Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 251: September 1998


part 8/8


Previews: We're finally caught up to the point where they're showing new D&D products in this section. They change things around, so they're in the front, which makes sense.

Our generic product this month is the Wizard's spell compendium, part 4. Like the magic item compendium, this means that you now have far more official stuff at your fingertips than you could ever hope to use.

Technically generic, but also sorta a planescape project, is A Paladin in Hell. Only without the cant, but with the return of the things our old evil overmistress forbade, and a whole bunch of other nostalgia inducing elements that they hope will draw in the casual buyer. Man, this feels contrived.

The Realms get a double bill, as usual. The Shadow Stone by Richard Baker sees another young character go through a coming of age story. No change there. On the other hand, it looks like Raven's Bluff is finally out of the RPGA's hands, because Ed Greenwood does a supplement on it. Hmm. Looks like the new management is really starting to make some changes, as they bring out books that weren't planned before the takeover.

Greyhawk gets The Star Cairns. The start of a new series of old skool dungeon adventures. Put on your boots, we're going back to our roots. Don't forget your encumbrance rules.

Dragonlance also does some fairly familiar stuff. The 5th age game gets it's own bestiary, so you have plenty more things to challenge your players with. Most of them probably also appeared in AD&D. They also rerelease The Art of the Dragonlance Saga. This line is no stranger to coffee table books, calendars, and other such frippery, and this continues their attempts to get money for old rope.

Alternity gets Dataware. Details for sci-fi stuff like AI, netrunning, cybernetics, playing robots, etc. Trying to steal shadowrun's playerbase, eh?

And finally we get to see something from another department of WotC advertised. Planeswalker is a Magic: the Gathering novel by Lynn Abbey. Man, we really are seeing the management changes from the takeover hit the release schedule this month.

Onto the stuff by other companies. AEG release The way of the Phoenix for L5R. I know a splatbook series when I see one, and this certainly fits that bill. Since many of them are spell users, this has lots of new magic stuff to lure in players.

Basement games unlimited release The Vemora. New system, same old macguffin retrieval adventures. So much for that plan.

Chaosium move into the novel business, publishing Nightmare's Disciple by Joseph Pulver. Since the Cthulhu mythos was a literary universe before it was an RPG, this seems a little recursive. Not sure what to make of this.

FASA follow up their recent big releases with smaller support ones. Record sheets for Battletech 3060, and the gamemaster's screen for shadowrun. Another company is following D&D's product model pretty closely. They also release a novel, Warrior: Coupe. The conclusion of a trilogy? This all seems very familiar.

Gold rush games try and release a magazine devoted to LARPing, called Metagame. Interesting. Well, thanks to White Wolf, it does seem to be on the up again. How long did this last for?

PEG continue to pump out the deadlands products. The Wasted West gives you lots of info about the hell on earth setting, in all it's grimness. Shane also unleashes Leftovers, their first Dime novel set there. He does seem to be a busy bunny.

The Scriptorium, whoever they were, release a trio of CD's full of stuff that would probably be useful to a fantasy gamer. Fantasy and horror fonts and art, and a mapmaker. This feels like they're pushing the boundaries of what they should be covering a little. Strange.

White Wolf, once again, are comfortably second in terms of prolificness. Their general WoD product is The Bygone Bestiary. Even they're getting into the general monster book business, even if they do describe rather fewer creatures in greater detail than D&D. These really are perennial good sellers.

C:tD gets Inanimae: The secret way. A bunch of new kiths get opened up for PC's, albeit not with very solid mechanics. One that needs a little houseruling to hold together. Also, watch out for the eco-crap. It's almost as bad as werewolf.

Speaking of W:tA, they compile 3 of their old tribebooks, just like mage did a couple of months ago. Red Talons, Shadow Lords and Silent Striders. Long term demand keeps outstripping print runs, it seems. Good for them.

Minds Eye Theatre unleashes Secrets of Elysium. Elder rules for LARP? Oh boy. This is going to get diableriffic. Get ready for much bitching as people want to use them, but the camarilla only lets a few people do so.

