Let's read the entire run

Dragon Issue 299: September 2002


part 9/10


Playing pieces: Two more characters for your Greyhawk adventures, one mid-level and the other high. Both are mysterious and hard to pin down, albeit for different reasons. But then, they live in Onnwal, which is one of the more politically unstable areas on Oerth, and are doing their best to kick out the Scarlett Brotherhood and liberate it. That means they could be killed at any time if the PC's don't get involved. So by their position, they're more likely to end up working with the players than against them, but they're both morally neutral, so the boot could end up on the other foot after Onnwal is liberated and they have a little time to be corrupted by the perks of power. Mechanically, they're not that interesting, both being straight one-class builds with a few powerful magical items, and we don't find out too much about their personalities, but plenty of effort is put into their histories. So if you're in the area, they'll be pretty easy to use. Another decent enough bit of filler for those who want to see Oerth catch up with Faerun.


All oerth's artifacts: Index time again? Funny that they went over a decade without them, and then the LGJ gives us two in quick succession. I guess that reflects just how dedicated Erik Mona is to the Greyhawk setting, unearthing and cataloguing every little bit of obscure information he can find for our benefit. Still, it only takes three pages, as Oerth isn't that huge, and many of the things here were originally presented as generic material, and then co-opted, mainly because it was stuff originally written by Gary and used in his home games. Quite a few of the others are personal possessions of various gods, and so are unlikely to show up in a treasure horde unless they have a very specific plan for you. So I think this is more aimed at obsessive collectors rather than players, letting people know how much more stuff there is in the archives to hunt down. And even if they're not directly profiting from out of print material, it's probably beneficial to keep demand up for it. It looks like this is a case where trying to examine the motivations behind the article is more interesting than the article itself. That's probably not a good sign.


Silicon sorcery: Warcraft! Time for another stop in at this series, before it goes on to become the Michael Jackson of video games: already commercially successful for a good decade, to the biggest thing in it's field by an order of magnitude with the release of Warcraft Online. Warcraft 3 continues the plot quite nicely, allowing units to level up if they survive and win battles for a while. (which means you have more incentive to look after individuals and try to keep them alive) This makes converting units to D&D prestige classes particularly easy, although they're only 5 level ones, which I presume reflects the in game ranking system. Dwarven Thanes become Thorlike stompers, able to summon lightning and cause earthquakes with their physical badassery. Orc Blademasters are also fighty sorts that cross the boundary to superhuman, able to become invisible and generate mirror images on top of being able to attack frequently, and with an expanded crit range. One of these popping up in the middle of enemy troops will cause quite the mess. With strong visual images for both of these, they definitely seem appealing to me. And with advice for tweaking them to better suit other classes and races as well, this article is pretty cool. If anything is suited to conversion between the generic fantasy of tabletop roleplaying, it's the generic fantasy of computer wargames.


Nodwick tries to introduce another member to the party. It works out about as well as the last time.

Dragon Issue 299: September 2002


part 10/10


Sage advice:Can clerics use scrolls of their domain spells (yes)

Can you use metamagic feats on spell-like powers (No)

Do barbarians get con increases on every HD when they rage, even ones from other classes (yes)

Do familiars get spell points as they advance (Mamma mia mamma mia mamma mia let me go)

Can anyone take 10 on hide and move silently checks (Not all the time. Ninja benefits goood.)

Can an evershifting shifter heal themselves at will (No. We have already erratad that one. Skip wishes Skip could claim responsibility, but eh, what are you gonna do. )

What do you factor into the damage calculation for wall of thorns (Everything but Dex and Dodge bonuses)

Can a wall of thorns provide cover (yes. It can't tear out souls though.)

Does wall of thorns hinder things movement (oh yes)

Does magic fang affect all your natural weapons (no)

Can you stack damage reduction and hardness (yes)

Do spiritual weapons only get one attack when they move (It's not the moving, it's the switching targets. )

I don't get entangle at all. Help! (Grappling is always a hassle, even when you automate it. Fear not, Skip will explain this in words of four sylables and less.)

If you have a stoneskin up and you take damage that bypasses it, does this also drain your damage buffer (no)

If you're hit by dispel magic, are your items affected (generally, yes.)

