TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 136: June 1999



part 5/5



Hunger in the Harbor: The mini-adventure this issue isn't a Raven's Bluff one, but could easily be used there, or any port town, or indeed any settlement with a bit of modification to account for the types of buildings present and their relative positions. Everyone is going about their day happily when a house-sized Gray Ooze attacks! What will you do?! It's immune to regular weapons and does lots of damage with it's attacks, but thankfully has a slow movement rate that gives you time to organise and figure out how to battle it or evacuate before it destroys the whole area. Your basic kaiju setup. Still, the clock is ticking and every turn you waste means more destruction. So this is actually pretty decent, turning out about the same kind of length and quality as the average side trek in Dungeon and giving you complete freedom in how to solve the problem set before you. It also gives advice on how to scale the numbers up or down, so it can be used with a wide range of levels, making it pretty flexible as well. If your urban scenario is getting bogged down this is an easy way to stop them from spending a whole session shopping. Definitely one I'd use.



Swash that Buckle: Swashbuckling isn’t the primary playstyle of the Living City, but it does still seem to be one of the more popular kits, simply because it’s quite a mechanically powerful one, particularly if you’re frequently put in situations where you don’t have access to your full set of gear. So one of your basic bits of system-free advice on how to emulate the genre in your own game isn’t completely out of place here. Keep the heavy mathspeak to a minimum, it’s bad for immersion. Keep your fights mobile, do things other than just hitting until someone drops and don’t hesitate to run away if you’re outnumbered. In a home game, be more lenient about special maneuvers like parry, disarm and called shots. Give your NPC’s dramatic personalities that make them all easily distinct just from mannerisms and don’t hesitate to put in plenty of quips, repartee and the odd bit of physical comedy. All the things that we take for granted in action movies, but can easily get lost when the DM starts making deathtrap dungeons that kill you unless you specifically stated you were being paranoid in the very particular way that counters the current challenge. Not really telling me anything new, as all this will be gone over again in greater detail next year in Dragon issue 273. Another distinctly mehworthy article.



Winter Fantasy 2000: We haven't even got to Gen Con yet and you're already starting to promote winter fantasy as well? What's up with that? They're moving from Chicago to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and want to make sure everyone knows that well in advance so they don't waste hours driving to the wrong place. They're also holding the RPGA summit in the same place a couple of days before, in an attempt to boost attendance for that, so if you can get the free time there's a whole week's worth of events to enjoy. If you want to shape the future of the RPGA and it's Living Settings you need to get there and sign up to as many of the events as possible. They obviously have big ambitions as usual, but whether they'll get enough volunteers to carry them all out is another matter. Still, planning well ahead does increase the odds at least a little bit.



A pretty solid issue overall, with a mix of good and ok articles that are generally pretty useful even when they’re not original in any way. They’re still getting a decent number of Living City submissions even if they no longer put them in every issue. Now let’s see how eager people are to explore the unknown, as that’s supposed to be the theme next time, and how far from home their submissions will range.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 5: June(?) 1999



part 1/5



72 pages. They forgot to put the date on! I thought that was the lawuh! I had to make an educated guess from context by reading all the way through and checking all the listings. That's the kind of infraction that'd get you gazing into the fist of Dredd in Mega City One. Who uncoincidentaly is on both the front and back covers. Let's find out what kind of game material he'll be involved with inside and if I'll feel the need to punish the writers after reading it.



Network News: Sarbreenar is now up and running, with it's own website. (which unfortunately is now another one lost to time so I can't enjoy whatever material was on there) They ran the first adventures at recent conventions and have plenty more in the pipeline. Now they just need some more submissions of locations and NPC's to put in future issues and grow the place from a sleepy village to a full-on adventuring hub. Another of those times where I wish the Living City hadn't been scrapped after the edition change, as they still had so much building to do to flesh out all the adjacent areas and maybe link them to various real world countries. In more unreservedly positive news, they've finally got that schools competition program going that they talked about years ago, introducing kids to roleplaying in over 100 schools and sending the best team to Gen Con. If they can keep that going in following years it'll definitely have an effect on the number of gamers around long-term. Then there's the usual collection of conventions they went to - Tower Con, the London Book Fair, Comic Con, the Dudley Bug Ball. Not much detail on them here, but obviously fun was had and most will be back next year, hopefully bigger than ever. All seems fairly positive.