Trinity continues their odd combination of region books and splatbooks with America Offline. Electrokinetics and north america get the spotlight. See why they're no longer the preemminent power around here. And hopefully learn from those lessons in reality.


Profiles: Tony DiTerlizzi is another of our artists who got where he is by sheer enthusiasm, and a desire to live up to the works of the people who influenced him, and produce works that makes other people feel about him the way he did about them. An ambition I think we can safely say he's achieved. Dave Trampier, one of our great vanished artists, gets a big shout-out, as do a whole cavalcade of other artists. Having achieved cult success with TSR and white wolf, he's now gone back to his very first love, children's books. This is another profile that is both amusing and helpful, giving you some definite hints on how to produce your own cool stuff. Be vocal in your love of other people's stuff, and often, they will return the favour, thus aiding both your careers. Give, and you shall get back. Don't be put off by the idea just because it's a cliche.


Well, this is certainly more of a stand-out issue than no 250, with it's new columns, extra pages and special features. The repeated attempts at calling this a new beginning are getting a little frustrating though, as they aren't quite sticking, and in the process the magazine keeps drifting further away from catering to long-term readers. They may hit on the right changes to make eventually, but it's not easy when the feedback they're getting isn't the best. Still, they're trying hard, and that counts for a lot. No complacency here. And despite my own battles with boredom, I'm certainly not going to assume that the next hundred plus issues'll be a shoe-in. There's plenty of time for the articles to make me experience all sorts of emotions, and I just hope there'll be a decent variety of them in each issue.

 

[Orius]

They also rerelease The Art of the Dragonlance Saga. This line is no stranger to coffee table books, calendars, and other such frippery, and this continues their attempts to get money for old rope.

Can't blame them if there is demand for it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998


part 1/8


124 pages: Ahh. Back to good old fashioned horror, after a year off. Can't say it's been quite long enough to properly miss you yet. Even more than Elves, our unliving friends are pretty much the definition of overexposed. Still, they also have vast quantities of variants to spread the love around, and new ones appearing every year, so even vampires don't seem quite as stale yet. It looks like this year will be no exception, with new monsters coming to terrorise your neighbourhood and old ones being expanded upon. Turn the pages cautiously, and let's see what leaps out at us this month.


Scan quality: Excellent. Articles indexed in sidebar.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: The editorial is nostalgic this month, getting in with the general trend. Ravenloft has long been their biggest selling module ever, and so it's not surprising that they revisit it regularly. The fact that it's laden with cliches did not hurt it at all. If anything, exactly the opposite. The reason Avatar became the biggest grossing movie ever is not because of the innovation of the giant blue cat-people. The reason Ravenloft became a success is because people want a dark brooding vampire adventure, and this fits the bill. The fact that it's one of the most replayable adventures they've ever done, however, is what really makes it stand out when there's plenty of adventures from the same era that haven't had the same kind of longevity. So yeah, this is a bit of a lovefest. I do wonder why more adventures haven't imitated it's methods to make themselves more replayable. I suppose it's easier to copy the trappings than to go to the effort to give things the same spark.


D-Mail: Dewain Higbee isn't very keen on Alternity stuff in Dragon magazine. This is a Fantasy Magazine. Get your own!

Greg Foster gives the opposing view, wanting plenty of info on other products. As usual, they take the middle ground, because they want to please as many people as possible. Wishy-washy lot.

Mark Papina wants some stuff from out of print books covered again, quite possibly in the magazine. Since the one they tried worked pretty well, they certainly won't reject submissions like this out of hand.

Frank Troise wants to see the characters from the Double Diamond series statted out, and articles for the new Marvel superheroes game. Maybe and yes, we already have one for you this issue. As with Alternity, it's certainly worth a try, to see how long it sticks.

S. Hopkins nitpicks the hell out of the recent article on ships. I think this may be part of why they do those sorts of articles less and less as time goes on. It's just less hassle all round for their regular writers and editors to stick to their own fantasy worlds.


