Let's read the entire run

[Orius]

The D&D cartoon is done, and will be sharing airtime with the smurfs and pac-man. (tee hee. Family friendly show)

Don't knock it too much; that show was one of the things that probably helped to hook me on the game later on. I'd say Gary had at least one success there, except for the fact that by the time I started playing, he'd left TSR. So not quite a personal success for him.

The vicarious participator: Ahh joy. A roleplaying vs rollplaying piece. Lew tries to spread the idea of compromise between the people who just want to stomp and the persona building obsessives. Because we're all in the same hobby, and fighting over this stuff is just stupid.

And have this argument resolved? What would we have to argue about then?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 75: July 1983

part 1/2

100 pages. Its a devil special! The nine hells and their occupants get an extensive look over, courtesy of Ed Greenwood. This is nice. Another plane is now described enough to be playable. And because it's so big, they've cut in half, so there's still plenty of unrelated stuff in this magazine. Sweet! I can't wait to get my fangs into this one. Should I have saved that joke for the halloween issue? Maybe. Eh, it matters not. There are plenty more where that came from.

In this issue:

Harn, rolemaster and middle earth are once again occupying both the inside front and back covers. That's quite the saturation of advertising. They must be shelling out a lot to get the premium positions every time.

Out on a limb: Two letters correcting some out of date and incorrect information in the PbM article a couple of issues ago. Its a fast changing world.
A letter criticizing the champions article and the way it handled it's rules changes. Frankly, my dear, you should be grateful for getting anything at all.
A letter praising the first ecology article, and asking for lots more, with more details about their lifecycles and dietary habits. Sounds good to me.
A letter asking how you use the cavalier with the attack priority system. They reply that you'll have to figure that out yourself. As most of the articles are unofficial and by different people, there are bound to be some that are incompatible.

Hmm. Looks like they're looking for a japanese translator. Does that mean Oriental adventures'll be along in a year or so? Does that mean it'll be properly researched? We shall see.

The ecology of the mimic: The magazine finally starts producing homegrown articles for this series, instead of recycling them from Dragonlords. And it seems like Ed is quite taken with the concept, as this is the first of many that he'll contribute over the years. We get descriptions of the way mimic's internal structure produces various textures and colours, probably drawn from real life examples such as octopi. We also get some tactical ideas, including an amusing story of a mimic living in waterdeep disguised as a statue. Still feels a bit short, but it does manage to fit a good deal into a single page. Another article that's well up to his usual standard. Looks like the series is in safe hands.

From the sorceror's scroll gives us an extensive list of the dukes of hell, plus several other devils, including abishai and barbazu. As you would expect, they are rather scary, and have extensive lists of powers. A lot of information is given about exactly who is in charge of what. Which makes sense. It is the plane of lawful evil. Having a precise hierarchy to present your players with adds to the sense of solidity of the world. Of course, details may differ from source to source. Chalk it up to the devils lying. Wheels within wheels, muahahahahaha! Anyway, this is indeed a pretty useful article, although it feels a bit weird having Gary be the warm-up act for Ed. There is a bit of illegible scanning, but I think I can figure out roughly what's on it, since I have plenty of planar stuff from other sources. So lets not worry about that, and get to the main course.

