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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8809828" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 124: October 1996part 4/5The Halls of the Morning Light: Last issue, we saw a cleric of Lathander take the job of Chief Prelate of Raven's Bluff. Following that up with his stats and details on the temple seems a pretty logical development. Relarn Dayspring (another good example of nominative determinism) adventured his way up to 13th level, (which tells us he wasn't an elected PC character, since no-ones managed that yet) lost a hand to the Zhentarim, decided that even if they have regeneration spells available back at the temple it might still be time to slow down a bit and took the desk job. This does still mean he gives pretty good advice to troubled adventurers, which might save them from coming back in dire need of healing. As Lathander is the Morninglord, a big part of his tenets is proactively starting new projects and getting things done before they become a crisis, which usually winds up cheaper and easier in the long run, but most adventurers are pretty bad at, so they'll really appreciate the ones that do think to seek out problems and ask for help in dealing with them rather than sitting in a bar waiting for plot hooks. They have a very nice 3D map of the temple and a decent amount of detail on the people inhabiting it, but not quite so much on the larger-scale tenets of the faith and what they do day-to-day as the previous entries in this series. Still a decent bit of material that could well be handy in actual play, but not the best they've done.A World of Your Own: Roger's talk of island campaigns moves to the more esoteric ones of demiplanes floating in the ethereal sea. There are quite a few of them, from the very well known demiplane of dread, to obscure ones only mentioned in a single adventure in Dungeon. Some are easy to get in and out of, while others work on idiosyncratic rules or are just really hard to find. You have near total freedom to alter the laws of physics, make them as big or small as you want without worrying about what effect this has on the neighbours. If anything, the tricky part is narrowing down what you want to do with the place. Another one that might be handy for less experienced gamers, giving them plenty of things to check out, but tells me nothing new, since obsessive study of the planes is one of my specialties. Convention Follies: The conventions never stop coming, but they're particularly dense during the summer holidays for obvious reasons. For equally obvious reasons, the RPGA staff attend a lot of them, mixing business & pleasure as much as they can. There's actually less RPG talk in here than I was expecting, but somewhat more CCG and computer game stuff, showing how both of those are muscling in on the same demographic & disposable income, contributing to TSR's financial struggles even as the staff are seduced and play them too. The real focus is getting to meet all those big game designers and fanatical RPGA players in person, talk about the cool stuff they've done and maybe even get to play a tournament round with them. If anything, they're a little too keen on the name-dropping and showing they're right in the middle of all the action. When you're used to being the nerdy one in school, it's easy to overcompensate when you do get a social network that does share the same interests. Freakonomicon: Following directly on from the last article is your typical highly stereotyped and more than a little sexist list of common varieties of person to show up at conventions, their common behaviours, true nature & mating habits. Your basic unwashed nerd, irritating kids, goths, (Vampire is their biggest rival now, after all) klingon cosplayers, chain mail bikini babes, annoyingly loud exhibitors, and a weirdly specific & pointed jab at William Shatner in particular for being a horribly entitled celebrity guest coasting on accomplishments from decades past. They obviously had a run-in with him at some point over the summer that really stuck with them. Not saying some of the people involved don't deserve it, but this is all a bit mean-spirited as a joke.</blockquote>

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