Sanglorian
Adventurer
Zogonia is probably my favourite Dragon strip.
Let's read the entire run
Zogonia is probably my favourite Dragon strip.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 289: November 2001
part 3/7
The history of the ninja: Curiously enough, OA didn't include a ninja core class, instead splitting the concept up over a whole bunch of different prestige classes, just as 1e ninja were a split class that combined with all sorts of other core classes. Not that this hurts their popularity. If anything, it makes them stand out as getting special treatment all the more. But anyway, it's time to do the historical accuracy thing before we bring in the fantastical elements. If ninjas appeared these days, they'd be called dangerous terrorists, and demonised in the media, as after all, they were formed by families of poor people who couldn't use conventional means to fight the rigid established order, so they had to be sneaky and dishonorable and use whatever tricks worked to succeed. They even involved women in their fighting and information gathering. (shock horror) That they managed to become cool and popular is a testament to the power of distance and public relations. (and also how obnoxious and stompy the samurai could be when dealing with peasants) Plus there's the fact that they were notoriously low on collateral damage in their strikes, which you certainly can't say for modern terrorists. So this makes it clear how they differ from simple rogues, with a strong emphasis on family loyalty, secrecy, and doing things to fulfil a bigger agenda that they may not know all the details of. Having them in a party and keeping the fact that you are one secret from the other players makes for interesting but ultimately unstable stories. It also has some information on the various skillsets they trained in, and what feats and skills you should concentrate on for each. After all, they didn't actually have superhuman abilities, even if it might have seemed like it from the outside. Overall, this is one of those articles that's decent, but not great, and feels very much like a warm-up for the rest of the features. I doubt anyone reading this doesn't know what ninja are, but they might have seen nothing but pop culture versions. That actually might need fixing, you never know.
Silent warriors: Having got the historical stuff out the way, here's three more ninja prestige classes, concentrating on different areas of expertise. Maybe you'll get to epic levels and master all possible areas of expertise, but I doubt it. Plus they have mutually exclusive alignment requirements, which kinda puts a crimp in that plan. So let's see just how broad a church ninjing is, and what schisms are found within it's congregation.
Poison Fists are pretty self-explanatory. Their monkly powers let them poison enemies with their unarmed strikes, resist poison from others, and shapeshift into a tiny venomous creature to get into places and deliver stealthy death. While not bad in a fight, they're obviously intended to be the type of adversaries who prefer to kill without ever giving you a chance to fight back, by poisoning your food, or maybe bedclothes, hat, sword hilt, whatever would be ironically appropriate and not immediately thought of by the detectives. Honor? What kind of chump do you take me for? We're in this to win.
Ghost-faced Killers specialise in the invisibility, and eventually incorporeality business, allowing them to strike mysteriously anywhere, and also serve as a counter-squad for anyone dealing with actual ghosts and extraplanar creatures. They get full BAB, 1/3 sneak attack progression, and the full set of mundane stealth skills, which means they can also hit hard once they get wherever they're trying to sneak. Unless your place has extensive magical protections, you're probably in trouble.
Weightless Feet are of course all about going wuxia on your ass. Up walls, across water, off cliffs, and eventually full-on flight at 10th level. They get full BAB too, and are relatively easy to get into, so they can still be full frontal combat characters. They're a good deal less stealthy than the other two, and also more slanted towards being good guys, so they seem like the one PC's will most want to take. All of these seem pretty solid though, neither too strong or too weak. Individuals may stray from the path, but the balance as a whole will remain.
Levelled treasures: Bonded weapons which upgrade to keep pace with their owners aren't an exclusively oriental idea, but they have just been introduced to 3e in the OA book. Of course, the fact that unless the DM is being very stingy indeed with treasure, this actually results in Samurai being even weaker than a straight fighter of the same level is an issue. But they don't know that yet, and they have a cool idea to sell to us. So here's general mechanics for upgrading your magical weapons and armor, adding more plusses and powers at the cost of gold and xp. This means it's obviously aimed at fighty classes who couldn't make their own items anyway. And since they still won't have the same flexibility in choosing their powers, this throws into sharp relief one of the persistent balance problems in 3e, leaving me frustrated rather than excited. Definitely a case where more work is needed. Come back in a few years time, maybe, let's see how 3.5 treats you.
Palladium make an appearance in the first time in several years. I guess they've decided to go back to advertising other RPG's rather than taking the computer game dollar the whole time. Lots of new books available from these guys.
part 3/7
The history of the ninja: Curiously enough, OA didn't include a ninja core class, instead splitting the concept up over a whole bunch of different prestige classes, just as 1e ninja were a split class that combined with all sorts of other core classes. Not that this hurts their popularity. If anything, it makes them stand out as getting special treatment all the more. But anyway, it's time to do the historical accuracy thing before we bring in the fantastical elements. If ninjas appeared these days, they'd be called dangerous terrorists, and demonised in the media, as after all, they were formed by families of poor people who couldn't use conventional means to fight the rigid established order, so they had to be sneaky and dishonorable and use whatever tricks worked to succeed. They even involved women in their fighting and information gathering. (shock horror) That they managed to become cool and popular is a testament to the power of distance and public relations. (and also how obnoxious and stompy the samurai could be when dealing with peasants) Plus there's the fact that they were notoriously low on collateral damage in their strikes, which you certainly can't say for modern terrorists. So this makes it clear how they differ from simple rogues, with a strong emphasis on family loyalty, secrecy, and doing things to fulfil a bigger agenda that they may not know all the details of. Having them in a party and keeping the fact that you are one secret from the other players makes for interesting but ultimately unstable stories. It also has some information on the various skillsets they trained in, and what feats and skills you should concentrate on for each. After all, they didn't actually have superhuman abilities, even if it might have seemed like it from the outside. Overall, this is one of those articles that's decent, but not great, and feels very much like a warm-up for the rest of the features. I doubt anyone reading this doesn't know what ninja are, but they might have seen nothing but pop culture versions. That actually might need fixing, you never know.
Silent warriors: Having got the historical stuff out the way, here's three more ninja prestige classes, concentrating on different areas of expertise. Maybe you'll get to epic levels and master all possible areas of expertise, but I doubt it. Plus they have mutually exclusive alignment requirements, which kinda puts a crimp in that plan. So let's see just how broad a church ninjing is, and what schisms are found within it's congregation.
Poison Fists are pretty self-explanatory. Their monkly powers let them poison enemies with their unarmed strikes, resist poison from others, and shapeshift into a tiny venomous creature to get into places and deliver stealthy death. While not bad in a fight, they're obviously intended to be the type of adversaries who prefer to kill without ever giving you a chance to fight back, by poisoning your food, or maybe bedclothes, hat, sword hilt, whatever would be ironically appropriate and not immediately thought of by the detectives. Honor? What kind of chump do you take me for? We're in this to win.
Ghost-faced Killers specialise in the invisibility, and eventually incorporeality business, allowing them to strike mysteriously anywhere, and also serve as a counter-squad for anyone dealing with actual ghosts and extraplanar creatures. They get full BAB, 1/3 sneak attack progression, and the full set of mundane stealth skills, which means they can also hit hard once they get wherever they're trying to sneak. Unless your place has extensive magical protections, you're probably in trouble.
Weightless Feet are of course all about going wuxia on your ass. Up walls, across water, off cliffs, and eventually full-on flight at 10th level. They get full BAB too, and are relatively easy to get into, so they can still be full frontal combat characters. They're a good deal less stealthy than the other two, and also more slanted towards being good guys, so they seem like the one PC's will most want to take. All of these seem pretty solid though, neither too strong or too weak. Individuals may stray from the path, but the balance as a whole will remain.
