Dr Simon Reads...

Issue 18 Mandrake People/Phung Two, yes two, count ‘em, Monsters of the Week this issue. But more on that later. In Issue 18, the mantle of editing the Fiend Factory passes from Don Turnbull to Albie Fiore, with little comment except a mention at the end that he has “stepped down from the post of editing this section due to the pressures of work”. I think Don takes on a larger role at TSR UK for a while, and has a role in Imagine magazine – although I note that this issue is April/May 1980 and Issue 1 of Imagine is April 1983, so evidently Don didn’t just swap one magazine for another. And so we enter the Albie Fiore era, which to my mind has some of the best Fiend Factory creations. And this issue also features Albie Fiore’s excellent scenario The Halls of Tizun Thane, for 1 st /2 nd level characters, but with the unusual-sounding concept of 3-6 players with 6-12 characters. Did people regularly run 2 characters each back in 1980? I think we did on occasion, but not as the norm...

Dhammapada Part Fifteen: Happiness (Sukhavagga) But What Kind of Conditioning? “ Happy indeed we live, friendly amidst the hostile. Amidst hostile men we dwell free from hatred.” 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 Fifteen: Happiness (Sukhavagga) This little section goes into a further discussion about the benefits of non-attachment, starting with a series of verses with a repeating motif, following on from Verse 1 quoted above. I’m going to give them in full, because, why not? “ Happy indeed we live, friendly amidst the afflicted (by craving). Amidst afflicted men we dwell free from affliction. Happy indeed we ...

Issue 17 Bodach As with the previous issue, the monsters features in this issue’s Fiend Factory are “near misses” that for various reasons didn’t make it into the Fiend Folio. First up, the Night Rider from Chris Morris (but probably not the Chris Morris of Brass Eye fame) It’s pretty clear from the stats that these are basically Tolkien’s Ringwraiths, although I rather like the Russ Nicholson illustration that makes them look more like gaunt humans. They pretty much follow Ringwraith abilities – near blind in sunlight and having to rely on smell, emanating an aura of fear, and sometimes wield a dagger that can break off in the wearer and alter their alignment. Don Turnbull seems at a loss to understand how this could happen, which once again seems to illustrate a certain rigidity to his thought on how The Rules should work. It’s kind of odd, since this is pure Rule 0 stuff, and surely things that Don has published in the past, like the Withra, are as much subject to this as the...

Dhammapada Part Fourteen: The Buddha (Buddhavagga) How To Become A Buddha (Sort Of). “ By what track can you trace that trackless Buddha of limitless range, whose victory nothing can undo, whom none of the vanquished defilements can ever pursue?” 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 Fourteen: The Buddha (Buddhavagga) This chapter is not so much about the Buddha Gotama, but Buddhas, Enlightened Ones, in general. It’s mainly a paeon of praise towards those who have become Buddhas, how they “ are devoted to meditation and who delight in the calm of renunciation ” and consequently “in whom exists no longer, the entanglin...

Issue 16 Man-Scorpion White Dwarf issue 16 proves to be thin pickings for the Fiend Factory. There is an excellent article by Lew Pulsipher that attempts to provide D&D stats for monsters Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant novels (or, at least, the first trilogy at this point). Most of them are simple modifications of existing creatures – the Khresh, for example, are simply dire wolves. There are some great illustrations by Russ Nicholson, but on balance I’m not going to do any of these. Two reasons, really. Firstly I’d like to stick to the Fiend Factory as much as possible, expect for bonus creatures. Second, I’d also like to stay away from creatures obviously drawn from specific fictional sources (with one or two exceptions in future). Which brings us to the Fiend Factory proper. First up is J.D. Morris’ Tenser Beast , which is a kind of permanent Tenser’s Floating Disc spell that spins really, really, fast. It’s okay, but to me it seems more of a one-off ro...