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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8813521" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 125: November 1996part 3/5Despite the anaemic response to the Decathlon, they're not giving up on the concept. In fact, next year they're bumping up the prizes, doubling the value of 2nd & 3rd place, while first gets a 50% boost to $300 worth of gaming products. The usual mix of writing events, tournament play and service events, with this year's categories including best villain lair, sea monster, tech item and sidekick. Will they get enough entries to make it a decent competition this time, or will things dry up completely when the newszine stops being delivered to people's doors each month? Will it survive WotC's more ruthless cutting of the unprofitable parts of their acquisition or will '98 see a new resurgence? Another little thing to look out for after the hiatus.The Obelisks of Tuthmosis: Still, at least a few good things are coming from the decathlons, as here's the winner of the competition for a Living Death adventure site. Another excellent example why stealing ancient artifacts is a risky business. If the monsters and traps don't get you, the curses on the items themselves might. These pillars have been moved around the world, with one currently in each of London, New York, Rome & Constantinople. This hasn't gone well for anyone, although some curses are more brutal than others. All of them screw up most magic near them and are protected by undead guardians that only appear during the new moon. (good thing most museums are closed at night) If you know the right incantations you might be able to get something useful out of them, but for the average person nearby they'll be the cause of mysterious disappearances and tragic accidents. Just the kind of thing a bunch of heroically inclined investigators might want to solve. A decent enough plot hook overall, reminding us that magic is much less understood & reliable here than most D&D worlds. You'll have to really think when your spells splutter or backfire. Living Jungle Spells: Some competitions are still disappearing without a trace, but submissions of new spells, magic items & monsters remain consistent deliveries. Here's some more mostly nature flavoured ones for you to consider putting in your campaign. Grassdart turns nearby stalks of grass into handy weapons for the duration of a combat. The kind of spell that's very situationally dependent, but hey, grass is a lot easier to find than corpses, so why is this so much more obscure than Animate Dead?Water Window is your basic talk to nature spell, like speak with animals or plants, showing you what happened in the vicinity recently. Might well solve a mystery, but probably not completely rewrite history. Lizard Limbs is a verbal component only spell that lets you shed and regrow your extremities to escape a sticky situation. Good thinking on the part of the designer because having to faff around with somatic & material ones in this situation would severely undercut it's usefulness.Quick Vine lets you get your Tarzan on even if there's no suitable vegetation to hand. Like spiderman, he really doesn't work as well outside a highly specific environment. Ancestral Spirit is not so well designed because it mixes up situations where plus and minus are good and bad, making the spell work stupidly. Roll on 3e, where you know higher is always better. Hippo Walk helps you hold your breath and wade through mud, mud, glorious mud at full speed, not getting stuck. The duration isn't that long though, so don't be an ignoramus and hang out on the bottom for extended periods of time. Vampiric Plants is a particularly nasty AoE spell that can be set as a trap and continues to drain HP for multiple rounds after being triggered. It makes the plants in the area grow massively while animals suffer, so it has interesting potential utility effects as well depending on what specific plants it's cast on. If it got to Athas I can see it being particularly valued by defilers who want to spread the ecological harm around and quickly replace their stocks of plant life for drawing upon.Quicksand is pretty self-explanatory and as handy as ever at just completely short-circuiting the fight against unprepared opponents. Of course, as a level 5 spell, it's not as if anyone is even close to being able to cast it in the actual Living Jungle tournaments, presuming they'll even put this stuff on the approved list.</blockquote>

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