Levelled treasures: Bonded weapons which upgrade to keep pace with their owners aren't an exclusively oriental idea, but they have just been introduced to 3e in the OA book. Of course, the fact that unless the DM is being very stingy indeed with treasure, this actually results in Samurai being even weaker than a straight fighter of the same level is an issue. But they don't know that yet, and they have a cool idea to sell to us. So here's general mechanics for upgrading your magical weapons and armor, adding more plusses and powers at the cost of gold and xp. This means it's obviously aimed at fighty classes who couldn't make their own items anyway. And since they still won't have the same flexibility in choosing their powers, this throws into sharp relief one of the persistent balance problems in 3e, leaving me frustrated rather than excited. Definitely a case where more work is needed. Come back in a few years time, maybe, let's see how 3.5 treats you.
Palladium make an appearance in the first time in several years. I guess they've decided to go back to advertising other RPG's rather than taking the computer game dollar the whole time. Lots of new books available from these guys.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 289: November 2001
part 4/7
The fantastic world of Hong Kong cinema: In the years since OA was first published, real world asia definitely hasn't been standing still. There's a vast quantity of books, TV and movies made there, and more of it is getting translated and released in the west than ever. (and hopefully you can get fansubs of the rest these days. ) So there's a lot of material for you to draw upon for your game, that you might not know about unless you're a serious cinephile. (even researching on the internet runs into problems when the other country uses a different lettering system. ) Robin Laws does his thang of mixing example material with rules hacks to show you how to emulate it in your own game. Everyone can do super jumps and flying, everyone of any note knows everyone else on the circuit, and you've got to train hard and find the right sifu if you want to unlock the super special secret maneuvers. Oh, and watch out for Eunuchs and Crossdressers, which isn't very politically correct, but what do you expect from fantasy legends. I think it's a pretty safe bet to say you can run a very fun game indeed by emulating this genre, even if there are many base systems better suited to it than D&D. In fact, didn't Exalted just come out a couple of months ago. If you want your spectacular yet highly crunchy action, get your ass over there before the number of supplements becomes too much trouble to keep track of. Once again, I have mixed feelings about this article, but it's still vastly superior to the filler he's been cranking out for his regular column lately. I think Robin really benefits from the freedom to completely redesign things and do them his way. It's not easy to do that in just 2 pages, and isn't the best use of his skills.
Thunder and Fire: Kaiju!
yeah! :throws up the horns: Since giant monsters were one of the first ever templates, way back in the D&D companion set, and appeared in the original OA as well, I'm surprised they didn't get included in the 3e version. Once again, the book's loss is the magazine's gain, with this very fun article from James Jacobs, showing you how you can construct nicely unique giant monsters by scaling up regular ones, and then adding on a few more abilities on top of that. The three sample monsters would fit right into a japanese monster movie, A giant octopus that can also survive on land for a while, a Fiendish centipede that lives in a volcano, and a giant robotic bulette. All are quite capable of being in ur city, wrecking ur buildingz. (Hmm, giant kitten. There's a thought. ) So this isn't a truly original article, but is both a well done and well timed revival. As characters level up, they're going to want bigger challenges, and these definitely fit the bill. Go for the classics, only bigger. Maybe you can have a giant domesticated otyugh disposing of an entire city's waste, and defending it from invaders. Or a giant flying owlbear scooping up entire houses for future consumption. The possibilities are truly enormous.
Playful Phoenix fist: Ah yes, the random name generators. Couldn't go without those. To go with the theme, it's random martial arts manoeuvres. This has a particularly wide array of possibilities contained within it's tables, with 20 different word constructions, and many tables with a full 100 options. I find it unlikely you'll repeat the same move no matter how long you roll, although as ever, some of the results may be silly. So this definitely looks like an above average entry of this kind, with both serious and comedic uses.
Class combo's: Since we've just introduced a bunch of new oriental classes, that means we have a chance to dig this column up again. Our obvious combinations are Martial Artist (50/50 fighter/monk), Monastic Defender (55/45 monk/sohei), and spirit warrior (40/60 fighter/shaman). Since all these combos are heavy on the martial arts, they also include two new martial arts styles that you'll want to aim for with your bonus feats. So once again, this is filler, but not useless, especially if you need to build scaled NPC's quickly and don't want to spend ages combing through hundreds of feat choices. We all need the occasional badass martial artist for our players to fight in a hurry.
Cities of the Ages isn't in theme, which seems a bit of a shame given the many oriental cities with thousands of years of continuous development to draw upon. Instead, it's covering Paris, which certainly isn't a bad choice, but is a bit disappointing, especially since the previous choices have been mostly European as well. Kenneth decides to zoom in on the mid 11th century, the era of Louis IX, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. Notre Dame isn't quite finished yet, despite having been under construction for 85 years. (and to think I complained about the channel tunnel) The crusades are just starting to get interesting, and the knights templar are building up political power. There's a fair chunk of interesting stuff going on, even if much of the stuff we think of as their big landmarks isn't up yet. The number of overtly supernatural ideas isn't as great as most of the previous instalments though. So this doesn't feel very complete, partially because there's probably so much material to use. Sticking too strictly to a format can become a hindrance after a while.
part 4/7
The fantastic world of Hong Kong cinema: In the years since OA was first published, real world asia definitely hasn't been standing still. There's a vast quantity of books, TV and movies made there, and more of it is getting translated and released in the west than ever. (and hopefully you can get fansubs of the rest these days. ) So there's a lot of material for you to draw upon for your game, that you might not know about unless you're a serious cinephile. (even researching on the internet runs into problems when the other country uses a different lettering system. ) Robin Laws does his thang of mixing example material with rules hacks to show you how to emulate it in your own game. Everyone can do super jumps and flying, everyone of any note knows everyone else on the circuit, and you've got to train hard and find the right sifu if you want to unlock the super special secret maneuvers. Oh, and watch out for Eunuchs and Crossdressers, which isn't very politically correct, but what do you expect from fantasy legends. I think it's a pretty safe bet to say you can run a very fun game indeed by emulating this genre, even if there are many base systems better suited to it than D&D. In fact, didn't Exalted just come out a couple of months ago. If you want your spectacular yet highly crunchy action, get your ass over there before the number of supplements becomes too much trouble to keep track of. Once again, I have mixed feelings about this article, but it's still vastly superior to the filler he's been cranking out for his regular column lately. I think Robin really benefits from the freedom to completely redesign things and do them his way. It's not easy to do that in just 2 pages, and isn't the best use of his skills.
Thunder and Fire: Kaiju!
yeah! :throws up the horns: Since giant monsters were one of the first ever templates, way back in the D&D companion set, and appeared in the original OA as well, I'm surprised they didn't get included in the 3e version. Once again, the book's loss is the magazine's gain, with this very fun article from James Jacobs, showing you how you can construct nicely unique giant monsters by scaling up regular ones, and then adding on a few more abilities on top of that. The three sample monsters would fit right into a japanese monster movie, A giant octopus that can also survive on land for a while, a Fiendish centipede that lives in a volcano, and a giant robotic bulette. All are quite capable of being in ur city, wrecking ur buildingz. (Hmm, giant kitten. There's a thought. ) So this isn't a truly original article, but is both a well done and well timed revival. As characters level up, they're going to want bigger challenges, and these definitely fit the bill. Go for the classics, only bigger. Maybe you can have a giant domesticated otyugh disposing of an entire city's waste, and defending it from invaders. Or a giant flying owlbear scooping up entire houses for future consumption. The possibilities are truly enormous. Playful Phoenix fist: Ah yes, the random name generators. Couldn't go without those. To go with the theme, it's random martial arts manoeuvres. This has a particularly wide array of possibilities contained within it's tables, with 20 different word constructions, and many tables with a full 100 options. I find it unlikely you'll repeat the same move no matter how long you roll, although as ever, some of the results may be silly. So this definitely looks like an above average entry of this kind, with both serious and comedic uses.
