Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine annual 1999


part 3/7


The epic fantasy campaign continues: Where a real selling point of the Realms is that it's too big for a single story, Krynn consciously goes for the opposite approach - that it's small enough for everything to be tied together. Well, that's certainly a good way to differentiate your settings. Actually, this brings up an important point. While having too many active settings simultaneously may result in diminishing returns, having two or three and encouraging a rivalry between them can result in lots of free publicity, boosting sales for all involved. And if this rivalry involves multiple properties by the same company, then they win whoever wins. It's really very clever. But anyway, this continues their highly optimistic tone, saying that Krynn has a bright future, and the SAGA system will continue onwards. Depending on how far they plan their products ahead, they may well be lying through their teeth. It seems like the more forcedly cheery they act, the more cynical I become in response. Am I just being a big party pooper, or is this entirely justified in light of factual knowledge.


The gods of krynn: Our Dragonlance article for this issue is unfortunately mostly recycled. Admittedly, the old Dragonlance boxed set where the gods got fully detailed is out of print now. But still, it's not as if it's that hard to find. However, there are some new elements here. Firstly, they've had Tome of Magic spheres added to their portfolios, making their priests a little better rounded. And secondly, we have a backconversion of the new Mystic class from the SAGA system, finally giving people in that world the option of creating their own valid faiths which no-one can say aren't legitimate, save through debate and self-examination. (although they're less mechanically differentiated than they will be in 3e. ) So this certainly isn't useless, but does feel like it was an easy target, written because they weren't feeling particularly inspired, but needed to get something out there for this annual. If they weren't also trying to make it accessible to casual readers, the new info here could have been condensed down to a couple of pages. Not satisfying.


They came from outer space: Despite their attempts at positivity, Alternity's product schedule doesn't look particularly great. Two books for each setting? Even the smaller White Wolf gamelines like Changeling and KotE are getting more than that. Plus they're dropping the price of their corebooks, which you don't normally do unless you have a ton of backstock that isn't moving, or a new edition coming out soon. Plus they're publishing another book in electronic format, which sounds like a cool move embracing the future, but is also likely because they're not sure if it's going to sell, and not too optimistic. Well, embracing new technologies and distribution methods is a positive thing anyway. It's interesting that they did so much work to promote .pdfs, only to drop it all just as the rest of gaming was catching up. I suppose that's the thing about maintaining a significant management and staff turnover. There will be sudden and radical shifts in direction as a result.


The kindness of strangers: This is promising. Looks like this year's module is going to be an Alternity one. A full 16 pager too. Of course, that isn't really enough for a fully detailed open-ended adventure, so instead we have a combination of railroady bits and small site based exploration sections where the PC's actually can make some meaningful choices. It's not completely impossible to avoid being screwed over at the end, and losing the Macguffins, but it does seem fairly likely, with quite a specific sequence of actions required and a few lucky dice rolls as well. Experienced players who stay in paranoia mode might manage it, but if they're as novice as their characters are supposed to be, I don't rate their odds. Still, even if they lose, this is an invitation to further plot developments, so it's not all bad, and much of the railroading is of the behind the scenes, this plot point will happen whichever route you choose, which a good GM can keep the players from noticing. Overall, I'd rate this as medium, It's a little too keen on it's predetermined plot bits, but not totally without opportunities for the players to create their own story. That's better than a lot of adventures these days.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine annual 1999


part 4/7


Super Heroes Destroy Manhattan in 4 Hours: While Alternity's upcoming products list doesn't look particularly great, their Marvel ones are steaming ahead, with over a dozen little adventure books in comic format planned. Seems like the kind of thing that'll suffer diminishing returns fairly soon, but at least it'll mean you'll have no shortage of prefab adventures to get a game going. Actually, did this line end because of insufficient sales, or because Marvel ended the licence so they could do their own in-house game? It's not as clear as the situation with Alternity, and googling is not helpful. Maybe I'll find out in a later issue.


Mastering the Mystic Arts: Handling magic in the Marvel universe is a topic that deserves an article of it's own. Looking back, it seems that the FASERIP system did it in issue 100, which was another extra large special one. That's a pleasing correspondence, and gives me a chance to do a good compare and contrast. And as is often the case, it shows that back then they would just give you the mechanics, wheras now they're a lot more prone to filling out the article with waffle and pretty visuals which are nice to read, but slow you down if you try to reference things in play. There are a few bits of useful rules advice in here, but they're buried in lots of descriptive setting stuff which might be handy if you don't already know about the marvel universe, but what are the odds of that. As with his Dragonlance article earlier on, Stephen Kenson really isn't bringing his A game at all here, but reusing lots of already established material and adding little bits and pieces here and there. It's a hard life being a freelancer, and sometimes you need that paycheck.


