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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4996081" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 155: March 1990part 3/6In the frost and the snow: More elf subraces? Dearie dearie me. Can't they spend a few generations in a landscape without morphing to match it. I guess with such long lifespans, they have to magically accelerate their changes to survive. Still, now  the Uldra (see issue 119) have a little company oop north. Like them, they're rather better at the nature connection thing than their relatives in less hostile climes. And like both wild and valley elves, they're an isolationist xenophobic lot, not the kind of people you want to invite to any party that doesn't involve killing oogy underdark thingies. Once again, the hostility of the creatures within spills over to the writing, although not as much as the last lot, making them seem uninviting to use as PC's despite having several neat quirks. Vaguely baffling, really, and very much inessential. I am left with little desire to use these guys either. The folk of the faerie kingdom: Vince Garcia decides to do something a little ambitious, and give mini-ecologies and encounter ideas for every fae creature in the books, including some edge cases. Since many DM's have trouble running noncombat encounters, he gives tons of ideas on how to incorporate them into your game. (Honestly, when they're tricksters, they hardly need to be evil for the players to have a noncombat encounter, get a profound dislike of them and want to wipe them from the face of the earth. ) These are actually damn good, with plenty of variety, and bunch of amusing mythological references. If that wasn't enough, he also introduces a new version of the druid with a more faeish tinge to their powers, and quite a few of the more wonky bits filed down. While probably slightly weaker overall, they are more balanced with other classes, and their special powers are more suited to everyday use, particularly the hierophant level ones. (going to the elemental planes and summoning elementals back may be spectacular, but it's generally a rather brute force solution, and planar travel without being able to bring the party along has problems of it's own. ) Overall, this is a very pleasing article indeed, useful for both DM's and players, and sneaking in some revision without presenting it in antagonistic way like the barbarian and cavalier articles. He's definitely proving a writer to take note of. West end games finally reveal the name of the game they've been teasing for months. TORG! Wha? More info coming soon. The ecology of the satyr: Hmm. This is a creature that's likely to be problematic for the more family friendly TSR of these days. And indeed, they scrupulously avoid all mention of the R word, or even that the very concept exists, merely presenting their amorous tendencies as extreme enthusiasm (if not always success) in attempting seduction on anything remotely female. They also fall into one of the other traps that material from this era was prone to, that of including substantial amounts of goofiness and comic relief elements. Well, I suppose that's one way of defusing the threatening aspects of sexuality without completely removing them. I suppose it could have been a lot worse. Another ecology that is an interesting read, but leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, designed as it is with elements specifically intended to annoy and confuse players trying standard tactics on them. Shoo. Away wi' ye! Go try yer luck on the kender wimmin. You'd fit right in round those parts. Bleh. Thank you for your cooperation: Wouldya like to take yet another survey? This one is focussed on espionage games, rather than the magazine in general. Their Top Secret output has declined rather in general, and this is obviously them figuring out whether to put more in, or cut it out entirely. Tricky decision. What path will they take? You ought to know by now which path I'd prefer they take, but that means little. Still, hopefully they'll be able to give people what they want a bit better. Makes me wonder if this is just the beginning of a whole series of these on various genres.  On we go. The game wizards: Anne Brown takes over the column this month, creating her own fictional mouthpiece, the mouse Bixby, to communicate the news. This time, it's Greyhawk city's turn to be destroyed by events in a module, unless the PC's do something. Well, as long as it really is them that do the saving, not some deus ex machina NPC, that's not a bad thing. Also looks like they're still making fold-up buildings as visual aids, which is fairly neat. Another attempt to liven up a fairly standard teaser piece, this isn't as successful as their banterings with Elminster, but is a lot better than nothing. If only Greyhawk's iconic NPCs had planewalking connections with earth, then maybe they'd get better press. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />  The voyage of the princess ark: A fairly quiet couple of weeks for the Ark this installment. They repair the damage from last month's debacle, and set down in a nice quiet bay, only to be followed by the dragon and attacked again. Fortunately, the locals have weapons designed specially to deal with dragons, and drive the bastard off. It may be back. Immediately seeing an opportunity, Haldemar recruits replacements for his fallen crewmembers amongst the locals, and of course, buys up a load of their weapons as well. Next time they see that dragon the shoe's going to be on the other foot. They meet, greet and trade, and set off again, seemingly in pretty good shape. Guess not every episode is going to end dramatically, and not every country they visit is going to wind up hating them. On the mechanical side, we get two treats for us. The bolas of sunlight are just what the doctor ordered for chasing away things that are scared of the light. We also get to find out just how common spellcasters are in Alphatia, with entire squads of low level magic-users armed with blasty wands a staple of the army. Now that's how you make artillery capable of taking on way higher level creatures in D&D. Mystara is very definitely a high magic setting, with cleric and wizard powers fully integrated into the operation of society. You want realistic medieval stuff, go somewhere else. While this hasn't been as dramatic as the first two installments, it's still ticking over nicely. They'll be in deep <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> again before you know it.</blockquote>

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