Dragonfire Issue 4 by Andrew Babcock

Seth Stauffer

Lunitar Productions has published a fourth offering of its free magazine, DragonFire. There are a few changes in this edition that reflect a modified editorial mandate. DragonFire will now be distributed every other month, as opposed to monthly, with a focus on crafting a more polished product. Very little else has changed, and the magazine returns with a variety of content for gamers.

The push towards creating a more quality product shows. There are fewer typos and formatting errors, for example. What’s more, everything else is consistent with the first three issues. A serialized tale that has spanned these first four issues has been a fun, dark fantasy story called The Path of Shadows. It should pick back up again in the fifth installment of the magazine. This fourth issue also credits an artist, Robert James, whose work is a fresh addition to the text. Collaborations and submissions have been sparse, thus far for DragonFire, but a guest artist is a good sign that the magazine is growing. 

A peculiar addition to the magazine was the Shadowdark zine, published inside DragonFire. I had the impression that this was a complete, and maybe even previously published, work inside this new volume. It had what looked to be both a front and rear cover. I like the commitment to completeness, but if people already have this because it was released elsewhere, then it may be a deterrent to wanting to read this. For a readily available product, DragonFire is a good value. Gamers will seek out products to try out at the gaming table, and ‘free’ is always makes something an enticing option. If this new schedule delivers similar quality subject matter, then the changes Lunitar Productions is making will improve it. There is still room for growth, and after four issues, DragonFire is (largely) still a one-person show. Perhaps there is a particular type of work that would be desirable? More art? Modules? Stat blocks? Something else? At this point, I’d have to guess that either the magazine has a somewhat limited exposure, or people aren’t sure of what’s being requested. Regardless, this issue is a step up from the previous releases