Pyramid 3.13 review

[Kuroshima]

Well, Pyramid 3.13 is out, and I think it's one of the greatest issues of the new era Pyramid. Never before has the magazine packed a so high amount of pure awesome. I'll proceed to review it, article per article:

• The Magic of Stories
  Ratting: 10+/10
  This article is ABSOLUTELY brilliant. It's just that good. It doesn't hurt that I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett's witches stories (as well as the rest of the Discworld saga) AND Mercedes Lackey 500 kingdoms series (as well as her other works). Wonderful advice on how to have faerie tale magic in your games. Definitively excellent.
• The Mystic Knight
  Ratting: N/A
  I'm not going to comment or rate my own article. I'll just say that I hope that you'll enjoy it, and that it's possibly, IMHO, the worst of the issue
• Wizard's Squares
  Ratting: N/A
  An interesting puzzle, something that I might use in my DF campaign. One of the best Pyramid props. I haven't rated it, because it is quite difficult to rate, and, as with the other props, it's use is tangential at best
• Salving Magic
  Ratting: 7/10
  Possibly the weakest article, of those that I'm going to rate. Interesting, and can serve to allow wizards in DF and DF-like games to have access to healing magic, without stealing the bang from clerics.
• The book of Null
  Ratting: 9/10
  Damn, this article oozes flavor. Fantasy horror in it's best incarnation. It can be used in DF (in fact it would be an excellent centerpiece to a DF plot) but it's also extremely useful in more traditional GURPS fantasy games. I've yet to see a fantasy setting where this wouldn't look cool. It deals with a cursed artifact, and it's effects on the game world
• Red Diabolism
  Ratting: 10/10
  If I ever run a modern urban fantasy game, a la WoD/Dresden Files/Anita Blake/... this is going to make an appearance. Hell, I might soup it up a little, and use it once I resume my Supers campaign. This magic is NASTY, with capital letters.
• Random Though Table
  Ratting: 7.5/10
  Steven, don't take me wrong, but your columns don't usually inspire me very much. Now, this one, this one I LOVED. Yeah, I've gone though that too. I can actually put images and sounds to your narration, out of my memories. A very good dissertation on the urges of very roleplayer wishing to personalize the magic system of his first games, and good advice to avoid having magic end up looking like accounting.
• Odds and Ends
  • Magic Item: The Spell Bottle:
    Ratting: 8/10
    I'm going to use this in my DF campaign, for sure. In fact, the delvers are going to find a dozen single use of these bottles (I'm going to mix the idea here, with the more powerful spirit bottles from DF6: 40 artifacts)
  • Shield's Up
    Ratting: N/A
    Again I'm not going to rate my own articles. I have to thank Steven Marsh for editting this, as it was cut form the original manuscript of my article, for the reasons exposed in the first paragraph, and when he told me it could be included in this section, I had to cobble up an intro paragraph in a hurry, and I must say, it showed. Steven cleared the intro quite a lot
  • Murphy's Rules
    Ratting: N/A
    I've always been a fan of the Murphy's Rules cartoons, but i know that the humor in them is not for everyone. This one might be a little less inspired than most though.

Overal ratting: 9
Absolutely worth getting. If you haven't got a copy in your e23 account already, what are you doing? I don't care if it means you can't pay for your lunch and dinner tomorow, send your $ to Steve Jackson Games!