Close
Close
Advanced Search

AC4 The Book of Marvelous Magic (Basic/1e)Click to magnify
Quick Preview
/gs_flipbook/flip.php?xml=/demo_xml/17173.xml&w=500&h=337
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.dmsguild.com/pdf_previews/17173-sample.pdf

AC4 The Book of Marvelous Magic (Basic/1e)

ADD TO WISHLIST >

"Tell me, teacher?How does one open the cabinet of security? Of what use is the banner of bravery? And what are the limits of the sun deck? My books and scrolls tell me nothing about many of the magical treasures I've heard you mention time and again."

"No, Phaedras, your manuscripts are too general. But since you have inquired, I will allow you to peruse this, one of my most treasured volumes?The Book of Marvelous Magic. It will answer your questions."

And now you, too, can learn the secrets that were revealed to Phaedras! The Book of Marvelous Magic is the ultimate sourcebook on magical items and their twists and quirks. Over 500 new magical items are described in detail. An appendix describes how these items can be used with the AD&D game.

Product History

AC4: The Book of Marvelous Magic (1985), by Frank Mentzer with Gary Gygax, is the fourth Game Accessory for the Basic D&D Game. It was published in February 1985.

About the Cover. This Clyde Caldwell cover of a striking sorceress in a vault of magic is probably better known as the cover of Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991), one of the Gold Box D&D computer games.

About the Internal Illustrations. Despite its rudimentary layout, Marvelous Magic has rather larger margins. It also has huge borders on its illustration. Mentzer says he feels that "the product designers got out of hand" and that they "cut a lot of text to maintain that useless and boring format". He wrote about 30% more material than ended up in the final book.

Origins (I): Higher AC. Moving into its fourth product, the "AC" line continued to be somewhat erratic. After an interesting debut with AC1: "The Shady Dragon Inn" (1983), the next two supplements had been a combat screen and a set of "Dragon Tiles", each with a short adventure. The Book of Marvelous Magic was then the only particularly notable release during the middle of the AC run. Two different sets of player character sheets, another GM's screen, and another set of Dragon Tiles would follow. The line wouldn't settle back into producing memorable supplements until late in its life, beginning with AC9: Creature Catalogue (1986).

Origins (II): Interesting Authorship. The author line of Marvelous Magic reads "Frank Mentzer and Gary Gygax". As it happens, Gygax was getting a lot of credits in 1985, even when he wasn't very involved in the projects — though Marvelous Magic is probably the least known of these "joint" works.

In this case, Mentzer says he did 95-99% of the work. A few of Mentzer's items came from the Lake Geneva incarnation of his Aquaria campaign, but most of them were written by Mentzer over just a two-week period! Mentzer showed the manuscript to Gygax, who suggested that he could add a few things, then submit it to Production himself, and Mentzer would earn more money as a result — though there were also larger financial reasons for putting Gygax's name on products in 1985.

Several other people are credited for additional contributions: Mark Acres, David "Zeb" Cook, Tracy Hickman, Doug Niles, Penny Petticord, John Pickens, Gali Sanchez, Carl Smith, Garry Spiegle, and Skip Williams.

Origins (III): Miscellaneous Magic. Magic items first appeared in OD&D (1974), which even included a category for "miscellaneous magic" — a set of 23 magic items that ran from "crystal balls" to the "mirror of life trapping". Marvelous Magic is the newest incarnation of that "misc. magic" section, but massively expanded. It includes all the miscellaneous magic items that had appeared in the Mentzer Basic (1983), Expert (1983), and Companion (1984) sets, plus about 500 more.

Adventure Tropes: Satire. Some of the items in Marveouls Magic have punny names, such as the Drag Net, the Gaff of Gaffes, the Revolving Door, the Half Mast, and the Hard-Boiled Egg. Some are just punny, like the Gavel of Auctions and the Gong of Butler Summoning. Mentzer says, "The puns are a long tradition, started by Gary in the '60s." More generally, they represented the sense of humor at Lake Geneva.

Expanding D&D. Marvelous Magic offers the biggest expansion of miscellaneous magic ever for any D&D game. And how do you organize all those items? Marvelous Magic sticks with alphabetical order, though it also has random charts for some unusual categories such as "animal-related items", "paper and related items", "tools and hardware", and "travel items" (optionally, "land and air" or "water").

Expanding AD&D. Marvelous Magic was the second Basic D&D book to also support AD&D play, after AC3: "The Kidnapping of Princess Arelina" (1984). However, unlike "Kidnapping", Marvelous Magic actually discusses the topic a bit, with a short essay that (rather intriguingly) lays out the difference between Basic D&D and AD&D as seen by TSR in the mid '80s.

The article states that Basic D&D was "easy to modify" and had actually become "easier to modify" as details were added in the Mentzer BECMI books (1983-1985), because these expanded details were treated as "options". In contrast, TSR saw AD&D as "more complex" and so "very difficult to modify properly". This matched with TSR's general claims that no on one should change the way AD&D was played … but apparently the same rules didn't apply to the Basic game!

About the Creators. Mentzer was the architect behind the BECMI series of Basic D&D boxes. This was his first supplement for the game system. It would be followed by one adventure, IM1: "The Immortal Storm" (1986). Gygax was of course the co-creator of D&D, but was little involved in this project, despite his name being on the cover.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (3)
Discussions (4)
Customer avatar
Joshy K August 27, 2022 5:02 am UTC
i would definitely get a print-on-demand (:
Customer avatar
Michael B November 06, 2021 11:15 pm UTC
PURCHASER
POD please!
Customer avatar
Scott R September 10, 2021 9:44 pm UTC
POD, please.
Customer avatar
Brian E July 10, 2021 6:54 pm UTC
how about putting this out there as a POD, softcover?!?!?!?
Browse Categories
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!















Product Information
Gold seller
Rules Edition(s)
Pages
76
Edition
1.0
Publisher Stock #
TSR 9116
File Size:
55.41 MB
Format
Scanned image Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Information
Watermarked PDF Click for more information
Watermarked PDF

These PDF files are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the PDF containing your name and the order number of your purchase.

Warning: If any files bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.

Here is a sample of a page from a watermarked title:

File Last Updated:
July 04, 2016
This title was added to our catalog on July 05, 2016.