The nine hells: Ed greenwood once again shows that when it comes to prose, there are few that can rival him in skill and attention to detail in this era. This first installment covers the first five layers, plus huge quantities of their inhabitants. Considerable amounts of research has gone into collating all the hints from various monster descriptions and providing a home for them, without any contradictions. And so far, he's done a great job. Hell under him is indeed pretty hellish, with each level having it's own distinctive flavour of environmental and social nastiness to negotiate your way through. Pity tha foo paladin that decides to just wade in and smite as much evil as he can. Chances are you won't even get a dignified death, instead being drowned in the eternal fetid swamp, enslaved, or starving, as everything is tainted. Lest we forget, lawful evil is not necessarily polite or negotiable with. If you're not useful, don't have the right permissions to be in a place, or are simply the "wrong kind of person", you can get summarily stomped. And if you're a living human, you can be sure you're breaking tons of regulations just by being there, unless you filled out the forms in triplicate and signed them in blood (yeah, like you really want to do that) before you even entered. If you're coming here, you'd better have a plan, a realistic goal, and several escape methods if you're to have any chance of coming out ahead. Or, given the power level of the princes, princesses and dukes as statted here, if you could gather a few hundred level 20+ characters, you could probably take down the entire devilish hierarchy in one fell swoop in the most epic endgame raid ever. (yes, badwrongfun, I know, but it does have a certain appeal, seeing level 20 characters having to fight to their limits, attacking swarms of pit fiends, dropping like flies and being rezzed (and possibly reincarnated if they run out of rez'es ) several times per battle by the clerics.) Anyway, I'm sure many of you had fun with this, and I hope some of you will in the future as well. Because it's definitely some pretty impressive work, and t'would be a shame if it just disappeared into history unused.

 

[The Stray]

Wow. Role vs. Roll. Some things truly never change.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 75: July 1983

part 2/2

Mutants, men? and machines: A load of gamma world monsters. All have rather silly names. Hydragen are fire breathing snakes. Raydiums are flying telekinetic manta rays. Cycloptrons are metal boned giants which shoot lasers from their eye. Cyber-netters are giant robot spiders. And nitrodjinn are atomic powered weather spirits. Yes, gamma world can be a silly game at times. Funny how you can accept these things in a fantasy world, but as soon as they stick pseudoscience explanations on, it rings false. Not the greatest monster article ever.

Beyond the rule book: More Gming advice from Lew Pulsipher. First he gives 10 guidelines that should be good for virtually everyone, whatever the game. Then he gives 10 that are slightly more specific, based upon his own style. While he does have a tendency towards the conservative, these are generally pretty solid too. Once again, he's played his part in making the magazine as good as it is.

Can seapoint be saved: Having already served us with a huge special feature, this month's module is only an 8 pager. But it is a pretty neat open-ended one as you figure out a way to protect a town from pirates. Will you wait for them to attack, set some bait, or hunt them down? A scenario that has plenty of opportunities for tactical thinking and roleplaying, its another example of the fun you can have with town and wilderness adventures that dungeoncrawling simply can't do. You need more DM effort to run these scenarios, but it's well worth it. And this gives you a good framework to start from.

Even orcish is logical: Another attempt to create a fictional language for D&D. Hmm. What would you say orcish sounds like? Functional, gutteral and ugly, with lots of words for weapons and hurting stuff. Makes sense. The rest of the article gives us a basic grammar and language list for an orcsh language that looks very much like Tolkien's. Well, it's easier to get people to accept it. It certainly shouldn't provoke the controversy that thieves cant did, anyway.

All games need names: We've had contributions from Gary, Ed and Lew. Now Katherine Kerr (who it also seems is one of the few writers smart enough to retain their own copyright on their articles.) takes her turn this month. We get more info on the proper construction of your own language, including the sounds you choose to make them up (bi-labial fricatives strike again) and avoiding unpronouncable or silly names in your settings. Gender descriptives, morphemes, agglutinative and fusional languages, and tons of other geeky details. I would enjoy that, but once again I am reminded how crap I am at playing with and within the rules of even one language, let alone other ones. I'll never be a Tolkien. I might be able to work up detailed physics, ethics, psychologies, societies, music, and statistical data for my worlds and stories, but languages? Sorry. I'll leave that to someone else.

Figure feature: This month's mini's are humans of all kinds, from medieval to futuristic. Oh, and a grim reaper. Good guys, bad guys, shoot you in the eye guys. Just buy em. Otherwise the companies'll go out of business, and we'll have to stop doing features on them.