Class combo's: Since we've just introduced a bunch of new oriental classes, that means we have a chance to dig this column up again. Our obvious combinations are Martial Artist (50/50 fighter/monk), Monastic Defender (55/45 monk/sohei), and spirit warrior (40/60 fighter/shaman). Since all these combos are heavy on the martial arts, they also include two new martial arts styles that you'll want to aim for with your bonus feats. So once again, this is filler, but not useless, especially if you need to build scaled NPC's quickly and don't want to spend ages combing through hundreds of feat choices. We all need the occasional badass martial artist for our players to fight in a hurry.
Cities of the Ages isn't in theme, which seems a bit of a shame given the many oriental cities with thousands of years of continuous development to draw upon. Instead, it's covering Paris, which certainly isn't a bad choice, but is a bit disappointing, especially since the previous choices have been mostly European as well. Kenneth decides to zoom in on the mid 11th century, the era of Louis IX, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. Notre Dame isn't quite finished yet, despite having been under construction for 85 years. (and to think I complained about the channel tunnel) The crusades are just starting to get interesting, and the knights templar are building up political power. There's a fair chunk of interesting stuff going on, even if much of the stuff we think of as their big landmarks isn't up yet. The number of overtly supernatural ideas isn't as great as most of the previous instalments though. So this doesn't feel very complete, partially because there's probably so much material to use. Sticking too strictly to a format can become a hindrance after a while.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 289: November 2001
part 5/7
Rogues gallery: Sembia really is taking over around here. This is the third merchant family to get detailed, 6 months after the last one. I suspect these articles coincide with the staggered release of the books in the series. 4 so far? And more to come? Still, they're unlikely to get up to the 16 the Harper series managed. Now that would take years to cover all the characters.
Rusk the huntsmaster is a cleric of Malar who's lost his arm, and is now scared that he's lost the favor of his god. Well, if you're going to follow a savage monster who discards you as soon as you start becoming feeble, you deserve everything you get. Red in tooth and claw sounds good as long as you're doing the ripping. When you aren't compassion and helping the needy starts to look like a more sensible option.
Stannis Malveen is another guy who's died and come back, and is determined to get his revenge on the Uskevrens. Only instead of being a damned soul, he's a repulsive eel-vampire thing which wears a veil that really doesn't help. He's insane and flamboyant with it, which makes him an amusing villain to face, presuming your characters survive. Much fewer moral dilemmas than the one that appears to be polite and helpful.
Radu Malveen is the brother who provides the human face in this partnership. Actually, it seems he's the dominant one here, being an exceedingly competent fighter and focussed businessman. But he's still a creepy bugger. This'll probably let him down in the long run. Get yourself some actual friends.
Elminsters guide to the realms could theoretically have been in theme, but isn't either, as they're more interested in Rokugan than Kara-Tur this time round. They are at least a little eastern though, detailing a minor Red Wizard hideout, and the tricks and traps they use to make it hard to spot and easy to defend. Since they're wizards, most of these are magical, and they don't have any trouble getting in some high level stuff like symbols of death from the home base. Where some of these instalments have been aimed at lower level characters, this one reminds us that there are some big villainous groups that you won't be able to do more than dent at less than epic levels, and doing so may result in escalating reprisals. And if you're dumb enough to take one of their enchanted items that let them track you wherever you go, then that becomes a foregone conclusion. So kill them and take their stuff (unless you fence it fairly fast afterwards) is a rather bad idea here. People who think like stereotypical adventurers will have problems. This is what happens when the villains have years of getting beaten and become self-aware. The Realms continues to evolve, and slowly become ever less generic. Let's hope it can remain gameable despite this.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Cups? Well, we've had two whole articles on bottles before. And the holy grail is a pretty famous item. I believe we can work this. Once again, it seems that ironically, the amount of rehash has actually gone down since the new edition started.
Alchemist's Glasses allow you to perfectly combine or separate any materials, even those that can't normally be mixed. This will require a bit of intelligence to get full use out of.
Bardic Cups identify liquids poured into them by singing certain songs. The code is fairly easy to figure out. Stay well away if it starts making death metal screams.
Dwarven Rune Steins give you a whole bunch of special powers if you invoke the right runes while drinking. It's basically a whole bunch of reusable potions. Another one any party will get a lot of use out of.
Caine's Flagons of Shadows creates liquid shadow, that can be used to boost your ability to cast shadow magic, or simply make sculpted areas of shade. A low-key but valuable item for your evil wizard looking to build a stylish lair.
Chalices of true seeing give you exactly that if you drink the liquid it produces. No surprises there.
Dragon's Goblets produce flaming liquid that you can throw, or drink and then use to get a breath weapon. Mind you don't burn your throat in the process.
A Rose of Kings is a neat device for ensuring honesty in your deals. It's reciprocal, so like the round table, it's puts everyone on an equal footing and should keep everyone trustworthy. Drink away, you have nothing to fear save your own secrets.
Spy Glasses let you see through walls. A basic but effective little trick that'll give you a few more chances not to be horribly screwed over by monsters and traps in the dungeon.
Talking Cups provide you with a rather fragile walkie talkie. Fill them with water, and they can transmit messages to each other. But any spillage wrecks them. You'll have to fit a stein container to make them more durable.
Vampiric Goblets drain the bluud of the drinker. But if you know the command word, you can get back those hp later. Like a real blood bank, this becomes a lifesaving service that'll add another bit of aid on top of the cleric.
War Mugs of the Ogre Magi are incredibly useful in barroom brawls. Not only do they do as much damage as a regular sword, but they never spill, no matter how vigorously you swing them. I can think of quite a few fighters who'd make this their weapon of choice all the time. I once again approve.
part 5/7
Rogues gallery: Sembia really is taking over around here. This is the third merchant family to get detailed, 6 months after the last one. I suspect these articles coincide with the staggered release of the books in the series. 4 so far? And more to come? Still, they're unlikely to get up to the 16 the Harper series managed. Now that would take years to cover all the characters.
Rusk the huntsmaster is a cleric of Malar who's lost his arm, and is now scared that he's lost the favor of his god. Well, if you're going to follow a savage monster who discards you as soon as you start becoming feeble, you deserve everything you get. Red in tooth and claw sounds good as long as you're doing the ripping. When you aren't compassion and helping the needy starts to look like a more sensible option.
Stannis Malveen is another guy who's died and come back, and is determined to get his revenge on the Uskevrens. Only instead of being a damned soul, he's a repulsive eel-vampire thing which wears a veil that really doesn't help. He's insane and flamboyant with it, which makes him an amusing villain to face, presuming your characters survive. Much fewer moral dilemmas than the one that appears to be polite and helpful.
Radu Malveen is the brother who provides the human face in this partnership. Actually, it seems he's the dominant one here, being an exceedingly competent fighter and focussed businessman. But he's still a creepy bugger. This'll probably let him down in the long run. Get yourself some actual friends.
Elminsters guide to the realms could theoretically have been in theme, but isn't either, as they're more interested in Rokugan than Kara-Tur this time round. They are at least a little eastern though, detailing a minor Red Wizard hideout, and the tricks and traps they use to make it hard to spot and easy to defend. Since they're wizards, most of these are magical, and they don't have any trouble getting in some high level stuff like symbols of death from the home base. Where some of these instalments have been aimed at lower level characters, this one reminds us that there are some big villainous groups that you won't be able to do more than dent at less than epic levels, and doing so may result in escalating reprisals. And if you're dumb enough to take one of their enchanted items that let them track you wherever you go, then that becomes a foregone conclusion. So kill them and take their stuff (unless you fence it fairly fast afterwards) is a rather bad idea here. People who think like stereotypical adventurers will have problems. This is what happens when the villains have years of getting beaten and become self-aware. The Realms continues to evolve, and slowly become ever less generic. Let's hope it can remain gameable despite this.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Cups? Well, we've had two whole articles on bottles before. And the holy grail is a pretty famous item. I believe we can work this. Once again, it seems that ironically, the amount of rehash has actually gone down since the new edition started.
