Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 3/8


Chronicle of Cerilia: Or oh yeah, this line's been cancelled, and we still hadn't got round to putting a timeline in the books. Guess it's the magazine's gain again. And as usual for a D&D setting, the beginning of recorded history is actually surprisingly close to the present. Elves & dwarves have been around for ages, but history only gets going a few thousand years ago, and the current political system, with empowered bloodlines and everything that goes with it is only 1,500 years old. And really, how do you expect democracy to gain root when they are so obviously and demonstrably superior. Maybe if someone exercises their droit de siegneur a little too much, so a larger proportion of the public have at least some bloodline abilities. Keep harems for greater justice in the future! But I digress. While not as detailed as the Realms timeline is by now, this is still pretty detailed, obviously drawing on not only the whole range of supplements, but also the magazine articles for the setting. In a way, that makes it very much a capstone on their output as a living setting. There may be a few more articles coming after this, but we won't see timeline advancement or big metaplot upheavals anymore. Which is a bit sad in a way, but given how much metaplot annoyed people, might be for the best. At least this way, it's memory will remain unsullied amongst those who cared.


Legacies of the Suel imperium: Hmm. New PC races with a greyhawk slant? Well, we've had spellbooks and magical item collections. The main issue here is that as the original generic AD&D setting, what creatures feel distinctively Greyhawk rather than just D&D? That's a tricky question to answer. The approach here seems to be to go for a bunch of stuff from all over the place, with an emphasis on the old school. Well, I guess the old modules that got retroactively incorporated into Greyhawk were rather a grab-bag too, so that makes as much sense as any decision.

Derro are of course interesting because of their unique Savant class. Unfortunately, this article takes an old school attitude towards this, and spends a big proportion of it's time telling us that behaviours that are quite normal for the race should not be allowed when they're used as PC's, and making sure that we can't play the most interesting parts. This makes it deeply unsatisfying.

Lerara are ……. Holy !!!! Remember Elayne Mystica from issue 139. One of the most obvious examples of cheesy mary-sue background this magazine has ever produced. Well now you can play another member of the race of albinos that she came from. Only you'll never be as cool as her, as they're given a charisma penalty that retroactively makes her an illegal character. Now that's either insulting or just incompetent. Drizzt doing stuff that's impossible in game and then making new rules to make that legal is one thing, but making a character that's basically legal, if very cheesy, and then retroactively invalidating them is just nasty. Major mechanical fail, as well as a delving of ancient lore that really should have remained buried, thank you very much.

Skulks are always thieves, although a few of them have minor multi-class abilities. Stereotyping much? Still, since all their racial abilities are focussed around greater stealth, would you really want to take another class? On the other hand, playing against type is a great pleasure of roleplaying. And on the gripping hand, making them lose their special powers if they manage to get over their racial cowardice makes this another deeply problematic one. Mandating good behaviour or you lose your powers causes enough problems with bad DM's. Mandating bad behaviour or losing your powers just seems custom designed to blow up in your face in actual play. So that's 3 fails in a row. I'm not optimistic about the rest of this article.

Jermalaine are another one that are pretty much restricted to a single class, as they don't have the strength to become fighters, or the magical aptitude to become wizards, and their priestly skills are pretty pathetic too. This is one of those times when I can't wait for 3e to come, and sweep all this arbitrariness away.

Su-Dopplegangers are new, and drop even the pretense of class choice, essentially being a full-on return to Basic D&D race as class design. That said, even though they only go up to level 8, they're a lot more powerful than halflings, with their innate AC and damage dealing abilities scaling with level. Unsurprisingly, their ESP power gets nerfed.