Nodwick is rather twee. That's what happens when you have a lawful whitewash cleric in your party.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998


part 2/8


Forum: Leon Chang wants a greater degree of flexibility, but not a complete abandoning of the class & level system that makes D&D so easy to pick up and get going in. As is often the case, he suggests some more esoteric details that they wouldn't pick up, but the basic idea is sound.

Greg Whyte wants to cut down on the number of languages, and make it non-obligatory for smart people to learn them. More flexibility in how you spend your slots next time would be a very good thing.

Trevor V. Swanson thinks we don't need a new edition. Another person who thinks we're fine as we are. Um, the company collapsed recently. I think that's a pretty strong indicator things aren't fine. Changes need to be made.

Greg Detwiler puts his oar in on the weapons issue. As a writer of an article about this for the magazine, he know's what he's talking about. So he talks quite a bit about what weapons were actually used for in medieval armies. The reason there are so many types of weapons is due to rock-paper-scissors interactions. It'll take quite a bit of work to model that in D&D

Matthew Seibel gives his houserule that ensures everyone has all ability scores of average or above. Make all the PC's big dam heroes. Bah. No flaws at all is boring.

Doug Ironside is against a 3rd ed. There's not that much that needs fixing, and it'll invalidate so much, and cost so much. You know, charging them extra is a bonus from the company point of view. That's not going to dissuade them. Plus finishing something when it's just looking complete ruins half the fun. It's the old coming of age thing. A fully mature system is a boring system, with nothing left to do but fade away.

Dana Aquandro wants all the options kept in and new ones added too. What, all of them? How big do you think that'll make the books? Practicality people.


Sage advice: Do sha'irs cause defiling on athas (no)

Can you beat a wall of force down (no)

Does immunity to illusions mean spell level or caster level (recycled question. Same as it ever was. You're the dream operator. )

What encyclopedia magica items can a witch have at chargen (anything from tables ACDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ. That's a lot of choice)

How do you determine what level a spell is. (Like we said before, rough comparisons combined with lots of fudge. Spells are not easy to quantify. Skip will have to deny your request with a sneer. The day D&D spells can be boiled down to a perfect formula is the day Mage becomes obsolete.)

Can subjective reality penetrate an anti-magic shell (sorta. Remember, it's purely soliptistic. )

Does a multiclassed fighter get a save against Chaos (not usually)

Does free action protect you from Chaos (no. Very little does. )

Does dispel magic do all 3 functions at once (no. Decisions decisions. Oh, the worries of only having memorized a spell once)

Can true dweomers be held in focal stones. (no. If they were alive they'd go all veiny, and then their head would explode from the strain.)

How does weighty chest save if someone else is already holding it (Automatically. If they've already grabbed it, it's too late to use precautions)

Is there anything to stop you from using the mount spell to run scams (Traders who know about magic and react accordingly. Depends if magic is common in your game world. Still, if you fool them once, word will get around. You'd better have used change self or something while making the sale. )

What happens if you cast feather fall on another creature or object. (it can't go down fast. This may foul up it's aim if that was intended)

How does a ring of x-ray vision work (Idiosyncratically. We really should standardize the system for healing temporary ability damage)

Does resisting magic against guards and wards collapse the whole thing (nope. Modular, decentralized parallel processing is a brilliant innovation. )

My player thinks the pressure from a fireball ought to knock down a succubus (Damnit, Skip is only going to say this once. Fireball does not have the logical concequences real fire does. It's magic. It does what it says it does, no more, no less. Air is not consumed. There is no outward pressure. Only burnination. Capiche?)

Does wearing two cursed rings on the same hand cancel them out (no. The first one just takes precedence over any others. Two wrongs don't make a right, didn't you momma ever teach you that? )

How many giant insects can you control (as many as you have time too. This is not such a great deal, as Skip just nerfed the duration. Ha ha. And you thought you could pull the infinite army trick. )

Do elemental based spells work in the outer planes (usually)

Can you make wands and staves produce reversed effects (not unless it says you can. Skip'll bet Elminster knows a way though, the sneaky old rulebreaker )

Does heat metal evaporate an poison coated on a weapon (probably)

Does a potion of vitality let you re-memorize spells instantly (no)

What do ioun stones do when you sleep or die (They're smart enough to orbit above your head without colliding with things when you lie down or lean against a wall. If you die, they fall to the ground. It's free for all scramble time between all the remaining combatants. Yay! )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998


part 3/8


Grim Callings: We kick things off with a horror themed collection of kits. We've had a couple of those before, but not a complete collection covering all classes and giving them multiple niches, so there's still room here. Of course, too much choice of powers gives you room to twink out and reduce the horror aspect, so you might not want that many kits as a DM. So let's see if it's desirable to add this collection to your game.