Does evasion protect you from prismatic sphere's layers (The appropriate ones, yes. )

Can diamond body protect you from the green prismatic layer. (Yes)


What's new engages in a little role reversal. And the snail finally starts to slip from the page. This interesting.


Another frustrating issue, albeit for different reasons to the last one. Where that had quite high and low extremes, this one has way too much dull stuff, and suffers from their attempts to make every article please everyone. Despite there being a fair amount of Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk stuff, they're always trying to make sure everything in those is useful in whatever campaign you might be playing as well, and the constant nagging awareness of this agenda sucks the fun out of those articles. The period of freedom they enjoyed at the start of 3e is long gone, and now they're more regimented in the kind of articles they produce and how they write them than they ever were. Let's hope they won't feel too bound by formula for the century celebrations at least.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 1/10


87 (116) pages. Well, we've made it through another hundred issues. It certainly hasn't been an easy journey, for us or them, and the magazine has lost quite lot of things along the way. Course, they've picked up some others, so it hasn't been all bad, but overall, the 200's haven't been a great time for them. Let's hope the 300's have some more auspicious moments.

Unfortunately, first signs don't appear too great. While the first two were both substantially larger than the surrounding issues, and had some special trick on their cover that made them very distinctive, this one has neither of those. In fact, the cover has a lot in common with 274, the 3e changeover issue, only it's even closer zoomed in, and slightly less impressive looking technically. There's also the fact that the theme is once again a tie-in with their latest book, which is as cynical-feeling as ever. Still, at least it's one appropriate to the month, as the book of vile darkness is pretty fitting for an october horrorfest. Like a villain who tries to take over the world every week, only to be thwarted yet again, I shall retain some optimism about the contents. But will I be laughing manically at the end, or cursing those pesky kids for not letting the writers take it all the way? At least there's no way reading it can be as damaging as the in-game book of vile darkness, anyway.


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: The editorial reminds us a couple of interesting, and somewhat contradictory things. The reason many people started buying dragon is because of the cool new stuff in each issue. But until 1996 when they jacked up the regularity of the regular features dramatically, you were never sure what you were going to get. New spells, monsters, magical items, each would appear in less than half the issues. The question is, is that a good thing or not? When you only saw Pages from the Mages once a year, people were writing in to praise it a lot more than they are now Elminster's Guide appears every issue. Part of that can be attributed to familiarity taking the wonder away, and part of that is because even the best writer will run out of their A material if they have to produce a constant stream of content. So this is revealing because it shows how they arrived at their current position of putting D&D specific crunchy stuff in nearly every article. Looking at what was most popular and providing only that, rather than a mixture of stuff that includes the most popular options, plus a few more to catch a wider audience. Which may work better in the short term, but also means you'll hit the point of diminishing returns on a particular thing quicker, and'll find it harder to replace that for some new coolness. This goes quite a way towards explaining why 3e and 4e had shorter edition cycles than the earlier ones as well. When it comes to creative media, if you use the same formula over and over again, it doesn't work as well over and over again, even if the technical quality is actually better on the later instalments. So yeah, they have to deal with the fact that even if they're doing the right thing now, it'll eventually become the wrong thing if they don't change sometimes. It's a big headache.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 2/10


Scale Mail: As with issue 100, they decide to skip the letters for an extended Q&A session. With the shift in management, a lot of people are asking the same things over and over again. This is a bit tiresome, so they just want to get it over with. Most things are staying the same, although they may do the occasional OGL article if they can get them, and they're thankfully bringing back sales of back issues. Fiction submissions are still all going in the bin though. They just don't want to deal with that any more, despite it's popularity amongst both readers and submitters, because their focus is now on doing D&D stuff, and doing it well, and if they're getting more fiction submissions than everything else put together, reading through them all just eats up too much work time. Once again, it underlines that their scope is a lot narrower than a decade or two ago, where even if an individual issue was all D&D, they didn't rule out doing a themed issue on another system next time if enough cool material came along, or even switching to another system entirely if another RPG came out that eclipsed D&D. Turning into their own company does not appear to have increased their creative freedom much. After the editorial, this just deepens my pessimism.


Zogonia is full of quiet wit.


D&D Previews: Our gamebook, pretty unsurprisingly for the issue's theme, is the book of vile darkness. Monte Cook confuses diabolical with gross-out, showing that while their editorial policy might not be as bad as the days of Lorraine, they still aren't really ready to tackle heavy duty philosophy of morality. And of course, he introduces the ur-priest. The problems that prestige class causes. True system mastery is still a way away.