Arcane Lore: Over the years, we've developed a certain formula for our spellbooks. The vast majority of them have involved the wizard being dead, or at least mysteriously disappeared, unless the spellbook is cursed, and released deliberately upon the world as part of an Xanatos gambit. Here we have a spellbook who's owner is presented in the present tense, as if he's still around and likely to be encountered. Which begs the question of how the spells are supposed to get out there. Maybe unlike most wizards, he's actually willing to share ideas. Not that many people will be buying, as this is a collection of slime themed spells. Prejudice is a terrible thing. Still, that means they're less likely to be rehashed, which is always a good thing this far along.

Dormancy sends slimes and oozes to sleep for a bit, letting you sneak past them without killing them, and leaving them for less ecologically concerned adventurers to hack through. Who says the bad guys are the ones ruining things?

Drop of Slime is a gruesome melf's acid arrow variant. It's not good for your equipment at all. Enjoy being able to put spells like that in routinely, for next year, that's all getting nerfed.

Slippery Skin gets you out of grapples and shackles. Frankly, something that also hurts the attackers would be preferable. Oh well, can't have everything with a 1st level spell.

Resist Slime makes the stuff slide off you. It does itch a bit though. Oh well, a little discomfort is worth not dying by conversion to slime.

Spore Cone is slightly less damaging than fireball, but since it messes up resurrection, I think that's a decent trade-off. Thematics can go a long way towards ensuring coolity.

Transmute Slime to Rock is another way of temporarily making a threat not a threat, that then bounces back a bit later. It really should be reversible, but isn't for some reason.

Volhom's Minute Missiles is another gross item destroying variant blasty attack. Another thing spreading rumours about will discourage people from attacking this guy.

Slime Guardian is another, more powerful one that surrounds you with something to take the blows. This is rather obvious, so it won't be good for a dinner engagement.

Volhom's Tentacle Arms is one of the central spells, getting a rather good illustration. It has multiple effects, but of course, impedes your spellcasting while in effect. Maybe combine with one of those spells that lets you grow extra arms.

Wall of Gel is another one with fairly interesting effects. It's not the most damaging magic wall spell, but it does have the interesting distinction of being mobile, which makes it look like a corridor-blocking ooze. Players may well choose to retreat rather than fight through that.

Gelatinous Form isn't quite as useful as gaseous form, but will let you look scary and get places you couldn't before. Mind you, at this level you can teleport, so you can get places quicker anyway.

Toxic Snare does damage, but also eliminates poison. Call it kill-or-cure. I suppose straight healing is still the one area wizards struggle at.

Slime Growth temporarily makes your minions really scary, if not quite in shambling mound leagues. Where's the spell that applies the gargantua template to everything?

Last Generation sterilizes a place. Handy to deal with quite a bit of this previous crap. You know, you could just become a defiler, and then you'd get this for free on top of everything else.

Summon Handmaiden brings a Yochol and her mates along. As usual, if not serving the cause of chaos and evil, they may turn on you. Or they might just do so for the lulz. Why are slime creatures with any intelligence so unpleasant. Stupid corruptive Jubilex, ruining it for everyone. :mutter mutter: Anyway, this is a pretty good collection, well tied into D&D's seamy history.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine annual 1999


part 5/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Once again they go with the more everyday items over the big flashy ones, with this selection of food, drink and shelter. Is this the kind of thing you have for a big celebratory issue? I have to say I'm a little disappointed in you.

Moonwater Gourds refill themselves with water on a daily basis if treated right. As ever, I am forced to examine them in comparison to the Decanter of endless water and pronounce them lacking.

Water Seeds produce springs if planted, but also have a complicated procedure that needs to be followed to work properly. Needs moar development to make user-friendly.

Water Witching Staves are another way of getting hold of water that follows a moderately fiddly procedure.

Sweet Bladders turn water into nutritious cream that fills all your dietary needs. Use quickly and regularly, for the cream will not only go off, but ruin the bladder if left to go sour. Man, these are easy to ruin by accident.