Keepers of the Veil are paladins that specialise in kicking undead ass. This means they sacrifice their normal healing abilities for a suite of more specialised ones that'll be good in a few situations, but not nearly as in demand as restoring HP always is. So this kit'll only be beneficial in an undead heavy game.

Dirgists are Bards who specialise in goth music, comforting the miserable living, and entrancing the dead. This is not as effective as clerical turning as it only makes them stay still, not run away. They're good for an adventure but suck at the afterparty. Sounds like my kind of adventurer. I'd much rather just get onto the next bit of business.

Lethean are priests concerned with saving souls, literally. They lead an ascetic lifestyle, and their turning powers are subtly altered to reflect the fact that they liberate the souls of the dead rather than repel them. This is mainly flavour, and their hindrances are mostly flavour behavioural restrictions as well. Meh.

Moribunds are necromancers with a particular obsession with feeding off negative energy to sustain themselves. This means they are undead hunters, but for completely different reasons to everyone else. It also means normal magical healing is useless on them, which is a pretty nasty hindrance. Overall, I think their penalties outweigh their benefits, but in an interesting way, that might make them still desirable if gamed right. So I think this collection is perfectly suited to their milieu, with class variants that are interesting, but won't break your game in the slightest. Now you just need to persuade people to pick them over the more powerful options.


Legacy of decay: The Realms tries to prove it can do horror as well, giving us a whole selection of nasty magical items and spells recovered and sealed away by the Harpers in their pursuit of evil. And since the Realms has far more high level characters than Ravenloft and less natural justice, that means more opportunities for villains to make a genuine impact with their diabolical creations. Well, that's the theory anyway. It's a generic setting. Who knows what we'll get.

The Black Satchel is one of those items that really isn't worth the price. It may let you heal, and even raise people from the dead, but the number of people you have to kill to power it far outweighs the number you'll save. Of course, if you're an adventurer slaughtering your way through enemy territory, that might not be an issue, but you'll still face the requisite alignment change. Caveat emptor, etc etc.

The Intellect Syringe allows you to drain the brain of others and temporarily boost your own, making it another one that'll eventually be your downfall, either due to creeping insanity or the murders you commit to power it catching up with you.

The Needle of Fate lets you create tattoos that murder people, and then transfer their remaining good luck to you. Of course, if they resist the attack, it'll turn on you, so this again seems fiddly and not worth it in the long run. Who designs these evil artifacts anyway? They really ought to pay more attention to what they're doing.

We now move onto new spells. Decay ages inanimate objects in a fairly impressive way. Obviously the effect of this will vary quite a bit, but even metal and ceramics don't deal perfectly with the passage of time. This seems like the kind of spell that rewards imaginative usage.

Undead Ward is slightly disingenuously named, as it only protects you against strength draining attacks. Very much the kind of specialist spell that only gets prepared when you know that's what you'll be facing today.

Contact the Dead is essentially the clerical speak with dead, only crap and evil, inflicting pain upon the spirit contacted and harmful backlash upon the caster. Torture doesn't work in the long run, and this is the kind of spell no-one would take if they knew about the alternative, which in the Realms should be all but the most uneducated spellcaster.

Lesion causes the victim to bleed profusely. In certain circumstances it could wind up doing more damage than fireball or lightning bolt, but most of the time in real adventuring situations it won't. Still, at least it's less likely to destroy their stuff in the process of killing them.

Spirit Attack, on the other hand, is much more powerful than the similar higher level spell Nightmare, as it has a decent chance of permanently draining the victim's Wisdom. It looks like we're going to have quite a few balance issues in both directions with this collection.