Fiction - The Choice and the Trial by Iain Lowson: Off to the world of Marakush again for some gritty low magic fantasy. A young elf was climbing the mountains, only to be faced with a single goblin also looking to win some acclaim up there. A very small-scale fight compared to commanding armies or wandering the planes, but that just makes it all the tenser. Many a disney villain has met their end against a weaker hero when they overstepped their mark on top of a cliff or building and tumbled to their doom. So they're faced with a tense standoff, trying to reach the high ground that would let them throw stuff down on the other one. The elf gets her arm broken, which makes climbing even more slow and agonising. Eventually they both reach the summit, which has a griffon nest on it. In the ensuing struggle, the goblin kills the adult griffons and almost kills the elf before she triumphs, leaving her severely wounded with one newly hatched griffon chick surviving. Somehow she eventually made it back, became a famed griffon-rider, lived a long and heroic life and eventually died, leaving behind only stories for the loremaster of the kingdom to tell to future generations. But the details of those will have to wait until another time, who knows where, who knows when. A fairly atmospheric story, but one that feels like a mere chapter in a larger novel, this definitely leaves me wanting more and I'd be interested to know if other Chivalry & Sorcery products actually return to the same set of characters. Since the writer has stayed involved with the line for many years, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 5: June(?) 1999



part 2/5



Ninja: The USA has long since tired of ninjas, with no ninja turtle series active for the first time in 13 years. The UK is a little behind the trends as usual, plus this magazine is still new so they aren't repeating themselves by doing a big article on how cool ninjas are. As with the one on assassins & thugs, they're trying to stick to the more historical side of things over the fantastic supernatural exaggerations. Still, that leaves over a millennium of japanese history to sort through and try to figure out what really happened. We can be reasonably certain they started as defeated chinese military who fled to japan and turned to sneakiness to compensate for their lack of direct power. These then merged with the native japanese people and became family-based organisations that passed their tricks down the centuries. Stealth, poison, disguise, using bamboo reeds to breathe underwater, dressing appropriately for the weather, they learnt to do a lot on a relatively limited budget and use teamwork to pull off tricks that would be impossible if there was just one person involved. A system-free reminder that there's all kinds of cool things you can do with basic adventuring equipment even before you add magic, especially if you all work together. Those 10 foot poles, caltrops, grappling hooks, tiger claws, smokebombs, etc can really add up when it comes to getting places while misdirecting the people living in them. The kind of article that's decent enough taken in isolation, but not telling me anything new after years of reading other articles that get past the basics and go into more specific details for specific systems, maybe introduce some new items, a class or even a full adventure. The late 80's material still has the edge here.



Codes of Behaviour: You ever feel like D&D alignments are too broad and vague? It's been a common complaint since 1975, so you're not alone. Here's another attempt to break it down into lots of little categories so you can decide exactly where you fall on each of them. Trustworthiness, Honesty, willingness to attack unarmed people, (when you're fully armed) regard for innocents, treatment of prisoners, willingness to kill, charitability, ability to work well with others, respect for law & authority, loyalty to friends, regard for freedom, opinion on slavery, opinion on ecology, and how they justify their own morals to themselves. They then try to put them into an overall hierarchy of common moral positions, which turns out looking very similar to Palladium's. A curious selection with some obvious holes, particularly when taken out of a medieval D&D type milieu. Trying to put my own moral decisions into these boxes results in a lot of none of the above results. Nothing I haven't seen before multiple times, and not one of the better implementations of the concept either. There's a reason why the broad categories that let everyone project their own interpretations on them stick while more specific ones like this keep falling by the wayside.



Feeder Frenzy: The adventures in here continue to be of wider variety than Dungeon or the US edition. This time, we're off to Batain VI, in the Babylon 5 universe. The PC's are hired by your typical mysterious Mr Johnson to capture a pair of Na'ka'leen feeders and deliver them to a specific warehouse on centauri prime with a deadline of a month from now. This of course involves multiple challenges. First, you'll have to get to the planet they're native too and find some. Then you need to catch them, which is not easy as these are large dangerous predators with minor psionic capabilities on top. Then there's the fact that they're illegal on centauri prime, so you need to figure out a way to smuggle them onto the planet undetected. Then once you do get to the drop point, you find out that your ultimate employer was none other than Londo Mollari (seen only as a prerecorded message so you can't mess up the timeline), who has a grudge against them for something they did or didn't do in the past. An automated trap will release the Feeders, meaning you have to fight them all over again. Then of course, you'll have to get off centauri prime again, possibly with the authorities alerted to your crimes, depending on how sadistic the DM is feeling. (but not Londo's part in them, not that they'll believe you even if you are caught and try to rat him out) So this is the worst kind of Shadowrun style screwed over by the Mr Johnson mission, where the whole thing is a setup to cause the PC's as much grief as possible, only transplanted to a different system. It's not completely linear in that it gives you plenty of leeway in how to solve the challenges in each section, but many decisions will require the DM to make up more details to fill in the sketchiness and of course the ending is the very annoying kind where you encounter a significant NPC without being able to actually do anything to them. They may be covering a wider range of systems in here, but the actual quality of what we're getting remains deeply hit and miss and this is a definite miss as an adventure rather than a story.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 5: June(?) 1999



