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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8504105" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 42: Jul/Aug 1993part 2/5Side Treks - Whistledown's Mantrap: Huh. For a second time, it turns out that rape is acceptable to the Dungeon editorial staff as long as it's woman on man, and you don't dwell on the finer details. A dryad has cultivated a giant hypnotic venus flytrap (cue little shop of horrors themetune) next to her tree, which has really put a dent in the local animal population. It'll lure you into it's jaws with it's sweet scent. If there's any cute guys in the group, she'll let the rest of the party go in exchange for that one becoming her plaything. (until she gets bored, and releases them "a little worse for wear" a few months later) If not, she has no compunction about using her mind control powers to get what she wants, and ordering her current mind-controlled paramour to engage in violence on her behalf if neither of those approaches works. Charming. Even if you do free her minion from mind control and rescue him, you may come to regret it, as he's cut from the Gaston-esque dumb but egotistical himbo mould and will try to take over your party. No good deed goes unpunished, eh? So this is a collection of enemies where it makes sense on a tactical, game mechanics and in setting level that they would be encountered together, but is a big yikes on a thematic one, reminding us just how much dubious mind control stuff D&D fae can do and still retain a neutral or even chaotic good alignment. Whether it gets used in your campaign will obviously depend heavily on your opinion on that whole minefield of debate.The Lady of the Mists: Connecting to the editorial, we have a bit of gothic tragedy here that would definitely be enhanced by playing the music choices they suggest in the background. A powerful wizard developed a potion that gave it's drinkers Highlander level immortality and regeneration. She spent the next few centuries building up a small cabal of immortals, which naturally tended to become wealthy and influential over their extended lifespans. Then tragedy struck, and she decided that immortality was not a thing man was meant to have, and spent several more centuries developing an antidote and hunting down her former peers. Turns out she needn't have bothered, as it stops working on it's own eventually. So she and the last few immortals have started ageing again, and they've mysteriously vanished from their usual positions heading for her castle in a panic in the hopes of getting another dose. Since they're rich and influential, this causes quite the stir in the halls of government, and the PC's are sent to investigate. Anyway, this lengthy backstory leads up to a fairly typical crumbling gothic castle full of weirdness, undead and traps, with spooky organ music playing from higher up, and while there are some hints along the way, you'll only get to find out the full story if you talk to the wizard in the final encounter instead of attacking her straight away, as you would be quite justified in doing after all the crap you had to go through to reach her. So while the adventure part of this isn't terrible, this is really one where the backstory is the main focus. It would be better suited as a novel, or maybe a WoD style campaign where you play said secret immortals angsting and scheming their way through history, rather than a group of adventurers that just blunder in to discover the aftermath. It also doesn't work thematically in high magic campaign worlds where there are lots of powerful spellcasters who've exceeded mortal lifespan just operating happily out in the open, like the Forgotten Realms. It could all have been much more interesting if they weren't bound to the D&D system and adventure format. But then again, most White Wolf prefab adventures were even worse about telling a story rather than helping the PC's create their own, so it's obviously not as easy as it looks. A big part of D&D's continued supremacy is that adventures where you kill things and take their stuff are relatively easy to design compared to more social scenarios that only work with very specific sets of PC's. Overall, this is a bit irritating.</blockquote>

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