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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9151682" data-attributes="member: 27780">Living Greyhawk Journal 05: July 2001part 3/4The Rock of the West: We still have one massive 13 page article to go before this is merged into Dragon and eventually dropped entirely. We’re off to the Sultanate of Zeif. While it does technically have one guy in charge of everything, in practice it’s somewhat less unified than it’s torilian equivalent Al-Qadim, with lots of scheming and sometimes open war between the various nobles. It’s a big place, but given it’s inspiration, it’s not surprising that most of it is desert, with settlements clustered around the coast and a couple of large rivers. Famous names Daoud and Kwalish have places named after them, showing that their impact on the world is greater than just a few magical items and they actually did significant things with their power over the years. There’s plenty of both geographical and historical information packed in here, making it feel quite dense despite it’s size. It could easily be expanded out to a whole sourcebook then, in which they could further differentiate it from the various other arabian expy countries in different D&D settings. I guess if it leaves me wanting more it’s probably a good one. Like the previous article, this just shows how much more there was to do with the setting that’ll now never get done. If even Toril & Mystara still have multiple continents that are just outlines on an atlas what hope do any other settings have of being truly completed?Enchiridion of the Fiend-Sage: I already know that this column makes the transition into Dragon mostly unchanged, so this is less of a loss than seeing the other regular column go unfinished. We get another little peek into how villainous scheming makes the world go round, as it hires adventurers to solve one problem, then another group to steal the reward it gave to the first set. Whether it’ll pay the second one fairly or keep on screwing down the line remains to be seen, but it’s another good example of why you don’t just blindly trust mysterious quest-givers. Even if you don’t intend to betray them, it’s still a good idea to do independent research and take precautions. Still, it’s own research remains pretty interesting reading, even if it has some obvious biases. Beastfolk, like Lizardfolk, get gender neutral pronouns under the new edition, reminding us that trend actually started quite a while ago now. They’re pretty similar to last edition and quite usable as PC’s, but the fact that their SR doesn’t scale when they gain levels means their stance of not believing in magic will be somewhat harder to sustainably justify under the new edition. You’ll probably want to houserule that if you want them to continue to function as intended. Even though Molydeus have even better magic resistance that they can actually consciously control, the Fiend-Sage is still eager to find out how the mechanism of theirs works, so it can make items from their bodies that retain that property and give them to it’s minions. Crypt Things are also a faithful conversion, although the save DC of their signature teleporting power is a bit low. Still, it only takes some of the party failing the save to mess up your usual tactical formations and put everyone on edge until they’re reunited and able to recharge. If you’re alone several dungeon levels down you could have a lot of interesting times in the middle.Dakon get a lot more emphasis on the fact that they’re intelligent apes, with a favored class of wizard and hints that they had a big civilisation in the distant past. Was it destroyed, or was going back to nature a conscious choice that just underscores how smart they are? Either way, their Str + Dex are way above human average, as is their sense motive skill, so you don’t want to test the limits of their reclusiveness & pacifism. The fiend-sage is not impressed by their attitude at all, unsurprisingly, as it makes them more hassle than they’re worth to get any use out of them alive or dead. Phalanx Vermin are new. Eusocial human sized insects, who’s weapons are slightly smaller specialised insects, they don’t have an intelligence score, but are still very capable of  communicating and working together amongst themselves to form tactical units. Whether they have a queen or other castes directing them or run entirely on instinctive responses to stimuli is still unknown, but the fiend-sage is definitely keen to find out and see if it can crack the code to issue orders, because it would be nice to have minions with better military discipline than other tanar’ri.</blockquote>

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