part 3/5



Game Reviews: The Accursed Tower sees R. A. Salvatore take a rare break from cranking out Drizzt novels to do an actual adventure. Low level fare where you follow a merchant around and discover Icewind Dale in a (relatively) safe manner. Sounds a bit more linear than I like my adventures, but at least the production values are higher than the average issue of Dungeon.

The Fantastic Four Roster book for the Marvel SAGA RPG is a glossy 144 page piece of work covering not only them, but an exhaustive list of their allies and enemies over the years. It's probably a bit out of date by now as a general resource, but the stats remain useful for the game itself.

The Scarlet Brotherhood shines a light on one of Greyhawk's biggest and most evil secret societies, in the process bringing back Monks and Assassins as full classes in their own right rather than just kits or subclasses. They're cruel, they're sneaky and they're coming to a town near you. Do you have what it takes to root them out? Another precursor of the things that will become core next edition as they go back to the dungeon and embrace the idea of adding lots of new classes in supplements.

Chivalry & Sorcery Light does exactly what it says on the tin, condense the core rules of the system down to 40 pages, ready to add on various settings as you please. The reviewer thinks they could still have simplified the combat system further but it's a solid step toward making the game more accessible.

TSR Jam 1999 is a compilation of adventures from their recent game store outreach program. This means they're all linear tournament adventures designed to be completed in a single sitting, but at least they're the cream of the crop in that field and span a wide variety of settings & systems. You can probably find a place in your campaign for at least one.

Outbound is a general sourcebook for space exploration adventures in Alternity. Lots of ideas for what could be in your final frontier and several new occupations well suited to venturing where no man has gone before. Their main complaint is precisely because it mixes info for players with bits only the GM should see. Hopefully they're mature enough not to exploit any spoilers if they buy the book themselves.

The Silver Stair by Jean Rabe (not to be confused with The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis) takes us to Krynn, where Goldmoon is trying to get to the bottom of (or rather, the top of) a seemingly endless set of mysterious stairs that appeared one day. This turns into a general pondering on the nature of faith in a changing world, as people deal in different ways with the absence of the gods and discovery of new magic, prejudice between people of different beliefs and all that big philosophical stuff. It doesn't seem too cheesy for the reviewer so hopefully it's on the better end of Dragonlance novels.

Preacher: War in the Sun by Garth Ennis also deals with the big religious questions in a rather more sweary and cynical way. They're planning a movie with Ben Affleck and Cameron Diaz, which is hilariously inaccurate in hindsight. It did eventually get a TV series in 2016 after lots of development hell, which lasted 4 seasons, which is about as happy an ending as you can hope for, even if they did tone down the gore quite a bit.

The Essential Guide to Droids is one of Star Wars' exhaustive lists of lore for the anally retentive. There's no RPG stats, but it's still useful for gamers to derive their own for whichever of the three systems it's used now you prefer, or another one like GURPS.

The Invisibles: Counting to None by Grant Morrison is another one that gets a review full of speculation about TV adaptions, which turn out to be even more inaccurate as it's still yet to hit screens in any form, although there's two other completely unrelated shows that use the same title, which further muddies the waters and makes trademarking difficult. Still, the comic remains as weird and interesting as ever.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 5: June(?) 1999



part 4/5



Justice is on the Cards: The centrepiece of the issue is unsurprisingly tied into the cover, giving us a full colour 4-page look into the new Judge Dredd CCG and the process of it's development. A bunch of the main culprits give their sides of the story. Colin MacNeil was brought back to do the art with an offer he couldn't refuse. His wife Karen took on the job of go-between co-ordinating things between the business side and the creative side. Jeremy Norton was said marketer, as well as the ultra nerd doing his best to keep all the cards accurate to the lore of the comics. Along with Robin Elliot and Simon Lucas, who manage to avoid being interrogated here, they've produced something they're pretty proud of, that hopefully will get plenty of sales so they can produce further expansions. Your typical promotional article with a humorous framing device to make it a little less obvious, the fact that this is in colour when the rest of the magazine's contents are B&W shows that it's probably paid promotion. Well, CCG's are big business now so they can afford to speculate, and a place like this is probably comparatively cheap for the potential returns, as there's a lot of crossover between RPG gamers and CCG ones. At least they put the effort in to make it tolerable to read.



