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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5948354" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 281: March 2001part 5/7Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another return to the Realms, and a topic they've covered before. Magical Masks. (see issue 117) Man, that cartoon has aged badly. But there's probably still some cool powersets for you to invent. And since these all also have both powers and curses, this definitely looks like their sadistic imaginations have been running actively. Ynaerv's Mask is a skull-faced device that grants extensive necromantic powers, but has a tendency to transform you into a Curst. Ahh, yes, Ed's very first contribution ever. Good to see they got a quick updating to the new edition. Course, since they're near unkillable, this may not be such a drawback either. Dhonas's Shroud boosts your illusionary skills, but gives you nightmares. Since it also boosts your saves against them, this will leave you wearing it all the time. The perfect way to hook someone, really. The Mask of Aberration gives a whole bunch of alteration spells, but has the danger of turning you into a gibbering mouther. Are all of these going to be focussed around a school of magic? Well, there are worse secondary themes to deploy. Shade's Veil breaks the pattern by focussing on shadow magic. It's curse, of course, eventually transforms you into a shadow yourself, forever semi-real. Again, you don't want to keep taking it off and putting it on. Just use an illusion if you want to interact normally with people. The Mask of Shum is divination based, and gradually drives you mad with visions. What strange and disturbing things will you see? The Facade makes you look like a kyton, as it's composed of a ton of chains you wrap round your face. Oddly enough, people will like you anyway, as it focusses on enchantment magic. It's curse gives you low self-esteem, ironically, which seems another good one to encourage dependency on the mask in the future. The Master's Face is conjuration based, and eventually sabotages itself by making anything you summon hate you. Wait, don't they do that anyway <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" /> Oh well, still a pretty good collection overall, with neat powers and histories. Like the abyssal armours, they make for a good team of named enemies. The bestiary: More underdark monsters? Blasted subterranean radiation. Soon as you've finished cataloging them all, the ones you put in a zoo have already mutated or crossbred with something else. What are we to do? Start all over again? Jawg are decidedly strange looking things with a humanoid head, tyrannosaur's body, and a second set of arms and head on their tail. They hunt Dragons and have quite substantial spellcasting abilities. This means they're a good example of thing that can be friend or foe, even though they might seem like just another monster to kill at first. Genocid are another gross invention full of symbiotes. With snakes in their cheeks and slug like larvae in their stomachs, they shall make revolting wheezes wherever they go. Man, where were the guys writing this stuff last year? We could have done with some more genuinely monstrous monsters. Verx Swarms live in stalagmites, then pour out and burrow through you instead, agonisingly noming you up while you're still alive. Cure disease is the way to go to deal with them. Minwhelgo are another of the relatively rare good guys down there, singlehandedly trying to make the underdark a better place. Good luck, you'll need it. Deeplings are another thing occupying the low level goblinoid niche, albeit with a few nice little quirks and magical tricks. Still, on the whole, they aren't that interesting to me. Nodwick ends up living with zuggtmoy. This may actually be an improvement on his usual company. Role models: We're gradually building up to some more expert advice here, as I'd hoped would happen. Some fairly detailed information on how changing the amount of water you mix with your inks alters the painting process, and the ways you can use that to your advantage, with both drybrushing and washing having their uses. As information don't remember reading about before, this is fairly interesting, and a good example of how you turn a problem into an opportunity. An amateur will make a mess by mixing too much or not enough water with their paint. A pro will use all sorts of ratios at different points with equal proficiency. All you have to do is get a good amount of experimentation time in to make the process intuitive.</blockquote>

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