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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9047482" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 141: April 2000part 3/5Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ondeme's secret police evidently weigh large in Ed's vision of the country, because he devotes this column to describing 8 of them individually. The Spell-Captains and Nictars may be fairly few in number, but they have a broad array of powers and freedom to use them as they see fit on ordinary citizens as long as they don't fight each other or otherwise betray the boss. They still have a pretty high turnover, between said betrayals and taking on challenges beyond their ability without backup, as Ondeme has no hesitation sending his minions into tough situations without all the info and then taking it out on them if they fail but survive. A classic example of little bullies taking out the abuse they receive from the big bully on everyone further down the food chain, they'll go from swaggering thugs to snivelling bootlickers on the turn of a dime. It cements that this place operates on a saturday morning cartoon level of dog-kicking villainy, only with genuine consequences for the victims. It definitely needs some heroic adventurers to fix things up alright, and this way you can have the satisfaction of taking all of these different kinds of naughty word you've got to know personally down one-by one before finishing off the big bad like the final episodes of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood. I can definitely see how you could build a good campaign from this material and I wonder just how much more he's going to give us before moving onto the next location.You Rogue!: Halfway through the issue and we're only now getting past the promotion & regular columns to do some themed stuff. Time for another rogue special, which do admittedly come much more rarely than the clerical or wizardly ones. Much of that is simply because there's fewer cool new powers you can give them. You can go some way to giving them new tricks with basic dungeoneering equipment, filling easily broken flasks with various dangerous things you find in your travails, setting up early warning systems or luring monsters with fake valuables, but even here, more than half the suggestions involve low level magic like continual light, grease or dancing lights. In a fantasy world, bards or multiclass spellcaster/rogues outclass purists with ease as tricksters. (and in the case of multiclass half-elf gypsy-bard/thieves, smoke them at regular thieving skills at the same XP total too) Not completely useless, but still a bit disappointing. This is why I'd go beguiler or factotum in 3e.Dragon Fists of Legend: Huh, here's another obscure little part of WotC's history they never mentioned in Dragon Magazine. In 1999 they released a free RPG on their website called Dragon Fist. (now long gone but not too hard to find copies of with an internet search) it used a light version of the D&D system that's somewhere between 2e & 3e, trying to make it more suited to high action martial arts. (although it's still rather crunchier than the likes of contemporary indie games such as Feng Shui.) Not sure why they didn't make it a proper book when the original OA sold so well, but I guess when you're in the middle of a big edition change the littler projects get dropped and at least they released it for free instead of canning it entirely. Anyway, thankfully this isn't just a promotional article, but details on a new god and his worshippers. Kailang is the god of luck & gambling. He was born mortal, but managed to trick his way into eating the peaches of immortality by making a bet with their guardian that would have worked out whichever way the dice fell. Unfortunately he couldn't get hold of another one for his lover, so she eventually died of old age and now he wanders the world looking for her reincarnation, probably being generally mischievous along the way, helping other rogues and hindering stuffy authority figures. His followers are called the Saints of Kailang, and are a rogue kit rather than specialty priest type. On top of the usual roguish skills they gain boosted martial arts skills and superhuman luck, but can't settle down or keep hold of any wealth they win, frittering it away or donating it to the needy within a few days. (not you, other PC's) This drifter lifestyle also makes them generally unpopular with the current repressive regime, as even spreading news outside official propaganda is grounds for execution. They'll never lack for adventure opportunities. So this is an unusually significant article that could easily be used in regular AD&D, but also tells me about an interesting little bit of RPG history I would have completely missed otherwise. Another thing to go on the pile of games I'd love to play if I had unlimited time, because I'm very interested in seeing how the variant rules would turn out in actual play, along with all the upcoming Polyhedron minigames.</blockquote>

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