Megabyte: Star Wars X-Wing Alliance gets a review that has a fair number of positive points, particularly compared to previous Star Wars games of recent years, but it ultimately left unsatisfied by the linear and derivative story. No matter how good the graphics and sound get, that kind of lazy writing will always be with us.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the other hand gets a delighted perfect 10. The controls are a significant step up in complexity to previous games in the series, but the way it introduces you to them is perfectly paced and incorporated into play so they soon feel completely intuitive. The story is full of interesting characters and emotional moments, but it doesn't force you to do everything in one precise order and there are tons of optional secrets to reward people who take the time to explore Hyrule. Even cynical brits can't deny the sheer craftsmanship that went into it's creation.



Mystra's Prize: The second adventure this issue takes us to Arabel in the Forgotten Realms. The PC's are hired to steal a pendant that once belonged to Mystra from where it's being exhibited in the temple of Tymora, ostensibly because another evil party is planning to steal it as well, so you need to steal it first to keep it safe. In actuality, the other party is also good, and the whole thing is a prank by Elminster because that's the way his sense of humour runs, plus you've got to give adventuring parties chances to earn some XP so they'll be useful when the real threats arrive.

Having been given your mission, you're actually given relatively free reign on how to go about it. You could look for a sewer route to get in and out of the temple sneakily. You could hire a horse carriage or a boat to use as a getaway vehicle. You could hire a guy who draws maps so you have more information without having to scope it out yourself and risk attracting the guard's suspicion. Along the way there are several street encounters you could have. A well informed burger salesman. Some random harlots who's names are a very topical pop culture reference will invite you to slam your body down and wind it all around with them, and rob you if you let your guard down. Depending on your gather information skills you might or not find out that the people currently escorting the pendant have been replaced by Cultists of the Dragon, who also plan to fake their deaths and abscond with the pendant at a suitable time, so you don't have to feel bad about killing them in the process of your own heist. However you do finally get hold of the pendant and escape any pursuers, you'll eventually encounter a robed young lady along the way. This will turn out to be Mystra herself, who'll want her pendant back and won't take no for an answer, using her full godly powers if they're dumb enough to try and fight her to keep it. So like the other adventure this issue, this is one where the challenges are entirely manufactured to mess with the players rather than accomplish any wider goal, and it climaxes with an encounter with a famous NPC you can't do anything to. I know that technically all RPG adventures are just made up to challenge the players OOC, but it feels very weird and meta that it happened twice in a row IC. So this is better than most tournament adventures in the middle, with a decent amount of worldbuilding to support your ability to choose your path, but has a deliberately annoying deus ex machina ending. I'm not sure what to make of that. Overall, probably not one I'm going to use.

 

[Davies]

Network News: Sarbreenar is now up and running, with it's own website. (which unfortunately is now another one lost to time so I can't enjoy whatever material was on there)

Don't say I never did you any favors.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 5: June(?) 1999



part 5/5



Mailbag: First letter complains that UK members can't access the USA website stuff that requires a login. That's because they're on separate databases and can't share all the details across countries without falling foul of data protection laws. It's a big pain in the ass they're trying to solve as we speak.

Second complains that it's been nearly a year since they did the survey on what 3e should be like and we've still heard nothing about the results. D&D is being lapped repeatedly by other systems that have released multiple new editions with substantial improvements in the rules in the intervening time. It's no wonder they stopped being the biggest selling game around. Rest assured your data is being used, they're just taking their time about it as they want to get everything perfect. There will be big announcements next issue.

Third wants to know who wins a tie-breaker between a near-dead cleric healing themselves and a wizard casting magic missile on the same initiative segment. You can only reroll initiative so many times before you go mad. If the dice hate you that much might as well have the DM decide by fiat.