Blah. Who made this? Roger Moore?! WTF man. I thought he liked his gonzo. This has been one of the most persnickety and restrictive set of new races I've seen, and is easily the worst article he's ever done. This is really the kind of bad article that only someone on the inside could get away with writing. Just as Gary's new classes that then got put into Unearthed Arcana were more mechanically problematic than most of the classes sent into the magazine by freelancers back in the day, this is the kind of bad writing that only gets through because the editors have a personal connection to the writer and aren't judging their work with the same kind of critical scrutiny as everything else. Epic fail.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 4/8


Modron Magic: Time for another burst of themed crunch, this time mixing magic items and spells. Modrons have always been fairly entertaining creatures to put in adventures, with their moral neutrality making them usable as allies and enemies easily, and their quirkiness giving DM's good hooks for roleplaying them that keeps their orderliness from getting tedious. They may be very much a love or hate creature, but that's because they're distinctive. So there's plenty of information for you to build appropriate devices with, expand the info on them further. Which is just what Monte Cook is doing here.

Clockwork Slings take advantage of modron physiology to sit on their heads and fire automatically. This means they effectively get an extra action per turn. Since pentadrones can already get 5, fitting the infantry with these will make them rather scary to PC's with only 1.

Clockwork Spinswords aren't exactly magical chainsaws, but they're close enough for government work. Well, we've seen a those in the magazine before (issue 132) You've got to put your own spin on things, and this definitely does.

Crystals of Clear Focus help you do things in a logical and successful manner. Unlike certain other supernatural groups, there is no catch, but it will tend to push you towards their way of approaching tasks. Hey, it's better than losing your soul because you didn't read the small print. And yet you still hear about people trying to deal with devils more than you do modrons. Maybe it's because they understand the principle of combining carrots and sticks better. Or maybe it's just sexiness. Oh dear, bad images.

Delay Fire Cossbows are a great retreat coverer. Put them down, and they target and shoot anyone nearby later a bit. The kind of technomagic that rewards intelligent use, will players take advantage of it?

Flying Harnesses are another mostly mechanical one. They may be rather awkward for a non-modron to put on, and take some learning to operate, but hey, flying! Everybody wants that. Probably why we've had so many methods of doing so over the years.

Lenses of Protection save modrons from being maddened by the strange and incomprehensible chaos of the rest of the multiverse. What they consider maddening may not be the same as what is bad for human sanity, of course. Still, better than nothing.

Limb Extensions are another technological one. We don't need magic for that. We can buy those from a toy store. You can even get pretty good at using them.

Magnetic Clamps are another pretty mundane trick that would seem supernatural to the superstitious mind. Mind you, it's a bit broader than real magnetism, but I guess that's where the magic comes in.

Mirrorballs show that Monte is playing this for laughs to a degree. A floating mirrorball that hovers around you to give you rear and sides vision. Again, it works in reality. (I've used the reflections from my glasses to surreptitiously watch things behind me in the past.) And modrons would take the practical route without concern for how silly it makes them look to everyone else. I can see the logic in this.

Truebridges violate conservation of mass and turn from a single plate to a whole avenue of them. This isn't just useful for bridges, but also temporary cover, ramps, patching up the floor, or anything else you can think of.

A Winch of Giant Strength also adds a little magic to a basic physics principle. This has the air of filer. Mixed bag, really.

That's all the items. Now for the spells. Set the Path is another variant of making everything go according to plan. Assuming it's a good plan in the first place. Otherwise, you'll be forced to mime the actions that make no sense in light of reality. More intentional comedy in the name of unbending logic I see.

True arrow of Law works on the same kind of principle as Holy Word, only not as powerful. Chaotic creatures hit by one are hurt, lawful ones are buffed, and neutral ones are charmed in your favor. Also notable because it's a wizard spell that can heal, so it bears watching carefully in the hands of PC's.

Correlate Data lets you do the Sherlock Holmes thing without the DM giving you tons of data and you working it out manually. Useful for breaking plot dead ends and general avoiding deus ex machina.

