Dragon #346

I got my issue today.

The editorial "Bee & Bee" discusses the theme of words Eric learned from D&D.

"Core Beliefs: Pelor" covers a lot of ground, with very little "crunch" (two spells & two relics). A side bar covers a deity Mayaheine, an ascended paladin of Pelor.

"Three Dragon Readings" uses the Three Dragon Ante game to generate characters (stats & background). It uses a tarot like format to get these numbers.

Following the theme we have "Games of Chance" covers various card & dice games you can use in your D&D game.

"Supporting Cast" gives some examples of the sort of followers the various classes would take as followers. Each entry also contains followers that aren't the obvious choices. There are several leadership feats, as well.

"Impiltur: The Forgotten Kingdom" covers this land from the Forgotten Realms. A regional feat is the only real "crunch" in this article (Pureheart, which allows you to better resist spells from evil outsiders). It has an extensive timeline, as well as general information.

"Ecology of the Rust Monster" covers the classic monsters. It also has some sidebars about some favorite moments, including Gary mentioning how he got the idea for the creature from the miniature. There is an advanced rust monster who is followed by spectres of swordsman who committed ritual suicide for losing their weapons to it.

"Sage Advice" answers questions about the Eberron campaign setting. He completely misses an easy one when he answers that artificers can create scrolls that are either arcane or divine (the ECS errata clearly states that scrolls artificers create are neither arcane nor divine).

Our class acts articles cover the scout (feats and some variants), Truenamers (with denouncements, and feats), monks (discussing "Sacred Enforcers" with UA fighting styles and variant class features for the monk) and "Eastern Cataphracts" (historical equipment and some historical background from our world).

Next issue:

The Lords of Elemental Evil
by Kevin Baase and Eric Jansing

The Princes of Elemental Evil: Cryonax, Imix, Ogremoch, Olhydra, and Yan C Bin are back and ready to freeze, burn, crush, drown, and blow your players away.

Paraelemental Paragons
by Eric Jansing

Monoliths of ice, magma, ooze and smoke dwell in the boundaries between the planes, waiting with their lesser brood to storm your campaign world.

Inner Planar Hazards
by Chad Dickow and Duncan Hanon

Everyone knows the plane of fire is not the safest place to travel, but few are prepared for the dangers lurking on the other elemental planes, including razorgrit storms, mineral mites, amber barnacles, and worse.

Plus!

Ecology of the Elemental Weird, Spells of Elemental Evil, Bazaar of the Bizarre, Class Acts, and comics - including The Order of the Stick.

Click to expand...

Going through the issue, I realized that this issue is very "crunch lite." Three of the major articles are almost all background and story oriented (Pelor, Impiltur and the Ecology). One of the major system articles requires the Three Dragon Ante game.

*mutters* lucky bastard....

Gly,

Any mention in the Imp article of my boy Orcus? Or any Orcus/undead/fiend-related stuff therein?

On a brief skim of the article, I've only noticed one mention of a cult worshipping Orcus being discovered by the authorities in a village.

There are a lot of references to the Champions of Ruin book (with one area being noted as a "Level 5 evil node."

I have to admit, this article is last on my list for reading. I just don't have that much interest in the Forgotten Realms except as adapation. With an article as background specific as this, I won't get much of that from it.

Dude,

It's ORCUS! Anything in the Cold Lands is pretty much fair game for Orcus power!

Anyway thanks Gly.

What about the Pelor stuff, any mention of mortal foes/divine foes/archfiends perhaps?

Describe Three Dragon ante as a tarot card. (I'm simple that way. )

Yeah, I haven't gone through it in detail (power was out all day and came on just before the issue arrived). So, this info is mostly from skimming (only the comics & editorial have been digested).

About the only thing about foes in the Pelor article mentions that he's a foe of most evil. Paladins tend to focus on ferreting out undead. Everything else is focused on the religion (beliefs, books, cleric's role, planar ally, etc).

An interesting bit covers the updating of Dragon of Autumn in the First Watch column. Gee, I wonder why they decided to update this adventure now?

The character generation method has you laying out the cards in a pattern (ala a tarot reading) and placing tokens on the various cards in locations based on cards positions. Then you set the stat at the value it would be if you bought the stat using the point buy method with the tokens.

So far my favorite article is the Supporting Cast article. It may not be deep stuff, but as my brother has taken a cohort in my game (the first time the Leadership feat has been used in any game I've been in), my thoughts are running in that direction. Ecology of the Rust Monster is second (running a campaign in Eberron means these get used a lot, even if just as threats ).

Gly,

They've (Soverign Press and Weis) been saying they'll be revising Dragons of Autumn for a while now. I doubt the new movie was an great impetus, but who knows? But glad to see a mention in any case.

If you find something of interest to an Orcus fan like me then when you finish reading, email me. I wanna know like the second you do.

Thanks also for the Three Dragon Ante stuff.

Nightfall said:

They've (Soverign Press and Weis) been saying they'll be revising Dragons of Autumn for a while now. I doubt the new movie was an great impetus, but who knows? But glad to see a mention in any case.

Click to expand...

So, you don't think they knew the movie was in the works well in advance?

Well maybe but I think they had this (rerelease of Dragons of Autumn) scheduled well in advance of any hope for the movie. At least I reasonable recall back in early part of 2006 (winter/spring of 2006), them mentioning this. (I think it was March). Movie news didn't come out until two weeks ago. Logic would indicate this was planned regardless of whether the movie got made or not.