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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5565303" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996part 2/8Nocturnal crusade: Time to start off with another batch of creepy magical items, it seems. Undead are pretty much contractually obliged to appear in every campaign world there's clerics, (yet more evidence of a godly conspiracy) so this stuff is applicable in any setting. Maybe they should make a setting without the standard monsters. Nahh. Wouldn't sell. The Shroud of Sol's Embrace stores sunlight if left to bask in the day, so you can unleash it upon creatures of the darkness and fry their asses. It has some nice touches that make it more than just a deus ex machina, and force you to think carefully about when and where to use it. Fun. Blood of the angered spirit detects undead and extraplanar thingies. It is rather a rigamarole to create though, and given these creatures aren't always very subtle in D&D land, it may well be more bother than it costs. Your call, I guess. Bane of the Black Heart Javelins let you stake a vampire from a distance with ease, Buffy style. It does get consumed in the disintegration, so it's another one that'll need regular costly replacing if you're a full-time vampire hunter. Better charge the townsfolk for your heroism, so you can keep on doing it. A Font of the Tortured Spirit (what, comic sans? <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" /> ) lets you find out why a particular ghostie is hanging around being unsatisfied with the afterlife. Since people don't become ghosts if they die pleasantly, this may be a bit bad for the sanity. Another heavy price you have to pay to give the undead some peace. Feast of Oblivion Philters lace your blood so any vampire who tries snacking off you is knocked out and at your mercy. The tables are very much turned, and you'd better have some restraints and sadistic ideas ready if you let them live. Verses of Belneiranon cause any undead hearing them excruciating pain, but also take a toll on the user. Your standard weapons grade exorcism stuff then, as the possibility of you failing makes the fight more dramatic. Chimes of Dark Need make vampires ravenously hungry to the point of stupidity. Unfortunately, they can also make living people exhibit cannibalistic tendencies as well. The monster hunters may become monsters themselves, which is always a nice irony. As with a regular chime of hunger, a good set of earplugs would be invaluable to a team planning on using this. Reinhoff's Meerschaum protects you from undead as long as it's being smoked. This is awkward if you actually get into pitched combat, but should let you negotiate with a vampire without worrying about mind<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=":)" />ing. I'll bet Elminster has one amongst his capacious collection. Chalk of Barriers is another fairly normal superstitious one. Draw the line, they can't cross it. Make sure you make it an all-rounder, otherwise the might be able to squeeze through, especially if they're incorporeal. Urns of Bound Souls let you get all ghostbusters on any incorporeal creature. Unless you have something else to put it in afterwards, this is only a temporary solution, but hey, it may well last longer than a human lifespan. Not your problem when some idiot unleashes a pissed off ghost a few thousand years later, and it makes a great story. Eyes of the Hunter's Wisdom give you cryptic clues about the enemies you're facing. Whether they're useful to you before it's too late is still up to you, but once again seems likely to make for an interesting story. They're definitely valuing drama over pure competence in this collection, which means undead hunter's lives won't go smooth. Harbingers of Darkness enchants a group of birds to seek out undead and generally hang around being noisy. This will unsettle both people, and the more intelligent undead, so it's another damn cool idea that won't solve all your problems by itself, but certainly helps. The good in this collection well outweighs the bad, as it should for a first article. The draconomicon: A whole article full of templates, allowing you to make draconic versions of every kind of undead? Dragon skeletons, Dragon zombies, Dragon Ghouls, Dragon Wights, Dragon Wraiths, Dragon Mummies, Dragon Spectres and Dragon Vampires. Certainly don't mind if I do. Seems like two great tastes that would taste great together, and on top of that, it's another thing that cements the place of Templates as a good idea, ready to be made commonplace in the next edition. That's something I approve of rather a lot. Of course, in some respects, these templates actually make the dragons worse, particularly in the area of breath weapons and energy draining, but since that's the thing most likely to kill a party instantly, I doubt too many people will complain about that. After all, people want to be challenged but win eventually, not be wiped out if they lose initiative on the first round, or crippled despite technically winning. So this is also another example of rules progression, showing how they're gradually becoming more lenient upon players. All in all, an exceedingly interesting article indeed.</blockquote>

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