Stone Cheese, on the other hand, can be preserved nearly forever, and is really easy to cook, like a magical pot noodle. Hell, you could probably make something much like this in reality.

Everloaves also riff off a biblical trick and take it in a different direction. As long as it's left at least half full, it regenerates. This is another one you'll probably wind up ruining by accident at some point and regretting it.

A Satchel of Nourishment is another not so fiddly one. Just make sure it doesn't get damaged and keep eating the replenishing food up.

Centurybloom Trees give you tons of fruit regardless of conditions for 100 years before dying. The kind of thing you give to your home village after adventuring rather than keeping for yourself.

Tent Ribs get off the food theme and give us shelter instead. Magical temperature stabilisation is always handy. It can be easy to take air conditioning for granted.

Haven Seeds are yet another one that requires a specific procedure to use. As the name implies, you plant them right, they grow into a good bit of temporary accommodation. Just watch out for the long term ecological damage.

Pebble Walls are another laboursaver that still doesn't completely negate your need for materials and intelligent design thoughts. Looks like they're maintaining the strongly low key air throughout the article. This magic won't be solving all your problems with a wish and a wiggle of the nose.


What if the crackpots are right: Ahh, so this is where that extra page count really went. A 32 page Alternity Fast-Play game, the size of a full old school module. I think that may be the largest article they've ever done that wasn't divided up over multiple issues. While the previous fast-play games were designed for a single player, and in many cases would work just fine without a DM, this is actually pretty near a full adventure, although much of that is filled by the pregens and explanation of how the system works. Interestingly, it's more forgiving of attempts to explore the environment and try different ways of accomplishing your goal than the other adventure this issue, and I think I prefer it for that. It's certainly worth noting for posterity that they gave such a large portion of the issue to Alternity adventures, and more evidence that they really did like it within the company and try their best to get people to play it. If only they'd released this first instead of the earlier smaller and more linear attempts, they might have had a better shot. Or maybe if they'd released the Dark Matter setting a few years ago, before the X-files went downhill and bled away it's fanbase.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine annual 1999


part 6/7


Dragon's bestiary: Hmm. This is an interesting and different one. Troy Denning provides the statistical conversions for a whole bunch of unique creations from his own latest book. Similar to the Darklords of Ravenloft, Ghazneths are unique creatures formed when someone spectacularly betrays the country of Cormyr. Course, like Darklords, they're pretty much cursed with awesome, being essentially indestructible and immune to magic, plus having several cool abilities of their own. They seem perfectly designed to serve as recurring antagonists for an extended series, until someone finally finds a macguffin that can put them down for good. Even Elminster can't solve this little problem, which is rather pleasing. This skirts at the edge of fiaty cheese, but just about manages to stay in control, producing exceptional results. These may not be too easy to incorporate into your game, but as an example of how to construct flavourful NPC's with lots of survivability, and as writing, they are very good indeed.

Suzara the scold is the wife of the founder of Cormyr, who left him with the baby because she didn't like living out in the wilderness. In return, she got to spend the past 1,300 years locked in a tomb, and has the power to blight crops, age people and wither items. And she fully in tends to take advantage of that to ruin the Cormyr of today.

Boldovar the mad is a mental ex-monarch. Not too surprisingly, his powers cause paranoia, confusion and insanity in those around him as well. Even without them, he's pretty disconcerting and unpleasant company, but at least he doesn't have any big plans beyond his own amusement.

Merendil the Bloody tried to assassinate king Azoun I. Now she's a wasp-thing which can turn people against each other and a crowd into a riot. She'd rather like to succeed on the current king where she failed with his ancestor.

Melineth the grasping sold Suzail for 500 sacks of gold. Curiously, being locked away with them for 900 years has not diminished his greed. His powers are disease based, for no apparent reason.

Luthax the firey was a court wizard who wanted to overthrow the king and form a magocracy. Now he's a gargoyle thing which can cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. He still has all his wizardly powers too, making him a lot scarier than his relative HD would indicate.

Xanthon the baneful is a brand new ghazneth who hasn't had time to do any atrocities against the country, but not for lack of trying. His powers are also disease based, in his case getting insects and rodents to swarm and do his bidding. He may need more practice with them though.