Reviews: The runequest companion is a grab-bag of stuff for glorantha fans, from a whole load of different writers. Essentially, this replaces having a magazine, and they intend to publish further editions of it later. Which I suppose is one way to go about it. As long as consistency is maintained, and it sells well, there's nothing wrong with a good periodical, under whatever name you choose to call it.
The solomani rim is yet another traveller supplement. (the 10th official one) And we finally get to see the homeworld of humanity in the traveller universe. Once again, there is plenty of setting detail, as entire star systems and their histories are filled in.
Oh dear. And now we see some more of the D&D backlash. Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe, and Hobgoblin by John Coyne are both novels where roleplaying is used as a symptom of an underlying personality problem in the characters. Because no normal, well adjusted person would ever do something as weird as that. Issues are examined, emotional dilemmas are had, and in both cases, they give it up in the end and become happy well adjusted adults. Thank you for that, sensationalist hack writers.

UK revisited: games fair 83. Gary's back in the UK. And once again he has a pretty good time, as does his kid. Well, when you're guest of honour, it's relatively likely things'll go smoothly. Lets hope this continues next year.

What's new gets superheroic. Featuring gazebo boy! Wormy illustrates one of the more amusing aspects of dimensional travel, as well as the fact that dragons are smarter than cyclopses.

Snarfquest! Larry Elmore gets his own comic. Interesting. And this is before thundercats also used the name. Where did it come from? Looks like this is another largely humorous strip. Can snarf get enough treasure over the next year to become leader of his tribe. Will he fail. Will the plot drift until the original reason he left on his adventures becomes completely irrelevant. Keep reading and find out.

A very strong issue indeed, with not only the epic centerpiece, but plenty of other really good stuff in there as well. And the great thing is, next issue is almost guaranteed to have a load of stuff of the same quality. Which is reassuring. After all, you never know when things might go south because they're not getting any decent stuff in, or editorial policy changes for the worse. So lets enjoy what is definitely one of the classic runs of the magazine, that would still hold up today.

 

[el-remmen]

Snarfquest! Larry Elmore gets his own comic. Interesting. And this is before thundercats also used the name. Where did it come from? Looks like this is another largely humorous strip. Can snarf get enough treasure over the next year to become leader of his tribe. Will he fail. Will the plot drift until the original reason he left on his adventures becomes completely irrelevant. Keep reading and find out.

Back in 2002 I got the complete Snarfquest trade paperback at GEN CON and Larry signed it for me. Nice guy!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 76: August 1983

part 1/2

100 pages. Lots of big features in this one, too. Our second big index, and the conclusion of the nine hells article. Unfortunately, they're stopping doing sci-fi stuff for the forseeable future, as they want to give Ares magazine some room and set different niches for the two. After all, they have to do something with all those SPI properties they have lying around. Which means while they may be devoting more space to it somewhere, I'm not going to get to see it. As ever, anyone else who wants to start a reading thread on that would be welcomed.

In this issue:

Out on a limb: Another letter saying the computer program they gave us doesn't work on their machine. Given how many variations on computer code there are running around at the moment, that's understandable. Maybe we ought to give this one up. It really doesn't seem worth the effort.
A letter criticizing their language articles. Real languages aren't remotely as logically derived (see, I told you so) from culture. Plus even 8 pages is nowhere near enough to make a language properly usable. The vocabulary just isn't there.
A letter by michael gray further following up on the PbP clarifications he received last issue. Correspondence has been sent. Misconceptions cleared up. Isn't that great.
Two letters criticizing the amount of advertising and promotional material in the magazine. Kim of course reminds them they need that stuff so they can afford to fill the rest of the pages with useful stuff, and the amount of that each issue is expanding as well. You'll have to tolerate the commercial considerations, because there's no getting away from them. We are not a charity.