Candle-Life allows a sick person to act normally for a few days, before dying for good. This can be used compassionately, if they want to do some important final task, or by scammers selling a cure and then moving on before the consequences arrive. Gee, which do you think is more common in this context?

Drain Vitality is another nasty one that permanently drains someone else to give you a temporary ability score bonus. Eat the rich. How glamorous. The greatest possible long-term benefit is if you then use the drained points in creating magic items. Just tell yourself they were going to die anyway. It'll all be dust apart from what you create.

Suspended animation is your basic sleeping beauty effect, if not quite as long lasting. Not as good as the version in issue 221.

Age affects living creatures, although not as well as the much lower spell affects objects. Such is the joy of actually having decent resistances to magic. Of course, one ghost touch'll do as much as half a dozen castings of this, so it's not really that impressive. Some things just come so much easier to the real monsters, try as a wizard might.

Preserve Youth is yet another spell that permanently drains another to temporarily keep you going. They're building up quite the selection of those, aren't they. Hope they have somewhere suitably capacious to hide the bodies.

Summon Ghost is pretty self-explanatory. Watch out, because if they get loose, you know how much even a single hit'll hurt you. Maybe you should stick to elementals, as they don't tend to hold grudges as much.

Transplant is another permanent spell, letting you nick body parts from someone else to replace your own. As in reality, rejection is a bitch. So this isn't quite as evil as the others, but it'll still wind up killing you if overused.

Revenant lets you trap someone's heart, making them temporarily undead, nearly indestructible, but vulnerable to whoever owns it. Similar to the Al-Qadim heart removal spell on steroids with a more gruesome slant, and another case where I'm not sure how well it balances with the previous version.

Summon Night Hag is another one that'll turn on you if you let your guard down for a second. Honestly, given how greedy and vindictive they are, this seems like a losing game even if you don't mess up and pay their price. Two sacrifices before you even get down to business? I'll hold out for a pit fiend who you know'll stick to the letter of their bargain.

Final Struggle takes the stealing theme of this article to it's logical conclusion, with a contingency effect that lets them take over the body of someone else permanently when they die. Well, they've certainly had a strong agenda and stuck to it, even if many of the spells aren't something sensible PC's would want even if they were evil. Overall, I think I'll give a positive result to this article, even if I have misgivings about many of the individual entries.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998


part 4/8


101 Hauntings: Ahh, so we've finally got an article able to give us a full 101 ideas on this topic, after issue 186 gave us a mere 50. I knew it was possible. Of course, the fact it's not all castles this time round helps them come up with a wider range of ideas. The length of ideas is also about the same or slightly larger this time around, which is quite interesting, and makes this feel quite close to a special feature. However, there is a lot less mechanical help this time around, instead concentrating purely on the setting details and histories behind the hauntings. Overall, both are entirely valid and don't repeat each other much, and there are more illustrations this time as well, although they don't quite match up to the quality of the previous article's one. So I think this one wins via sheer quantity, but the previous one was pretty good too. I suppose that just means I have more choice should I need a haunting in the future.


Home Sweet Headquarters: We skip having an Alternity article this month, and instead go for a Marvel Superheroes one. As it's brand new, and has the potential to sell well, they obviously want to make sure everyone's aware of it. Exactly how much coverage they'll give it, and if they'll alternate between the two, or we'll get the pleasure of multiple non D&D articles again, we shall have to see. This seems designed to ease us in rather than starting off with a bang, with a short article that's 3/4's pure description, before introducing us to a bit of statistics for the system. And while constructing a lair may be slightly different, you can apply some of this advice to your fantasy campaigns as well, particularly if you have the kind of villain who goes for carving a mountain into the shape of a skull and calling that their "secret" lair. After all, a good setpiece doesn't go amiss in all but the grittiest of games. Of course, since these are the official character's headquarters, I have a suspicion players will seriously struggle to create hideouts with the same degree of awesomeness on a budget, but that's usually the case in licensed games where they never let you overshadow the official characters. Still, they do seem to support the more spectacular possibilities in terms of location and capabilities. You'll just need to work up to the really big stuff. So this does leave me not entirely satisfied, but definitely interested in learning more. The original Marvel-Phile got caught up in endless filling in of minor characters at the expense of actually improving your game. Will they go the same way this time?


