as the author of Wormy. Alas, Tramp’s next installment of the strip hadn’t arrived by deadline time, and Wormy is not found within. Double alas, neither is Finieous Fingers, but creator J.D. has promised to get another adventure to us for TD-41.
Only slightly less special this month, occupying the premier position at the head of the article section, is The Dueling Room by Jeff Swycaffer, in which is offered the once-and-for-all way to settle personal disputes between characters.
Fantasy must have "rhyme & reason," says Douglas Bachmann, before games about fantasy can have any real meaning. His lengthy treatise on the structure of a fantasy milieu is offered for your examination.
Holy Prax! No sooner did we send out an impassioned plea for Runequest articles (Out on a Limb, TD-39) than Jon Mattson sent in just what we were looking for. Artifacts of Dragon Pass is the first RQ article TD has ever published; we hope it’s just the first of many.
For our Top Secret offerings this month, we present another edition of the Rasmussen Files by Jerry Epperson, plus Paul Crabaugh’s suggestions for turning TS into a game of global scope. Mark Cummings takes a player’s-eye look at Tribes of Crane, and explains why he’s no longer in the PBM game.
In the "short subjects" department, Robert Plamondon offers everything you need to know about throwing oil grenades; Roger Moore adds some leaves to the lycanthropes’ family tree; Steve Melancon suggests a fairer (to the bad guys) way of determining a Cleric’s success against the undead; and Daniel McEwen favors us with a report on Canada’s major annual convention, CANGAMES '80.
There’s something "irregular" about this month’s regular columns. First, the Bestiary has been expanded, and now covers three pages which contain four new monsters. When space permits in future issues, we’ll continue to present Bestiary creations in multiples, if reader reaction indicates we ought to pursue that course. The E. S. Znutar takes another one-page voyage on the last page of this issue, and this is the first time the cartoon has been done in color (thanks to the talents of artist Jeff Dee). It’s listed as a regular feature, even though the Znutar hasn’t appeared in TD since last August, because we hope that’ll persuade Tom and Jeff to do another one before next August.
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