FR & DL each get a novel. Divine Hammer by Chris Pierson and The Thousand Orcs by R. A. Salvadore. Can you guess which belongs to which world. Oh yes, belongs. Keep slaving away, long-term hacks.


Up on a soapbox: Gary takes a break from actual play stories this month, and instead tells a story that could have been, but wasn't. Wastri, the demigod of frogs and human supremacy, never did get an official adventure devoted to him. After all, he's not sexy like the Drow or grand and sprawling like the temple of elemental evil. But he could still appear in your game, and do some pretty cool stuff plotwise. This is basically a pagelong set of plot hooks for your game, showing you that vaguely innsmouth-esque frog people can be effective and scary if you write them well enough, and don't have to just lurk in their own little town gradually growing more degenerate over time. Don't wait for an official version, just take the ideas here and do something with them yourself in that good ol' DIY spirit.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 3/10


All 300 issues so far get their covers shown in miniature in this fascinating double page spread. See the lofty heights they have risen, and the depths they are currently sinking too. When shrunk down to postage stamp size, all the writing that they've sprayed over the covers in increasing density since 1996 is just illegible clutter. It really puts things into slightly depressing perspective. What also seems a bit awkward is that the historical retrospective doesn't cover the whole of Dragon, only the period since Kim Mohan joined, leaving info on the early days which people would really like to know about absent. Even if they'd lost touch with Tim Kask, surely they could get Gary to write a little extra about what it was like back in the day. Still, at least they're fairly candid about the problems they suffered in the recent past, and what they did to fix them. They do have good reasons for choosing to concentrate on D&D, given what happened to more general magazines during that period. But carrying on doing it after the crisis was over? When austerity becomes the new status quo rather than a temporary reaction to a crisis, it leaves you with far less room to manoeuvre next time things go wrong.


The bestiary: Hmm. This is an entry that I remember hearing about before. Aside from Astral Dragons, Bytopia's admantine dragons, and Acheron's rust dragons, the planes are curiously lacking in D&D's namesake. Fixing this would have definite benefits, and they've finally got round to it. Let's see if the results are suitably quirky and inventive or formulaic and predictable.

Howling Dragons are from Pandemonium, and quite quite mad. They're also quite capable of spreading it, with both their breath weapon and spell-like powers working to that end. So far, so predictable.

Pyroclastic Dragons are from Gehenna, and show the typical gehennan love of brute force over charm, as well as lots of fire based powers which far too many things from the same plane will be immune to. Still, they probably won't be immune to their sonic spells, which they also have

Rust Dragons are of course preexisting. Any relation to rust monsters is purely co-incidental, and will be treated as a scurrilous accusation. Unsurprisingly, they get an upgrade to the new formulae for stats, but they'll still ruin all your equipment with one foul breath. Woo. Just when you thought D&D was becoming safe and sanitised.

Styx Dragons of course, get everywhere the river flows, although they can't fly. Just as howling dragons target your wis, these drain your int with their breath, and get water and minding powers.

Tarterian Dragons enjoy a relatively high level of freedom for things in their plane, but ultimately they're stuck there like most other things. And in typical fashion, they get lots of powers to make sure no-one else gets out, and those lovely cycles of bitterness and abuse continue, giving the plane even more power. Doncha just love the lower planes. Course, I doubt we'll be seeing upper planar counterparts for these guys soon. As there have been no great surprises either, I am forced to yawn. Pretty so-so, I'm afraid.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 4/10


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Magical items made by hags? I suppose witchy stuff definitely fits the horror mould, and has possibly even being neglected a bit, with undead and their vanquishers stealing the spotlight. Let's take control. Nyahahahaha!

Bone Rattles mess with your mind, causing you guilt and disorientation. Ah yes. Evil can delight in using good against itself, triggering guilt for things you have no control over or responsibility for. Now that's vile and dark.

Black Hour Pillars unhallow the area as long as they burn. And look creepy, of course. Gotta set the right mood in your little crooked house.

Bramble Men are a nasty little way of setting up a delayed action spell trigger. The effect in them doesn't activate until they're broken. This makes them the perfect blackmail device.

