Dragon Magazine #179, Part Five: "Semen"

Occasionally, Dragon Magazine published short stories. This issue features "Moonlight" by Heather Lynn Sarik.

I'll be reading "moonlight" as "semen" for the entirety of this story. "Semen" by Heather Lynn Sarik.

"Lien watched the trickle of distilled semen and tried to hold her anxious breathing to slow, labored gasps. From her vantage point behind a thick shroud of black velvet curtains, she could see the bowed form of the Sky-Watcher, his eyes locked on the glimmering liquid, his hands occasionally reaching out to pat at its ornate quartz receptacle. Silver threads glittered in his black robes as he breathed; upon his tufted white hair sat a wholly ridiculous circlet bearing a stylized cresent [sic] moon as big as Lien's palm."

Come on! Heather was hardly disguising this deviant work of pornography! It's all about two thieves who steal some semen from a monastery so they can sell it. They spend the rest of the story trying to get some unsuspecting idiot to drink their semen to find out if it's magic. The big twist is that even the Sky-Watchers distilling the semen don't know what it does, even though they're practically drowning in the stuff. The sexiest part of the story is when the arrogant rich guy chugs a bunch of the semen because he ate a Periapt of Proof Against Poison. The grossest part of the story is when the thieves spike a stew with the semen and everybody in the tavern gets sick.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of selling a story where every character was obsessed with semen (so much so that the local monastery was filling their well with the stuff) to a non-semen-aficionado magazine. My first draft of that sentence began "Never would I have thought of writing a story where every character was obsessed with semen," but I realized the inaccuracy of that statement and quickly fixed it.

Dragon Magazine #179, Part Four: "7 Enlightening Lanterns"

Stephen Giles writes the next article called "7 EnLIGHTening Lanterns" and I'm beginning to wonder why Dragon Magazine thought so many people were running such boring campaigns in 1992 that they had to compile this issue full of bullshit. "Have your players begun to dread game night?! Are they falling asleep at the table when they used to be practically masturbating to your every dungeon room description? Have you heard them whispering cryptically in the kitchen as they eat your mom's snacks, saying things like 'Where are all the exciting ways to produce light?' and 'Why is the treasure always so easy to pack up and haul out of the dungeon?' If this sounds familiar, pick up Dragon Magazine #179 at your local game store! Dragon Magazine: making Dungeons & Dragons a stronger and stronger product every year! What else are you going to do with your nerdy friends on Friday night?! It's not like some card game will be introduced next year that will completely decimate the D&D customer base until TSR finally has to completely sell out to the company that created that stupid hypothetical card game! I mean, what can be more exciting than ways to light a dungeon magically?! Fuckin' hell, we're kings of the Goddamned world!"

Again, I'm not being fair. I've yet to read the article and I'm acting like it's probably the stupidest thing ever written. Just having read that previous article by Bruce Humphrey, I can be assured it's not that.

Mr. Giles gets right to the point: lanterns! Seven of them! Although too many of them (like, seven, maybe?) seem to be the life's work of some mage who couldn't be bothered to do something exciting with his life. I'm assuming mages live for several hundred years; you'd think that they'd strive for something more than a lantern that can shoot lightning bolts or cast darkness instead of light or curse a person to be attractive to the undead (although after summarizing those, I'm starting to see Mr. Giles point. Now I want a necro-aphrodisiac lantern!). Aren't there already wands that do those kinds of things? Maybe magical lanterns was just part of an overall move toward creating mundane useful items that could also do magic. Like instead of a Wand of Stoning, maybe a Backscratcher of Stoning. Instead of an Amulet of Reflection, perhaps a Belt Buckle of Reflection. Also, if you have stupid players that you're trying to punish, give them magic lanterns and candles as treasure. They'll definitely leave them behind while wondering where all the gold went.

But enough with the fucking lanterns. Egads, I can't imagine creating a more boring module than one that features magic candles, magic lanterns, and five hours of haggling with merchants over the price of a few tapestries and pewter Star Trek figurines.