The ecology of the beholder: Now here's a monster that certainly needs some rationalizing. And as it's such a big task, both Ed and Roger contribute to it. The results are not as impressive as you'd think, they obviously were not very inspired when they wrote this one. Oh well. You can't hit a home run every time. It's still fairly solid as a piece of fiction. And the amount of actual ecology is increasing as well, with dietary, reproductive, and tactical considerations mentioned. Because if any creature will slaughter a bunch of adventurers that just wade in with swords swinging and spells blasting, it's a beholder. You want lots of hirelings with ranged attacks to take the brunt of those rays. You need to take advantage of your superior speed. You need to surround them so they can't anti-magic everyone. Etc etc. And you should still expect to lose quite a few people in the battle. Just be thankful there aren't any social beholder variants like the ones that'll turn up in spelljammer yet.

Leomund's tiny hut: Len gives us a new NPC class, the death master. Necromancy specialists, and all that goes with it, plus some amusing experience tables (gaining xp for digging graves and embalming bodies, fnarr.) For all his exhortations about never allowing it as a PC, it's probably actually less powerful than a regular wizard or druid. But then, this isn't about power, it's about morals. Len seems to be part of the brigade that thinks PC's should never be evil, and assassins shouldn't be allowed as a PC class. Which surprises me less than you might think. My love of PvP is pretty public, so this is one thing I'll probably have to complain about quite a bit, particularly when the morals brigade really take over around the 2nd ed changeover. But then, they did a lot of stupid things then. Thankfully I can pick the bits I like and ignore the ones I don't.

Figure feature gives us a titan, elves riding bumblebees, a bard, an assassin, a magic-user, a barbarian riding a giant owl, and a demon rising from a well this month. You'll be unlikely to get to use those in a game too often, unless you skew the encounter tables a bit.

The nine hells: Layers 6-9 get the spotlight upon them in the second part of this feature. Once again, Ed's descriptions of both the landscape and denizens are exemplary, giving us a great picture of just how unpleasant an afterlife there is for pretty much everyone, even the high-ups. As these are the lower levels, there is less focus on the tormenting of damned souls, and more on the devilish inhabitants, and the way they treat one-another here. Everyone is subject to seemingly arbitrary in the name of various schemes, or sometimes just out of general sadism. There is also a surprising amount of sexism, as all the Lords are male, and have female consorts. (all statted out, yay, but relatively weak for the political power they wield, hmm.) I guess that's what they consider the proper order of things, since gender for beings like that is interchangeable as part of their promotions and demotions anyway. And you know they're big on order. Discipline me now mistress.
It ends with spells in the hells, another tedious list of how magic spells, items, character abilities, etc etc are changed while you're there. So it's still not perfect, being very much a product of its times. But it is a fascinating read, that is in many ways better than the Baator book in Planes of Law. This is definitely stuff I'd use in game, as it provides the rich cast that a place full of scheming politickers with a web of alegences and grudges between them needs. Can you figure out how to take advantage of their personal quirks and come out ahead? Have fun trying, and don't take it too hard if your characters get sent to eternal torment. It's just a game, and you can't win all the time.

The dragon index gets it's second epic outing, filling up the middle of the issue. They've altered the format a bit to keep it from getting too large, but there's still several different ways you can find each thing. And it looks nice as well. That should come in handy.

The palladium fantasy roleplaying game. Over 20 classes, 290 spells, 13 races, etc etc. Only their second advert, and they're already pretty close to the style and layout that they use to this day. Some things just never change. Kinda reassuring, really.

