Let's read the entire run

Dragon Issue 290: December 2001


part 4/7


Fell and forlorn bestiary: Our eastern european section finishes with a look at existing monsters suited to the milieu, and adds a few new ones as well. More than a few well known things, vampires in particular, hail from that region.

Leshii have appeared before in issues 119 and 239, making them officially the monster name with the most entirely independent stats added to it. As before, they're wild and tricksy twats more likely to engage in extended invisible vendettas than actually fighting you. I guess the stories agree then.

Rusalka are also pretty familiar. They lure you into the water and drown you because they're lonely. A well prepared party with a decent spellcaster will mop the floor with them. Be glad you don't have to be as dumb as the characters in stories.

Vila aren't one I'm familiar with, but since they seem to be just slavic valkyries, they can watch over my heroes anytime, if you know what I mean and I think you do. :hurr: With invisibility and shapeshifting, they can be a good source of subtle help.

Vodyanoi are of course not the aquatic umber hulk variants, but another straight mythological conversion. You know the drill. Competent, not thrilling. They do seem quite nasty for their CR though. I suppose fae do have a crap die type for HD, so they need a few extra.


...If you know what I mean: Robin Laws continues his pet crusade on mechanically representing social situations, so that good and bad roleplayers can contribute more equally IC because the important thing is the intent and the dice rolls. This time, it's detailed modifiers for the innuendo and sense motive skills in a wide variety of social situations, so your character can figure out what people are really saying. A lot of this revolves around applying synergy bonuses from any other skills appropriate to the situation, while others are pretty common sense, and will still require a bit of DM adjudication. Still, overall, it's another move towards putting as much as possible inside the rules, so the DM always has an authority to look to to give their rulings more weight. Whether that's a good or bad thing is very much a matter for debate, even 10 years later, with more games including rules like this as core. Once again, we see that he's right at the forefront of pushing this game style.


Life of the party: A second socially focussed article in quick succession. A couple of months ago, they showed you how to map out investigation scenarios like you would dungeons. Now they do the same with parties, talking about how to pace a whole load of little social encounters in succession so players have some choice about which ones they trigger, while still building to a climax over the course of an evening. And of course, you can easily have the party turn ugly, mix in a brawl or an assassination to keep things interesting. And the odds that you'll be able to recycle encounters are greater than in a dungeon. Once again, this seems like a good opportunity to break up the monotony of a long campaign, and ensure that all those skills you put points in will get a good workout. I'm sure the players won't complain too hard as long as they're still getting XP and don't feel railroaded by the way things turn out.


Cities of the ages catches up with the times and manages to be in theme this month, with one on Novgorod. Once again, it seems like it got big because it was on a crossroads, built next to a massive lake, and a relatively short journey away from finland and all those little eastern european states around the baltic sea. Unusually for the time, it had an elected mayor instead of a hereditary ruler, and they managed to avoid being outright conquered by the mongol hordes, making them relatively egalitarian politically, while still filled with dangers from within and without. Giants, Dragons, arsonists, who knows what monsters lurking in the forests, and way too many clergy both holy and profane to politic with. Plus it's not the obvious choice like Moscow or St Petersberg. As I'd hoped, and like the VS articles, this series gets more interesting as they go one, as the obvious choices get used up, and they have to show us more obscure options or move on for the next big score.

Dragon Issue 290: December 2001


part 5/7


Rogues Gallery: Ahh, now here's some familiar faces. Paul Kidds new Greyhawk novels and short stories have certainly presented us with an unusual selection of PC's, and then put them in interesting situations. Of course, it helps that the source material has some pretty goofy elements, especially White Plume Mountain. So they've made sure that the results are very different from the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels. And now we get to see just how much these characters violate the rules. Some things change, others stay the same.

The Justicar is the perfect straight man in a world determined to take the piss. A grim brooding driven nameless hero without family? It's been played straight so many times as to become a joke, and Paul Kidd is very aware of this fact. Yet he remains flexible, and he never lets the piss-taking undermine his competence. He may break the rules a little, but he's just as good as most paladins, and less irritating with it.

Cinders is his trusty hellhound skin, a perfect example of how even the oddest of creatures can get a little redemption. Extra set of eyes, flame retardant jacket, and artillery, plus plenty of comic relief. A dog with 3 legs just gets on with life, and it seems like this puppy is commendably angst-free as well as long as it has a caring master.

