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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5927558" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Annual 2000part 7/7Rogues gallery: Oh, don't tell me the Cult of the Dragon are making another doomed attempt at world domination. You're always going to be the second stringers as Realms villains go. But they try harder, and this time they're going multimedia! Yes, it's time for the stats of characters from a novel based on a computer game. If anything is going to cause conversion confusion, it's a chain of events like that. It's also likely to cause very rapid levelling up, given both the nature of computer game grinding and the new 3e advancement rules. Which means these stats are only accurate for a very short portion of the novel. Makes you wonder why they bothered, if your PC's are never going to get to encounter them in this stage of their development without screwing with the established timeline. Kestrel is the embittered self-reliant rogue, who has to learn how to get along with her companions if they're to succeed against all the trials ahead. That's pretty predictable. Now, what kind of person would a girl like that wind up in conflict with?Oh, surprise surprise. Corran D'arcey is a lawful dick noble-born paladin who has to learn actual compassion and understanding for those who didn't have the same opportunities and easy childhood he did. He tends to be bossy as well, which means he's also going to have to do some serious character arcing to do. Ghleanna Stormlake is a somewhat animeish looking half-elf who contrasts quite a bit with her more rugged companions. As one of the new breed of sorcerers, she's a mystery to even Elminster. (at least, until the Simbul gets retconned into one. <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" /> ) Like most sorcerers, she's a misfit despite her high charisma, and has turned into a mediator in an attempt to stave off further abuse. Which means she gets to be right in the middle when the previous two butt heads. Yick. This is starting to remind me of my old band. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> Durwynn is the straight fighter of the team. This means he's the quiet one who gets along with everyone, and has a surprising number of good ideas. Every group needs a no-nonsense, no drama guy who shows up on time and gets the job done. Otherwise this group would have died long before they got to this level. Aaron Williams completes the artistic round robin by doing What's New. In theory, anyway. Phil & Dixie are reduced to cameos in their own comic. Stick to the script, people! This is a pretty good annual, which has a lot of information about how they're developing the new edition, plus a decent amount of system free stuff as well. Once again, the Realms gets the lions share of the attention, making Greyhawk and everyone else look a little neglected, but as long as the information itself is good, I can survive that. They just have to make sure that the setting has progressed enough that when they cover various regions again in the new edition, it doesn't just feel like a retread, without alienating people, and hopefully winning a few new fans as well. And the same applies to the generic game as well. So let's see what supplements 2001 brings, and how they're received by the readers. There's tons of space to fill, and with the d20 system coming in, more competition than ever. WotC'll have to work hard to make sure their offerings are still the best.</blockquote>

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