Harmony promotes the Arcadian version of law rather than the Mechanus one. Go for the peaceful solution, and calm man, beast and nature. Not very adventurer-like I know, but who wants to be orthodox all the time anyway. Overall, I think this collection has more finely tuned machines in it than rattly old bangers.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 5/8


Fiction: Innkeepers solution by Steven Piziks. One of those stories that shows us that the big damn hero method is not always the wisest way to get things done. If you're lucky, you'll get the glory. If not, then a fate worse than death may well await you. So it proves here, when an attempt to take a dragon as a familiar results in the dragon making a familiar of them instead, resulting in a lifetime of isolation, broken up with being a stalking horse for it's appetites. Not a very pleasant thing to happen, but when you can't disobey them or even kill yourself, what can you do? There is an ending, but it's pretty bittersweet. With quite solid worldbuilding that makes it clear this isn't our world, while setting up it's own rules quite clearly and then working from them, this manages to be a pretty good story, without making comfortable reading at all. It's another reminder of how arbitrary, unglamorous and fragile life can actually be. It makes me want to find a way to get around my own mortality on my own terms. Living in an entropic universe sucks.


Wyrms of the north: Ahh, red dragons. The real iconic bastards. Ed gets round to giving us one of these at last. They have pretty decent magical abilities anyway, but Ed just can't resist giving this one even more, to keep up with all the other superpowerful monsters and wizards he's already added. Not that he's quite on the same level of some of them, merely being a seeker of immortality where they've successfully attained it. And for all his paranoia, he falls victim to that great draconic vice, spending decades at a time asleep, which can leave you open no matter how many traps and constructs you protect your lair with. I suppose that the important thing is that while competent, he doesn't seem unbeatable or a mary-sue, which is quite significant when you're intended primarily as an antagonist. The new spell is interesting but underpowered, which further makes him seem fallible despite his plentiful treasure and magic items. So this isn't the most inventive creature Ed's ever given us, but still useful, and not as cheesy as he has been known to get either. Middle of the road for him is still a well above average article for anyone else.

 

[Orius]

Fiction: Innkeepers solution by Steven Piziks. One of those stories that shows us that the big damn hero method is not always the wisest way to get things done. If you're lucky, you'll get the glory. If not, then a fate worse than death may well await you. So it proves here, when an attempt to take a dragon as a familiar results in the dragon making a familiar of them instead, resulting in a lifetime of isolation, broken up with being a stalking horse for it's appetites.

Or it's another case where someone who's young and cocky thinks he's terribly badass and gets a very rude awakening. Worse this rude awakening isn't an early death, but something which entails a very long lifetime of suffering. I remember this story at any rate, and it definitely was a cut above the bland DL promo stories that filled the magainze during the previous year. I would say the fiction was one of the parts of the magazine that showed marked improvements as Gross' run hit its stride.

Wyrms of the north: Ahh, red dragons. The real iconic bastards. Ed gets round to giving us one of these at last.

Not to be a nitpicker, but I believe this is the second red in this feature.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 6/8


Arcane Lore: Back to Greyhawk we trundle for another trio of spellbooks by named wizards. Gotta keep up with the realmses, or at least try and fail miserably. Even this doesn't excite me like it used too.

Exalted Dwomercraft was made by the mage of the valley. It's like, totally a collaborative work with a hot drow babe too. Dude has mad skillz. He can totally condense a prismatic sphere into weapon shape and fly around in a pimpin' conjured ride. That'll kick ur ass in a single hit. Power word kill eat your heart out.

The Pyronomicon is the work of Keraptis, he of White Plume Mountain fame. Unsurprisingly, all it's spells are fire based, including adapted versions of unseen servant, magic missile, cone of cold and invisible stalker with extra burnination attached. Equally unsurprisingly, it has a long and ugly list of people fighting over it after the original owner was beaten. Dunno why, when fire stuff is so common.

Slerotin's Manifesto is a survivor of the Suel rain of colorless fire. It's also proved rather popular, and surprisingly enduring due to the troll components used in it's construction. It's only unique spell is similar in effect, allowing you to make inanimate objects completely indestructible. 9th level spells rock.


Dungeon Mastery: Oh god. The Idealist-Reactive-Civic-Adaptive generational analysis model. There's a bit of sociology of debatable value that I haven't seen in years. Still, even if things get pretty blurry in reality, it's the kind of thing you can apply to help you in your worldbuilding, and twist around to represent the different psychologies and lifespans of other races in the setting. Boiling things down to one or two significant crises per generation per country certainly seems to be a way to accelerate constructing a history for your world. And this is the kind of quirky article that keeps me from being bored by not relying on the usual fantasy cliches and using an unusual source for inspiration. What would Lord of the Rings been like if Tolkien had been a sociologist rather than a linguist? Probably not as commercially successful, but hey. Fun to speculate.

