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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5600806" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997part 3/8Wyrms of the north: Ed once again shows off like crazy in demonstrating his talents with creating high level creatures and their survival strategies in a big, complicated and dangerous world. Curiously, the method this dragon has adopted is almost exactly the inverse of Liches one. While they hide their soul in an item, keeping them safe and able to possess a new body as long as the item remains safe, he instead hides his body away, and sends his awareness hopping from item to item, mostly swords. This is far less conspicuous than having a great wyrm dragon wandering about the place, and allows him to observe adventures easily and help out if needed by pretending to be just an intelligent magical item. Now that does sound like a fun life, especially when you're old and patient enough to snooze through the walky and sleepy bits between stuff happening. He's seeking a longer-term method of life extension, but hasn't got there yet, and being a dragon, isn't in a great hurry. So this is one creature that could easily be encountered at low levels, and repeatedly throughout a parties career without their knowing, and the plot hooks contained in this article are similarly suited for long-term pursuit and being used independently. And the new spells are really cool. It feels almost redundant to say how awesome he is again at this point, but as long as he's still got it, I'll have to keep on praising him. Hidden talents: Oh dear. Another case of people instantly trying to move the Dragonlance 5th age system away from being highly abstracted, this time by adding a skill system. They just can't let go, can they. We had tons of hassle with this in AD&D as well, and many people still find the game faster and more fun if you just ignore the proficiency system entirely. Still, I can't see this slowing the system down much, as the system is insufficiently granular to model levels of skill beyond trained and untrained, so all it does is give you a tiebreaker where the skills you have would be appropriate. The whole mechanical details bit is sorted within half a page, and then the rest is just a rather too long and dull list of skills which again, seems to be trying to put it's simulationism in a very narrativist game. So this article is counterproductive and filled with fail on almost every level. - it doesn't improve the game, it's not faithful to it's original intent despite being by one of the official writers, it doesn't promote it very well, it's not pleasant to read, and it illustrates how problematic it is trying to add new stuff onto a rules light game in general, which means it is going to be hard for the magazine to give it regular coverage. I'm completely boggled at just how bad this is. I'm not even going to laugh. I'm just going to point and sneer. The dragon's bestiary: Yet another previously covered topic gets revisited with snakes getting another turn on the merry go round (see issue 115, among others.) This is a bit tiresome, and doesn't even have the numbers or ecological stuff of the previous. Yeah, things are really going to crap around here. Bushmaster still sounds like a bad joke, all these years later. Damn you, and your forked tongued ways. No cunning linguist is a bad cunning linguist! [/cartman] Keep your horny tail spikes away from me. Fer-de-lance is one I haven't seen before, so it's not all bad. They have much more realisticly applied poison than the corebook snakes, which is interesting to see. Guess this is good for something after all. Gaboon are another rehashed one. Aside from the more detailed venom effects, they're pretty similar to last time. If you're hit by this one, you're in trouble even if you make your save. Ahh, the joys of clerics. Doing what modern medicine still can't. Black mamba are another very familiar and already covered name. They hit hard and fast, with cumulative poison effects. Just what you need. Boomslang are another one with a comical name, but plenty of deadliness. Remember, if it's not aggressive, you don't need to fight it. How hard a lesson is that to take in? Cobras are of course the venom spitters. Seen them before plenty as well. Gila monsters take us beyond snakes, to poisonous legged reptiles. They may be tiny, but you don't want one of these attached to your finger. Once again, these are converted completely straight, and aren't that interesting. Rough-skinned newts have poisonous skins, making having them for dinner a dubious prospect. Wear gloves when handling. Poisonous frogs also have unpleasant effects to touch. Wear gloves. Hell, wear a whole body suit in the jungle. It's safer that way, even if it will make the heat even more stifling. Neotropical toads are also pretty boring. Man, this has been a waste of time and a half. Next!</blockquote>

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