Dungeon Mastery goes Marvel, as Stephen Kenson gives advice on running your game like a comic book. Apart from the visual element, this means pacing is quite different to a purely written book. More things happen simultaneously rather than consecutively, as you can have lots of elements in a panel, not all immediately obvious. They also have a greater tendency to snarling continuity, retcons, alternate universe stories, flashbacks, and other such complications, much of which arises because they don't have one consistent author, and the more popular characters have multiple comics running simultaneously. Perfect excuse to switch GM'ing duties regularly, and run with the emergent weirdness that comes from this. You can even encourage players to give feedback in the form of a letter to the editor (extra XP for commitment) So this seems to encourage switching things up quite a bit in an attempt to do genre emulation, which will hopefully keep players interested. It is indeed fairly interesting. After all, when they were doing the old Marvel-Phile, they were curiously light on general GMing advice, sticking mainly to specific characters. And rulesets have diversified quite a bit since then. So this is another attempt to make your game fun and different that's a reasonable success. Variety is crucial to sustaining interest, as I've said far too many times already, and this adds a decent bit of variety to the issue.


The ecology of the grey Ooze: Back to another set of characters we've seen before in here. The last time we saw Shandrilla and Javorik, they were running from the dread black pudding. This time, it's another amorphous slime that's largely impervious to conventional weaponry. Man, they just can't catch a break. This follows pretty much the same formula as their last instalment, with the creatures actions described in the relentless utilitarian fashion that befits their nature, and the adventurers bickering and panicking their way through the adventure, barely managing to survive. Still, at least this time they kill it, so hopefully they'll manage to level up sometime. In comparison with his last few, this one feels rather conservatively written, deliberately harking back to the previous instalment. Well, it's a special issue. Gotta go with the reliable crowd pleasers. Yawn. Afraid that kind of conservatism won't keep my interest.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine annual 1999


part 7/7


Rogues Gallery: Troy Denning continues to tell us about the characters in his new novel. Still, as these are the heroes, I wouldn't be surprised if they're less interesting than the monsters. They certainly wont redefine the rules in the same way.

Tanalasta Obarskyr is the crown princess, trying hard to level up so she isn't caught with her pants down when the succession comes calling again. After all, to be screwed over and manipulated in one assassination plot can be considered bad luck. To be caught in another demonstrates incompetence that will not let you hold the throne long if you do get it. Fortunately, she has Vangerdahast to help her survive CR inappropriate encounters and get that practical experience quickly.

Rowen Cormaeril is the youngest son of a disgraced minor noble. He hasn't let this make him bitter, and is now working his way up through the purple dragons, hoping to get a decent commission. Since he's now 12th level, he really ought to get it sometime soon. But when have the novels followed the game rules?

Owden Fowley is a priest of Chauntea who guards an imprisoned unspeakable evil being underneath a remote mountain monastery. Not an obvious occupation for someone serving the god of the harvest. But given Helm's recent reputation, I can see why they'd want to sort it out themselves. As a good priest should, he may act nice, but he's nobody's fool.

Queen Filfaeril actually looks younger than her daughter from the way she's drawn. And is exceedingly similar statistically. The apple does not fall far from the tree. And since her husband is renowned for his philandering, she might not be completely averse to a little payback, possibly with the court wizard. The Realms really is a hotbed of sexual intrigue these days, isn't it. So yeah, this isn't as interesting as the Ghazneths, but it's still quite entertaining, and very revealing about the plot of the book. Now, when will they kill off some major characters for real without them being resurrected or cloned later?


Nodwick gets his most epic comic yet, as his crew tackle the dragonlance chronicles. Four pages of messing with someone else's railroad. Possibly the only group who deserve it.


Roleplaying Revivus: And so we finish off the special with another teaser for what the next year and edition hold. More action, more generally focussed material, more complex rules, more minis. They're nailing their colours to the wall, and they want things big, flashy and commercially successful. Charts and tables are so 80's. Niche products can get stuffed. And who wants to waste time drawing up big maps with multiple routes and secret bits for your dungeons? So yeah, once again they're making hard stands on a whole bunch of issues, and saying things that seem likely to cause flamewars. Which in the internet age, is good publicity. And as long as you convert most of the people, or create enough new fans that the holdouts are outnumbered, you have a positive result overall. Which I seem to recall they managed. You win this time, Wizards of the Coast. Next time you may not be so lucky.