 

[(un)reason]

Not to be a nitpicker, but I believe this is the second red in this feature.

You're absolutely right. I do seem to be making factual errors more frequently these days. More evidence that after 3 years doing this, it grows increasingly difficult to remember everything. I'll try and do better.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 7/8


Campaign Classics: Ah yes, Yak-men. While genies got plenty of expansion in Al-Qadim, Yak-men were the big breakout new monster of the setting. Quite right too, as they have enough mythic ancestry to be resonant, but are also pretty unusual in powers as D&D monsters, and their power levels are sufficiently scalable that they can continue to be a challenge into the mid-teens at least. An article supplementing them is to be welcomed. So here we get a look into their politics and day-to-day life, when they're not off bodysnatching and trying to overthrow and enslave everyone else. Despite being fairly unified and stoic for an evil race, there is still a degree of internal politics, and the losers end up on the sacrificial altar while the society as a whole goes onwards. With details on how their kingdom is divided up, stats for the leaders of the provinces, and even the manifestation of their dark god, this is a nicely specific article, not afraid to make a stand and pin things down in many ways, while also being helpful in showing you how to transplant them to other settings. In addition, it's fully aware of and builds upon the ideas from issue 233's birthright/al qadim hybrid article, which is something I find very pleasing indeed. If anything, it has quite a bit in common with the princess ark travelogues in the way it expands upon a previously mentioned place, and isn't afraid to set it up as a challenge for all levels. That makes me pretty happy, as that's just the kind of adventure location I can use.


KotDT sees conspiracies in every random roll. Someone really should break the miners guild monopoly. The inflated prices they're charging are ridiculous. Dragonmirth applies modern principles again to hilarious effect. Swordplay needs a new party leader. Floyd gets some much needed exposition.


Role-playing reviews: Bubblegum crisis RPG gets a reasonably positive review, despite Rick not being into anime at all. Since that's about to undergo a real boom around here, he may not enjoy RPGing so much in the near future. Anyway, character building is based on random generation & lifepaths, traveller style, and the system is based on the Fuzion engine. While fairly crunchy, it's clearly explained, and seems to facilitate the kind of action the show shows. Give it a good chewing over.

Hong kong action theatre sees the first mention in the magazine of infamous designer Gareth-Michael Skarka. Even more than the last review, this wins Rick over by the way it approaches it's subject matter. It actually has some elements in common with the Amazing Engine, in that you're playing an actor, who has some stats in common each time, but plays different roles regularly. Still, it implements them better, encouraging you to flip genres regularly and break the 4th wall while still developing your character. Whether it's aged well I'm not sure, but i'm sure you could still have fun with it.

Cthulhu Live reminds us just how little coverage LARPing gets in the magazine. Rick loves it as much as he loves Cthulhu tabletop, and finds it rather easier to get into than dressing up as warriors and wizards. The system has been stripped down quite substantially to fit the environment, and the sample scenarios are excellent. Now you just need to have enough players and a suitably atmospheric location to make them work properly. Not a challenge I would object to taking on.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 8/8


TSR Previews: Up to next January, and we've finally cleared the schedule snarls. What a relief. Let's just get back to doing what we do best, albeit at a somewhat slowed down pace.

The Forgotten Realms is still steaming happily onwards, giving a full supplement to the cult of the dragon. Introduced in the 1986 birthday of this magazine, they certainly make people's lives interesting, but have played second fiddle to the Zhentarim and Red wizards in recent years. Will they be getting tied in novels where they make some master stroke shortly? Whatever happens though, we already know Netheril is doomed. Can the stars of the trilogy get back then escape it and live long happy lives before it implodes?

Dragonlance is it's usual beleaguered yet curiously cheerful self. Heroes of Hope is the supplement for the new Mystic magics. Divine power from hope and believing in yourself? Then what do we need gods for? Oh yeah, we don't. They always caused more trouble than they were worth, anyway. We also get to see Raistlin, finally free from all that suffering crap and a fully accredited archmage, look back on his life in The Soul Forge. See what Margaret produces without Tracy to balance her.

