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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5832053" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine annual 1999 part 4/7Super Heroes Destroy Manhattan in 4 Hours: While Alternity's upcoming products list doesn't look particularly great, their Marvel ones are steaming ahead, with over a dozen little adventure books in comic format planned. Seems like the kind of thing that'll suffer diminishing returns fairly soon, but at least it'll mean you'll have no shortage of prefab adventures to get a game going. Actually, did this line end because of insufficient sales, or because Marvel ended the licence so they could do their own in-house game? It's not as clear as the situation with Alternity, and googling is not helpful. Maybe I'll find out in a later issue. Mastering the Mystic Arts: Handling magic in the Marvel universe is a topic that deserves an article of it's own. Looking back, it seems that the FASERIP system did it in issue 100, which was another extra large special one. That's a pleasing correspondence, and gives me a chance to do a good compare and contrast. And as is often the case, it shows that back then they would just give you the mechanics, wheras now they're a lot more prone to filling out the article with waffle and pretty visuals which are nice to read, but slow you down if you try to reference things in play. There are a few bits of useful rules advice in here, but they're buried in lots of descriptive setting stuff which might be handy if you don't already know about the marvel universe, but what are the odds of that. As with his Dragonlance article earlier on, Stephen Kenson really isn't bringing his A game at all here, but reusing lots of already established material and adding little bits and pieces here and there. It's a hard life being a freelancer, and sometimes you need that paycheck. Arcane Lore: Over the years, we've developed a certain formula for our spellbooks. The vast majority of them have involved the wizard being dead, or at least mysteriously disappeared, unless the spellbook is cursed, and released deliberately upon the world as part of an Xanatos gambit. Here we have a spellbook who's owner is presented in the present tense, as if he's still around and likely to be encountered. Which begs the question of how the spells are supposed to get out there. Maybe unlike most wizards, he's actually willing to share ideas. Not that many people will be buying, as this is a collection of slime themed spells. Prejudice is a terrible thing. Still, that means they're less likely to be rehashed, which is always a good thing this far along. Dormancy sends slimes and oozes to sleep for a bit, letting you sneak past them without killing them, and leaving them for less ecologically concerned adventurers to hack through. Who says the bad guys are the ones ruining things? Drop of Slime is a gruesome melf's acid arrow variant. It's not good for your equipment at all. Enjoy being able to put spells like that in routinely, for next year, that's all getting nerfed. Slippery Skin gets you out of grapples and shackles. Frankly, something that also hurts the attackers would be preferable. Oh well, can't have everything with a 1st level spell. Resist Slime makes the stuff slide off you. It does itch a bit though. Oh well, a little discomfort is worth not dying by conversion to slime. Spore Cone is slightly less damaging than fireball, but since it messes up resurrection, I think that's a decent trade-off. Thematics can go a long way towards ensuring coolity. Transmute Slime to Rock is another way of temporarily making a threat not a threat, that then bounces back a bit later. It really should be reversible, but isn't for some reason. Volhom's Minute Missiles is another gross item destroying variant blasty attack. Another thing spreading rumours about will discourage people from attacking this guy. Slime Guardian is another, more powerful one that surrounds you with something to take the blows. This is rather obvious, so it won't be good for a dinner engagement. Volhom's Tentacle Arms is one of the central spells, getting a rather good illustration. It has multiple effects, but of course, impedes your spellcasting while in effect. Maybe combine with one of those spells that lets you grow extra arms. Wall of Gel is another one with fairly interesting effects. It's not the most damaging magic wall spell, but it does have the interesting distinction of being mobile, which makes it look like a corridor-blocking ooze. Players may well choose to retreat rather than fight through that. Gelatinous Form isn't quite as useful as gaseous form, but will let you look scary and get places you couldn't before. Mind you, at this level you can teleport, so you can get places quicker anyway. Toxic Snare does damage, but also eliminates poison. Call it kill-or-cure. I suppose straight healing is still the one area wizards struggle at. Slime Growth temporarily makes your minions really scary, if not quite in shambling mound leagues. Where's the spell that applies the gargantua template to everything? Last Generation sterilizes a place. Handy to deal with quite a bit of this previous crap. You know, you could just become a defiler, and then you'd get this for free on top of everything else. Summon Handmaiden brings a Yochol and her mates along. As usual, if not serving the cause of chaos and evil, they may turn on you. Or they might just do so for the lulz. Why are slime creatures with any intelligence so unpleasant. Stupid corruptive Jubilex, ruining it for everyone. :mutter mutter: <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Anyway, this is a pretty good collection, well tied into D&D's seamy history.</blockquote>

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