Saved by the cavalry!: Even having excised the sci-fi stuff, at least they still fit some non D&D bits in the magazine, thankfully. We get info on the cavalry and other soldiers for boot hill, in case lone cowboys are getting boring. This includes rules for making them available as PC's, who have both advantages and disadvantages compared to regular PC's. Not sure if they balance out, and the social restrictions of being under command by high ranking NPC's may cause problems, but it's a good idea anyway. After all, who doesn't love leading a bunch of fight, er, soldiers, to kill some marauding orcs, er, indians

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 76: August 1983

part 2/2

Sage advice is also pretty lengthy this month: Who was Baba yaga (A cannibal ogre-witch from russia. Pretty darn badass. You'll be seeing her again in the future.)
Can a dungeon master change magic items after giving them to players (that would be cheating, unless you have an in-game rationale. We don't recommend it, as pissed off players often result. )
What are mithral and admantite(super badass extra valuable metals for when gold and steel just aren't good enough.)
Can a player character become a free-willed vampire (Hell no. We still think all devil leaders should be male. There's no way we're gonna be enlightened enough to let you play undead. And it would break the game anyway. )
Why can't rangers be in groups larger than 3. Tolkien's rangers don't have that restriction (D&D is not LotR. We can do what we want, so ner.)
How much XP should you get for solving problems and being clever (10-100, depending on how cool they were. Yes, killing is the quicker way to power than being clever and solving a situation without fighting.)
Can characters take over a dungeon after clearing it out? (Sure, why not. Don't expect it to be cheap, as they take lots of upkeep. And now you're the ones who have to deal with pesky monsters and adventurers coming in trying to kill you and take your stuff. Turning things around like that could be fun.)
Why do some GitE characters have percentile scores in ability scores they shouldn't (more differentiation in the upper scales of badass)
What is knucklebones (see appendix F of the DMG)
Which version of a person or monster is correct when there are multiple ones published in different issues(whichever one your DM chooses, or one of their own creation)
Is everything in Dragon official (no.)
Why do BD&D and AD&D contradict each other (because they are different games. Don't mix them up)
What happens if a D&D character is hit by gamma world's de-evolution (they lose levels, no save. Be afraid)
Can a paralyzed character speak or use psionics (no and yes, as psionics don't require movement)
What does " mean (each inch translates to 10 foot inside, or 10 yards outside)
What's the difference between a secret and a concealed door (duh. Ones secret, the other's concealed)
Are constitution bonus' per hit die, or per level (per hit die. Tough rangers have it good, don't they.)
How do you handle pregnancy (we'll leave that up to individual DM's)
What does CO stand for? (Comeliness. It's a new stat. See issue 67.)
How can a human have more hit points than a dragon (hit points don't just represent straight toughness, but also luck and skill. Don't you get that yet?)
Can half ogres be barbarians? (they can certainly be barbaric, but they can't join the barbarian class)
Why do half ogres have such low charisma's (because they're uuuugleeeee. And uncouth, and doodyheads, and smell.)
What do half-ogres think about other races. (depends which side raised them, and how they were treated as kids.)
Do rangers get benefits against half-ogres(no)
Why do half-ogres roll different dice for their ability scores (because we say so. Their ranges are too different for just pluses or negatives to the dice to reflect properly without negative scores appearing and breaking the game.)

We also get another extensive Q&A, on the proper format for submissions to the magazine. Write up submissions neatly, include SASE if you want a reply, what we want right now (more sci-fi stuff please) be persistent, keep trying. Nothing much has changed here since last time.

