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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5719677" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 252: October 1998part 5/8Dragon's bestiary: Hmm. A rather curious halloween present from this department, as they choose to convert monsters from the works of M. R. James. He might not be as famous as H. P. Lovecraft, but it seems he created his share of monsters to scare the reader with. This could well provide us with some unmined ideas for a game. Demonic sawflys can grow to human size, and then shrink back to regular insect dimensions. That's actually pretty creepy, when you consider how often bugs get into your house and have to be swatted. You really wouldn't want to wake up with one of those in your bedroom in the dark. Living hair is a bit silly, but constructs can be made of nearly any material, after all. And being able to fit through tiny gaps does have it's advantages over big clunky golems. Once again, the horror seems to be derived from the corruption of the everyday into something unsettling. Web-spectres are from the same wellspring as Worms that Walk, albeit rather less gross. Still, just like them, being able to discorporate and reform as long as even a tiny amount of your body survives is a very useful ability, so you can see why wizards would want to become a creature made of nothing but cobwebs. And it seems the transformation is available to relatively low level characters, so it's not a bad one to dangle before your players. Death linen removes any doubt that there is a comic element in these particular writings of the macabre. Smothered by your own pillow. How's that for a humiliating way to go? You'll have to be a good storyteller to keep your players from laughing at this particular problem. Wyrms of the north: Ed once again skews his examinations towards the ancient dragons who have attained obscene power, and found ways to extend their lifespan even beyond the thousand+ years allotted them. However, this is one of the experimental life-extension methods that hasn't worked perfectly, making it's recipient somewhat fragile and only suspending his ageing when he's in an insubstantial form. Still, he makes the most of the whole invisible thing to be a subtle protector and follow the lives of a small community and generally make it better. Which is a theme we've seen before here, and seems to be a common one amongst immortals. Vampires may become jaded and monstrous as the centuries go by, but that's a problem with their situation and appetites in particular, rather than an inherent one with immortality. So this once again shows that while Ed may be repeating ideas, and probably ought to move onto something new, immortality as a goal is a viable one, and it's not as if you'd run out of things to do once you had it. You just have to move your attention onto longer term ones that would be impossible and foolish to even consider before. And I think I know a little something about impossible and foolish goals by now. Bazaar of the Bizarre: More Horror stuff here. In fact, we have one of our most Halloween specific articles ever. Magical Jack-O-Lanterns? Why has no-one thought of that before?! Genius. It's not even that much of a stretch given their origins in real world folklore, frightening off evil spirits. And as we've found over the years, if there's anything you can do in reality, you can do it magically in D&D. Your basic magical Jack-o-lantern acts as a protection from evil spell and repels mindless undead. Keep it well preserved for next year, as they are quite expensive. Jovial Lanterns make everyone around their glow want to party! Woo. Get the keggers! ( But hold the Cheggers, thank you very much) Bursting Lanterns explode when you go near them. Some people will find this hil-arious. Course, 3d6 damage may be piddling to high level characters, but it'll blow marauding goblinoids to pieces. Fright Lanterns scare nearly anything away. Stay inside when these are lit, so they only scare away the monsters. Wailing Lanterns make everyone who listens to them depressed and paranoid. Couldn't you just put the Smiths on instead? As usual, there's a better nonmagical solution. <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" /> Talking Lanterns give magic mouths a much more expressive face. Oh, the fun you can have with this one. It's pranking time. Lantern Tallow lasts longer, maybe even up to a month without needing replacing. Shame you can't just plonk a continual light inside the pumpkin and leave it. Sticking to flavour can be a pain sometimes. But still, overall, this has been a damn cool collection, and not vastly bloated like far too many recent articles.</blockquote>

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