Alchemist's Glasses allow you to perfectly combine or separate any materials, even those that can't normally be mixed. This will require a bit of intelligence to get full use out of.
Bardic Cups identify liquids poured into them by singing certain songs. The code is fairly easy to figure out. Stay well away if it starts making death metal screams.
Dwarven Rune Steins give you a whole bunch of special powers if you invoke the right runes while drinking. It's basically a whole bunch of reusable potions. Another one any party will get a lot of use out of.
Caine's Flagons of Shadows creates liquid shadow, that can be used to boost your ability to cast shadow magic, or simply make sculpted areas of shade. A low-key but valuable item for your evil wizard looking to build a stylish lair.
Chalices of true seeing give you exactly that if you drink the liquid it produces. No surprises there.
Dragon's Goblets produce flaming liquid that you can throw, or drink and then use to get a breath weapon. Mind you don't burn your throat in the process.
A Rose of Kings is a neat device for ensuring honesty in your deals. It's reciprocal, so like the round table, it's puts everyone on an equal footing and should keep everyone trustworthy. Drink away, you have nothing to fear save your own secrets.
Spy Glasses let you see through walls. A basic but effective little trick that'll give you a few more chances not to be horribly screwed over by monsters and traps in the dungeon.
Talking Cups provide you with a rather fragile walkie talkie. Fill them with water, and they can transmit messages to each other. But any spillage wrecks them. You'll have to fit a stein container to make them more durable.
Vampiric Goblets drain the bluud of the drinker. But if you know the command word, you can get back those hp later. Like a real blood bank, this becomes a lifesaving service that'll add another bit of aid on top of the cleric.
War Mugs of the Ogre Magi are incredibly useful in barroom brawls. Not only do they do as much damage as a regular sword, but they never spill, no matter how vigorously you swing them. I can think of quite a few fighters who'd make this their weapon of choice all the time.
I once again approve.
Orius
Legend
Maybe it's the slightly different approach of 3e, or maybe it's because the trend towards low-magic that was fashionable in 2e wasn't currently in vogue.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 289: November 2001
part 6/7
Nodwick attacks continuity, coherence and pokemon in the latest instalment of his double page spreads.
Chainmail: The forces of the Gnolls and Demons get their history explained to us this month, along with the obligatory new monster designed to make an interesting fight in mass combat. Neither of these creature types is noted for making disciplined forces, so they work best in irregular warfare, using hit and run tactics facilitated by exploiting the terrain and exploiting summonings to suddenly turn the tides of battle. Creatures like Abyssal Maws can gobble up enemies rapidly after taking them down. (handy when dealing with the necromantic side, I presume) And there's plenty of half-demon badass individual gnolls to wreak havoc on the lesser troops of the other sides. Just watch out for the failed morale checks, which I think should be particularly problematic for this side. Presuming the mechanics match the fluff, anyway, which I certainly hope is the case.
Role models: Continuing straight on from the Chainmail article, we move to detailing the dwarven forces. Once again, they have a distinct colour scheme, combining warm skin and hair colours with cold metallic armor with gold and bronze trims. You want someone to go out drinking with and get into a brawl, these are your boys. It's nice to see that someone in design thought long and hard about these little details, and didn't just give each side a single colour to mark them out. I do wonder how much these details will be pushed forward in the marketing though. Will only the people who buy the magazine regularly know about them, or are they pointed out in the core set and made integral? Once again, I want to hunt some of this stuff down so I can know more, so they're doing their job properly.
The play's the thing: Another three ability combos covered here. Low intelligence, High Charisma. Low Wisdom, High Charisma. And High Wisdom, Low Charisma. As with the last time, the results are snooze-inducingly predictable, painting in broad strokes and saying nothing you couldn't figure out yourself. More filler I don't really want to waste time writing about, in other words.
Sage advice is still dealing with the fallout from the updated forgotten realms
Can priests of mystra get their temple benefit to arcane spells (yes)
Can you add your bard levels to your wizard levels to improve your familiar (no)
Where are the 10th+ level spells some FR prestige classes get (You use them for really uber metamagic. They used to have spells for those, but the gods banned them. Fortunately, this is a bit of rules/setting integration that the edition change didn't ruin.)
Szass Tam isn't smart enough to have 16th level spells (No, but since there aren't any, and he's just filling them with metamagic, it's all good.)
Can you use old FR books (As long as they don't contradict the new ones. If they do, you'll have to figure out if it's a timeline advancement or outright retcon. )
What new feats can fighters take as bonus (Ones marked Fighter. You should really have been able to figure that out yourself)
What are drow abilities (The special powers in their monster entry. That and being complete wankers and still having legions of fangirls. Not that plenty of humans don't have that skill too.)
Which new abilities should liches get (As many as you like! )
Can you make time stop persistent, then sleep and memorize it again (No, because no real time passes. You can't live your whole life in a moment, no matter how long it lasts for you. )
How does spell-like ability work (same as any other spell, just easier.)
Does a familiars AC bonus stack with their regular one (no point otherwise)
Owls do no damage (Maybe not to you, but they can do some pretty mean mouse skewering)
What skills do owls have (see the monster entry if in doubt. Pay no attention to the ruling a few months ago contradicting this)
What's the point of giving familiars speech at 5th level when they can communicate with their master telepathicly anyway. (So when their master falls down the well, they don't have to resort to mime to get them rescued)
How do bladesingers learn and cast spells (Like wizards)
How many spells do prestige classes get (The usual for their base class per level. If they get new spells, read the description. If the description misses it out, come to Skip, and Skip'll cap the writer and Errata the prestige class.)
Can you use masterwork tools with ranged legerdemain (what tools)
Do prestige classes that boost spellcasting improve familiars (Only if they say so specifically. There's got to be some small downside to prestige sorcerers)
Is there an error to arcane trickster's sneak attack (yes. Toooooo Muuuuuuuuch!!!!!! Power!!!!!!)
Can you get sneak attack multiple times with lesser orbs (no)
Do spells you specialize in get the damage bonus for each shot (no)
What happens if you advance in your old class after getting a prestige class. (Keep adding. This shouldn't be a problem.)
Can you stack the same metamagic feat (If it makes sense. Remember, multiples add.)
How does the dragon disciple HD upgrade work (It just boosts the prestige class's future dice. That's it. No complicated math required.)
part 6/7
Nodwick attacks continuity, coherence and pokemon in the latest instalment of his double page spreads.
Chainmail: The forces of the Gnolls and Demons get their history explained to us this month, along with the obligatory new monster designed to make an interesting fight in mass combat. Neither of these creature types is noted for making disciplined forces, so they work best in irregular warfare, using hit and run tactics facilitated by exploiting the terrain and exploiting summonings to suddenly turn the tides of battle. Creatures like Abyssal Maws can gobble up enemies rapidly after taking them down. (handy when dealing with the necromantic side, I presume) And there's plenty of half-demon badass individual gnolls to wreak havoc on the lesser troops of the other sides. Just watch out for the failed morale checks, which I think should be particularly problematic for this side. Presuming the mechanics match the fluff, anyway, which I certainly hope is the case.
Role models: Continuing straight on from the Chainmail article, we move to detailing the dwarven forces. Once again, they have a distinct colour scheme, combining warm skin and hair colours with cold metallic armor with gold and bronze trims. You want someone to go out drinking with and get into a brawl, these are your boys. It's nice to see that someone in design thought long and hard about these little details, and didn't just give each side a single colour to mark them out. I do wonder how much these details will be pushed forward in the marketing though. Will only the people who buy the magazine regularly know about them, or are they pointed out in the core set and made integral? Once again, I want to hunt some of this stuff down so I can know more, so they're doing their job properly.