Crone's Canes seem to magically age you. They don't actually, but they'll be both crippling and demoralising if used in combat. All the sadism with reduced long term screwage. That's progress for you.

Dead Man's Bottles let you speak with the dead if you pour a drink on their grave. Now your primary limiter is the amount of booze you can afford. Go for cheap rotgut.

The Head of the Loveless was forged in tragedy, and keeps you from being minded. Given it's size and awkwardness of carrying, there are probably better items for that purpose.

Maiden's Hands let you turn into the person they were taken from by putting them on. This is obviously no-where near as good as general shapeshifting, but has it's uses. And it'll be pretty horrific if you once knew the person killed. I think there's some more good stories in here.

The Tomb of Weeds is a rather unpleasant way of putting someone into healing stasis. Evil may be able to heal it's own, but it certainly isn't nice about it. Enjoy being buried underground for a week.

Yackti Figures are just voodoo dolls, albeit somewhat nerfed for the new edition. Burn them, drown them, bury them, laugh as the person connected to them suffers. Meh.


How far should you go?: Or putting a ratings system on your game. Of course, since D&D makes it very difficult to have adventures without killing things and taking their stuff, even the mildest of the ratings is going to be the equivalent of a PG-13 rather than a U. It's merely that the violence will be glossed over, and the good guys will be firmly good, and the bad guys definitely diabolical, with any shades of grey at least soluble rather than no-win decisions. Of course, we're not talking questions of real maturity here, like the movie ratings system, but the amount of sex, guts, and other icky stuff that appears on screen. After all, Star Wars has ridiculous casualty rates, dismemberment and barely avoided incest as integral parts of the plot, yet still retains a family friendly rating; while Avatar: the last Airbender tackles complex moral questions and goes some quite dark places while never actually showing on-screen death. Meanwhile, you can have torture porn films that gleefully show the full effects of losing limbs with exaggerated bloodsprays, and hentai which grossly overexagerates the sex in the opposite direction, with a distinct lack of actual maturity in the design and writing. So this is a very complex issue, that they once again show they aren't quite equipped to handle an in-depth debate on. They do get marks for trying, especially as I remember all too well the days of Lorraine ( roll of thunder, stab of organ music, etc etc) where even the thought of nipples was an absolute no-no, let alone the thought of some mighty-thewed barbarian nibbling on them while pushing their owner up against the wall and penetrating them with his mighty :CENSORED:

Sorry about that. Where were we? Oh yes. While the editorial and letters showed how much more conservative they'd become in many ways, this at least shows they've become less so in others at the same time. Still, the overall trend isn't a positive one at the moment. So in the immortal words of Vicky Pollard, I'm forced to give an overall conclusion of yeah but nah but yeah but nah but yeah but NO!

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 5/10


Arcane Lore: Last month, we got paladin spells. This time, it's no great surprise this column is among those going vile and dark. Because after all, most of the big mastermind villains are spellcasters, or psionicists or mad scientists, which is basically the same thing, the triumph of intellect over base physical power. Damn jock culture. Or maybe it's just too tricky to take over the world when all you have is a big sword and the ability to swing it well. Anyway, let's get dirrrrty. The skinscribes have a particularly effective method of copy protection for their secret spells. Skin inscription only! Be that their living skin or taken from others, it does make copying the spells particularly tricky, and a moral dilemma in itself above and beyond what they actually do. Are you ready to load up your kitten powered gun to stop them?

Atrophy withers your limbs, causing you substantial action penalties. The pain can also be used to enhance the caster. Watch out for counterspells using that sympathetic link, sucka. How many villains have lost due to that one?

Blood Siphon also lets you draw energy from the lifeforce of others. Isn't that just, y'know, eating? We all do that. Ok, doing it while they're still alive and conscious is rather gross and morally dubious, but it's all a matter of degrees, not some great abomination.

Blood Blister gives you acne from hell to mess up your day socially. As if we didn't have enough trouble being geeky.

Bone Soften is a weird one that has both benefits and penalties. It looks deeply disturbing, but may be addictive in a sadomasochistic way. Once again, gross=evil in their minds.

Bone Spurs draws upon a rather unpleasant real world disease and accelerates it to combat time. All kinds of vile deformities will twist their way out of your skin, much to your agony and inconvenience. I think this qualifies as sadism above and beyond what's needed to achieve your goals.