Dragon Magazine #179, Part Three: "Something Completely Different"

Bruce Humphrey writes the next article, "Something Completely Different: Variety should be a treasure hoard's spice." As if putting candles in your treasure hoards wasn't already different enough. What is Mr. Humphrey going to suggest? Magic doilies? But he confuses me when he ends his opening paragraph with this statement: "The effort to recover the monetary fruits of victory should be commensurate with the victory itself." Is he suggesting that after the party kill Tiamat, obtaining Tiamat's treasure should be just as difficult as it was to kill Tiamat?! Bruce sounds like a terrible Dungeon Master!

I should at least wait until I've finished reading the article to judge Bruce's Dungeon Mastering skills but the header to his second paragraph isn't quelling my bias.

When I'm playing a fantasy role-playing game based solely in my imagination, I seldom think, "But is this realistic?"

In "the realistic route," Bruce goes on to say, "In fact, most treasures should be items that are not obviously valuable but may be of greater worth than their weight in gold or diamonds. Some items could have little intrinsic value but be beyond price to a collector or as heirlooms." Because orcs and bugbears are so well known for their sophisticated tastes and sentimental attachments! "The only thing in this Goddamn ogre's den are a bunch of frilly pillows and a stupid vase!" says the paladin who's never seen Antiques Dungeon Show. How many of Bruce's players ended a campaign grumbling "How did I spend more money on supplies than I gained back in treasure?!" while Bruce was busy filling the next dungeon with collector's plates and dung from rare outer planes creatures.

I'm only on the third paragraph and I'm fairly positive Bruce Humphrey is a sadistic jerk who hung out with the theater kids, none of whom thought he was funny (and you know the stupid shit theater kids think is funny!). When I design a dungeon, I figure my players are going to want some exciting action followed by some easily spendable treasure. But Bruce thinks his players want to be burdened with brainstorming a contraption to haul the loot from the dungeon.

Oh joy!

Here's the thing, Bruce: they'll just hire henchmen and make the henchmen carry the fucking thing and be done with it. Then when nobody will purchase it for what the players know it's worth (because they've read all of the rules supplements), the henchmen will be hauling that fucking carpet from dungeon to dungeon! What kind of idiots was Bruce playing with? Who would put up with this campaign?! "Ah! Another Saturday night spent haggling with dimwits and con-men! What a great change of pace from exploring a dungeon and risking our lives! Keep these mundane campaigns coming, Bruce! We're really gaining a new appreciation for assessing the value of treasure and researching merchants to find one who won't bilk us! Next time, can we please roleplay the six hour trip to the next flea market in real time?!"

I bet Bruce made the player's characters eat and take bathroom breaks. "Having not evacuated for some time, Signus is in real trouble. Unless he wants to shit his armor, Signus the Elf has -1 to hit and -2 to damage during this fight because he's beginning to turtle."

Earlier, I asked that question about the difficulty of obtaining Tiamat's treasure. Apparently the answer to that question was "Yes, Bruce does think dealing with Tiamat's treasure should be as difficult as dealing with Tiamat." He states it plainly: "Imagine the look on their faces when they have defeated the Ancient Worm of Khelkotha, only to find it spent those cold winter nights through the centuries smelting its hoard into a 10'-diameter sphere of gold, platinum, and gems — or, better yet, was a connoisseur of sculpture and traded its hoard for dozens of valuable but bulky and heavy statues." The most important part of that quote is "imagine the look on their faces." Bruce is telling on himself. He thinks Dungeons & Dragons is a competitive game between the Dungeon Master and the players. "Survive my Ancient Worm of Khelkotha encounter, will you?! Well guess what, motherfuckers?! You can't gather up the treasure unless you present a detailed plan of attack and designs of the contraptions used to haul this stuff out!" And then when the players decide to just hire a hundred henchmen, he'll probably draft up some rules on local unions and gig economies. "You can't just hire that many henchmen without paying exponential salaries due to the dwindling labor reserves! Plus, what are you going to pay them in? 10'-diameter spheres of gold, platinum, and gems?! Ha ha! Look at your faces! Dumbasses!"