The play's the thing: Another three ability combos covered here. Low intelligence, High Charisma. Low Wisdom, High Charisma. And High Wisdom, Low Charisma. As with the last time, the results are snooze-inducingly predictable, painting in broad strokes and saying nothing you couldn't figure out yourself. More filler I don't really want to waste time writing about, in other words.
Sage advice is still dealing with the fallout from the updated forgotten realms
Can priests of mystra get their temple benefit to arcane spells (yes)
Can you add your bard levels to your wizard levels to improve your familiar (no)
Where are the 10th+ level spells some FR prestige classes get (You use them for really uber metamagic. They used to have spells for those, but the gods banned them. Fortunately, this is a bit of rules/setting integration that the edition change didn't ruin.)
Szass Tam isn't smart enough to have 16th level spells (No, but since there aren't any, and he's just filling them with metamagic, it's all good.)
Can you use old FR books (As long as they don't contradict the new ones. If they do, you'll have to figure out if it's a timeline advancement or outright retcon. )
What new feats can fighters take as bonus (Ones marked Fighter. You should really have been able to figure that out yourself)
What are drow abilities (The special powers in their monster entry. That and being complete wankers and still having legions of fangirls. Not that plenty of humans don't have that skill too.)
Which new abilities should liches get (As many as you like! )
Can you make time stop persistent, then sleep and memorize it again (No, because no real time passes. You can't live your whole life in a moment, no matter how long it lasts for you. )
How does spell-like ability work (same as any other spell, just easier.)
Does a familiars AC bonus stack with their regular one (no point otherwise)
Owls do no damage (Maybe not to you, but they can do some pretty mean mouse skewering)
What skills do owls have (see the monster entry if in doubt. Pay no attention to the ruling a few months ago contradicting this)
What's the point of giving familiars speech at 5th level when they can communicate with their master telepathicly anyway. (So when their master falls down the well, they don't have to resort to mime to get them rescued)
How do bladesingers learn and cast spells (Like wizards)
How many spells do prestige classes get (The usual for their base class per level. If they get new spells, read the description. If the description misses it out, come to Skip, and Skip'll cap the writer and Errata the prestige class.)
Can you use masterwork tools with ranged legerdemain (what tools)
Do prestige classes that boost spellcasting improve familiars (Only if they say so specifically. There's got to be some small downside to prestige sorcerers)
Is there an error to arcane trickster's sneak attack (yes. Toooooo Muuuuuuuuch!!!!!! Power!!!!!!)
Can you get sneak attack multiple times with lesser orbs (no)
Do spells you specialize in get the damage bonus for each shot (no)
What happens if you advance in your old class after getting a prestige class. (Keep adding. This shouldn't be a problem.)
Can you stack the same metamagic feat (If it makes sense. Remember, multiples add.)
How does the dragon disciple HD upgrade work (It just boosts the prestige class's future dice. That's it. No complicated math required.)
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 289: November 2001
part 7/7
Silicon sorcery: Gauntlet! Haven't seen that series in here since issue 150! Good to see it's still going, now with 3D visuals. And they definitely have some interesting ideas on how to handle magical items which also work in D&D. Potions which can be both drank and thrown, and have different useful effects either way? Nifty. And magical weapons that disappear after a certain number of attacks? Not quite so nifty from a player's PoV, but handy for a DM to prevent endless item inflation, and let them temporarily hand out items far more powerful than would be allowed with a permanent one, which makes big bosses more beatable. This is definitely one of those little articles that makes me smile, and reminds us how idiosyncratic a setting can be. Put a Gauntlet style dungeon in your game, give out treasure freely, and see how long it takes the players to notice. So this is another good example of how their computer game conversions are often more weird and adventurous than their regular bazaars these days. It'd be a shame not to include them in a game because of that.
Dungeoncraft: Time for Ray to get to sketching out the NPC's of his setting. This means he spends a good chunk of it repeating the spiel in issue 262, albeit in a more tightly written fashion, fitting more information into approximately the same word count. Don't just make people for the hell of it, make characters to fill specific roles when they interact with your players, and give them broad stroke mannerisms to make them instantly identifiable. It's less effort, and they likely won't notice the difference anyway. Spoken like a true cynic. This is certainly the case when you aren't planning on running a long campaign, and if it does turn out the game is a breakout success, you can go back and fill in nuance for the recurring characters later. So we're in a very pragmatic mood here, reminding us that there'll likely be a good deal of perspiration involved in your worldbuilding, and you might as well take steps to reduce it a little. Mixed feelings about that. Guess there still is a little idealism in me, despite all the crap life throws at me.
PC Portraits: This column is stretched out over 2 pages to fit around the adverts, and their borders are blurred in an annoying way that makes some characters spill over to adjacent panels. This makes it rather trickier to extract one to use in actual play. However, the annoying format fiddling doesn't mean the portraits themselves are lower quality, and they fit the theme of the issue quite nicely. So any blame here definitely needs to go in the art director's direction, and hopefully the new guy will fix this again ASAP. If not, and they think it's cool, then I fear for the next few year's visuals.
Oooh. RPGshop.com. The move towards .pdfs and other e-books has started. Leave your paper behind. Come with us, join with us. You know you want too.
Dragonmirth reminds us that adventuring is not good on the hair. Technology is not good for the adventuring either. Don't want to get soft, do we?
What's new shows us the benefits of enlightenment. Giant robots and ninja schoolgirls! I'll take a dozen of each please waiter! Sweet. Now, what was I going to do with them? I've been sitting on top of this mountain for 50 years. I'm sure there was something I wanted to do, but I just can't remember what.
A bit formulaic, but this issue continues to deliver the goods with the same consistent quality of the last two. Once again, the theme provides them with some easy balls to hit, but the unconnected regular columns also do well for themselves, particularly the Chainmail ones and the computer game column, with provide me with some much needed variety as well as being fun to read. In fact, this might be the most consistent they've ever been in quality, full stop. Once again, I hope it'll take quite a while for diminishing returns to take over on this set of ideas.
part 7/7
Silicon sorcery: Gauntlet! Haven't seen that series in here since issue 150! Good to see it's still going, now with 3D visuals. And they definitely have some interesting ideas on how to handle magical items which also work in D&D. Potions which can be both drank and thrown, and have different useful effects either way? Nifty. And magical weapons that disappear after a certain number of attacks? Not quite so nifty from a player's PoV, but handy for a DM to prevent endless item inflation, and let them temporarily hand out items far more powerful than would be allowed with a permanent one, which makes big bosses more beatable. This is definitely one of those little articles that makes me smile, and reminds us how idiosyncratic a setting can be. Put a Gauntlet style dungeon in your game, give out treasure freely, and see how long it takes the players to notice.
So this is another good example of how their computer game conversions are often more weird and adventurous than their regular bazaars these days. It'd be a shame not to include them in a game because of that. Dungeoncraft: Time for Ray to get to sketching out the NPC's of his setting. This means he spends a good chunk of it repeating the spiel in issue 262, albeit in a more tightly written fashion, fitting more information into approximately the same word count. Don't just make people for the hell of it, make characters to fill specific roles when they interact with your players, and give them broad stroke mannerisms to make them instantly identifiable. It's less effort, and they likely won't notice the difference anyway. Spoken like a true cynic. This is certainly the case when you aren't planning on running a long campaign, and if it does turn out the game is a breakout success, you can go back and fill in nuance for the recurring characters later. So we're in a very pragmatic mood here, reminding us that there'll likely be a good deal of perspiration involved in your worldbuilding, and you might as well take steps to reduce it a little. Mixed feelings about that. Guess there still is a little idealism in me, despite all the crap life throws at me.
