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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5625415" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997part 3/8The murder Medieval: Ahh yes, murder mystery. Now there's a topic that really needs a bit more attention, especially given the difficulty of making it work in D&D, where shortcuts are found aplenty to those with a bit of magical skill. Ironically, most of the examples here are from more gritty historical series, which there are actually a surprising number of. Actually, this is nothing but examples, listing both book series and their main protagonists, with rough synopses of their adventures and what makes them interesting characters. I'm left ambivalent by this one, as it basically gives you a whole bunch of reading, and then does nothing itself. Like turning the novel reviews into mere recommendations, I'm not sure this is how I want them using their page count. It just feels lazy by comparison. Mysterious cities: Here comes a tie-in. James Wyatt has already sent in a previous Gothic Earth article. Now he proves that this is a personal favourite of his with another one based off the new supplement for it. 11 cities that the gothic earth gazetteer passed over from all around the world get short descriptions, along with hints at what lurks beneath the surface. Many of them are exactly what you would expect if you had a basic primer in world mythology already, but there are a couple of surprises, with exceedingly obscure monsters referenced, and a couple of new statblocks. This is certainly more useful in and of itself than the last article, but it still feels like a pointer towards bigger, better books than a full product and leaves me unsatisfied. It's like they're putting the filler articles at the front this time, which is a rather baffling editorial decision. John Manabi's Capricorn. Well, this is a different looking bit of advertising. Looks like our new staff are already starting to make a difference in that department as well. Goddess of shadows, Guild of thieves: Ah yes, gods of thieves. Bridging the gap between what are on the surface the least connected classes. Here's a good look at the Birthright implementation of this idea. Cleverly, she doesn't even represent herself as the goddess of thieves to the general population, allowing her church to put on a legitimate front as shadow-worshippers and avoid harassment that way. As with illusionists who don't let people know they're illusionists, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. They do have a relatively small sphere list, but with a well built up social setup, several neat new spells, a reasonable amount of thief skills, and tons of money as a result of their larcenous activities, they're hardly underpowered. They're perfectly suited both as villains and PC's (presuming you don't have to share the party with a holier than thou paladin) so you could have this either as a backdrop setting element, or as central to a political plot. And as it doesn't seem too hard to adapt to other settings, it hopefully won't get complaints from the people who want all generic stuff either. Saga of the mists: More tie-in stuff. Doubly so, in this case, as it's about converting Ravenloft to the SAGA system. Interestingly, since Ravenloft already has it's own card deck as part of the old boxed set, that gives them an easy in to allow the system to be translated to the setting's quirks. And the setting is more suited to lower magic, character driven adventures than many, so that makes them a good match on another level. There are quite a few changes made to the rules, but they're logically done, and seem like they'll further make the rules support the mood  you should be going for. Morality matters, magic works closer to the way it does in D&D, but constructing spells is still a different process that'll force you to specialise in the type of magic you use. I rather approve. This is useful for both people who already have the 5th age game, and those that are still on the fence and need more proof that it's applicable to other settings to buy into it. That seems like another good use of their page count.</blockquote>

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