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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8731425" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 115: January 1996part 3/5Port of Call: An Everway article in here? After Dragon just completely dropped any support for non TSR games? Now that is a turnup for the books, and a reminder that the people at WotC were hardcore D&D fans even before they bought the company out. Pleasingly, it looks like this is exclusive material for the newszine as well, not just a promotional excerpt from the books. So here's an overview for the city-state of Caryllon that's interesting not just for what it describes, but how it says it. Lots of brief subdivisions listing not just obvious things like population and tech level, but more abstract ones like the virtue, vice and long-term fate of the city if the players don't interfere to change things. The place itself looks pretty full of adventure opportunities, a mercantile port town with plenty of corruption and unfair bureaucracy that can catch an outsider out, but also offers just as many chances to turn your luck around and make a fortune off someone else. Paladiny types won't enjoy that at all, but more roguish ones will thrive here. A reminder that Dragonlance 5th age wasn't the only game experimenting with card based methods of resolution around this time, nor was Planescape the only multiverse wandering setting and other companies are doing quite a few interesting experiments with rules and format. If you can find it, this is well worth checking out. Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Elminster returns after a brief break engaging in more dangerous adventures, which I'm sure you can read about in an upcoming novel, to once again raid Ed's pantry and drop tidbits about the border kingdoms. Beldargan gets the greatest wordcount, an upland herding village with lots of oddly divided fields with high zig-zagging fences and narrow awkward gates to keep the animals from wandering, which also serve as a pretty decent way to slow down any large scale brigand assaults and give the townsfolk plenty of time to organise a defence. There's plenty of little water-carved caverns amid the hills and streams, and also a magically hidden emerald mine that supposedly could make you more than enough of a fortune to retire on if you could penetrate the defences. If you're in the mood for a more urban adventure, you could head to Blackalblade, a wealthy place full of hot-tempered locals willing to scrap at the slightest offence. Just be ready to get out of town if you're outnumbered and the city watch show up, because they'll probably side with the locals over a wandering group of adventurers and take the time to issue some punitive fines on top. If they try that on the wrong group of high level adventurers they'll probably find themselves with a new government, going by the neighbours. Another pair of entries that show this region isn't particularly stable, but people have been living there long enough that it's become their norm and the things they build are adapted to the turbulent lifestyle. If you go somewhere and find it's all change since last time just tip your hat to the new constitution, take a bow to the new revolution and get on with the business of adventuring.The ongoing cataloging of tournaments focusses on multi-round ones this time. 16 3-round ones, 7 of which are generic, 3 Greyhawk, 2 Forgotten Realms, 2 Al-Qadim, 1 Oriental Adventures & 1 Spelljammer.  32 2-round ones, 12 generic, 6 Forgotten Realms, 6 Ravenloft, 1 Birthright, 1 Oriental Adventures, 1 Dark Sun, 1 Dragonlance, 1 Greyhawk, 1 Spelljammer, 1 Al-Qadim and 1 with an unexplained abbreviation. (MZ?) So the demographics between the different sizes of adventure are actually quite different, with Kevin Melka & Keith Polster's Rats series singlehandedly skewing the 3 round ones in particular. As they found people weren't actually ordering the big ones much, I have to wonder how many people managed to not only play these, but survive all the way through the elimination phases. I guess that's one way to separate the casuals from the hardcore even in an organisation already skewed towards the hardcore.</blockquote>

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