PC Portraits: This column is stretched out over 2 pages to fit around the adverts, and their borders are blurred in an annoying way that makes some characters spill over to adjacent panels. This makes it rather trickier to extract one to use in actual play. However, the annoying format fiddling doesn't mean the portraits themselves are lower quality, and they fit the theme of the issue quite nicely. So any blame here definitely needs to go in the art director's direction, and hopefully the new guy will fix this again ASAP. If not, and they think it's cool, then I fear for the next few year's visuals.
Oooh. RPGshop.com. The move towards .pdfs and other e-books has started. Leave your paper behind. Come with us, join with us. You know you want too.
Dragonmirth reminds us that adventuring is not good on the hair. Technology is not good for the adventuring either. Don't want to get soft, do we?
What's new shows us the benefits of enlightenment. Giant robots and ninja schoolgirls! I'll take a dozen of each please waiter! Sweet. Now, what was I going to do with them? I've been sitting on top of this mountain for 50 years. I'm sure there was something I wanted to do, but I just can't remember what.
A bit formulaic, but this issue continues to deliver the goods with the same consistent quality of the last two. Once again, the theme provides them with some easy balls to hit, but the unconnected regular columns also do well for themselves, particularly the Chainmail ones and the computer game column, with provide me with some much needed variety as well as being fun to read. In fact, this might be the most consistent they've ever been in quality, full stop. Once again, I hope it'll take quite a while for diminishing returns to take over on this set of ideas.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 290: December 2001
part 1/7
91 (132) pages. What have we in our presents this christmas? Eastern European fantasy? Nice. That's another theme they've somehow managed to miss before. We've had arthurian style chivalry, norse sagas and greco-roman pantheism done to death, but these countries between them somehow get missed out and trampled over. What interesting stories of their own do they have to tell? Let's hope it's some good ones.
Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, Ad-free scan.
In this issue:
Wyrms turn: Jesse's editorial this month takes the piss out of his co-players in Monte's game. Apparently, tactical astuteness is not one of their strong points, and were it not for the fact that Monte tends towards high action with hero points and stuff, they'd have a lot more silly deaths than they do. Even though an increasing proportion of the magazine is devoted to character optimisation and tactical thinking, the staff don't always play like that. Let us not forget it, or get too serious and hung up about the RAW ourselves.
Scale Mail: Our first letter is all about their death gods, both mythical and from their own campaign worlds. Should they keep them separate, or treat the two with equal weight within the same article? Now that IS a good question. Do the risks of confusing the mythologically ignorant outweigh the benefits? Definitely worth debating further.
We get another letter criticising their recent illegible fonts. This is one thing they have no problem complying with. New editor, new ideas, throw out the old ones that haven't proven themselves.
Robin Laws' often metagamey thinking gets criticised. You should solve problems from inside the box, not thing about how the GM put it together OOC. In an ideal world, maybe. Sometimes you have to put narrative conventions over solidity if you want to get things done.
Another complaint is that the maps they've been including with the magazine don't line up perfectly. That was true in the 2e days as well. It's hard being a cartographer sometimes. Shows they weren't printed as one giant map and then cut up afterwards.
Some carrying weight erratta. Size and number of limbs does make a difference, remember.
A letter from someone who loved issue 287's cover, showing that for many people, good central characters mean you don't notice an underdone background. The reverse can be true as well. After all, very few are good at everything at once.
287's contents get plenty of praise as well. As long as it doesn't contradict previously established information, people love their planar sheeeet. Just can't get enough.
Previews: Fourth splatbook in the series this month. They'll be finished before you know it, and wishing they'd covered each class individually. Song and Silence is for those of you who like a little larceny and high skill point selections. The usual array of prestige classes and stuff. Get ready for arcane tricksters to become rather popular.
Our novels also seem pretty standard. The Realms have The Siege by Troy Denning. More high power shenanigans as evil archwizards threaten the place. Dragonlance gets Conundrum by Jeff Crook. Gnomes take center stage. This is not treated with the horror I would expect.
Forum: Lisa Ohanian has get herself into the position of being an evil drow wizard in a group with 2 paladins, and is wondering how long she can keep up the charade. Until your friends read this letter, I'm thinking. Never give the game away in public.
Tom Chlebus thinks it's ridiculous that a single illustration or advert is managing to ruin the entire magazine for them. Some people seriously need to grow thicker skins.
Anonymous still manages to get a foot in the reduced page count, telling a story of how their group played evil characters, and took things to a degree where they were horrified with themselves. They soon stopped after that, not wanting to face the darkness that lurks in the human heart again.
part 1/7
91 (132) pages. What have we in our presents this christmas? Eastern European fantasy? Nice. That's another theme they've somehow managed to miss before. We've had arthurian style chivalry, norse sagas and greco-roman pantheism done to death, but these countries between them somehow get missed out and trampled over. What interesting stories of their own do they have to tell? Let's hope it's some good ones.
Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, Ad-free scan.
In this issue:
Wyrms turn: Jesse's editorial this month takes the piss out of his co-players in Monte's game. Apparently, tactical astuteness is not one of their strong points, and were it not for the fact that Monte tends towards high action with hero points and stuff, they'd have a lot more silly deaths than they do. Even though an increasing proportion of the magazine is devoted to character optimisation and tactical thinking, the staff don't always play like that. Let us not forget it, or get too serious and hung up about the RAW ourselves.
Scale Mail: Our first letter is all about their death gods, both mythical and from their own campaign worlds. Should they keep them separate, or treat the two with equal weight within the same article? Now that IS a good question. Do the risks of confusing the mythologically ignorant outweigh the benefits? Definitely worth debating further.
We get another letter criticising their recent illegible fonts. This is one thing they have no problem complying with. New editor, new ideas, throw out the old ones that haven't proven themselves.
Robin Laws' often metagamey thinking gets criticised. You should solve problems from inside the box, not thing about how the GM put it together OOC. In an ideal world, maybe. Sometimes you have to put narrative conventions over solidity if you want to get things done.
Another complaint is that the maps they've been including with the magazine don't line up perfectly. That was true in the 2e days as well. It's hard being a cartographer sometimes. Shows they weren't printed as one giant map and then cut up afterwards.
Some carrying weight erratta. Size and number of limbs does make a difference, remember.
A letter from someone who loved issue 287's cover, showing that for many people, good central characters mean you don't notice an underdone background. The reverse can be true as well. After all, very few are good at everything at once.
287's contents get plenty of praise as well. As long as it doesn't contradict previously established information, people love their planar sheeeet. Just can't get enough.
Previews: Fourth splatbook in the series this month. They'll be finished before you know it, and wishing they'd covered each class individually. Song and Silence is for those of you who like a little larceny and high skill point selections. The usual array of prestige classes and stuff. Get ready for arcane tricksters to become rather popular.
Our novels also seem pretty standard. The Realms have The Siege by Troy Denning. More high power shenanigans as evil archwizards threaten the place. Dragonlance gets Conundrum by Jeff Crook. Gnomes take center stage. This is not treated with the horror I would expect.
Forum: Lisa Ohanian has get herself into the position of being an evil drow wizard in a group with 2 paladins, and is wondering how long she can keep up the charade. Until your friends read this letter, I'm thinking.
Never give the game away in public. Tom Chlebus thinks it's ridiculous that a single illustration or advert is managing to ruin the entire magazine for them. Some people seriously need to grow thicker skins.
Anonymous still manages to get a foot in the reduced page count, telling a story of how their group played evil characters, and took things to a degree where they were horrified with themselves. They soon stopped after that, not wanting to face the darkness that lurks in the human heart again.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 290: December 2001
part 2/7
Nodwick shows his employers how to make more profit with less effort by judicious application of economics. Presuming it works, of course. I guess when you're on a fixed wage, rampant inflation every time they bring back a big haul is not what you want.