Escalla is an 18 inch tall fairy, and like most fairies, is a whimsical pain in the butt much of the time. Still, this unpredictability works in her favor as often as not, and she has a pretty impressive array of blasty spells. It's a good thing that you're in a system where your allies can take the odd bit of collateral damage. Mind you, I wouldn't want to speculate about the love life of an 18 inch fairy and a 6 foot human, but polymorphing solves all problems, and presents some extra unique opportunities. I'm sure they find a way.

Private Henry is the eternal naive youth who hero-worships Jus, who is enough of a stoic that he actually doesn't mind this. He's utterly outclassed by the rest of the team, and he really ought to have leveled up a bit more if their DM was strictly tracking XP. I guess they keep on pulling his ass out of the fire so he doesn't really get to reap the full rewards of learning for himself.

Enid is a shy and adorable sphinx. This does not alter the fact that she has superhuman intellect and huge claws, plus a pretty substantial array of knowledge and magic powers. And since she's not spending years guarding a corridor in a dungeon repeating the same riddles, she's probably picking up more than many of her relatives. It's good to have lampshades.

Polk is a veritable supply of them, along with 10 foot poles, iron rations, and spikes. He's a grumpy mentor who actually knows far less than his pupils, with the obvious exception of Private Henry. And since he got killed and reincarnated as a badger, his whole existence is one long lampshading of D&Disms. Well, it's certainly vastly superior to Rose Estes take on Greyhawk.


Class acts: Having missed another month, someone in editing decides class acts shouldn't be Monte's private playground, and hands over the job to Edward Bolme. Will he stick at it long, or will there be a revolving door of freelancers submitting their ideas for this column? Anyway, he gives us a variant on the bounty hunter theme, the Justicar. (which they could maybe have used to good effect in the last article ) They're designed to be great at tracking people down, and bringing them in alive. With full BAB, good skills, and powers that enhance them, they're great at matching wits with the rogues they are most likely to be sent after. They may be slightly problematic in a regular team, especially ones who don't want to play along with the capture, not kill mentality of the class, or face lots of weird monsters rather than human opponents. But hey, they're considerably more PC friendly than our last offering. And they'd be great as NPC's as well. After all, many groups break the law and need bringing in. These guys give you a good chance of succeeding without throwing a CR inappropriate team against your players.


Faiths of faerun: Finally a prestige class that isn't pretty unambiguously a better thing than sticking with regular cleric. The Dancer of Sharess may keep full spellcasting, but they only get D6 HP and 1/2 progression BAB. So you'll have to actually consider if the granted powers are actually worth the sacrifices in raw power. That's bad new for the munchkins, but good for the rest of us. I quite approve. Still, with a familiar and limited shapeshifting, both powers that are known to have issues, they may well be worth it. They could probably do with better skills though. The cross-class sacrifices do continue to require substantial consideration in planning your advancement path. Are you willing to make them?


Living Greyhawk Journal: Well, this is interesting. To give us more Greyhawk material, they've added on a whole section within the magazine with a separate editor, just as in the days of the Ares section. The main editor gets to do a little less work, and they can ensure they have a well trained successor when it's time for a change. And as with that, I doubt this section will last more than 2-3 years before they get bored and replace it with something else, because Greyhawk's fanbase is still quite a bit smaller than the Realms'. So lets hope they can provide us with lots of interesting little setting details that can also be plundered for other games in the meantime.


Campaign News: And now the news. This is obviously aimed at explaining what the Living Greyhawk Journal is to all the people who didn't read the first 4 standalone issues, while not neglecting experienced readers either. In a living campaign, they have to constantly tweak the rules to keep people from gaming them egregiously. For example, they've just had to start counting any trained animals as part of the party for CR calculations, presumable because someone was buying tons of them and breaking the adventures by using them as cannon fodder. They've also instituted a little help for 1st level parties, to try and keep them alive in their first adventures so they don't scare n00bs away. It's a good reminder that when you're plugged into a wider network, you can't get away with the same kind of things you could in a home game, and you have to pay attention to all the rules tweaks and errata. It's the same kind of thing that you have to deal with in MMO's, only not automatically adjudicated. And it reminds me once again why I want nothing to do with that scene anymore. You never know when your character will be invalidated by the latest directive from on high, no saving throw, no appeal. And that's something I'm not keen on at all. More power to those people who can enjoy themselves in a structure like that, but I'll pass.