This issue does stand out reasonably from the surrounding ones, but unlike issue 200, it does feel rather padded out, and could easily have lost a good 8-16 pages and still had the same amount of useful content. The overall air of self-congratulation also grates on my nerves quite a bit, particularly where I know they won't exactly follow up on their promises next year. Still, it has both some useful articles, and does reveal a surprising amount of further info on their plans for 3e. So as a lead-in to the new millennium it isn't bad, but it loses quite a bit with hindsight. The real spectacular may well come next gen con. So let's keep going, find out exactly when these promises are fulfilled or broken.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 267: January 2000


part 1/7


97 pages(116) Well, the 90's is finally over, and the world didn't end after all. The y2k bug didn't crash all our computers, Jesus didn't come back, the stars didn't fall out of the sky. We can relax, stop it with all the retrospectives, and get on with our lives. Well, you can anyway. I've still got 8 more years of this to get through before I can put it to bed. Still, the page count has started to shrink again, and I know it does so some more over the next few years, so this should take considerably less time than the last decade. I hope I'll have the energy and enthusiasm to play around a bit more as the finishing line comes into view. But not today. This month is yet another drow heavy underdark special. Surely we have enough of those for this edition. I don't seem to recall you doing a special for deserts or swamps yet, and they're pretty dangerous too. What more do you have to say on this topic?


Scan Quality: Poor. Many pages missing, and most of the interior ones are in black and white or washed out although the original ones weren't. Some pages placed out of order or repeated.


In this issue:


Stats for for santa claus. Ha. Very amusing. And so very very VERY scooped. (Issue 44)


The wyrms turn: What distinguishes the underdark from a regular dungeon crawl? Dave thinks about this, and decides that it's the open-endedness and irregularity of the layout. It's not divided into neat levels, 10 foot corridors, and easily definable entrances and exits to rooms, and monsters that stay still and don't interact with anything else. It's dungeoneering with the safety wheels off. Which is a reasonable enough statement. You can meet entire cities of monsters, and there's no way you're fighting through that. Despite superficial similarities, it really does require quite different tactics. You should feel quite justified in being a bit scared. It may be a game to you, but it's a matter of life and death for your characters. I'm not going to dispute anything he says here.


D-Mail: Our first letter is from someone shocked, shocked I say at the idea of mixing horror and sci-fi. You know, some of the biggest properties in sci-fi like Alien and Terminator mix horror and sci-fi. I think you need to stop getting attached to artificial genre labels.

A request to cut down their themed stuff a bit, and give the ecologies a break, as they're oversaturating them. Reduce the things that are least likely to be repeated? That's a request I'm a bit iffy with.

Some basic little questions about the wererat cult from issue 264. James Wyatt didn't edit himself strictly enough. If you're going to detail new powers, make sure the character who's supposed to have them legally can.

And finally, we have someone scared that making Greyhawk the default campaign in 3e means the Realms is going to be neglected. Uh…. no. Not at all. If anything, they're going to get considerably more attention. It's all a bit ironic really. The planes will also get a reasonable amount of support. Other settings though? Oh boy, there's a can of worms.


Nodwick gets a chance to defuse the situation before it turns fatal. Will the party take it?

 

[LordVyreth]

I've got the hard copy of the issue dug out, so if you have any questions about missing pages, let me know.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 267: January 2000


part 2/7


Forum wonders what level you actually consider the cut-off point for high level. Is name level where you peter out, or is everything below 20th purely mundane? This is one I'm sure will vary widely.

Bryan Cooper reminds us that there is a substantial distinction between players and their characters. You shouldn't lie to players, but you should lie to characters frequently. You must maintain trust OOC, otherwise the game will cease to be fun.

Jacob Schwartz shows us how evil characters can work together to great effectiveness. A little cruelty and a united front, and the world will fall at your feet. Squeeze it like an orange and drink the sweet sweet juice.

Jason F. Smith makes the point that most creatures, even chaotic evil ones, will band together to deal with a common threat. The Tanar'ri's organisations are almost entirely based on that principle. Necessity makes for unpleasant bedfellows.

Justice McPherson (awesome name) gives us his method for improving ability scores as you gain levels. A certain amount of randomness is involved. Well, it could have been taken up.


Profiles goes to allcaps this time. But you can still tell the F is even more capitalised. Mutter mutter Anyway, last month we had a book editor. This month, we have a games editor, Miranda Horner. Another person who followed their dreams, and after a few diversions, including a brief stint at West End Games, managed to make it into TSR. She's tried her hand at a bit of writing, but found she prefers figuring out how to make other people's ideas the best they can be. A viewpoint that I'm coming to understand. It certainly involves a lot less pressure on you than pouring out your heart and soul, and then seeing it twisted into horrible shapes by the meddling of executives. And as long as you enjoy your job, chances are you're producing better work as well.