This years statement of ownership is actually in an easily spotted place. Not surprising, as it shows that last years dramatic upswing has not only continued, but picked up even more pace this year, with average runs over the year of 72,000, but last month sales of 78,000. Not quite in the league of their 80's heyday, but certainly not too shabby. They can quite justly feel proud about themselves. Let's hope it stays that way.
Up on a soapbox: Well, this is funny. As we've already found, Gary's players didn't have it all their way. They regularly faced killer monsters, unfair traps, insoluble mysteries, and recurring challenges that may have a solution, but it hasn't been discovered yet. And here's one of them, an animate statue that appears to be made of pure gold and covered with gems. Since they used to get XP for loot, this was a huge red rag to them, and they tried all sorts of tricks to get their hands on it. But they didn't work together very well, since they didn't want to share that haul, so it's managed to give them the slip every time so far. You know, a small slice of a big cake is better than no cake at all. This is what happens when you buy into the myth of the big damn hero. A sadistic DM will punk you with amusing ease. Definitely one of those occasions where a good muahaha is in order.
Zogonia gets roped into an adventure. Hey, if you're gonna sit in a bar all day, it's bound to happen.
Dork tower is very much in favour of capitalism. As long as you're actually buying stuff, and not just acting overenthusiastic.
Tempests on the Steppes: So, let's get stuck into this theme thing. What makes eastern european fantasy different from yer basic british or french variant? Tons of feuding ethnic groups, all of which are technically white by today's standards, but the differences are srys business to them. Waves of successive immigration/invading hordes that result in complex webs of trade, relationships and grudges, which should keep you in adventure hooks indefinitely unless your players get into full-on ethnic cleansing. Paganism stick around for a little longer than in England, but was eventually superceded by the orthodox church. There's plenty of interesting undead myths, and dwarves & trolls are fairly similar to their norse counterparts, if not quite as common. This article has a fair amount in common with the dark ages and robin hood ones, with a map, a timeline, and how various classes and races do or don't fit into the milieu. And it definitely looks more permissive than the english DA one, and way more expansive than the robin hood one. The shift in flavour might be a fairly subtle one, but it's there, and hopefully it'll be enough to keep your players from becoming jaded for another campaign, or taking the same old tropes for granted. It's amazing how something like your main settlements surrounding a sea instead of being surrounded by it changes how you view the world.
part 2/7
Nodwick shows his employers how to make more profit with less effort by judicious application of economics. Presuming it works, of course. I guess when you're on a fixed wage, rampant inflation every time they bring back a big haul is not what you want.
This years statement of ownership is actually in an easily spotted place. Not surprising, as it shows that last years dramatic upswing has not only continued, but picked up even more pace this year, with average runs over the year of 72,000, but last month sales of 78,000. Not quite in the league of their 80's heyday, but certainly not too shabby. They can quite justly feel proud about themselves. Let's hope it stays that way.
Up on a soapbox: Well, this is funny. As we've already found, Gary's players didn't have it all their way. They regularly faced killer monsters, unfair traps, insoluble mysteries, and recurring challenges that may have a solution, but it hasn't been discovered yet. And here's one of them, an animate statue that appears to be made of pure gold and covered with gems. Since they used to get XP for loot, this was a huge red rag to them, and they tried all sorts of tricks to get their hands on it. But they didn't work together very well, since they didn't want to share that haul, so it's managed to give them the slip every time so far. You know, a small slice of a big cake is better than no cake at all. This is what happens when you buy into the myth of the big damn hero. A sadistic DM will punk you with amusing ease. Definitely one of those occasions where a good muahaha is in order.
Zogonia gets roped into an adventure. Hey, if you're gonna sit in a bar all day, it's bound to happen.
Dork tower is very much in favour of capitalism. As long as you're actually buying stuff, and not just acting overenthusiastic.
Tempests on the Steppes: So, let's get stuck into this theme thing. What makes eastern european fantasy different from yer basic british or french variant? Tons of feuding ethnic groups, all of which are technically white by today's standards, but the differences are srys business to them. Waves of successive immigration/invading hordes that result in complex webs of trade, relationships and grudges, which should keep you in adventure hooks indefinitely unless your players get into full-on ethnic cleansing. Paganism stick around for a little longer than in England, but was eventually superceded by the orthodox church. There's plenty of interesting undead myths, and dwarves & trolls are fairly similar to their norse counterparts, if not quite as common. This article has a fair amount in common with the dark ages and robin hood ones, with a map, a timeline, and how various classes and races do or don't fit into the milieu. And it definitely looks more permissive than the english DA one, and way more expansive than the robin hood one. The shift in flavour might be a fairly subtle one, but it's there, and hopefully it'll be enough to keep your players from becoming jaded for another campaign, or taking the same old tropes for granted. It's amazing how something like your main settlements surrounding a sea instead of being surrounded by it changes how you view the world.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 290: December 2001
part 3/7
Bright sun, mother earth: Now let's see what gods were worshipped around here before christianity came along to homogenise everything. This is a fairly messy one precisely because of all the people travelling over the region and cross-pollinating as they went. So there's a ton of overlapping portfolios, different aspects of the same idea, and retellings with the serial numbers filed off to sort through, and try to get a coherent picture out of. Let's hope they can get some good game material out of it.
Dazhbog is the slavic sun god, and like most sun gods, is considered both powerful and benevolent. After all, it's not as if you can live without him. His clerics do all the typical clericy things, healing and being judgemental and generally trying to keep a community from falling apart, or maybe going into the world to be generally do-goody. You'll have no problem playing them.
The Death Crone is one of the more unpleasant gods of death out there, killing people and collecting their souls through trickery and sadistic methods. Her clerics are very much in the scheming witchy mould, not to be trusted, but sometimes, you've just got to make that bargain. You'd better hope like hell they don't kill your mum and marry your dad, because that's almost bound to lead into a rather unpleasant fairytale situation.
Gabija is the goddess of home & hearth, which means her clerics tend to be stay at home sorts. Of course, if some horde were to come sweeping through, burning, killing and raping as they went, a good extended vengeance quest might give them an excuse to stay out for a while. I'm sure a GM could arrange something like that.
Jarilo is the god of fertility, in particular the sort that leads to people doing stupid things while pursuing sex. Yeah, I can see how that would be a perennially popular prayer niche. No atheists in foxholes and all that. Adventurers love a god that asks them to do the things they would have done anyway.
Jurate is the goddess of the Baltic sea. She cries amber, and lives in a palace made of it, which implies some pretty epic heartbreak in the past, and not being able to let go. Immortality can suck when you don't change with the times.
Lunt-Ater is a second sun god. As the god of the steppe nomads, he has a greater emphasis on exploration and knowledge than farming and rulership, but he's still basically one of the good guys. His symbol is the Gander, which is definitely interesting from a linguistic PoV. I never really noted geese for their curiosity, but I guess stereotypes differ in different countries.
Meness is the baltic moon god, and like most moon gods, is a roguish sort with a changable personality and a wandering eye. The sun may be relatively reliable, but the moon is always showing up in different parts of the sky and changing appearance. It doesn't have to be that way, of course. If we lived in a solar system where the moon was perfectly aligned with the solar plane, while the sun was prone to flares and power fluctuations, the opposite would be true in most myths, and there'd be a lot more eclipses.
Mokosh is a female fertility & earth god. After all, it takes two to tango. This is one of those archetypes that show up over and over again. The male sky god on top, and the female earth one underneath. It's like they've never heard of reverse cowgirl.