On The Trail: This fills in a little more about the conventions they talked about in the editorial. Ashley Perryman went to Towercon, which was small but packed, with games for a good dozen different systems, plus the pool & jacuzzi just a room or two away for unwinding in. Wiggy covered the Dudley Bug Ball, which was also fairly busy, albeit with some grumbles about the secondhand stuff moving faster than the new games and the fact that smoking was banned pretty much everywhere on campus. You're probably not going to enjoy that becoming default in indoor venues everywhere over the next decade then. Sad did not live down to his moniker at the RAFWA championships, meeting lots of friends that he hasn't seen since the last big convention and running a whole load of tournaments personally, which gives him plenty of actual play stories to recount. Finally, Chris Mussel was 4 hours late, but also eventually made it to Towercon after a whole load of driving around and frantic phone calls, which make up the majority of his story, but everyone was very forgiving when he did make it so all's well that ends well. Another fairly typical entry here that shows you a slice of life in the late 90's, which you can analyse to see how it's different from other countries or decades if you're that obsessive.



Bare Bones: The general gaming advice column also has a suggestion that I've seen before and probably will do again. Don't just put them up against monsters they can hit, include the odd natural disaster in your game. How will they deal with fire, plague or flood and their aftermaths? Is there a sentient cause behind them that they can go and punch in response, or will the best way to use their energy be rebuilding and maybe changing things around so the replacement stuff is less susceptible next time it happens? Using stone rather than wood, better sanitation and drainage, planting trees on unstable mountainsides to prevent avalanches, etc. But since this is a gaming magazine, they do push towards there being someone or something to blame, as that makes for more satisfying stories than spending a whole session on planning and logistics, then moving on to deal with another town's politics. Overall, this provokes no reaction in me but another meh. Hopefully less experienced gamers will get something from it.



With the articles in here being mostly topics I've seen before and the adventures being interesting but in irritating and perverse ways, this issue was particularly low in actual usefulness to me. The novelty of the british flavour has worn off and the individual articles have no more depth than their american counterparts. Maybe next issue will have some better ones. For now, back across the pond to see what mysteries the mystery themed issue has to offer.

 

[(un)reason]

Don't say I never did you any favors.

Nice. That never showed up on any of my google searches, which demonstrates just how annoying their SEO algorithms are becoming these days in pushing people onto the same few big websites.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 137: July 1999



part 1/5



32 pages. Down into a dungeon? With some leering humanoids? That’s not very mysterious or unknown to us by now, even if the question of how they got behind the explorer is a bit worrying. I guess that’s a reminder that you should be careful with your mapping and checking for secret doors & traps, and always have an escape route planned. Otherwise you may find yourself never getting home to recharge ever again. Let’s make another little hex on the map a little less mysterious to the internet at large.



Letters to the Editor: New editor, new title for this column. First letter is from Wes Nicholson, the current guy in charge of Virtual Seattle. He acknowledges that at the moment, the classic tournament games seem to have better roleplaying than the Living campaigns and maybe they ought to be doing something to redress the balance. Precisely what that something might be is still open to suggestions.

Second is surprised that they haven't had any letters for several months, and is mainly writing in to be supportive. Adventure reviews would be nice though. Neither they or Dragon have done anything like that in a while. Maybe you'd be happier with the UK edition's output.

Finally, someone asking them to implement Dragon Dice support here. It's not an RPG. They haven't started covering Magic:the Gathering in here despite being owned by WotC now, so they're definitely not taking that job on.



Notes from HQ: Just where do you draw the line between a convention, a game day and a private club event that happens to include RPGA adventures? Another of those questions that’s niggled at them for a while, with people bending the rules in both directions where it would suit them. (particularly where it comes to clubs trying to get hold of more certificates for Living games to power up their characters with.) The boundary they’ve finally settled on is that a convention has 25 or more tables worth of tournaments going on over a weekend, while anything less is merely a game day. Conventions get to order exclusive adventures smaller gatherings can’t, better prizes, and higher scores for running stuff. Unless they get strong complaints, them’s the rules going forward. (at least until the next big organisational shakeup) Does that sound fair? Too high or too low? Any opinions at all? Or are we once again both writing into the void?



Table Talk: Business as usual here with lots of little bits of news, but nothing world-changing. Kevin Melka won the tournament writing contest in the decathlon, which is no great surprise given the number of other adventures he's authored for them. The PM players won most network services by default, being the only club to even try in that category. The Fellowship of the Black Spot got the best website. The next contest is for the best castle, fortress, keep or other such (probably villainous) hideout. The deadline is fairly short, but it's quite possible you've already got one of those in the notes that you can tidy up and send in, since they appear pretty often in actual play.