Dragon Issue 290: December 2001


part 6/7


The death knights of Oerth: Not to be confused with the fiend knights from issue 206. The most famous death knight may be from Krynn, but they're also quite a few on Oerth as well. In fact, this is part 1 of a series, so it's obvious that there's plenty to put in here. So they tell the story of the first death knight created by Demogorgon. There's less emphasis on the good guy falling part, and more on the demonic dealings, and horrible things he got up too after becoming a Death Knight; while the lesser death knights created after that don't even get that much attention. Angsty fanfic? Let's keep that for the Dragonlance fans. We're just setting up villains for you to kick the ass of, and don't want you thinking you can redeem them through the power of love and all that crap. So the story part of this doesn't engage me emotionally, and this article is mainly useful for the crunchy bit, which of course makes Death Knights a template for the new edition so you can easily convert existing characters into one. I have to wonder just how different you can make their pre-fall stories and personalities to keep a series like this going. Oh well, i guess we'll find out soon.


Window on the world: PC Portraits was one of the first things on the chopping block when the new editor took over. But it looks like we're still getting some system free artwork here, with conceptual sketches from Greyhawk's most recent incarnation. Since the last time they brought greyhawk back had caused lots of flamewars and fanbase divisiveness, they had to be very cautious about how much they modernised things. Since I was never really a Greyhawk person, I don't have much of an opinion on this, but I am interested in hearing other people's opinions. Is making Iuz more similar looking in his various forms a good or bad thing? Do the circle of 8 fit the way they were originally played in gary's old games? Does it matter anyway? Anyone?


Nodwick has a new member of the team. But not for long. Some guys are too annoying for even adventurers to put up with for long. Will he be back? We shall see.


Chainmail: Well, the teasers are over, the game is out, now it's time to get into the nitty gritty of tactical options. Once again, this centres around the ways the rules differ from regular D&D. You get a greater ability to choose the terrain (or maybe less if you're used to being the DM) and you have to take into account that you won't be able to move all your figures each turn or maintain perfect control of them at all times. On the plus side, the other teams can't either. So winning hinges on understanding your limitations and planning to compensate for them, rather than just individually min-maxing your troops into the most dangerous death machines they could be. There's no DM secretly rooting for you and setting the difficulty at achievable. Your odds of winning are 1/the number of teams. At least, presuming all the sides are perfectly balanced. Anyone who's played this want to say who's good or bad against who?


Role models: The Gnoll & Demon side seems to be getting an above average amount of attention in these articles, probably because it's one of the most interesting combinations. Here we find out what their colour scheme is like. The regular gnolls combine greens, yellows and browns in an unpleasant, mangy manner. The ones with demonic aspects add reds, blacks and purples to the mix. The metallic tones that the previous sides use are largely lacking though, to make up for this greater variety of primary colours. So once again, it looks like you can manage plenty of variety within a particular side while still keeping them distinct from all the others. Modern movie makers who have a bad habit of doing everything in orange and teal could definitely learn from that. The painting tips on layering, undercoats, and other such techniques to accomplish this are also increasingly sophisticated, showing that they trust us to have been reading regularly and learning along the way. That's the kind of attitude I approve of. Trust us to learn, and do our own research to fill in the gaps if we missed a bit.


Sage advice: How can I cast a spell without suffering attacks of opportunity (5 foot steps are your friend. Shame wizards don't get acrobatics as a class skill.)

As a fighter, how do I keep wizards from stepping back and blasting me. (Reach weapons. Skewer them on your Bec-du-corbin-de-glaive-da-fauchard-halberd. Or grapple, or prepare actions, or back them in a corner. Tactics!)

Can you use a buckler while firing a crossbow (No, just stick it on your hand for later.)

Can a cleric leave a spell slot open for later in the day (yes)

How does ECL interact with feats and ability increases (It doesn't. Just use your regular level. )

How do you determine a monk's speed and damage if it isn't one of the usual ratings (Ahh yes, with all these new races, that would come up. Fear not. Skip has tables that will answer all your questions.)

How about rogues of different sizes (Same weapons, different sizes. No big deal.)

How many feats should monsters with lots of HD and class levels have ( The usual. HD from monster advancement grants different extras)

Are prestige classes requirements for ranks or skill levels (Ranks. Talent won't help you here. Gotta put the training in.)

What do armor penalties apply to (most dex and str based skills. Feel the burn. That stuff weighs a ton.)

