Dear Arbiter of Subscriptions:

After weeks and months of enduring unalterable empitness, I, not knowing what had drawn from me that from which I drew life and joy, was driven to hearken a tremendous Voice I felt compelled to obey. Fasting piously (well, not exactly quite piously); I recall thinking that the Voice told me that I could drink beer and eat those Handi-snacks (the ones with the crackers on one side and the cheese in the other, with the little, red, plastic knife to spread with), but I'm not sure.

After 79 minutes of fasting (the auditory hallucainations inspired by pasteurized cheese and five bottles of Killian's Irish Red) the Voice spoke again from where I cannot know, and it left me curled up in a ball, completely nude, save for a single paisley sock on my left foot. And my eyeglasses. In any event, upon waking, I was drawn to correspond with any sentient being at the address above.

[Ask for a subscription - Voice]

I would appreciate if you could see it clear to loan me a year's subscription to your magazine. It would make me very happy, and I strongly believe that it would fill the painful void I feet in my soul. In lieu of $20, I'm willing to invite your entire editorial staff to my house for Killian's and Handi-snacks.

[They won't just loan you their magazine, even if you do offer selections from the "AA Cookbook." Try 20 bucks.]

Hmmm... ok. How 'bout I send you $10 and a case of crunchy frog chocolates in exchange for a subscription?

[Who ever heard of "crunchy frog"? Why not give them a credit card number? I think that there's enough on the Visa, even after those garish Monica dolls.]

If you want, I can give you a credit card number to cover the Subscription. Why don't you give this a shot?

xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

That should do it, I feel better already.

[Don't forget - you can ask them for gifts, too.]

Oh, yeah. could you send along one of those expensive Star Wars AT-AT walker toys, some plastic flutes, and lemon Pez?

[You're an idiot.]

Right. How about Table Master? If that's not available, you can lob a copy of Harnmaster at me. If that's not around, can we go back to the Pez? One more thing: can you send along a copy of your writers' guidelines as well? In Dutch? Great.

Anyway, thanks [yeah, thanks - this Smale guy is really getting on my divine nerves]. I appreciate your ability to service my needs.

Cordially,
Dr,. Erin D. Smale, D.D.

Dear SHADIS,

We were happy to see the adventure "By the Book" in Issue #48, but a rather important part got deleted. Its villain, setting, and plot were originally from the 1996 Earthdawn Tournament at GenCon, and we specifically asked the other tournament designers if we could use it, because their contributions were extremely important. Their one condition was that we give credit where credit is due. If you could print the following errata, we would greatly appreciate it.

errata:

The Earthdawn adventure "By the Book" (Issue #48) was not conceived by Chris Hepler and Jennifer Brandes (not, as printed in the table of contents, Jennifer Hepler and Chris Brandes) alone. They give special thanks to Carl Anderson, Al Beardsley, Todd Boiling, Mike Colton, Dave Hixon, Lyle Jaeger, and Dave Wood, all of whom were instrumental in creating and running the adventure at the 1996 Gen Con Eartholawn tournament. The adventure statistics are batanced for player characters of Fifth through Seventh Circle.

Thanks.

--Chris Hepler and Jennifer Brandes

We will be unable to print that errata. I'm sorry, but your friends are obviously just not important enough.