Fiction: Mathers blood by R A Salvadore. Oh, you've finally found time to squeeze out a bit of extra short fiction on top of the novels again. It's been a while. (Issue 152) And while there's plenty of fast-paced action here as usual, there's also quite a bit of poignancy, as he examines the problems of aging as an adventurer, when many of your companions are of different races and developing in different ways and speeds to you, and the value of blood vs adopted family. And he actually gets to kill off the protagonist at the end, which I'm sure he's wished he could do to Drizzt a few times. So this feels like a bit of light relief for him, while also having a definite serious side and moral to it. Being an adventurer isn't all guilt-free slaughtering and enjoying your loot. If you go on for any length of time you'll develop real relationships with your companions, and be choked up when they die or leave. (and if it's done right, it could happen within a 22 minute cartoon. ) If you can manage that within a 7 page short story, you're probably doing something right.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998


part 5/8


Dragon's bestiary: Hmm. A rather curious halloween present from this department, as they choose to convert monsters from the works of M. R. James. He might not be as famous as H. P. Lovecraft, but it seems he created his share of monsters to scare the reader with. This could well provide us with some unmined ideas for a game.

Demonic sawflys can grow to human size, and then shrink back to regular insect dimensions. That's actually pretty creepy, when you consider how often bugs get into your house and have to be swatted. You really wouldn't want to wake up with one of those in your bedroom in the dark.

Living hair is a bit silly, but constructs can be made of nearly any material, after all. And being able to fit through tiny gaps does have it's advantages over big clunky golems. Once again, the horror seems to be derived from the corruption of the everyday into something unsettling.

Web-spectres are from the same wellspring as Worms that Walk, albeit rather less gross. Still, just like them, being able to discorporate and reform as long as even a tiny amount of your body survives is a very useful ability, so you can see why wizards would want to become a creature made of nothing but cobwebs. And it seems the transformation is available to relatively low level characters, so it's not a bad one to dangle before your players.

Death linen removes any doubt that there is a comic element in these particular writings of the macabre. Smothered by your own pillow. How's that for a humiliating way to go? You'll have to be a good storyteller to keep your players from laughing at this particular problem.


Wyrms of the north: Ed once again skews his examinations towards the ancient dragons who have attained obscene power, and found ways to extend their lifespan even beyond the thousand+ years allotted them. However, this is one of the experimental life-extension methods that hasn't worked perfectly, making it's recipient somewhat fragile and only suspending his ageing when he's in an insubstantial form. Still, he makes the most of the whole invisible thing to be a subtle protector and follow the lives of a small community and generally make it better. Which is a theme we've seen before here, and seems to be a common one amongst immortals. Vampires may become jaded and monstrous as the centuries go by, but that's a problem with their situation and appetites in particular, rather than an inherent one with immortality. So this once again shows that while Ed may be repeating ideas, and probably ought to move onto something new, immortality as a goal is a viable one, and it's not as if you'd run out of things to do once you had it. You just have to move your attention onto longer term ones that would be impossible and foolish to even consider before. And I think I know a little something about impossible and foolish goals by now.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: More Horror stuff here. In fact, we have one of our most Halloween specific articles ever. Magical Jack-O-Lanterns? Why has no-one thought of that before?! Genius. It's not even that much of a stretch given their origins in real world folklore, frightening off evil spirits. And as we've found over the years, if there's anything you can do in reality, you can do it magically in D&D.

Your basic magical Jack-o-lantern acts as a protection from evil spell and repels mindless undead. Keep it well preserved for next year, as they are quite expensive.

Jovial Lanterns make everyone around their glow want to party! Woo. Get the keggers! ( But hold the Cheggers, thank you very much)

Bursting Lanterns explode when you go near them. Some people will find this hil-arious. Course, 3d6 damage may be piddling to high level characters, but it'll blow marauding goblinoids to pieces.