Control Blood just seems like unpleasantness over practicality. You'll get better results most times just loading up the AoE blasting effects, particularly when the material component is considered. Drugging yourself up to cast a spell is bad, mmkay.

Corpsebond requires you to engage in necrophilia to get a buff. It's another one that really doesn't merit the extra casting time and components compared to standard spells, so really, it's just an excuse for already sick s to indulge just before battle.

Curse of Pain Eternal is one of those decidedly mixed ones. In the short term, it's definitely a penalty, but in the long-term, it's an interesting corruptive tool. Frickin' stockholm syndrome. If it weren't for that, evil would have a much tougher time of things keeping groups together. I think this one counts as a success.

Putrefaction brings you rapid aging and death, and then makes both a zombie and ghost slave out of you. Now that's efficiency. I strongly approve of this approach.

Searing Seed impregnates the victim with demon-jizz, which grows into a full-grown evil copy of them in less than 30 seconds. Lovely. That'll really ruin everybody's day. I suggest making a sharp exit after pulling a stunt like that.

Vileblade hurts, corrupts, and is generally rather nasty too. Mind you, damaging someone then making them your ally seems a bit counter-productive really. You don't want your new minion going down embarrassingly easily.

Vile Rebellion makes all your limbs split off and become servants of the caster. This isn't fatal, but is very bad for the sanity indeed. A very tricky one to deal with indeed, as Ash will attest.

Wall of Maggots is pretty self explanatory. You try pushing through this one, you get stripped to the bone. A lot harder to get through than a wall of fire.

Writhing Ruin is another way of killing people and then making their body into a further hazard for friends. Tons of bugs bursting out of them should ruin their body for raising pretty well, and make you clear the area. Yup, I think that's pretty evil. They haven't done too badly after all, even if they do get a bit silly at times.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 6/10


The minions of darkness: Well, transformative prestige classes have obviously proven both popular and easy to write, because here's another 4. After all, you just need to pick a monster, take their iconic powers and squeeze them into a roughly balanced level progression, write a few requirements and flavour bits, and presto! You could keep that running almost as long as the ecologies if you were so inclined. Let's see what gribleys they've picked this time, and if the resulting transformations are sufficiently vile and dark for the issue.

Faceless Ones are doppleganger wannabes, and tend to be even more organised and malevolent than the real thing, infiltrating and taking over places because they want to control, rather than just to survive. Since they only get mindreading a limited number of times a day, rather than at will, they'll still be more vulnerable to being caught out than the real thing, even at max level. But then, I guess that's where backup comes in handy. If you have someone pretending to be you while you pretend to be someone else, figuring out your real secret identity becomes a hell of a lot harder. And if there's a group of you controlling the government and law enforcement, it doesn't matter how much evidence they gather, they'll be the ones on the wrong side of the law, not you.

Deep Thralls are scarred by Kraken and used as their eyes and mouths on land, which means they're stuck with a close relationship with their masters that makes them particularly ill-suited as PC's. They gradually become aquatic, tentacular and able to grapple with great brutality, and also get an intelligence boost, which they'll probably need, since their powerset isn't very strategically powerful. Still, just the threat of weather manipulation powers can buy you a lot of help with a few ranks in bluff and diplomacy.

Shoal Servants are humans that worship Blibdoolpoolp, and acquire a bit of the innsmouth look along the way. They also become aquatic fairly quickly, setting us up for some nasty turf wars between the fish men and the squid men. Since Kuo-Toa have some pretty unique but not overpowering abilities, this prestige class turns out quite cool. The ability to see things in neighbouring dimensions and generate co-operative lightning bolts will certainly come in handy.

Tiger Masks are the biggest suckers of all, serving as lackeys and cannon fodder for Rakshasa. This means they actually attract bolt attacks that would seriously inconvenience their masters, and have to deal with their finger joints painfully inverting. The illustration is appropriately gruesome, and the whole package is something I'd design if I was a rakshasa. So I think this article comes as close as any to putting actual mature consequences for taking the dark path amongst the gross stuff.


