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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9078062" data-attributes="member: 27780">Living Greyhawk Journal 01: September 2000part 3/4Enchiridion of the Fiend-Sage: Oh, it’s of the fiend-sage! When I saw this column in Dragon first time around I thought Enchiridion was it’s name due to the way the writing was stylised. Turns out our considerably smarter than the average Molydeus narrator is actually called Rel Astra. (which turns out to be an editing error as well, as that’s a city in Greyhawk and there should be an of in that title as well. I guess confusing people about your identity so they can’t use summoning spells is a fine fiendish tradition, so it’s just about possible to make sense of this IC, but from an OOC writing and formatting level it’s all very sloppy. ) Anyway, as those of you who read Dragon in this era will know, this is going to be our regular monsters column, bringing back Greyhawk specific creatures that aren’t appearing in the books and adding new ones as well, with our narrator’s IC observations allowing slightly more ecology stuff than the new format has as standard. (although still not as much as 2e) There’s definitely a vast number of creatures to update at this point so let’s see what they picked and if they’ll manage to screw up the math editing as well. Greyhawk Dragons have greyhawk in the name, so you can’t really file the serial numbers off them and put them in an unrelated book. They serve as a reminder that even relatively weak dragon types have been massively jacked up stat-wise compared to previous editions. (and 2e was already a decent bump compared to 1e) Like their 2e versions, despite not being the strongest or toughest of dragons they are very powerful spellcasters, exceeding even gold dragons in caster level and able to assume other forms right from hatchling age. This is very handy for them as most actively prefer living in humanoid form amid the bustle of urban life, and it would be very inconvenient to have to disappear for a generation if you want to have kids. Highly resistant to both magic and poison, they serve as a reminder that not everyone is as they seem and trying to destroy a city can make you some powerful enemies. But if you’re nice, who knows what bits of awesome lore you could learn.Nauskiree are our only new creation, and as far as I can tell, never appear anywhere else either. Creepy naked carnivorous giraffe humanoids with arms, legs & neck way too long for their bodies, they camouflage themselves amid arctic forests and ambush you using their disproportionately long reach. Fighting them seems an exercise in showcasing the new reach/facing/attack of opportunity rules. Hope you packed your polearms or missile weapons. Sons of Kyuss are one of the most brutal old school undead, mixing short term death from worm infection with long term disease on top of the basic physical threat of their attacks. Their unfair elements haven’t been nerfed and they’ll have a long interesting association with the magazines in a few years time when the adventure paths get going. Good to see them here, although it’s clear they haven’t quite ironed out the distinction between fast healing and regeneration in the rules yet. That obviously went through several drafts before reaching the published version and it’s always a headache keeping track of that stuff while writing multiple things concurrently.Xvarts are pretty much redundant now any race can gain any level in any class. They don’t have any special gimmick to distinguish them from other goblinoids, so it’s not surprising they were cut from the corebooks and only appear in here where the hardcore Greyhawk fans will appreciate them.</blockquote>

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