Up on a soapbox: Hey hey! After giving contributions to the 97 & 99 annuals, it looks like Gary's been persuaded to come back to the regular magazine. Man, with Profiles, the Bestiary and the Bazaar making regular appearances, it's just like old times. Only now he has a degree of ironic self awareness about the floridity of his prose style. Like trying to reclaim the term Fanboy from it's pejorative status. Which totally didn't work, as we know a decade later. As was often the case before, he presents a valid case, but in a hyperbolic fashion using elaborate vocabulary that makes his writing instantly identifiable even if it wasn't signed. You know, I'm surprised more people don't imitate that form of writing. It's just so much fun to write in. So this is a very welcome return, promising the return of the kind of controversy that the past few years have been pretty light on. Although he may not be wielding the same kind of power he used too, he's still got plenty of respect. When he says stuff, people will listen and take it seriously, even if he possibly didn't intend it to be serious. Let the responses come, and may they be snarky in turn!


Alternative underdarks: Or how you could make the land beneath your feet just that little bit weirder. Although the one ruled by Duergar would actually be comparatively boring and well organised, but hey, having a monolithic threat that could burrow up any time, anywhere does tend to focus the mind somewhat. This is one of those articles that has some nice ideas, but isn't long enough, and doesn't back up it's ideas with mechanical support. Although given the mechanical clunkers James Wyatt has made in previous articles, maybe that's actually a bullet dodged. So this is a pretty mediocre way to start things off.


Countdown to 3rd edition: 7 months to go. Ah yes, the enormous upgrades the cleric got in 3e. While on one hand part of their design goals was making the classes more equal, on the other, they recognised that priestly sorts were considered the least cool of the classes, so they intentionally made clerics slightly overpowered. Their spell selections and granted powers are no longer vastly variable in power from god to god, which is a good thing, but they now get to choose from pretty much their entire spell selection at will, which isn't so good, as said spell selection is now pretty much as powerful as a wizard's, plus they still have the advantages of better combat skills, better armour, and far less limited weapon selections than before. They might still be the support class, but they have no difficulties stepping out of that role and doing the wizard or fighter's job, quite possibly better than they can with the right buffs. This was probably not the perfect way to do it. Still, at least it defuses most accusations of power creep, as you can compare nearly any new base or prestige class from the supplements to a straight cleric or druid progression and find it wanting. That's pretty helpful in it's own way, and certainly a big difference from previous editions.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 267: January 2000


part 3/7


By any other name: And I thought they'd run out of steam on these naming convention articles. I guess that's another demonstration of how popular the Drow are. You know the formula by now. Short descriptive blurb, and a whole load of tables to roll on to determine personal and house names. Not really anything I can get excited about, positively or negatively.


The city of sunken spires: An upside down city built within and around a massive cavern full of stalactites? Awesome! That's just the kind of thing you should be filling the underdark with. It means you're protected from monsters (and PC's) which can't climb or fly, you have spectacular views and an easy form of waste disposal. (in the short to medium turn, unless there's scavengers down there.) Course, getting around may be a challenge, but if you can train giant spiders like the drow or duergar, that's very solvable. So this is a Forgotten Realms location expansion that thinks quite a bit about how to make itself both interesting and logistically feasible, with plenty of details on population demographics, ecology, interactions with surrounding settlements, potential adventure hooks, NPC's, religion, even equipment available. It's high density, well focussed, offers plenty of challenges, and doesn't forget to keep in a bit of whimsy and humour. Ed hasn't been going it alone for a long time, and this shows again how good some of his assistants have become in their own right, able to fit stuff in that matches his tone perfectly. And so the Realms gets a little further filled in, long past the point I would have expected them to stop.


PC Portraits: Drow don't work particularly well in black and white, curiously. You need a particularly clever artist to create highlights on a basic skin colour of jet black and still allow for proper expressiveness. Which is why this one doesn't even try and instead goes for greywashing them like issue 214. Let the cries of fantasy racism continue. Actually,. let the cries of fantasy sexism continue as well, since there's 9 male ones, but only 5 female ones, and a larger variety of ages and outfits in the male ones. Still, at least we get a little shirtlessness for the fangirls, so it's not totally lacking in progressiveness. But you've got to try a bit harder if you want to genuinely walk the walk of an alien culture where many values are inverted from ours.