Off the shelf: Talbot Mundy, Messenger of destiny, compiled by D M Grant, is a combination of biography and bibliography, with plenty of commentary as well. It offers plenty of detail in a well designed package.
A field guide to dinosaurs is exactly that, giving plenty of information about the creatures, when they are from, and also museum listings so you can go see them in person (although those'll be long out of date by now.)
Invasion: Earth by Harry Harrison tells the story of an earth caught between two warring alien species, with vietnam parallels being drawn. Fast-paced and with a twist at the end, it's up to his usual standard.
Tea with the black dragon by R A MacAvoy is an action-adventure/romance with two amusingly contrasting protagonists. The supernatural side is fairly light, but that just means things can stay mysterious at the end.
Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster is a rather puerile comedy/epic fantasy. While that is not an inherently bad thing, it certainly doesn't blend them as well as say, discworld. Sounds like it would be perfect for a movie adaption starring Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler
Set of wheels by Robert Thurston is a bleak dystopian future from a battlestar galactica writer. Whoda thought that could happen The protagonist just wants to get away from all that, and blast off down the open highway, and the book follows his attempts to do so. The writer then has fun putting him through the wringer.
Transformer by M A Foster has nothing to do with the soon to be released cartoon about robots in disguise. It does involve a shapeshifting creature though. And the stupid humans try and kill it, as they will do, which ends up causing just the problems they were trying to prevent in the first place. We once again learn about human nature by seeing it reflected through something else.
Against Infinity by Gregory Benford is set on Ganymede, and follows human attempts to terraform it, plus the strange things they find there. They have to struggle against both the environment and each other, but of course, that's what generates the interest.
Khi to freedom by Ardath Mayhar gets a rather sarcastic review. Apart from it's purely first person narration, it has little to distinguish it, being a melange of stock ideas, and weird aliens with unpronouncable names and stereotyped personalities. Could definitely do better.
Storm season, edited by Robert Lynn Asprin is the fourth thieves world compilation. As before, they've got hold of a solid collection of writers for the various stories. And as often happens after several books in a series they seem to be focussing more on the same cast of characters, and making things darker and more metaplot driven. If that's a good thing, it's hard to say. It certainly makes things less newbie friendly. Lets see where the next book takes them.
Yearwood by Paul Hazel is the start of another fantasy saga. It's epicness is both a strength and a weakness, as it's characters feel more like archetypes than real well rounded people, particularly the women. Guess you'll have to tune in for the plot rather than the characterization then.
Forbidden sanctuary by Richard Bowker tells a story of catholicism and aliens with a parallel religion, and what happens when the two collide. Which means there's plenty of philosophical and political thought to drive the plot along. You don't have to be a Christian to enjoy it.

Reviews: Gangbusters is of course a TSR game, so the objectivity of a review here is in question. The reviewer does a good job of pointing exactly how the game makes itself fast and furious, and handles the various social aspects of city life and crimefighting. You can't just hack and slash your way through this one. And keeping the party together all the time is not really an option, making it better for small groups. But it is well organized, and includes plenty of material to get your game up and running quickly, so it's still probably more newbie friendly than many modern games.
Borderlands (don't we already have something by that name :checks: yup. Issue 68. Damn name recycling. There oughta be a law ) is a wargame. Get resources, fight enemies, control territories. You ought to know the drill. Simple rules result in complex emergent strategies, and plenty of fun with webs of politics and trading if you play with 3 or more players. For those of you who prefer a little more depth in your world conquering than risk offers.
Cities is a system free game supplement for any fantasy game, helping you both build and populate cities, and create encounters for existing ones. Whether you want realistic economics or high fantasy weirdness, it has some stuff to help you out. As long as you don't mind rolling on lots of tables, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.
Judge Dredd's new boardgame also gets a review. Frag those perps before the other judges do, and get the highest score to win. Good, vindictive fun that isn't too taxing on the brain. A good emulation of the source material then
Federation space is a star trek game of future war. Designed to contrast with and complement Star Fleet battles, it serves as the large scale strategic counterpart to the former's ship level tactical wargame. Travel between systems, form and break alliances, spend money, capture stuff. Doesn't sound very star treky to me. But I suppose making money is more important than upholding starfleet's peaceful ideals. You need to make sacrifices for the sake of playability.
Dragonmaster gets a second review in here. This is actually more like a promotional piece and rebuttal than an actual review, and if it were not for its length, should really have gone in the letters column with all the other rebuttals. Still, it includes plenty of actual details about the game, so it's still useful in deciding if you want to buy or not.

Wormy gets back to the snooker and jokes after the high drama. Snarfquest faces it's first challenge. What's new welcomes you to shamcon V. Business as usual in dragonmirth.

