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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9027650" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 139: December 1999part 4/5Glyphs of Devotion: We just had one religion special back in april. I guess they had a whole bunch of submissions that didn't quite make the deadline, because there's multiple godly articles in this issue as well. Any dungeoneer worth their salt will probably be familiar with how annoying magical symbols & glyphs can be when triggered unexpectedly. It's no surprise that various clergies would develop exclusive ones relevant to their interests. Tymora's Tythe is generally put on small stones to give the carriers good luck. A few random donors after a service will find fortune in their future endeavours. Low-key, but probably gets a lot more use than ones trapping the treasure vault.Milil's Musical Scrolls let anyone imitate the effects of bardic music simply by breaking the seal and releasing the song recorded. The kind of one-use effect that's handy, but most groups will probably hoard indefinitely rather than actually using. Lathander's Candle is more traditionally glyphy, activating when undead come near and causing ongoing damage until they go out of range. Since it glows brightly when active, it's a good warning system both at home and when dungeoneering.Mystra's Spellblessing temporarily counteracts Wild or Dead magic zones. If you're expecting to encounter them, stock up on glyphs at your local temple beforehand. Tempus' Rage is cast on weapons, and sends the user into a berserker rage automatically when they hit something. This is handy both in getting the hit & damage bonuses for yourself, and tricking an enemy into doing something rash. All of these actually seem pretty useful as long as your party has the right composition.Powers that Be: Turns out the cover is linked to this column, as we look at Xan Yae, the closest thing Oerth has to a god of ninjas. This is because her portfolio is a particularly subtle and complex one, that just happens to include lots of things also associated with ninjas. Dusk, shadows, martial arts, internal discipline, psionics, they're all parts of seeking connection with the Universal Mind and achieving Internal Peace & Perpetual Harmony. This may involve stealthily shiving people of all alignments who are disruptive to those ideals, but hey, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. So it turns out that she's actually a pretty significant part of Greyhawk's axis of active neutrality, making sure neither good or evil ever become supreme and spoil the world for everyone else by subtly putting a thumb on the scales of justice. This means her specialty priests don't fit the visual stereotype of clerics at all, with no armor, mostly small sharp weapons allowed as well as plenty of skill at stealth and unarmed combat. They can easily be used as allies or adversaries and catch the players off guard with the range of tricks they have up their sleeve either way. Surprised she wasn't among the ones included in the 3e core set, but I guess they wanted ones with simpler, more iconic portfolios for the casual players. Practical Tournament Play: Speaking of info aimed at casuals, here's another couple of pages of your basic roleplaying advice. Remember that RPG's are a group activity, don't hog the limelight, don't split the party, encourage the quiet players to participate, give people room to actually roleplay rather than just going straight from one combat encounter to the next, make their backgrounds and contacts meaningful. All stuff we've seen before and a strong reminder how much tournament play struggles with that, as people who've never met each other are thrown together and have to figure out a functional group dynamic in 4 hours or less. It's easy to see how people would simply not bother, letting hack & slash prevail. I have no doubt we'll be seeing this advice repeated yet again in the future, as you'll never get everyone agreeing on exactly the same playstyle and implementing it perfectly every session.</blockquote>

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