Two rather quirky generic products this month. College of wizardry finally fills in details on their guilds, schools, and other organizations. Common, rare, or somewhere in between, this is more worldbuilding fun. We also get a mini campaign setting you can drop into any other world. Jakandor: Island of War! What's all that about? Don't remember this stuff at all.


The current Clack: More progress on the WotC takeover. The Code of Ethics is out! You can say Demon again! Greyhawk is coming back! Woo! Other settings may not be so lucky. And Magic: the Gathering's world is getting a AD&D conversion. Well, maybe. So this is interesting, but it also reminds us that things are up in the air, and they will still change their mind about many of the details of their future plans. Still, there is a certain excitement in the air here. Once again, the simple fact that the pressure is off after several years of it gradually mounting up means a lot. Once again it looks like this'll be more interesting than the average article in the near future.


This issue is mostly ok, improving towards the end, apart from the two Geyhawk articles, which for some reason are both rather iffy. That does seem a little strange, given they're planning on bringing it back now, and makes me wonder how well it'll do. Still, the magazine as a whole has settled down, and we're getting clear indications of where WotC want to go with the game as a whole. Things have definitely been worse, even if the magazine doesn't have the verve it did back in the early 80's. Will it ever get that level of groove going again? As usual, it's time to look to the future with both hope and fear. 1997 will be over quite quickly, but 98 is going to be another long year, what with the annual and everything. Off I bounce to another christmas then.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 242: December 1997


part 1/8


124 pages. A nice cover at last, with none of the over cluttering or excess badass that has been far too prevalent in recent months. Ahh, Tony Diterlizzi. Managing both quality and quantity of images while retaining a distinctive style. He deserves quite a bit of credit for what he's done over the years. Lets see what's inside. Gah, another generic magic themed issue. They've done that for christmas before, and this certainly doesn't look like it's got anything special like issue 200. Come on, prove me wrong bitches. I'd love to have my expectations defied in this case.


In this issue:


The Wyrm's turn: This year's been a bit of a bust really. But they're already cheerfully looking forward to next year. So here's where we hear about the changes they're making. While they're not announcing 3rd edition yet, they're going to concentrate on setting heavy products that'll remain useful even if there is an edition change, so they're obviously starting to make plans in that direction. They're also putting more control in the hands of the writers for the settings, and the magazine is getting a column by their new owner Peter Adkison. Since Gary's columns were often one of the most interesting things about the old magazine, I shall watch this development with great interest. Promises promises. You may have changed a few things already, but you have a whole bunch of established culture to go against. And you shouldn't want to slay every sacred cow anyway. In any case, this is more interesting historical signposts.


D-Mail: We start off with someone complaining about Dalamar's replacement in the Wizards Three. Ed takes the opportunity to give a suitably whimsical IC reply. People would complain just as much if you ignored continuity and had him turning up unexplained. Still, couldn't you have got a replacement from Cerilia or one of the other settings instead of just adding an apprentice. That would seem a more interesting solution. Don't they have enough iconic NPC's to draw upon?

A letter expressing annoyance at too many multi-page adverts, and suggesting that an article on medieval clothing might be useful to their readers and not too rehashed. That's the kind of specific request they can fulfil without too much difficulty.

A letter asking for more Greyhawk and Spelljammer articles. We're already getting a decent number of Greyhawk ones. Any setting ones would be welcome really, because it gives them choice.

A quibble from regular writer and forumite Paul Culotta about Roman history and language. He knows his stuff, it seems. Do you want to try debating him?

 

[Orius]

We also get a mini campaign setting you can drop into any other world. Jakandor: Island of War! What's all that about? Don't remember this stuff at all.

It's an island with barbarian tribes fighting a group of necromancers. There were three products in the line, one where the players were barbarians, one where they were on the side of the wizards, and a third which had a common threat for both sides or something. We've discussed it a few times here before, and it seem to me like a good alternative approach to TSR's old strategy of constantly cranking out new campain settings.