Fright Lanterns scare nearly anything away. Stay inside when these are lit, so they only scare away the monsters.

Wailing Lanterns make everyone who listens to them depressed and paranoid. Couldn't you just put the Smiths on instead? As usual, there's a better nonmagical solution.

Talking Lanterns give magic mouths a much more expressive face. Oh, the fun you can have with this one. It's pranking time.

Lantern Tallow lasts longer, maybe even up to a month without needing replacing. Shame you can't just plonk a continual light inside the pumpkin and leave it. Sticking to flavour can be a pain sometimes. But still, overall, this has been a damn cool collection, and not vastly bloated like far too many recent articles.

 

[LordVyreth]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998
Bursting Lanterns explode when you go near them. Some people will find this hil-arious. Course, 3d6 damage may be piddling to high level characters, but it'll blow marauding goblinoids to pieces.

Jack O' Lanterns blowing up goblins? Heck, use it for the ironic reversal if nothing else!

Also, what a well-timed Halloween update. Has that happened before?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998


part 6/8


Nodwick makes a second appearance. And then dies again. Hodey hum.


PC Portraits: Our 14 little pictures this month are in theme, portraying adventurers that might want to investigate ghosts and other undead. This means there's a surfeit of individuals that either look haunted or shifty. More moisturiser, less eyeliner! Still, do you want your adventurers paying more attention to their grooming than their combat effectiveness? And at least we're pretty chesecake free this time round.


Arcane Lore continues to cast it's net a little wider, this time heading off to Ravenloft. Another one fitting for the time of year. I guess they still have no shortage of those kinds of submissions, with White Wolf still nipping at their heels. Hopefully that'll mean the quality stays good.

The book of the Requiem is developed by Azalin's lackeys to tie in with his recent metaplot attempts to escape the dark demiplane. It has plenty of spells he knows, and three new ones he obviously can't. Mind control via blood, buffing via blood, which can be reversed at the caster's whim to ensure obedience, and a priest spell to harvest life force from worshippers for the big rituals that he's plotting. All seems to slot into established history fairly neatly.

The Tome of the Shackled Mind is a nasty little book of mind-control effects from Dementlieu. As with far too many magical tomes like this, it has it's own agenda, and will control you as much as you control others. Its two new spells are both evil variants on standard mind control, making people up their lives with desire and paranoia, hopefully to your benefit.

The Revelations of the Prince of Twilight is a clerical book, produced by a maddened monk. It's another trap, that'll wind up with you getting soul-swapped with an eldrich monstrosity from who knows where. You really don't want that. So all of these are pretty inventive, but none are really player-suitable. Oh, the dilemma. Have fun with your villainous experiences.


The ecology of the ghoul: Welcome to the kingdom of the ghouls. You thought that we were merely filthy scavengers, haunting graveyards, feasting on corpses, and not afraid to make a few more corpses should you stray into the wrong area at night. You were oh so very wrong. Heavily inspired by the works of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, Wolfgang Baur gives us a lengthy and atmospheric ecology that takes a familiar monster, and makes it into oh so much more. If you follow the right rituals, you too can join the ranks of unhallowed dead with your mind intact. Oh, the forbidden things you can learn if you do! Oh, the fun we shall have, singing blasphemous chants to dead gods, and dancing for days on legs that feel no fatigue. Let me still your flesh. Let me free your mind from petty mortal concerns. Let us taste the delicious brains of those who would not understand together. Yeah, this is good stuff, if not quite as cool as the similar treatment of aboleths in issue 131. This stuff may be a bit cliche, but that's because it works. One of the big hooks about the undead is the omnipresent danger that you too can become the monster, all too easily. And once you do, the things that they do won't seem so bad, somehow.

 

[Orius]

Jack O' Lanterns blowing up goblins? Heck, use it for the ironic reversal if nothing else!

Also, what a well-timed Halloween update. Has that happened before?

He covered part of an April issue back on April 1.

That kind of makes it even cooler: the two that matched up are the traditional seasonal Dragon themes: humor for April and horror for October.