The worst thing about this article isn't that Bruce thinks players are jerks who won't roleplay if they're just given lots of coins; the worst part is that he thinks every other Dungeon Master is an unimaginative idiot. "Hey, have you ever thought about how treasure doesn't have to be coins, gems, jewelry, or candles?! Give it a try! Maybe fill your orc lair with valuable tapestries! Or the minotaur's maze with crystal decanters and expensive china! I bet kobolds would totally be into rare and exclusive Pogs!"

Maybe I'm just being too defensive because, as a Dungeon Master and game creator, I've always parceled out odd treasures. Hell, I even wrote a book of poetry, The Chicken by the Gate, as a treasure found in the Places and Predator Module, "The Search for Renown." And my suggestion of making kobolds totally into Pogs wasn't too far off from another one of my Places and Predators treasures: cards from a card game I created as a popular form of dueling within the P&P world. But then again, maybe it's not just me! Gary Gygax included multiple tables in the Dungeon Master's Guide in the appendix for dungeon dressing that any Dungeon Master worth his probably-an-urban-legend Dungeon Master Certificate would have turned into treasure tables. Maybe Bruce thought "appendix" just meant "a vestigial chapter that doesn't need to be read."

Bruce continues to explain a bunch of treasure types that don't need explaining, like fragile treasure or hidden treasure or treasure that might only be treasure to the right buyer. He then opens his paragraph on treasure that is information with this damning statement: "Information can be invaluable, but most players ignore it." Can Bruce's players sue him for libel due to this article? Most of this article is just Bruce repeating over and over again, "My players are fucking dummies who don't know how to roleplay! So I've found a way to punish their stupidity: treasure types that they don't understand! Fucking dopes!" What Dungeon Master doesn't seed every campaign with information to try to lure players to new dungeon modules or home-brewed campaign plots?! How many Dungeon Masters read this article and were all, "Oh fuck! You mean I don't just have to reward my players with gold?! I mean, I'd like to also give them silver or platinum but nobody knows how to convert that shit."

Anyway, if you don't have the imagination to create some weird and unique treasures that your players might enjoy, or if you're looking for a way to stick it to your stupid players for being boring dumb jerks, Bruce wrote a dumb article for you. Next!

Dragon Magazine #179, Part Two: "Magic by Candlelight"

I feel slightly offended by the use of "your" in this article's title.

If your first thought wasn't "Magic candles? Tha fuck?!", you're probably more literate than I am. But I'm sure you had the same visceral reaction. Does your D&D campaign need more magic candles? Does it need any magic candles?! Mister Chamberlain decided his campaign did need magic candles and so he created a bunch of magic candles for his campaign to fuck with his players. See, apparently Gary Gygax only created one magic candle (the Candle of Invocation) which meant Mr. Chamberlain's players knew instantly what the candle did if they found it in a treasure hoard. Shit, man. You can't have that! Sure, I suppose you could tell your players to stop reading the Dungeon Master's Guide because even if they'd encountered a Candle of Invocation prior to the moment they found another candle, what would make them think there's only one type of magic candle unless they had their grubby little cheating mitts on a copy of that book?! Fucking rat bastards. So to trick his jerko players and teach them a lesson, he created new magic candles to fuck with them. You know, instead of doing what nearly every other Dungeon Master in the last forty five years has done: rerolled on the random magic item list when the Candle of Invocation came up.