Perun is the god of thunder. He's somwewhat more responsible than Thor, but still has a terrible temper, and the tendency to smite people who piss him off from on high. You wind up letting them have positions of responsibility because it's more trouble arguing than it's worth.
Rod is the appropriately named god of fertility, IYKWIMAITYD. Unlike our previous fertility gods, he's a fairly responsible sort, with secondaries in knowledge and protection. Not all male fertility gods are deadbeat dads. Just enough to give the rest a bad reputation.
Saule is our third sun god, this time female. As she's from the northern regions, she's valued when she's around, with childbirth, weaving and music among her secondary aspects. The sun's effects differ widely based on lattitude, so it's not surprising different cultures have different perspectives.
Stribog is the god of winter, and as winters tend to be harsher in eastern europe and russia than the coastal places that enjoy the gulf stream, he's pretty cruel and domineering. His clerics similarly tend to take charge in winter, being cruel for the sake of "necessity" and then bugger off the rest of the year, which is a good setup for adventurers, as both protagonists and antagonists really.
Svantovit is the god of war, and prosperity as well, curiously enough. So clerics who take up the kill 'em and take their stuff lifestyle seem very appropriate indeed. Goes to shows how perceptions of war have changed over the years. Now it's only considered good for the economy if it's happening somewhere far far away, and you're selling the arms to other people.
Svarog is the god of celestial fire and the heavens, technically not quite a sun god, but in the same general area. He's still in the lawful good camp though. People tend to be well disposed towards creator gods for some reason.
Svarozic is the corresponding god of earthly fire, keeping people warm in the dark and making food much more palatable. Once again, strongly in the good guy camp, if not as inclined to go out adventuring. For all it's risks, we still keep using fire on a regular basis, because it's worth it.
Ukko is another sky creator god, but not specifically a sun god this time. He has a flaming sword, which certainly sounds familiar. It's almost as if myths might contain a grain of truth jumbled by time and successive storytellers. The question then becomes why beings capable of space travel would use souped-up swords instead of ballistic weapons? I guess you've got to conserve mass if you want to make those long flights through the cold gulfs of space.
Volos is the god of horned herd animals and crops. As these are pretty damn crucial to the average man's survival and prosperity, he's also wound up as the god of trade and wealth. You can bet he'd have some disagreement with a god who thinks wealth is best obtained by force rather than negotiation.
So this collection has plenty of interesting information, a couple of new domains, and tons of stories that you should follow up on. It really reminds us how much more complicated real world gods are than ones that are built to fit into neat little slots in a pantheon created all at once. Even the Realms doesn't have quite that level of depth despite 20+ years of building. Reality wins again.
part 3/7
Bright sun, mother earth: Now let's see what gods were worshipped around here before christianity came along to homogenise everything. This is a fairly messy one precisely because of all the people travelling over the region and cross-pollinating as they went. So there's a ton of overlapping portfolios, different aspects of the same idea, and retellings with the serial numbers filed off to sort through, and try to get a coherent picture out of. Let's hope they can get some good game material out of it.
Dazhbog is the slavic sun god, and like most sun gods, is considered both powerful and benevolent. After all, it's not as if you can live without him. His clerics do all the typical clericy things, healing and being judgemental and generally trying to keep a community from falling apart, or maybe going into the world to be generally do-goody. You'll have no problem playing them.
The Death Crone is one of the more unpleasant gods of death out there, killing people and collecting their souls through trickery and sadistic methods. Her clerics are very much in the scheming witchy mould, not to be trusted, but sometimes, you've just got to make that bargain. You'd better hope like hell they don't kill your mum and marry your dad, because that's almost bound to lead into a rather unpleasant fairytale situation.
Gabija is the goddess of home & hearth, which means her clerics tend to be stay at home sorts. Of course, if some horde were to come sweeping through, burning, killing and raping as they went, a good extended vengeance quest might give them an excuse to stay out for a while. I'm sure a GM could arrange something like that.
Jarilo is the god of fertility, in particular the sort that leads to people doing stupid things while pursuing sex. Yeah, I can see how that would be a perennially popular prayer niche. No atheists in foxholes and all that.
Adventurers love a god that asks them to do the things they would have done anyway. Jurate is the goddess of the Baltic sea. She cries amber, and lives in a palace made of it, which implies some pretty epic heartbreak in the past, and not being able to let go. Immortality can suck when you don't change with the times.
Lunt-Ater is a second sun god. As the god of the steppe nomads, he has a greater emphasis on exploration and knowledge than farming and rulership, but he's still basically one of the good guys. His symbol is the Gander, which is definitely interesting from a linguistic PoV. I never really noted geese for their curiosity, but I guess stereotypes differ in different countries.
Meness is the baltic moon god, and like most moon gods, is a roguish sort with a changable personality and a wandering eye. The sun may be relatively reliable, but the moon is always showing up in different parts of the sky and changing appearance. It doesn't have to be that way, of course. If we lived in a solar system where the moon was perfectly aligned with the solar plane, while the sun was prone to flares and power fluctuations, the opposite would be true in most myths, and there'd be a lot more eclipses.
Mokosh is a female fertility & earth god. After all, it takes two to tango. This is one of those archetypes that show up over and over again. The male sky god on top, and the female earth one underneath. It's like they've never heard of reverse cowgirl.
Perun is the god of thunder. He's somwewhat more responsible than Thor, but still has a terrible temper, and the tendency to smite people who piss him off from on high. You wind up letting them have positions of responsibility because it's more trouble arguing than it's worth.
Rod is the appropriately named god of fertility, IYKWIMAITYD. Unlike our previous fertility gods, he's a fairly responsible sort, with secondaries in knowledge and protection. Not all male fertility gods are deadbeat dads. Just enough to give the rest a bad reputation.
Saule is our third sun god, this time female. As she's from the northern regions, she's valued when she's around, with childbirth, weaving and music among her secondary aspects. The sun's effects differ widely based on lattitude, so it's not surprising different cultures have different perspectives.
Stribog is the god of winter, and as winters tend to be harsher in eastern europe and russia than the coastal places that enjoy the gulf stream, he's pretty cruel and domineering. His clerics similarly tend to take charge in winter, being cruel for the sake of "necessity" and then bugger off the rest of the year, which is a good setup for adventurers, as both protagonists and antagonists really.
Svantovit is the god of war, and prosperity as well, curiously enough. So clerics who take up the kill 'em and take their stuff lifestyle seem very appropriate indeed. Goes to shows how perceptions of war have changed over the years. Now it's only considered good for the economy if it's happening somewhere far far away, and you're selling the arms to other people.
Svarog is the god of celestial fire and the heavens, technically not quite a sun god, but in the same general area. He's still in the lawful good camp though. People tend to be well disposed towards creator gods for some reason.
Svarozic is the corresponding god of earthly fire, keeping people warm in the dark and making food much more palatable. Once again, strongly in the good guy camp, if not as inclined to go out adventuring. For all it's risks, we still keep using fire on a regular basis, because it's worth it.
Ukko is another sky creator god, but not specifically a sun god this time. He has a flaming sword, which certainly sounds familiar. It's almost as if myths might contain a grain of truth jumbled by time and successive storytellers. The question then becomes why beings capable of space travel would use souped-up swords instead of ballistic weapons? I guess you've got to conserve mass if you want to make those long flights through the cold gulfs of space.
Volos is the god of horned herd animals and crops. As these are pretty damn crucial to the average man's survival and prosperity, he's also wound up as the god of trade and wealth. You can bet he'd have some disagreement with a god who thinks wealth is best obtained by force rather than negotiation.
So this collection has plenty of interesting information, a couple of new domains, and tons of stories that you should follow up on. It really reminds us how much more complicated real world gods are than ones that are built to fit into neat little slots in a pantheon created all at once. Even the Realms doesn't have quite that level of depth despite 20+ years of building. Reality wins again.
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