Dr Simon Reads...

Issue 5: The Bogy White Dwarf issue 5 includes part 2 of Don Turnbull’s “ Monsters Mild and Malign ” article, which picks some of his favourite creatures published in the earlier magazines Dungeoneer (edited by Paul Jaquays) and Alarums and Excursions (edited by Lee Gold). Rather charmingly, Don assumes that the reader has already read these publications, which sort of suggests a kind of small-group cosy hobbyist feel to the early days of D&D. Also of note, is that Don doesn’t really give much detail on each of the monsters, certainly not always enough to be useful in play. Well, either that, or these early monsters were little more than armour class, hit points and damage. First up are the Fuzzy and the Steely , which are billed as being alternative beholders, but what they are, in effect, are globes with eye-stalks/tentacles that make attacks. The Fuzzy, for example, has three tentacles that can reach 10 feet and deliver a paralysing sting attack. The Steely is similar, b...

  Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N Part Ten: Lord Dunsany This is an ongoing sporadic series, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. Appendix N is the bibliography of Gary Gygax's original Dungeon Masters Guide, and lists a range of classic SF and fantasy authors that influenced his interest in the fantastical. See  the first part of this series  for more information. This time around, I have reached the works of:   Lord Dunsany Or more properly, Edward John Morton Drax Plunkett, 18 th Earl of Dunsany. I’m not sure of Gary Gygax thought of him in the same format as “Ellington, Duke” when he catalogued him as “Dunsay, Lord”, but it doesn’t really matter if it’s not technically the correct way to reference a Lord. It’s better to get Dunsany out of the way quite early on, since his work informs so many other writers.   Born in 1878, Plunkett is probably the earliest author in Appendix N, published from 1905 ( The Gods of Pegana ) up until ar...

Dhammapada Part Two: Heedfulness Watch Out, Icabod Crane. “ Heedfulness is the path to the Deathless. Heedlessness is the path to death. The heedful die not. The heedless are as if dead already.” Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Dhammapada). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Dhammapada, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/3IbwtwE For the online Dhammapada that I use, see here https://bit.ly/3IgCiJr And now: Dhammapada Part Two: Heedfulness I think heedlessness is probably my natural state, bumbling through life like Mr Magoo. Just a quick note that, even though this section is only 12 verses (covering 21 to 32), the words “ heedfulness ” and “ heedlessness ” get repeated so many times they begin to look like nonsense words. Or, as happened in my mind, “ headlessness ”. Which, I guess, is pretty similar in m...

Issue 4: Death Snake White Dwarf 3 again has no monster statistics, and the first true “new monsters” column can be found in WD4, an article title “ Monsters Mild and Malign ” edited by that master of the prolix, Don Turnbull. To begin his column, Don trawls through other magazines such as Paul Jaquays’ Dungeoneer , and White Dwarf’s predecessor Owl and Weasel , and picks out a few of his favourite creatures. As Don himself says, “ I prefer [a monster] to be self-consistent and in some ways vaguely credible in the context of its surroundings. More, I prefer it to have interesting, even humorous or asinine qualities and to make me wonder what the hell to do with it when I come across it .” As we will see in issues to come, Don certainly does like the humorous and asinine. First up is the Glitch , a tiny furball that follows adventurers around, causing everything they (and the monsters that they encounter) to keep going wrong. Very much an “early dungeon crawl” style of monster. Th...

  Dhammapada 1 The Pairs ( Yamakavagga) Don’t Be A Leaky Roof   “ Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox ”   Welcome to the first instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Dhammapada). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Dhammapada, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/3IbwtwE For the online Dhammapada that I use, see here https://bit.ly/3IgCiJr And now: Dhammapada 1 The Pairs ( Yamakavagga) I’m going to admit that I had this chapter already written up, and then accidentally saved over it, so this is a rerun and will probably be (mercifully) shorter. This first chapter is known as “Pairs” because it is written as a series of paired verses, each one playing off its par...

Welcome to a new series, and this one’s a bit different. This time I’m looking through the first 50 issues of White Dwarf magazines, but rather than simply reading and discussing things, I’m focussing on the monster entries that were sent in by readers and contributors, choosing one per issue, and attempting to convert it into D&D 5 th edition statistics. But of course it’s not just going to be game mechanics. There’s an interesting exercise here in studying the early days of role-playing games through the changing style of the submissions, even when focussed only on the “monsters” for one game. White Dwarf Issue 1 doesn’t have any new monsters, nor very little in the way of game mechanic-style stuff at all, save for a magic item called the Helm of Vision, and the dubiously tasteful “joke” Pervert character class, and the start of Don Turnbull’s ponderous “Monstermark” system used to calculate a kind of early Challenge Rating, but to three decimal places! Consequently, we need to ...