Dragon Issue 290: December 2001


part 7/7


Silicon sorcery: Rather than converting stuff from in computer games this month, they instead show you how to use the area building system from The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind to build maps for your game. In the process they talk about it's particular strengths and limitations, and just how much you can create custom characters, monsters and objects. Obviously it'll take a fair bit of work, particularly building all-new creature models, but once that's done, it can actually be quicker clipping together blocks than drawing maps out by hand. Really, this reminds me that the multiplayer and worldbuilding options in Neverwinter Nights were a major factor in it's success, and didn't come from nowhere. There were other games doing it before, and the designers stole ideas from them. Who knows, they might even have read this article and though that sounds like a good idea. That'd be more influential than you'd expect of one of these little columns. So this continues to be both cool and more varied that you'd expect.


The play's the thing: Robin moves onto more physical combinations of ability scores. High strength, low dexterity. Low Strength, high dexterity. Low Strength, high constitution. I think I can guess what next month's are likely to be, if he continues to follow this pattern. And what he'll write with reasonable accuracy. This series continues to be too damn predictable and obvious to be even slightly interesting. Why is it eating up so much space here?


DM's toolbox: The toolbox very literally looks at the tools of the trade, examining the format you use to record your notes, and how it will affect the ease of organising them, using them, editing them, and referencing them in play. Ring binders get top marks overall, as you can easily take out and reorder pages, add new ones in the middle, and include dividers which let you easily flip to a particular section. Small notebooks or Index cards can be better in actual play, but for detailed campaign notes, you'll want a big, well organised folder that'll fit everything. Or if you're working on computer, you want something that lets you have multiple windows open, copy and paste between them easily, rename files, and make sure you put them in folders putting related material together in an easy to search manner. Overall, this article does feel rather dated (personal organisers are pretty much dead, subsumed into smartphones and general purpose tablet computers, and paper feels a bit passe in general.) but it maintains the strong quality and analytical approach that makes the column so valuable. They weren't to know what things would be like in 11 years time, were they. Hopefully next one will be more relevant to my current position.


Dungeoncraft: Ray finishes off talking about character types, and then starts on actual characters, A patron who can send them on adventures, but who isn't that powerful physically, and has some serious problems that'll make for a good adventure down the line. And a helpful and resourceful street rat who's actually secretly the son of a tribal chief. Both of these have clearly defined pigeonholes, but also a decent amount of nuance to their characters, and while intended as allies, you could well also wind up their enemy too if the players get off on the wrong foot. Neither are particularly powerful or well optimised statistically, and even a first level party could probably kill either of them if they were alone. So really, this is very much stuff for interacting with, not slaughtering your way through. Still, it retains it's quality as roleplaying advice, although I'm not sure I'd go to Ray for really dangerous CharOp designs. But then, Dungeoncraft has always been fairly system neutral, and that's what makes it invaluable, so that's not a bad thing overall.


What's new also discusses how to deal with treacherous thieves. Beating them at their own game seems a good way to go. The snail has finally made it 2/3rds of the way across the page.


The strong performance by most of the magazine continues, with more than enough little changes to keep me interested. Definitely can't say I'm amused about the removal of Dragonmirth, and Robin Laws is maybe starting to run out of steam here, but everything else is good so far. If this carries on, I'll definitely enjoy Jesse's run more than I did Dave's. Roll on next year, and whatever it may bring.

Dragon annual 2001


part 1/7


93 pages. (92, plus an answer repeated, turned the right way up and magnified )Yay! They're opening up to covering d20! This means that while the systems may be more limited than in past years, at least we're getting some coverage of 3rd party products again. Shame it's just a one-off special, and unusually small too. Still, it does mean the usual columns are completely lacking, which I appreciate, given how tiresome and repetitive they often were in the previous annuals. I guess the best thing to hope for is that they've kept the editing tight, gone for quality over quantity, and tried to strike that fine balance between being faithful to the properties and balanced within the d20 system.