Another rocking issue, if not quite up to the standards of it's predecessor. But then, that set a high standard. This one seems more concerned with looking back and outwards, with reviews, indexing and answering questions playing such a large part. Will they have another stroke of innovation any time soon. I'm not sure. Given the form of some of their writers, it doesn't seem that unlikely. Onward! No time to sit around mulling over the past if I want to catch up with the present.

 

[Arnwyn]

Anyway, I'm sure many of you had fun with this, and I hope some of you will in the future as well. Because it's definitely some pretty impressive work, and t'would be a shame if it just disappeared into history unused.

Still used to this day. Heck, if you had/have access to it, who didn't use it?

But it is a fascinating read, that is in many ways better than the Baator book in Planes of Law.

Nice touch. My Nine Hells articles sit in my Planes of Law box to this very day.

and they're already pretty close to the style and layout that they use to this day. Some things just never change. Kinda reassuring, really.

No, when it comes to Palladium, it really isn't. Prophetic and sad, though.

 

[(un)reason]

Still used to this day. Heck, if you had/have access to it, who didn't use it?

Tipper Gore

Nice touch. My Nine Hells articles sit in my Planes of Law box to this very day.

This is one of the problematic aspects of the 2nd edition stuff. They couldn't really go into the same kind of depth on what it meant to be evil, and the genuinely unpleasant stuff that they got up too. Hell, because that was the era I started playing, I never even found out who most of the archdevils were until 3rd ed because of that. And it was a bit of a galling surprise to find out loads of people already knew from 1st ed.

No, when it comes to Palladium, it really isn't. Prophetic and sad, though.

My feelings on that are complicated. Not sure how to explain it. For example, I don't agree with the catholic church's views on contraception, homosexuality and abortion. But it'd feel very weird if the Vatican suddenly did a 180 on their official stance. You need stationary objects to properly illuminate just how much everything else has changed. But this goes a little too close to the no politics rule, so I think I'll say no more on this here.

 

[Psion]

The nine hells: Ed greenwood once again shows that when it comes to prose, there are few that can rival him in skill and attention to detail in this era. This first installment covers the first five layers, plus huge quantities of their inhabitants. Considerable amounts of research has gone into collating all the hints from various monster descriptions and providing a home for them, without any contradictions. And so far, he's done a great job. Hell under him is indeed pretty hellish, with each level having it's own distinctive flavour of environmental and social nastiness to negotiate your way through. Pity tha foo paladin that decides to just wade in and smite as much evil as he can. Chances are you won't even get a dignified death, instead being drowned in the eternal fetid swamp, enslaved, or starving, as everything is tainted. Lest we forget, lawful evil is not necessarily polite or negotiable with. If you're not useful, don't have the right permissions to be in a place, or are simply the "wrong kind of person", you can get summarily stomped. And if you're a living human, you can be sure you're breaking tons of regulations just by being there, unless you filled out the forms in triplicate and signed them in blood (yeah, like you really want to do that) before you even entered. If you're coming here, you'd better have a plan, a realistic goal, and several escape methods if you're to have any chance of coming out ahead. Or, given the power level of the princes, princesses and dukes as statted here, if you could gather a few hundred level 20+ characters, you could probably take down the entire devilish hierarchy in one fell swoop in the most epic endgame raid ever. (yes, badwrongfun, I know, but it does have a certain appeal, seeing level 20 characters having to fight to their limits, attacking swarms of pit fiends, dropping like flies and being rezzed (and possibly reincarnated if they run out of rez'es ) several times per battle by the clerics.) Anyway, I'm sure many of you had fun with this, and I hope some of you will in the future as well. Because it's definitely some pretty impressive work, and t'would be a shame if it just disappeared into history unused.

Yep. Gems like this is why I find the shift in cosmology under 4e so unacceptable. Is anyone on WotC's current watch going to write anything this good that justifies me forgoing or shoehorning in classic material like this? No, I think not.