Dork tower once again holds off on a punchline that is more than worth the wait.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 7/10


Class acts returns after a two month absence. They really aren't as reliable as I remember this year. Anyway, as it's his baby, Monte misses no time including a vile and dark prestige class in here. The flesheater, cannibalistic halflings who want you for dinner. Don't laugh, because they have full BAB and sneak attack progression, stealth skills, can inflict Con damage with their claws, and track you by scent. Like many of the BoVD classes, they are slightly overpowered, on the assumption that there's no way a PC should be allowed to take them. How very patronizing. It also suffers from the conflation of evil with gross that the BoVD was prone too. I really do not approve. You are failing to build something that seems genuinely realistically evil here, and instead going for cartoonish maniacal laughter instead. Not very mature.


The risen dead: Once again we see how popular templates are. Even monsters that have already been statted out as regular creatures are being redone as templates, so it's even easier to turn PC's into one, or reflect that the original source wasn't the usual one for the creature. So Mummies, Wights and Wraiths follow in the path of Vampires and Liches here, making PC's turned into one all the scarier as adversaries. In addition, they include a new one for ghostly animals, since the regular ghost template doesn't really work for them. All are designed to be pretty close to their original version, and have ECL's several levels greater than their CR boosts, which means they'll be playable, but might be a bit fragile long-term. especially since they'll also have lost all their Con bonuses. Still, D&D becoming more of a toolkit is not something I object too, so this article gets a thumb up from me.


The ecology of the mummy: God, it's been a while since we had one of these. It's been mostly VS's, and even they've been thin on the ground lately. I guess these things come in cycles, because the early 90's was pretty thin ground for ecologies as well. This is a very dry ecology, almost completely removing the fiction for a combination of dry historical stuff, and ideas aimed towards creating interesting encounters for players. Creature combos, tactical notes, treasure suggestions, a sample map, this is a big step away from the old ecology style, and one I'm not sure I like. Guess it's going to be another dry spell here then.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 8/10


Elminster's guide to the realms: Ed is naturally neither grim nor dark, with even his nine hells material operatic as much as it is harrowing, so thankfully he doesn't even try to be in theme. However, he can be pretty sneaky when he chooses too, creating characters who really know how to use their everyday surroundings to best effect. Here's another one of those, a canny old Harper who's probably a bit underpowered for her CR due to having lots of NPC class levels, but since she also has tons of potions and bits and pieces, and knows the terrain around her home, I can see unprepared PC's getting their ass handed to them. Along with the highly specific NPC and terrain info, there's also several new minor potions and oils that should come in handy in any campaign, and more info that we really want to know on how to smoke and cure meat, which is such a typically Ed bit of worldbuilding it makes me laugh. While not that great by his standards, this is still a nicely refreshing break from the overall tone of the magazine, and shows why they keep him around. He fills up page count reliably, and can still do things no-one else can get away with. When he's gone, the magazine will gain yet another few points of banality.


Campaign news: We've finished this year's big events, so this column is looking ahead to next year, and telling us about the new adventures and organisational changes in store. They're putting individual circle members in charge of particular metaregions, which'll speed along the decision making process for everyday rulings and hopefully won't make them more arbitrary. There's lots more adventures to come, including higher level ones where you might be able to make a dent in Iuz's dominion, and more options for you to travel to get involved in them. Oh, and another little bit of skill bloat, just to keep this from being purely positive. As with the last time, it feels like these changes are probably the direct result of issues encountered in play and complained about, which is a good thing to see. I do think a general knowledge (the planes) skill would make more sense than knowledge (ether creatures) at 3e's general level of skill granularity though. That just feels like it was written to punish metagamers, or by someone who preferred the haphazard way 2e did things. What was the lead up to that weirdly specific ruling?


Playing Pieces: This is in theme, as it was a couple of months ago, and follows on directly from that revisiting of the vault of the Drow. After all, they are both vile and dark, so it fits perfectly. So here's 7 new Drow NPC's, plus a good old fashioned vampire who hangs around the vault because hey, even if the company sucks, you don't have to worry about sunburn, and elvish blood is pretty sweet. All of them are pretty morally dubious, and the last three are outright unhinged, a trio of murderous mimes that'll chill the blood of anyone with a hint of clown fear. So there is some silliness here, and also a healthy dollop of darkness, sex, drugs and rock & roll to keep the grimdark from taking itself too seriously, sticking it's head up it's ass and snacking on it's own faeces. Mixed message, certainly, but still more entertaining than being one thing all the time, regardless of the situation.