Review: Kobold Quarterly #13  

Posted by Spenser Isdahl in , , ,

It's that time again, kids! Now, gather 'round so Uncle Spenser can tell you about the new issue of Kobold Quarterly* and how I came to possess it.

It was a cool spring day, not more than a week ago, that I was approached by a member of the shadowy reptilian enclave that prints and binds Quarterly. I was tending to my studies at the time, perhaps lost in thought over the depths of ancestral literature or the lost history of some defunct nation, locked away in my quarters in any event. I recall now it was long past sundown, as candle wax had glued several pages of my notes together. It was then that the one the kobolds call Shelly came before me.

It must have been nearing the witching hour. I first felt a tingling in my fingertips, and though I never set eyes on the Serpent Queen, I was sure she stood just over my shoulder. She spoke—ah! her voice, remembering it, even now, sends me reeling with thoughts of ecstasy and darkness—of the new lore her mongrel minions had uncovered, deep in the forbidden recesses of the earth. It was perhaps more fear than anything else that broke my will to resist the temptress's offer.

I felt a cold nail dig into the flesh of my neck, though it left no mark, so all that followed may have been naught but a dream or nightmare. The lore she spoke of flashed before my eyes with no need to paper or ink. The last thing my cursed mind recalls was, again, her voice—and perhaps the lash of a forked tongue?—asking me, commanding me: Tell the others.

I woke the next day miles from the safety of my quarters, clutching a few illegible notes I'd managed to scrawl during the night: Cook, the famed havoc mage, rambles for pages on his theories of the Unknown, and ought to fascinate even the sanest among you, and is matched only by the vulgar rantings of Mario Podeschi in his essay on sex and romance—both men write admirably on how to enhance the private worlds we mages spin. Maurice de Mare documents well both the bloodlines and the wizardly study of Shadow magic for the Pathfinders among you, and may we all pray he doesn't disappear down some shady alley for his efforts. Ryan Costello also documents recent and, might I add, very exiting Gnomish advances in flying technology; on a similar note, and David Mallon has thoroughly itemized the capabilities of these so-called firearms I've been hearing so much about, as well as the people who use them. There is also talk of dark gods and strange beasts, but I dare not describe them myself.

For obvious reasons, I cannot recommend you, my fair-minded readers, subject yourselves to the document in question, but it may already be too late for you to turn your back, and if I were to venture numerical summation, I'd assert a 7 out of 10.

Just don't come to me for help when it's you the Serpent Queen visits next.

*I received a free review copy of the magazine but was not compensated in any other way for this review.

This entry was posted on April 12, 2010 at Monday, April 12, 2010 and is filed under , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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