Dragon #324 just came in

[MKMcArtor]

I think Red Steel was the best treatment they ever got. Very interesting culture and social makeup.

Heck, I just like RS. I'd love to see it brought back somehow.

I agree that the Red Steel lupins certainly had the coolest culture associated with them. Lupins through the years have had two other cultures ascribed to them. The #325 article takes one of those other cultures and expands upon it in (hopefully) a cool way.

We hope y'all like what you see!

 

[BOZ]

cool, can't wait to see it.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

In my current Eberron game, the Flakey Guy (every group has one - he's the guy who is there for about 50% of the sessions) plays a bard. The running joke is that, as a bard, the presence of absence of his character has no effect on the party's total strength.

My players don't know that, when I first said it, I wasn't joking.

What you need is to see an 8th-level bard with Words of Creation (BoED) in action. +4 to attack and damage is...significant.

 

[d20Dwarf]

The Lovecraft article was one of the most entertaining and worthwhile reads I've seen in Dragon in quite some time. Love the literary stuff!

 

[FireLance]

What you need is to see an 8th-level bard with Words of Creation (BoED) in action. +4 to attack and damage is...significant.

In addition, there's a feat in Eberron (Song of the Heart, IIRC) that allows you to increase the morale bonus from your Inspire Courage ability by 1. That's +5 to hit and damage, or +6 if the DM decides that Words of Creation double that bonus as well .

 

[Gez]

I agree that the Red Steel lupins certainly had the coolest culture associated with them.

Of course they had!

 

[Cam Banks]

They actually first appeared in X2: Castle Amber, but you're right that they've been updated and expanded several times in Basic D&D, first edition, and second edition.

However, they're quite cool in any edition and any culture.

Damn, I suspected they'd been in something before that but I was trying to determine if I was confusing them with something else. X2 Castle Amber was the only Expert module I didn't own back in the day - I seemed to be forever reading my friends' copies of the thing without picking one up for myself.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[JoeGKushner]

The Lovecraft article was one of the most entertaining and worthwhile reads I've seen in Dragon in quite some time. Love the literary stuff!

I was the exact opposite. I didn't feel that the article really did anything to showcase how Lovecraft effected the game that wasn't obvious. "Pist... hey buddy, Mind Flayers were influenced by Lovecraft... Yup..." Yawn.

 

[JoeGKushner]

They're originally a Mystara/Known World race, introduced in the D&D Creature Catalog (the green softcover book with a cover featuring a number of wary adventurers looking into a cave entrance). It was a book that felt very British, the same kind of tone used in Night's Dark Terror - probably because of the involvement of Bambra and Morris et al.

Lupins were originally wolf-headed humanoids that hated werewolves and hunted them with silver weapons. The Red Steel setting expanded things a lot and gave them their own nation alongside the rakasta and tortles etc. Quite a shift, but not necessarily a bad one. Much more swashbuckling wolf-man action.

Cheers,
Cam

The main problem with that whole Red Steel thing was... well, the Red Steel itself. My group thought it too much hassel to get rid of it so we basically ditched the campaign setting and wildly plundered the game mecahnics.

 

[Rugger]

They're originally a Mystara/Known World race, introduced in the D&D Creature Catalog (the green softcover book with a cover featuring a number of wary adventurers looking into a cave entrance). It was a book that felt very British, the same kind of tone used in Night's Dark Terror - probably because of the involvement of Bambra and Morris et al.

Lupins were originally wolf-headed humanoids that hated werewolves and hunted them with silver weapons. The Red Steel setting expanded things a lot and gave them their own nation alongside the rakasta and tortles etc. Quite a shift, but not necessarily a bad one. Much more swashbuckling wolf-man action.

Cheers,
Cam

MMMMM...Nights Dark Terror....

Man that mod was WAY ahead of its time....converting it for a new Eberron campaign right now.

Lotsa those UK mods were great...

-Rugger
"I Lurk!"