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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5381014" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 211: November 1994part 2/6Sight in the darkness: After a whole load of articles that resulted in rather sobering thoughts, we finally one that provokes a genuine Wahoo! in me. Scientific analysis of infravision, and just what seeing heat really means for a demihuman. It's not just seeing in the dark in exactly the same way as normal. There's a lot of interesting information you can pick up by being aware of radiated heat. Hiding requires quite different procedures when you gradually warm up your surroundings, leaving afterglow anywhere you stayed for a while. Undead become extra scary, being nearly invisible in the dark even to elves & dwarves. A sudden burst of light can ruin an enemies darkvision at a crucial point, letting you do the quick getaway thing. Roger Moore once again shows that freed of the pressure of constant editing, he hasn't lost the touch that led him to produce game defining stuff like the series on demihumans back in 1982. This is one bit of rules analysis that's both cool and long overdue. (although it doesn't look like they're ever going to do one on the realistic ramifications of the existence and nature of alignment languages, which is one I really wanted to see.) If fully applied, it could be a real game-changer. Exactly the kind of thing the magazine ought to be covering. Fungi of the underdark: A little more ecology appropriate stuff here. The underdark can't just be full of monsters with nothing to live on. Unless you use some technobabble about time being retarded by underground radiations, sending things in closed rooms into a state of stasis until someone opens the door. How d'ya like them lampshades? So here's a whole selection of fungi to put in your game. That's a long overdue and welcome one. Trillimac is a massive mushroom that can make a servicable paper or a dull but long-lasting meal. The kind of staple you need to build a civilised society, in other words. With no trees underground, that's the kind of cool ecological thoughts you ought to include in your world-building. Nimergan makes a really brutal mushroom beer, and is favored by duergar who want to prove their manliness in front of their peers. Since dwarves are rather resistant to poison, you probably don't want to try keeping up with them unless you want to wake up naked, tied to a stalagmite with a bad case of green slime. Ormu is glowing moss that gives DM's another excuse to let the players see underground. It's luminescent properties can be turned into dyes, and then used as an obvious fashion statement by Drow and any other underground races that give a damn about that kind of thing. Askume is another poisonous lichen that can be used to great effect by nasty underdark creatures. Practice your herbalism, and you too could be inflicting save or die attacks on a regular basis! Timmask may or may not be poisonous to humans, but de<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f910.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":censored:" title="Censored    :censored:"  data-smilie="14"data-shortname=":censored:" /> love it. This makes it handy as a summoning aid, a bribe, or a distraction. It is pretty rare though, which is a relief for the world, and means they're only available for obscene prices. Keep an eye on the underworld and you may be able to head off fiendish infestations before they even happen. Plot hooks aplenty in this collection. I sing a song by the deep-water bay: Steven Schend once again acts as Ed's sidekick in Realmsbuilding. Once again we see the reasons why the Realms is a relatively stable world, where any magical cataclysms are confined to a countrywide scale at the most. <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" /> Powerful do-gooders such as the Harpers everywhere. Actually, not many of them are full Harpers, but they seem to have learned to turn the bad guy's methods back on them by building a network of people who do favors for them and pass on information without knowing the full details. Hey, the success of that approach speaks for itself. This is why being chaotic good can prove more effective in dealing with evil than lawful good. So here's yet more little details about some of the many inhabitants of waterdeep, and what they get up to. Their secret methods of communicating, hideouts, and the means they use to protect them. Since Waterdeep already has multiple supplements and magazine articles devoted to it, this starts to feel like overkill, but it's still entertaining, with the 4th wall breaking fiction as amusing as ever. Steven might not have the sheer effervescence Ed manages, but he's still a pretty good writer. And there's lots of info here that can be easily applied to your game, so it's still useful even if it is familiar stuff.</blockquote>

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