Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 4/8


Mysteries of the dead gods: Another author tie-in here. Seems like they're doing them more issues than not these days. Monte Cook is another writer who quite possibly overwrote when making the rather large adventure Dead Gods. He managed to fit in a side-plot already, and this article makes you even more able to handle sidetracks and stretch things out. Random Dead God generation tables for people who are wandering around on the astral plane for an extended length of time? That's fairly specific and quite awesome, as well as being a callback to the very first issue. The challenges you face, the visuals you see, and the treasures you can get from exploring and quite possibly mining them can be rather strange, and coming up with stuff off the cuff may not be easy. So this is exactly the kind of article I like to see, as it's useful, full of flavour, and builds on D&D's existing elements nicely without rehashing them. Good to see Monte has cool creativity to spare at this point.


Fiction: True power by Ron Collins. Ahh, this old chessnut. The idea that given the choice between immortality and great power, but uncontrollable appetites that involve feeding off other humans; or being a regular joe, you'd be happier if you chose mortality. Considering mortality involves a whole raft of pretty onerous appetites to keep your body fully functional, and many people are deeply annoying to spend time with, I'm not entirely convinced. I'd still give it a few centuries, see if I got tired of living like that first. After all, in a fantasy world, there are plenty of other long-lived creatures out there for you to have friendships and intrigues with, keep you sane and with something to do over those timescales. So this is a story who's message and moral hinges on a morality I simply don't subscribe too, and who's protagonists are not being particularly sensible in their actions. I really can't relate. You can do far better with the hand you've been dealt than this, you just have to be willing to change your worldview a bit.


The ecology of the nymph: We return to the monster hunters association again this month, with the characters from issue 227 recurring. And here we see the dark side of such an organization, in more ways than one. They don't just capture and kill animals and marauding monsters, but also more benevolent creatures like this. Of course, this being the magazine that it is, anyone dumb enough to distress a damsel, regardless of species, is going to get their comeuppance by the end of the story. Even with the new ownership, that part of company policy is unlikely to change too much. So yeah, this is almost exactly how I'd expected it would be. Not sure if that's good or bad. Guess I'll have to go for mediocre, as it doesn't have much cool new crunch, and is pretty predictable. That's what happens when you get distracted by sex.


Wyrms of the north: Time for a topaz dragon here. Now of the gem dragons, they were always presented as the closest to being evil, with their generally misanthropic nature and ruthlessness. And here we have one that seems generally designed to be played as an antagonist, if not exactly a nemesis, as she is of a distinctly larcenous bent. Whether the players wind up a victim of her quest for more treasure, tricked, robbed and left alive, or are merely hired by someone else who was, this is an easy way to get into an adventure. And since like many Ed NPC's, she has a rather substantial and ingenious array of contingency plans ( he really does more of that than everyone else put together), the possibility of her surviving a confrontation and winding up a recurring character seems rather good. This is a relatively short one, but that thankfully means he doesn't go overboard on the new spells and magical items this time, although the new spell that we do have is probably a bit overpowered for a 1st level one. So I'm reasonably entertained by this, and can see it's uses in game. A little ambiguity does wonders for opening the field up.

 

[(un)reason]

Curiously, Dave Gross identified this as one of his favorite articles in the interview done for last month's Dragon. I have a lot of fondness for his work and his handling of the magazine (for obvious reasons ), but while this article was a fun read and full of inspiration on places to look for material, I'm not sure how gameable it is.


Not quite--the Gothic Earth Gazetteer was a December 1995 release. It wasn't even the newest MotRD supplement at the time--A Guide to Transylvania was a September 1996 release. It's a supplement to the GEGaz, but I wouldn't call it a 'tie-in' except in the broadest sense, given that it's connected to a product nearly two years old at this point.

The 6 month timeslip makes things appear to be closer together than they were. And there'll be several articles next year that tie into much older specific products.

Thank you.

I keep having to put out of mind how many of the people I'm reviewing are reading this, so I can be suitably scathing when the article demands it. The internet is no place for the thin-skinned.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 5/8


Dungeon mastery: For a second month in a row, we have a 101 items list. Hrum. Well, those are generally expansive enough that even when every single item on them is stolen, you're unlikely to be able to trace all the sources. And unless you're blessed with photographic memory, you'll never remember all of them anyway. This time, it's unexplained mysteries, giving you a large selection of omens and Fortean weirdness to unsettle your players with and keep them guessing. Some would make great setups to a future adventure, while others are just red herrings that wouldn't be easy to do stuff with. Once again, this seems like a good one to go to when you suddenly find yourself at an impasse, and don't want to resort to the old cliche of goons breaking down the door and attacking. More stuff to fill out the middle ratings, really.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Cyberware comes to D&D! I kid, but only by a little, as this is all about magical limb replacements. If you regularly put your players up against phycomids, and similar ugliness (which is thankfully quite rare these days) it would only be fair to let them get their army of darkness on and replace lost limbs with something better for a sizeable price. I quite approve. And with a good bit of overarching fluff, this is much better than their recent attempts in this column.