Scan Quality: Excellent, unindexed.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: Erik Mona isn't just getting to be lead guy on the Greyhawk journal, he's also the main editor of this special as well. Like Ed Greenwood, it's a good example of how you can work your way from being just a fan to having an official position in the company by regular communication and being generally helpful. And since his livelihood is still dependent on the OGL, over a decade later, I think we can safely say it was a good idea for him, whether it was or not for gaming in general. Since the adventures we remember most from the 3e era were mostly third party ones like Rappan Athuk, it's pretty likely 3e wouldn't have been nearly as popular without the OGL. There are tremendous benefits to making creativity a more collaborative process, putting different perspectives on an idea, repurposing principles for other areas, sampling them, chopping them up, taking one small part and building something unrecognisable out of it. Trying to hold on too tightly will both make you unpopular, and cause things to slip through your fingers anyway, especially now copying and worldwide distribution is so effortless. So looking back on things, it really is fairly amazing that this happened after WotC was swallowed by a big corporation like Hasbro, and the overall results were far more positive than negative, especially for us, the consumers. Just think how much we wouldn't have without it.

Dragon annual 2001


part 2/7


Unsurprisingly, our first advert is by Sword & Sorcery, White Wolf's d20 imprint. Even the number 2 guys got to benefit from this, and provide us with several interesting d20 settings along the way. A rising tide lifts all ships, or something along those lines.


First watch: Our previews for this special are pretty big names. Call of Cthulhu, and George R.R Martin's Wild Cards series are getting d20 conversions. Both get nice big descriptive blurbs which do their best to sell you on them. Interestingly, one is written by Monte Cook, and the other by Mike Mearls, reminding us how important they are to d20 in general, and how often they'll be showing up over the next decade. CoC gets particular attention, because people are unsure how well it's suited to the d20 system, so they obviously think it'll be a harder sell to the public. It certainly hasn't had the longevity or number of supplements of the BRP version.

In addition to this, they also promote the new incarnation of Polyhedron, now merged with Dungeon and repurposed to cover d20 games, with a different minigame in each issue. On it's own it never had the popularity of Dragon or Dungeon. How long will it survive like this? After all, I remember all too well the fate of previous mergers. It's another sign of WotC cutting down on everything but the biggest sellers, and leaving everything else to other companies. Oh well, it'll be another few years at least before it falls victim to the next big shakeup.

Dragon annual 2001


part 3/7


What the heck is a d20 system?: Ryan Dancey has been busy, hasn't he. Fresh from creating the OGL, he's already moved on from WotC, off to make his own company. Actually, it seems like moving on to the next company is something he does a lot, for various reasons. I have to wonder how long he'll stick with the pathfinder MMO's development before moving onto the next big idea. But even though his track record is pretty mixed, this is one big idea that turned out positively for a lot of people. We went from at most a dozen official D&D products a month, and usually considerably less, to hundreds of compatible bits and pieces, resulting in 3e overtaking 2e in no time flat. It's not surprising 4e's product list has felt a little … empty compared to it's predecessors. Actually, looking back on this highlights pretty well where WotC went wrong. Part of the original plan was to take advantage of all this external design experimentation, so they could take the best bits and incorporate them into official supplements later, which they conspicuously failed to do. Then by trying to back out of the OGL, they eliminated all the goodwill they'd generated by making it in the first place, and then some on top of that, since people react worse to being given things and then having them taken away than never getting them at all. And since the original OGL had been carefully designed so they couldn't revoke it, they wound up eliminating the benefits for themselves, while other people could still take advantage of those original benefits, which is basically a cutting off your own nose situation. Shoulda stuck with the original plan.


All's fair in lovecraft and warcraft: One of the best parts of the vast quantity of d20 games that'll come out in the next few years is doing enormous genre-bending crossovers. If you want to mix Babylon 5 with Everquest, Warcraft, Call of Cthulhu and Star Wars, you can do so with minimal effort, although there may be a few balance issues. As long as there's 6 stats, level based advancement, and one d20 to roll them all and in the darkness bind them, everyone's on the same playing field, although some teams might be in different leagues. So this is advice on how to play any genre in the d20 system, by switching things around, choosing the power level and advancement rate appropriately, and figuring out what to change to better fit the roleplaying party format. It doesn't actually reference any specific d20 products, which means it's only partly connected to this issue's theme, and isn't as inclusive as it could be, but it does have a fair amount of joie de vivre to propel it onwards and cover up the technical deficiencies. If you run into rules problems, you should probably gloss over them with similar speed and ad hoc rulings.

Dragon annual 2001


part 4/7


Pattern weavers: So what's going to be the big centrepiece of this d20 material? What big names have they go in, to make this annual feel extra special? Wheel of time material with official sanction from Robert Jordan? Well, it's no worse an idea than a Terry Brooks themed issue. So to sell you on the full books, here's 6 pregens that'll let you get a good idea of both the new classes and races, and the kind of characters you're expected to play. Each of them is at level 1, built using the Standard Array, and none of the material is Open Content. There are a few new skills and feats listed, but these stick mostly to the standard ones in the 3e core books. So this gives us a fair chunk of information without actually explaining much, and will remain useful even once you've bought the books, which seems a good way to make people want to find out more. Not a bad idea, really.