Half of the articles in Dragon Magazine were written by Dungeon Masters who were sick of their players questioning every rule and needed a new rule or clarification printed in a publication with which the players couldn't argue and the other half were written by Dungeon Masters bragging about some crazy way that they fucked over their players. This is one of the latter articles. "Tired of your players thinking they know everything about every monster and magic item and skill and rule because they've read every single rule book? Try using some of the stuff I made up to fuck with my asshole players!" Oh wait. That was my quote! Here's Mr. Chamberlain's actual quote: "The party had found one of the special magical candles that I had devised to keep players on their toes when treasure-seeking in MY dungeons." Okay, so the emphasis was mine. But you can't help read it that way anyway! "Fucking players think they're going to get one over on me?! They probably expect me to bring in a beholder to keep them on their toes! But no! Just wait until they get a load of this candle!"

Just in case a reader wasn't familiar with the concept of "candles."

I didn't think I needed a history of the candle and after reading one, I was right. But it does get interesting when Mr. Chamberlain delves into the history of candle use in the Dungeons & Dragons world. Mages use wax taken from whales because mages are bad-ass motherfuckers who don't give a shit about anything. They're basically the carnivores of the candlemakers. Seriously, you can't give a shit about the environment if you're casting spells like Meteor Swarm or Time Stop or Wish or Monster Summoning VII (basically "Summon Invasive Species from Hell") or Reverse Gravity. With power like that, what kind of mage is going to blink twice at "Power Word, Kill"ing a few whales?

The cleric is the vegetarian of candlemakers. They use beeswax. Using the labor of the community to enrich yourself is a pretty good metaphor for religion.

Druids are the vegans of candlemakers. They scrape their wax off of berries. Which means for every thousand fat, girthy magic candles that cast Fireball, you'll find one shaped like a chipmunk that casts Animal Friendship.

After reading a bit about magic candles, I've done a complete 180 on them. Can you call a "180" complete when it's technically half of a 360 which is really complete? Anyway, I think campaigns should have more magic candles now! The idea that your characters might need to rely on a Candle of Globe of Invulnerability only to realize there's a stiff breeze could really keep those players on their toes! Forget about wands and scrolls! I'm only ever going to use magic candles from now on!

DM: "A large party of orcs rounds the corner and nearly bumps into you. You have a moment to act as they hesitate from the surprise encounter."
Player:: "I light my Candle of Sleep!"
DM: "You begin rooting through your backpack for your tinder box as the orcs begin reaching for their weapons."
Player:: "I hurry up and light that candle!"
DM:: "The orcs seem slightly amused that you're fumbling in your pack and begin to laugh as you pull out your flint and steel and begin trying to ignite the wick."
Player:: "Come on! Come on!"
DM:: "The biggest orc starts miming your actions and then makes a rude gesture toward his crotch as you finally get a spark that lights the candle."
Player:: "I hold the candle aloft and yell, 'Naptime, jerks!'"
DM:: "It's just as you finish your one-liner that you realize a few of the labels have fallen off your candles and you've apparently lit the wrong one. The cave begins to fill with a deadly chlorine gas."
Player:: "I light my Candle of Sweet Smell!"

At least the artist, Thomas Baxa, attempted to make candles look cool.

I hear loud guitar riffs and high-pitched scream-singing when I look at this.

Dragon Magazine #179, Part One: the Cover

“Hey, you think this floating sword is trapped?”
“I don’t know. Take off your shirt and poke it with a stick.”

The copy on the cover of this issue reads, "No risk is too great for magical treasure." If two sad and pathetic friends had been arguing with each other over the last fifteen years whether or not Dragon Magazine was for real roleplayers or fucking Munchkins, they finally received clarification on the issue (literally! Right there on the cover!). Who the fuck risks their character for a piece of treasure?! That question was rhetorical because I've spent a non-zero amount of time watching players implode during games I've been running as soon as they lost their favorite magic item.

