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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5626217" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997part 4/8Mysteries of the dead gods: Another author tie-in here. Seems like they're doing them more issues than not these days. Monte Cook is another writer who quite possibly overwrote when making the rather large adventure Dead Gods. He managed to fit in a side-plot already, and this article makes you even more able to handle sidetracks and stretch things out. Random Dead God generation tables for people who are wandering around on the astral plane for an extended length of time? That's fairly specific and quite awesome, as well as being a callback to the very first issue. The challenges you face, the visuals you see, and the treasures you can get from exploring and quite possibly mining them can be rather strange, and coming up with stuff off the cuff may not be easy. So this is exactly the kind of article I like to see, as it's useful, full of flavour, and builds on D&D's existing elements nicely without rehashing them. Good to see Monte has cool creativity to spare at this point. Fiction: True power by Ron Collins. Ahh, this old chessnut. The idea that given the choice between immortality and great power, but uncontrollable appetites that involve feeding off other humans; or being a regular joe, you'd be happier if you chose mortality. Considering mortality involves a whole raft of pretty onerous appetites to keep your body fully functional, and many people are deeply annoying to spend time with, I'm not entirely convinced. I'd still give it a few centuries, see if I got tired of living like that first. After all, in a fantasy world, there are plenty of other long-lived creatures out there for you to have friendships and intrigues with, keep you sane and with something to do over those timescales. So this is a story who's message and moral hinges on a morality I simply don't subscribe too, and who's protagonists are not being particularly sensible in their actions. I really can't relate. You can do far better with the hand you've been dealt than this, you just have to be willing to change your worldview a bit. The ecology of the nymph: We return to the monster hunters association again this month, with the characters from issue 227 recurring. And here we see the dark side of such an organization, in more ways than one. They don't just capture and kill animals and marauding monsters, but also more benevolent creatures like this. Of course, this being the magazine that it is, anyone dumb enough to distress a damsel, regardless of species, is going to get their comeuppance by the end of the story. Even with the new ownership, that part of company policy is unlikely to change too much. So yeah, this is almost exactly how I'd expected it would be. Not sure if that's good or bad. Guess I'll have to go for mediocre, as it doesn't have much cool new crunch, and is pretty predictable. That's what happens when you get distracted by sex. Wyrms of the north: Time for a topaz dragon here. Now of the gem dragons, they were always presented as the closest to being evil, with their generally misanthropic nature and ruthlessness. And here we have one that seems generally designed to be played as an antagonist, if not exactly a nemesis, as she is of a distinctly larcenous bent. Whether the players wind up a victim of her quest for more treasure, tricked, robbed and left alive, or are merely hired by someone else who was, this is an easy way to get into an adventure. And since like many Ed NPC's, she has a rather substantial and ingenious array of contingency plans ( he really does more of that than everyone else put together), the possibility of her surviving a confrontation and winding up a recurring character seems rather good. This is a relatively short one, but that thankfully means he doesn't go overboard on the new spells and magical items this time, although the new spell that we do have is probably a bit overpowered for a 1st level one. So I'm reasonably entertained by this, and can see it's uses in game. A little ambiguity does wonders for opening the field up.</blockquote>

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