Denizens of the underdark: The frequency of new races in the magazine continues to be way up as we hit the final stretch of the edition. Here's some more creatures to lurk in the darkness, and possibly be persuaded to come into the light and take class levels.

Diopsids are intelligent beetle people with a whole bunch of interesting racial quirks, some of which are advantageous (including the usual multi-weapon fighting bonuses also enjoyed by thri-kreen) and some which aren't. (short lifespan, can't use many worn items, widely spaced eyestalks mean they have to walk sideways in narrow tunnels) They aren't evil, but there are some rather good reasons why they will tend to be hostile towards surface dwellers at first, and PC's will be exceptions. They definitely seem like they could be fun in the hands of the right player.

Sapromnemes are even stranger, essentially being fungi that consume the memories of the dead creature they grow from. This leads to a whole bunch of interesting plot ideas, as it allows you to bring back characters that died and got left behind in the underdark, and then have them face a whole bunch of challenges adapting to their new bodies. That definitely sounds like a fun chance to stretch your roleplaying muscles to me. They can float, and manipulate objects with their tentacles, but they have a serious lack of general body strength that once again limits their regular equipment.

Zygodacts diverge even further from earthly bioforms, with their closest literary relatives probably being Pierson's Puppeters. They have two head/hand combo limbs, with eyes on stalks, and four dextrous little appendages surrounding their mouths, and a shelled body which they can withdraw into. This means they make great wizards, as innate heavy armour + the possibility of casting two verbal only spells in a round is pretty awesome. On the other hand, they can't climb ropes, play video games, or do a lot of other things that require two hands at once. So it won't always be easy having them in your party, but at the same time, it could once again be rather cool. They would definitely be a good contribution if you were to try the weird underdark variant from earlier in the magazine.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 267: January 2000


part 4/7


Fiction: The knights touch by Nancy Varian Berberick. A chance to see Dalamar actually being smart and knowledgable, instead of Elminster & Mordenkainen's buttmonkey? Sign me up. Set before the Chaos Wars, this nonetheless shows him being not exactly heroic, but definitely on the side of the world as it is, and willing to put some serious work in to protect it. But still, he's only a side character, the real focus is on a mother and her son, their relationship, and the tragedies that have happened to them in the past. The desire of the young to be heroic, vs the fears of their parents, who may well have seen their siblings die for their ambitions. So this is very much designed to tug at the heartstrings, and I think it succeeds, especially the final lines. After all the bad Krynn fiction I've had to deal with, that's incredibly welcome.


Nodwick goes to white plume mountain. And all the good toys get him. This one was silly enough anyway.


Dragon's bestiary: Greg Detwiler again goes on about creating monsters that form an ecology, and make sense in a dungeon environment. We get it already! Logical extrapolation of capabilities. We can do that in our sleep by now. Cool down.

Tunnelmouth dwellers, like gelatinous cubes, are just the right size to block a typical 10x10 corridor, and advance along it swallowing everything in it. Ommity nom nom. better hope there's a side tunnel or some other way of getting around it, because it's not nearly as dangerous from the rear and has trouble turning round in tight spaces.

Stalking catfish are even bigger, and if you touch their whiskers, they will strike. Still, there's weeks of eating on one if you can catch them, so if you're stuck down there in the dark, there are worse choices for surviving on. Lots of light is handy here, for they are slow moving out of water and you could steer well clear that way.

Glitterworms can disguise themselves as a lode of precious metal to attract adventurers, then spew acid all over them. As usual, trust nothing down there. These three do seem to be rather in the gygaxian tradition, but with a more IC logical slant to their quirks. I think that counts as a modest success.


Marvel super heroes: The Beyonder is our subject this month. As with some previous characters, he's used to illustrate a point: in this case the perils of omnipotent NPC's in your campaign. While a DM theoretically has ultimate power, if no-one wants to play the game, it means nothing. And if they're not only omnipotent, but also prone to doing whimsical crap for whatever reason, players can grow to loathe them very quickly. Using them to tell an Aesop may work in cartoons, but chances are, your players won't draw the desired conclusion, and instead go into paranoia turtling mode trying to prevent further annoyances. So a valuable lesson here, which could in itself be taken in several different ways. Still, I think I'll stick to my policy of avoiding deus ex machinas, and if the players screw up my plans, rolling with it and seeing where it goes.