Seeing eyes are the basic model. Apart from being able to choose your colour, there's nothing special about this. Not that this is to be sneezed at when someone's had yer eye out. But if you don't have enough money for the upgrades, I guess you'll have to settle.

True seeing eyes are one of the obvious upgrades. Who doesn't want to short-circuit dopplegangers and . Nobrainer really.

Dim-seeing eyes give you infravision. Now you can know what demihumans take for granted. They won't pull the wool over me again :shakes fist:

All-seeing eyes give you x-ray, telescopic and periscopic vision. Truly a device for all seasons. Even superman can't quite match that.

Eyes that bind paralyze you with a look. If you didn't include it, someone else would. Another no-brainer.

The look that kills isn't as impressive as it's name sounds. Sure it'll kill your victim eventually, but it'll be both tedious and painful. Mounting a medusa head on your shield would be both cheaper and easier.

Helping hands apply the same no-frills principle to your manipulatory digits. It's a lot more useful than a hook, that's for sure. But let's see what else you can add before making a final decision.

Gripping hands show once again how popular Larry Niven is amongst geeks. You really don't want one of these closed around your balls. Tempting for a sadistic ship's captain.

Tricky hands let you be even better at sleight of hand than you were before. If you lost your hand as a punishment for thievery, this really is the way to go. You really don't want to be caught making that mistake again.

Hidden Hands are another one for rogues and brigands. They go from regular hand to vicious hook with a word. Best of both worlds, really.

Casting Hands give you extra fast-castable spell slots. Now that really will prove awesome in extending your wizard's useful day, albeit at the cost of greater downtime too. No free rides, I guess.

Hands of Justice are by far the most powerful of these, with multiple tricks useful for taking down the other items. Well, they cause so much trouble, this is just a small way of redressing the balance really.

Walking legs are of course the basic replacement down there. Not that kind of down there, although you could probably commission one of those too. But this is still a family friendly magazine. What are ya gonna do when you can't advertise through regular channels.

Leaping legs let you go all froggy. Does that sound like your kind of additional benefit? It's certainly worth 500gp to me, as I like my cinematic combats.

Hidden legs turn from realistic to peg-legs in the blink of an eye. Useful for pity plays, comedy and disguise. Hee.

Swimming legs turn all fishy in the water. Since this stuff is marketed at sailors, that really is a no-brainer. You're gonna fall in sometime, really. an extra thousand gold pieces is a small price to pay for survival.

Hollow legs Improve dramatically on the real world variant of this trick by being extradimensional. Just think how much you could smuggle. Amusingly, this means they're the most common variant. Fantasy economics strikes again!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 6/8


KotDT suffers once again from players missing the point. Dragonmirth is very topical, with magic eye pictures. I remember those! Ye gods that was irritating. Swordplay also miss the point. Floyd is now officially a target of the demonic invasion.


Role-playing reviews: Requiem: the grim harvest is of course the Ravenloft supplement that lets you play the undead, along with overturning Ravenloft's established order in the accompanying adventure. Rick's main complaints, ironically, are where it sticks a little too closely to established D&D rules cruft, limiting options in some ways, while presenting too many irrelevant ones in other cases. It might be entertaining to play, but it's not going to win many people back from White Wolf.

Children of the night: Vampires looks like a collection of NPC monsters, each with unique abilities of their own, but really, it's a bunch of mini-adventures as well, as each one has their own history, agenda, and in many cases lair and minions detailed. Not all of them are great, and some are silly, but it shows just how varied you can make them these days, which is important for a long-term Ravenloft campaign. After all, that's what they're trying to promote now.

A guide to Transylvania gets a fairly middling review. It's useful if you're playing a gothic earth game, but a bit dry, and doesn't have ready-play adventures. Still, this is one case where the folklore wasn't all stuff I'd seen before, including some rather interesting expansion on the piper of Hamelin mythology. And it's system light enough that this book is one I still find useful now. Some things age better than others, and this has actually been one of them.

A world of darkness 2nd edition looks like a general WoD book, but since Vampire is the most popular line, can you guess who gets the lion's share of the screentime? Yup, it's time for another gritty, highly detailed, and not so highly edited dive into a world not too far from our own, and sometimes so over the top that the horror flips round into being funny from Rick's PoV. I should look this one over again as well, see how it's held up over a decade later.