DM: "Your Axe of Flight is knocked out of your hands by a well placed arrow, landing behind the five giant trolls of invulnerability. You tumble a safe distance away with only minor wounds. The trolls begin scanning the area looking for where you've landed."
Player: "My axe! I get up and charge the trolls!"
DM: "The trolls of invulnerability? All five of them? The ones that don't currently know you've landed a safe distance away with a clear getaway?"
Player:: "Yeah! Try to take away my axe away, will you?! I'll show you, you prick!"
DM:: "You did see the critical hit with that arrow shot, right?
Player: "Yeah but you could have had the arrow rip off my testicles. Why my axe?!"
DM:: "Okay, fine. You charge the trolls. The largest one with the spear has initiative."
Player: "Whatever."
DM: "The troll's blow smashes through your leg and into the pelvis, caving in the lower abdomen. Blood showers the troll. You collapse dying almost instantly from shock and blood loss."
Player:: "Fuck you."

I still play Fortnite with that player. She regularly throws games away by looting piles of weapons while the storm eats away at her health. She should be reading Dragon Magazine!

I made up some stuff in that mini-drama but the essence of it is true. I didn't really have creatures called trolls of invulnerability. They were some kind of Samurai Ogres that the adventurers encountered as they left the European part of the Warhammer world and traveled east over the World's Edge Mountains. It's also possible that this player didn't quite realize that the point of leaving their usual stomping grounds was because they had grown too powerful there and that, perhaps, the creatures they were about to face were more of a challenge. Or maybe some people just can't separate their character from their character's possessions.

Although maybe that copy on the cover was just to indicate this issue would have a bunch of new magic items? Sometimes I get a little heated about stuff that is instantly clarified as soon as I shut up and listen.

New Titans #106

New Titans is an anagram for Ew! Nan's tit!

For years, the standard method of making a boring character like Cyborg more interesting was to upgrade him and make him more powerful. This means Cyborg is now a member of the Justice League with Apokoliptian technology that's practically magic but his personality remains "a guy who sometimes yells 'Booyah!'" Perhaps the worst writing decision Marv Wolfman ever made (and he's made a lot of them! Remember, he's the guy who created Trigon, the demon who loves raping things) was not outright killing Cyborg during the Wildebeest story arc. I suppose when you create a character, killing it means also killing the lucrative "character created by" royalty money! I'm only guessing that the money is lucrative and that there is any money at all.

Look at that cover. It just screams, "You will be bored by this comic book!" No, it doesn't scream that. It says it in a dull monotone. Why does Arsenal look so smug? Is it because he needs to emote for everybody else? Why include a close up of Phantasm when he's incapable of expressing anything?

I just read this comic book and it's more boring than even the cover suggests. Cyborg didn't get an upgrade at all! All he does is wake up. If he did get an upgrade while he slept, who can tell? He never gets a chance to show off any powers at all! Not that he has many. At this point in his story, if he managed to do anything other than blast somebody with his white noise cannon, I'd consider it an upgrade.

By the end of the issue, Cyborg is awake, Arsenal is suspicious, and Technis has traveled to Earth to take over. So maybe the Titans will save the world finally!

New Titans #106 Rating: Terrible! I bought this comic book when I was twenty-one years old. That's embarrassing! But I suppose I should blame the thirteen year old who began reading this series. The twenty-one year old was just a slave to the need to collect every issue after that. Luckily Zero Year came along and taught me to stop thinking comic book continuity meant anything. Crisis on Infinite Earths tricked me into thinking DC cared about continuity and that every story in a about a character mattered to the overall tapestry of that character's life. But then Zero Year came out and I was all, "Oh. I get it. Continuity is all bullshit." One thing rereading comic books from my youth has definitely taught me: I wasn't smart.

New Titans #105

Arsenal might look better without the chaps but think of all the pockets he lost.

When a lot of your days are filled with thoughts like "Is this all there is?" and "How much longer must I suffer these fools?", it's easy to shrug your shoulders and spend the day reading back issues of Marv Wolfman's New Titans. It's either that or eat more sugar than my body knows what to do with. Either way, I'm looking forward to a lot of naps today.