Beasts of the wheel of time: The second half of the wheel of time section is strangely mundane really. It's a whole lot of ordinary animals, with talk about the minor ways they vary from earth. Bears with chevrons on their fur. Skinny pigs. Foxes that alternate between black and gray fur depending on time of year. And extra large semi-intelligent rats. Compared to D&D monsters, this is pretty boring really, and I'm surprised he went into so much detail on mundane bits of the setting like this. But then again, this is the guy with the braid-pulling fetish. I can't be too shocked, given the length of the books. Still, reprinting all the statistics from the MM for the sake of a few minor variants seems a bit of a waste of space. I'm left rather nonplussed by this article, and can't see myself getting much out of it.


First look - Dragonstar: What do you get when you combine Spelljammer, Council of Wyrms, Star wars and Shadowrun. Something like this, really. A space opera setting ruled by Dragons who in theory have a power sharing agreement between the chromatics & metallics, (but good luck getting the Reds to hand the reins back when their term is over) and filled with fantastical planets and magitech enhanced aliens/demihumans. That sounds like it allows for a pretty impressive degree of kitchen sink character design while still maintaining an overarching theme to the universe, and'll give players tons of opportunities to flex their optimisation muscles to get maximum enhancement for their buck. How well did this setting do? Looks like it managed to go a few years and get several supplements, and still has an active mailing list. Definitely sounds like the kind of thing I'd like to pick up and have a closer look at, and the new crunch in the article only heightens that feeling. This is exactly the kind of setting I wouldn't mind playing in, while recognising it maybe has too many ideas going on at once for the commercial success WotC would like. I guess this annual is going to be good for the sales of various other companies after all.

(un)reason said:

Dragon annual 2001
Beasts of the wheel of time: The second half of the wheel of time section is strangely mundane really.

Click to expand...

I think this article would get my vote for most useless article I've ever read in Dragon Magazine. I could never get through the Wheel of Time books, but I'm pretty sure that they weren't about the minutiae of varieties of non-magical animals. Even if they were about that, the d20 System isn't the right game engine for that sort of thing.

Dragon annual 2001


part 5/7


The black talon: Ecologies have always been a popular part of the magazine, so it's not too surprising that once D&D was opened up to other people, who didn't have to stick strictly to the TSR format, they'd put their own spin on the idea, sometimes extending it out to full book form, or just taking more liberties with existing creatures. And since the magazine has recently stopped doing ecologies with fiction, that comes as quite welcome. So here's an interesting alternate take on lizardfolk, with slightly altered statistics, and a highly specific history that's obviously part of a larger campaign world. They're obviously intended to be more PC-friendly than standard lizardfolk, with a smaller natural armor bonus, and more little abilities and drawbacks, and have enemies who are also theoretically usable as PC's, but rather more hostile in their design and abilities. So this looks like it would be good in actual play, and manages to be both familiar and subtly different enough to be thoroughly pleasing to read. There are definite benefits to not using the same stable of writers all the time if you want to keep the public interested.


Black riders and bone horses: Wolf Baur has wasted no time in getting his own D20 material out. Here we see something that ought to have been in Ravenloft, but wasn't. A piece on undead cavalry, and their advantages and disadvantages over regular ones. Well, I suppose there wouldn't have been any decent sized opposition for them to fight. Even Vlad Drakov's army was a bit of a paper tiger really. Nevertheless, headless horsemen on skeletal horses are cool, and adding zombie elephants is a great way of saying the stakes have suddenly gone up a notch. So this takes quite an analytical approach to the subject, thinking about the cool effects they ought to have, and how to codify that mechanically. They may spook living animals, but it shouldn't be impossible to get them back under control. Things like being able to gallop on air, and have flaming feet are detailed, and even how far and fast you can travel using one (as after all, you aren't forced to stop to rest the way living mounts would be. ) This is pretty cool, even if it looks like it's just a promotional excerpt from a larger book, that he's hoping will drive sales. But then, that could be said about most of these to one degree or another. They don't have the same kind of safety net the WotC staff do to share the success and spread the blame.