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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9424980" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 100/159: July 2003part 7/10First Watch: Erik has trumpeted the coolness of the Fiend Folio several times in the past. It might have been a bit hit and miss, but one person who’s entries were all hits was 16 year old Charlie Stross, who contributed the Gith, Slaadi and Death Knights. Now Death Knights are a generic enough idea that if he hadn’t written them up, someone else inevitably would have at some point, but the other two are pretty unique, combining distinct sets of powers with personality quirks that give them depth beyond being just obsessed exemplars of a particular planar ideology. Since then, they’ve become a valuable part of D&D’s IP, being built upon by multiple other authors in various books and getting more complex and distinct along the way. Curiously enough, Charlie himself knew nothing about this, having stopped playing D&D when he went to college, and only coming back on people’s radars when he became a proper published author outside the RPG sphere. He’s gratified by this, as it shows his efforts toward coming up with things that were otherworldly but still made sense in their own twisted ways have been appreciated, but also a little baffled that people still mention them more than more recent books that he spent far more time and effort creating. (and actually makes money from if you buy) Another of those reminders that while talent and hard work may help, what becomes a hit and what lounges in obscurity still has a strong element of luck. In another universe the Dark Stalkers could have been the angsty fangirl favourites or the Dire Corbys the low level staple monster most groups fight multiple times before outgrowing. Ultimately, we’ll never know.Global Positioning is pretty similar to last issue, taking us to a fast food restaurant. Like a bar, you can easily see trouble breaking out there, quite possibly started by the PC’s themselves so this is still useful even if slight diminishing returns are already setting in.Knights of the Lich-Queen: 44 pages of gith goodness not enough for you? It’s time to look at things from the other side. After all, githyanki can also wander the planes, seeking knowledge, treasure and glory. Why shouldn’t they be allowed as PC’s? So what we have here isn’t a whole new minigame meant to be played standalone, but more a Player’s guide, as were popular in the 2e era. The intro is less than half a page of writing, which doesn’t leave me with much to say, but with James Wyatt at the helm this has pretty decent odds of turning out good. A Brief History of the Githyanki: Most of this will be familiar to those of you who’ve read their monster manual entry, just padded out to a page and a half. The gith were illithid slaves until Gith herself managed to organise a grand revolt. Once they were free they had disagreements about their future path and split into the githyanki & githzerai, who hate each other. (but still hate illithids more and are smart enough to fight them first if they all run into each other at once in the underdark) They’re all strongly atheist, but the githyanki have a deal with Tiamat that means they have red dragon allies on the prime material. There is some new stuff though. In recent years, the lich-queen has started breeding an elite force of half-dragon warriors. With their ranks swelling, they could take over another world soon! Which one could it be? A familiar one, as detailed in Dragon, or the brand new realm of Pharagos. This is also short and quite conservatively written, not making any big changes to their existing lore. So far, not a lot for me to form an opinion on, good or bad.</blockquote>

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