Also, I suppose when I say "It's either do this or do that," I'm leaving out a lot of other possibilities. I suppose I could spend the weekend learning a new skill or reading a great piece of literature. I suppose I could spend the day speculating about even more things that would be a better use of my time than reading an old issue of New Titans but then I'd just have to list every possibility that might be open to me if I wasn't so completely fucking tired of living.

This is probably the moment in my after-school special where I finally understand Hamlet.

It's a pretty sad after-school special because it follows me well into my forties and I never learn a negative lesson from taking drugs.

This issue begins by remembering that Starfire and Nightwing were once major characters in this book. It's hard to imagine that only five issues ago, they were almost married. I would say they were married but whichever editor answers the letters was fairly adamant that the marriage was never legally completed. His two main arguments were that the priest never said "man and wife" and that the marriage document was never signed. Which is weird because isn't that usually signed before the wedding? Who wants to deal with the bureaucracy of marriage when you're rushing off to fuck for the presumably first time?! I signed my friend Doom Bunny's wedding papers as the witness. But since I signed "Ben Dover," I don't think he's legally married either.

Anyway, Starfire has decided to watch Councilwoman Alderman as she's moved into her new home, Nordling Asylum. She contemplates killing her because doesn't the councilwoman deserve to die? After all the truth she's told about the Titans? How dare she point out that they're reckless and dangerous and have hurt New York way more than they've helped New York? But she refrains and decides to do a sexy dance against the asylum's fence instead.

It's also possible she's shitting in her space diaper.

Nightwing arrives to scowl for four or five panels. He explains his motivation going forward for the next few months of this comic book. He's going to destroy Raven's soulself and help Starfire move past being raped on their wedding day by Raven's soulself. "It's like raaAAaaAAaape on your wedding day! It's free fries when you've already paid!" One thing we never appreciated Alanis for is kick-starting the national conversation on how many of us never really understood the definition of irony.

Meanwhile on Technis, this conversation is going on:

Technician: "We need Cyborg's soul to survive."
Changeling: "You can't have it!"
Technician: "But without his soul, we won't survive. And if we don't survive, we can't save Cyborg."
Changeling: "Never!"
Technician: "Are you even listening to us anymore? We're going to save your friend so he can save us."
Changeling: "Over my dead body!"

The Technicians use Changeling's memories to convince him that they just want to help. Most of his memories are about dead people so Gar just winds up crying a lot.

Gar can only express his emotions while doing a Buddy Hackett impression.

Pantha decides it's time to show some depth of character so instead of making a joke about Gar's mullet (mostly because the Beastie Boys had yet to let everybody know that it wasn't the best look), she gives him a hug and a pep talk. She feels he's lucky to have been given a hallucination of two people who might be his parents by suspicious alien computer people and hopes maybe they'll do the same for her. That way, she can learn if she's a human or a cat (and by "learn," of course I mean "told a probable lie by creatures she can't trust but she's still willing to believe because she's desperate and credulous). But Gar doesn't buy it! He's still suspicious and he's got the face to prove it!

Red Star is either burping or practicing sucking cock.

The Titans agree to let the little computer people help Vic except Roy doesn't completely trust them. He breaks into the central processing unit causing a feedback loop that brings Vic back to life without becoming a pawn of the Technicians. But Pantha doesn't find out if she's half-cat and half-human or the other way around (which is different somehow). Maybe that'll be next issue.

New Titans #105 Rating: The New Titans continue to not help anybody. Worse, Starfire contemplates murdering the only person who has consistently pointed out how terrible the team is at doing their job. I suppose it's okay now that Wolfman revealed Councilwoman Alderman was evil. Do you think Marv realized at some point that Alderman's arguments were truthful and convincing so instead of fixing the narrative, he just decided to make her evil? And somehow that's supposed to taint the truth of her opinions. "She may have been right about the Titans being a menace to New York City, but now that we've discovered she's evil, we should probably disregard her powerful and insightful arguments!" This issue was the worst issue in a long time because Cyborg was finally revived at the end. Boo! Hiss! Go back into a coma, you ennui machine!