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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4877343" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 133: May 1988part 5/5The wild warriors: Berserkers. Now they were one of the weirder parts of the D&D monster list. Technically human, yet treated very much as just another marauding creature to kill or be killed by. This is also another one we've seen presented as an actual class before as well, way back in issue 3. Since the writeup then was pretty perfunctory, I think they are well due a more detailed revisiting. Unsurprisingly, they draw quite heavily from the Barbarian stuff from issue 63 and UA. After all, they are from the same culture. And even more than them, they are designed to be problematic for a group. Not only do they have the same distaste for magic equipment and wizards, but they also have the blind battle rage problem which means they may end up attacking their allies in battle. Even if the player tries to play them as reasonably as possible, a little inadvertent PvP may wind up taking place. Since they are also combat monsters, especially when berserk, this is likely to end badly for the other character unless you have some way of escaping from or incapacitating them. (a barbarian cleric loaded with several hold person spells, for example) Unless you're playing a solo or comedy game, exercise great caution about allowing them as PC's. The dragon's bestiary: Wormy may be gone, but this month's bestiary has a decidedly wormy theme. Scaling up tiny and microscopic creatures has already given us several cool articles, but given the numbers and diversity of these creatures all around us, you could do a whole book on this subject and only scratch the surface. Lets see how we can use reality to make our fiction stranger this time. Neresis are little bristle worms that pounce out from their burrows to grab things. Course, in reality they're mostly herbivorous, but that won't stop the giant ones from trying to get their jaws around you. Diopatra are one of those disturbing creatures with multiple mandible type jaws that allow them to both grab, hold and chew at the same time. They tend to appear in colonies as well, so several of them can be holding you down and trying to strip the flesh from you ASAP. Definitely nightmare fuel to be had there. Vanadis evert their bodies to swallow you whole. Since they're pretty stretchy, they can even fit ogres inside. Sounds like a combination of snakes and Krenshar. Another excellent reason for adventurers to travel in parties. It's much easier to cut them out than it is to get out from inside. Eurythoe are fairly slow and inoffensive, but their bristles are covered with agony inflicting poison. Just leave them alone. Glyceria have venomous bites that paralyze you, which means they make good ambush predators. Another thing with decidedly disturbing looking jaw structures for creeping your players out with. Sabella are another harmless bottom feeder. I don't think we need to worry too much about stats for those. Terebella are also harmless, but they have the quirk of sorting the stuff they filter and dumping the inedible stuff in a pile next to them. This means you can get some treasure off them if you're lucky. Pectinaria, also known as the ice-cream-cone worm, constructs a portable conical home for itself out of pebbles and mucus. Sometimes there are a few valuable ones amongst them. Another inoffensive creature in an entry rather high on them. This is definitely an entry that you use for flavour rather than just another combat encounter. The marvel-phile creates an index of all the characters they've covered so far. This is the third time in only 5 years. What's up with that? 5 pages of rather small type follow, going from Abomination to ZZZax, and all the modules and stuff released so far. It's a good thing the marvel universe is constantly evolving, otherwise they would be running out of material to fill this column with. Obviously useful, but not hugely interesting, particularly as the hints of humour that livened the last couple of times have been lost in the attempt to compress the info as much as possible. Wonder how long it'll be before this turns up again. Dragonmirth tells some more jokes (badum-tish) Snarf falls for the trap. Silly snarf. A fairly polarized issue, with plenty of good ideas that I'd really like to use, but also an above average number of genuinely poor and ill-thought out articles as well. The reviews continue their strong showing, and the editing seems to be improving, but the articles are very much hit and miss. Overall, pretty decent though.</blockquote>

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