Plenty of coverage for their charity work as well. They're no longer sponsoring the rockhopper penguins, as they've been moved to a different zoo, but they are still paying for the same polar bear they've been helping since 1994, plus a new golden lion tamarin. They're also still helping out terminally ill humans by donating to the make-a-wish foundation, giving a teenage boy with orbital rhabdomosarcoma the chance to meet famous skaters and skate with them. You can't exactly say all's well that ends well, but at least it's a better ending than he would have had without them and we've all got to go someday.

The Living City continues to slowly grow and change. Carl Buehler is stepping down as Director of Activities, but he's being replaced by Troy Daniels, plus they're adding Brian Burr to the team. Given the number of people they have on the team, the transition should be pretty smooth. It'll take much more dramatic events than that to stop the show.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 137: July 1999



part 2/5



Member Spotlight: The profilee this time is Greg Dreher, one of their most prolific adventure writers. Since 1995 he's produced 23 of them, with no signs of stopping. That's one every couple of months! I guess RPGA adventures are pretty short, but that's still a pretty fast rate when combined with his day work as an actuary student. On top of that, he maintains the database for the Living Jungle, keeping track of all the adventures, who played them and corresponding character advancement. If anyone has a clear picture of how the place is developing and all the metaplot stuff that's happened that has mostly gone unmentioned in the newszine, it's him. Another profile that serves as a reminder just how much hard work goes on behind the scenes, and how many adventures they run that we never hear about, and are probably lost to time now. Did anyone manage to archive copies of the living jungle or death adventures and where could we find them?



Internet 101: This column gets in on the competitions. Send in your most useful websites so we don’t have to do all the research ourselves. Anything that could be remotely gaming related, as long as it’s safe for work. Top three get actual prizes, and any number of your entries could wind up appearing in future instalments of the column. Can’t say fairer than that guvner. The actual links this time are fairly high survivability, as it’s mostly official .gov ones. The NSA, the Whitehouse itself, and other big institutions like the San Diego convention centre, the Webster library and the Juno Library. You won't be finding the true top secret info on there, but you can get some useful layout stuff for your modern day espionage games. This one still has some usefulness even now.



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Off to Nether Mukshar this time to complete the trilogy. Once again the main threat is bands of dopplegangers led by illithids, a pretty formidable combination if you don’t have countermagic to root them out before they take over your social structures. It’s no great surprise that the ruler of the place is very keen on attracting adventuring groups, paying them well to go on missions for him. (although the source of his wealth remains mysterious. ) Craftsmen are once again high on the social scale, as the lazy dopplegangers rarely have any skill at practical matters so that’s an easy way to test if someone is still legit, plus the practical things they make are just generally handy and a good source of income. (undercut somewhat by there being a religious order that also specialises in crafting that gives out stuff for free. ) There’s still plenty of challenges, but humanity seems to be winning at the moment. So this turns out to be a testament to our adaptability, that even powerful tricks like shapeshifting and mind-reading combined hit diminishing returns after a while, with the survivors becoming increasingly savvy at countering them. (although having to live in a perpetually paranoid way does weird things to the economy.) This is definitely a place you could have a lengthy series of challenging adventures in, with several secrets hinted at but not fully explained that you could come up with answers for in your own campaign. Another solid swing and a hit in Ed's long and mostly successful series of articles.



City Stories: Yet another temple this month, as we look at the new temple of Mystra. The old one was destroyed last year by tanar'ri, and the new one may be overcompensating a bit with the fortifications and magical wards. A chunky L-shaped building that extends quite a few floors both above and below ground, it's designed to be easily defensible and filled with statues & gargoyles that can come to life in case of emergency. Anyone trying to break in had better be pretty well equipped if they want to get out with more treasure than they went in with. Still, there are plenty of powerful magic items and bits of ancient lore there, so some groups might be foolhardy and amoral enough to try it, which means it's a good thing they do include proper maps here. The sample NPC's are more varied than usual, as on top of the usual high level priests of Mystra, we have a young one blessed with visions, which like many a prophet she didn't ask for, so she finds being coddled by everyone here and not being able to choose her own path in life somewhat frustrating. She could easily be persuaded to run away with a group of adventurers containing any hot guys. They also have a priest of Azuth as a permanent liaison, reminding us that the Realms has multiple gods of magic, one of which is new to the position, and it's a good thing they're mostly on good terms, because the Realms would be in a much worse state if they fell out. This one seems decently above average in actual play usefulness in various ways.