Constantinople by night is cut from much the same vein. You still expect indexes from them after 6 years? More fool you. And of course, it's very much for mature readers. Gee, ya reckon? Shame you can't fleshcraft common sense onto someone.

Chicago Chronicles Vol 1, by contrast, shows that they have actually developed quite a bit, by compiling two old supplements from the early days of the line into one. The artwork is noticeably worse than more recent supplements, and the writing less polished. But that doesn't make it less fun to read, only trickier to use in actual play.

Horror's heart is for Call of Cthulhu, and shows up the sanity threatening side of Montreal. (don't laugh) Spooky locales, gruesome monsters, and an overarching plot that is full of interesting bits, but doesn't quite climax properly. Still, since the end of a story is where you have most leeway to change things, hopefully that can be fixed in actual play.

Ye Booke of Monstres II also showcases the cthulhu designer's twisted imaginations, expanding the universe beyond Lovecraft's original writings. The main complaint here is that the illustrations aren't that great. Compared to TSR or White wolf's recent output, they really don't blast the SAN like they should. Guess it's back to using your imagination to fill in the details again.

The complete masks of Nyarlathotep, on the other hand, does manage to pull everything together and make a mega-adventure that holds up all the way through. It might be an old one, but surely standing the test of time is a good thing. Now, if only they'd come up with some new adventures that match it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 7/8


AEON! Another game that's going to be forced to change its name soon. Dear oh dear.


TSR Previews: Just one bit of rescheduling for december. Pages of pain finally gets released. Troy Denning can breathe a sigh of relief. Onto the new.

Dragonlance bounces around it's history in Dragons of Chaos. More short stories painting the world of Krynn as it goes through turbulent times. As if we didn't get enough of those in the magazine last year. Goes to show, plenty of writers still want to play in this sandbox.

Technically under the Forgotten realms banner, but crossing over with both Dragonlance and Planescape is Tymora's Luck, part 3 of the lost gods series. Kate and Jeff set things up for their heroes to save the worlds, again.

Birthright gets Tribes of the Heartless Wastes. Now all of Cerillia has at least a general overview. The gameline can die happy, knowing it came out hitting hard and fast, and did what it had to do to make the whole thing playable and complete.

The Sahuagin adventure trilogy also comes to an end with Sea of Blood. Load up on water breathing powers and hit them back. Watch out for 3D maneuvering. It lets even more enemies swarm you at one time.

Dragon dice combines fire and water to get the Scalders, their 7th kicker pack. Seems pretty self explanatory, even if more info on what this new race looks like would be nice.

 

[jonesy]

Dragonlance bounces around it's history in Dragons of Chaos. More short stories painting the world of Krynn as it goes through turbulent times. As if we didn't get enough of those in the magazine last year. Goes to show, plenty of writers still want to play in this sandbox.

The 'Dragons of..' anthologies were all consistently good, and featured tales which made the full length novels pale by comparison. And Dragons of Chaos has one of the greatest Dragonlance stories of all, "There Is Another Shore You Know, Upon the Other Side", which takes place in a mirror world where the Kingpriest won and became The God. The short story is so dark it's practically living in the Twilight Zone.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 8/8


The current Clack is extra large this month, as they've got a lot of news to deliver. Most importantly, we have WotC mending bridges with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. They didn't have to do that, but it's tremendously beneficial for both them and the game that they did, and helps give the new owners more legitimacy. That definitely deserves credit. Also positive is that Gen Con has remained a stable size, and Origins has grown in attendance despite the company problems. Well, some people probably turned up so they could get first-hand accounts of what was actually happening. Not so positive is Larry Elmore having a heart attack. Still, it looks like he's going to recover. And hopefully he'll take better care of his health for a while. Sometimes you need that scare to get you to shape up.

In non D&D news, we have significant stuff for several other big companies. White wolf's sci-fi game plans have gone out the window and been hurriedly replaced. Meanwhile, they're also producing a whole batch of historical supplements for their WoD lines. Things were never exactly happy shiny puppies and unicorns, but some creatures had more prominence at one time or another. Shadowrun is moving onto it's 3rd edition, and getting a CCG like the rest of the cool kids, although it might be a bit late to really cash in. Meanwhile, Glorantha is leveraging fan power to raise the money for it's new books. The company may be having problems, but the public interest is still very much there. This is interesting. And we get to see the beginning of Eden Studios. Plus there's the usual array of awards from this time of year. The whole landscape seems to be shifting. Guess it really is the start of a new era in general.


