Dragon #355

[Jason Bulmahn]

Eric,

Good cause I will make it a point to both Erik Mona and James Jacobs to GET ORCUS in the Realms!

Well, James works on Dungeon, but you can make your point to me if you like.

Jason Bulmahn
Managing Editor of Dragon
GameMastery Brand Manager

 

[dargoth3]

Well I just want to know if Eric L Boyd will right this injustice to Orcus or not. Cause honestly, he needs it.

*does agree with Ari that the next Ecology article looks VERY promising*

Razz,

I'm interested too but I keep asking WHY does FR keep ignoring Orcus!?!

Because Orcus has another 80 or so years of sulking over Gareth Dragonsbane breaking his favourite toy!

 

[Razz]

Sadly, no. They note how much space it'd take to print full stat blocks for the hierarch modrons (nine of them, plus larger stat blocks for higher-level monsters). They then reference the tertian modron in Dungeon #144, and the Primus vestige in Dragon #341. Finally, they refer you to the Manual of the Planes web enhancement wih the 3.0 modrons.

Sad indeed. There're ways they can work around that. They could publish a modron per month or 2-3 every couple of months or half a few months from and the other half a couple months later. Or just do a darn Web Enhancement already!

~sigh~

Doesn't seem to be any sort of compromise. I guess the article was nothing but a big tease for us modron fans Looks like I'll have to work on my own conversions on the monster forums here with the community.

 

[Shade]

Since mine probably won't arrive for a few weeks, any chance for a brief overview of these critters: dungeon phantom, rot giant, and cannon golem?

Thanks!

 

[BOZ]

Creature Catalog VI... cave fisher (CR 3) ... maedar (CR 4), obliviax (CR 1), scarecrow (CR 3)... The obliviax has a sidebar presenting it as a hazard as well. It's also worth noting that a few minor variants of scarecrows are also given in its entry.

Wow, great, great… bringing back the classics.

I’d imagine the cave fisher and scarecrow probably came out pretty close to how we wrote them, since we made sure to have them in full MM4 format and everything. Great to see the scarecrow variants made it in – how many remained?

The maedar and obliviax conversions were a few months older (submitted IIRC right after MM4 came out, so we did not have the book yet) so I can only guess how much they needed to be modified for print. Not a whole lot, though, I’d imagine – from the sound of things.

Good to see the maedar back in the pages of Dragon, especially since that’s where they originated in the first place (#106). Although, not in a Creature Catalog or Dragon’s Bestiary – they first came from one of Ed Greenwood’s “Ecology Of” articles, oddly enough!

Obliviax as creature and as a hazard… ingenious! I did agonize over whether to stat them fully as creatures or just as hazards, but it looks like the editors decided to go for both. I like it! Since they are immobile and have no physical attacks, it seemed that making them hazards was the obvious and easy choice (see the memory moss from Necromancer Games’ Tome of Horrors), but I had a few problems with that. First of all, the shrieker fungus in the Monster Manual is immobile with no physical attacks, but it still has a stat block. Secondly, the obliviax has always had a decent Intelligence score, and hazards are generally mindless. Also, the obliviax just feels more like a “creature” to me than green slime or yellow mold. It will be interesting to see how they handled that – I could see how what we wrote could have been dissected and rearranged to make it work that way.

Does anyone know if the article on the ferrous dragons in 356 is an update of a previous article on ferrous dragons or is it brand new?

…both? It’s an update for sure, but there have been changes and additions aplenty.

The ferrous dragons definitely have a small but loyal following, so I’m sure people will dig seeing them back again, or for the first time.

This one was more Shade’s baby than mine – I just tacked my name on it. No, really, I did a fair amount of work on it. I guess I just have a bias against true dragons because their stat blocks are such a headache to work with.

Sweet! All three of my monsters made it in! That would be the seedroach, giant dragonfly and springheel.

congrats to you as well!

Who did the art for the Creature Catalog article?

i'm wondering the same thing.

Can someone tell me if the Maedar is what I think it is? The male medusa from 2e? I believe it is, and if so, I am very excited.

yes, virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

although one odd thing i noticed... there does seem to be some implication in 3E that medusa are not exclusively female anymore. still, we went full steam ahead all the same.

And the cover:

yeah... does that even relate to any of the articles, or is it just generic window dressing?

Indeed it is! It even has a section talking about how it can become a glyptar!

Great! Glad to see that was kept. Glyptars also originated in Dragon, for that matter, back in #140.

The ferrous dragons were on my short list of creatures I wanted to see come back.

short list? you must have more than one list, then.

 

[Cam Banks]

I was thinking the same thing. I originally tried to put it in dungeonscape but it got cut for space... fortunately, I have other venues.

Clearly a man after my own heart.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Razz]

Congrats to all the authors here got there submissions in this magazine!

Couple of questions:

1) The giant dragonfly was done in Arms&Equipment Guide. I am assuming this is a 3.5 update then?

2) What is a springheel?

 

[Cam Banks]

2) What is a springheel?

A kind of urban fey, modeled I assume after the folkloric character of Spring-Heeled Jack.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Shemeska]

Got my copy of the magazine today, and some initial comments on a handful of the articles:

1) Eric Boyd has made me smile.

Because not only was this latest Volo's Guide about various fiend cults on Toril, it dripped with flavor, and it was written in such a way that doesn't restrict it to one cosmology or another. Even when talking about Waukeen and Graz'zt's history, there's a nice little mention of Celestian, couched in terms of him being a "god from another world", which preserves the prior lore entirely without making anyone compromise on anything if they're using the Great Wheel for their own FR campaign or likewise if they're using the revised 3e FR cosmology. And perhaps the best part was Dagon being linked to the Trench of Lopak (I read it as either an avatar there or a portal to his layer in the Abyss influencing the depths) was quite nice, along with putting him up on par seemingly with an entire pantheon worshipped on the other side of Toril.

Awesome job man.

2) Devourer Ecology - well written and I like the origin story (enough to make me no longer care that 3e retconned the devourer into being undead, which is saying something). My only quibble is some funky stuff with the history of the Vlaakith line, but I can overlook it because there are some really nice ideas in here (I especially like the githzerai cooperation with them from time to time). Kudos.

3) Shane/Alzrius - I haven't read it yet, but congrats on your first publication!

 

[demiurge1138]

A kind of urban fey, modeled I assume after the folkloric character of Spring-Heeled Jack.

Cheers,
Cam

Indeed it is modeled on Spring-Heeled Jack.

The giant dragonfly (also one of mine) was more of a lateral approach to the concept. The original submission was Tiny and CR 1/2, based on the actual prehistorical giant dragonflies (my original idea was for a familiar suitable for the Isle of Dread or another lost world setting). Since the CCVI one is CR 2, I'm assuming they advanced it somewhat in size and HD.

Demiurge out.