The articles this month aren't very interesting, as they continue to play it safe and rely heavily on regular columns and campaign world tie-ins. But they do seem to finally be caught up in terms of internal organisation, and starting to implement plans for the future. And those plans do seem to be an improvement on TSR's behaviour over the last few years. That makes me hopeful that there'll be more interesting things to write about over the next few years. So: 240 down, 119 to go. I'm pretty certain I can do this.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 1/8


124 pages. Giraffe neck, woodlike head, trogdor arm. This dragon is a bit of a mismatch of body parts. And would have serious trouble chewing it's food. If it doesn't eat those adventurers whole, they'll be doing it a mercy killing it. No particular connection to the contents this time, which apparently involves ancient empires. Well, most of their campaign worlds have been around long enough for that, with the ironic exception of Ravenloft. That gives them plenty of room for tie-ins. Lets see who gets excavated, and who is left buried this time.


In this issue:


The Wyrm's turn: Ooh. We add a 9th member to the staff again. A production manager? What does one of them do then that the editors and directors don't? Actually, their staff list currently looks a bit top heavy in general. Big titles, or do they actually have too many chiefs and not enough indians? Well, as long as everyone knows their role, and doesn't step on the other's toes, it hopefully won't be a problem. Speaking of stepping on toes, they're now trying to figure out how much material they should publish on specific settings. One person may like one over another, but really, they shouldn't be in competition. So this is the public's chance to influence their direction in the next few years. Once again, they're trying to pay attention, really give people what they want. Let's hope what they want is interesting to me as well.


D-Mail: A letter complaining about the Mother NPC article. By a man. No mothers appear to have been offended by the creation of this parody. Lighten up maaan.

A letter asking about Alternity and what kind of support it's going to get. Quite a bit, apparently. Once again, given how previous attempts died, they want to try extra hard to get this right, so they're not so dependent on their flagship products.

A letter from someone who finds their group is being bogged down by bickering from contrasting characters. An article on how to deal with this would be very welcome. I doubt the editors will have trouble finding one.

On the other hand, they may have trouble finding original articles if this is the quality of would-be writers for them. Our final letter is from multiple people who want to write for them, but don't have a clue what to write about. You may be approaching things the wrong way around. Do you even know if you're any good at writing in the first place? Do you enjoy the process, or do you just want the prestige? It won't be worth it if that's the only reason.

 

[David Howery]

Do you even know if you're any good at writing in the first place?

That's a question that went through my mind a lot when I made my first submission to Dragon....

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 241: November 1997


part 2/8


Forum: Alan D. Kohler is not amused at the guy waxing lyrical over the cavalier. Not only is he wrong on several mechanical details, the old cavaliers were an abomination anyway. Mind you, the new skills and powers stuff is pretty bad too, so no-one's coming out of this great.

Lloyd Brown thinks xp bonuses should be factored off wisdom, not your key ability scores. He makes a fairly persuasive case from a thematic PoV, but of course the mechanical results may be a bit iffy. Like factoring hit chances off Dex instead of Str, it's worth a try.

David DeKeizer supports regular character death and multiclassing. Both give you more chances to change your character and keep the game interesting. And the rules lawyers can go hang.


Sage advice: What happens when a rogue violates their alignment restrictions (Lawful good thieves have to go straight. They can no longer in good conscience go on living the life they lived, and if they try, they'll find their alignment changing back pretty fast. Bards lose their spellcasting. Ha ha. That's what you get for being originally derived from druids. )

What undead are affected by sunlight (Read the descriptions. Duh.)

Does a cloak of elvenkind stack with thief abilities (No. Use only the best roll. )

Does a cube of frost resistance protect you against lava. (no Greater than or equal too is not equal to equal too. )

How does faith of Illmater work ( They're way too nice. They can wind up sacrificing their life for you. Suckers.)

Does regeneration from high con let you stay alive below -10 and regrow limbs (no)

Does know alignment work on intelligent items (yes)

Does spell immunity get disrupted by any form of protection, even irrelevant ones (yes)

Can I stack all these spells (no)


Great Excavations: Archaeology? You mean we have to dig our own dungeons just to get at the treasure and monsters?! The DM is being bloody stingy this session. Well, we had mining in the past. (issue 152) If you want a slightly more realistic adventure setup, this is a way to go about it. All classes have reasons to seek out ancient stuff, and there's plenty to find down there. And since so much of what you find is luck, a grab bag of bits and pieces of crunch on the theme seems curiously appropriate. Two new kits, one for the spellcasters, and one for the fighty sorts. 2 new spells. And 4 new Proficiencies. Oh, and a new priestly sphere which has so few spells as to be near worthless. (still better than Astral though, amirite? ) None of this seems particularly over or underpowered, although the random findings table is a bit underdeveloped. Overall, it's a reasonable enough bit of coverage that isn't on a heavily rehashed topic. So in terms of marks, it's somewhere in the middle.