Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5964019" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 284: June 2001part 4/7Cities for the ages: The new columns continue with one that could in theory continue for as long as the Ecologies, but in practice, it seems unlikely. While there are plenty of interesting historical cities out there, we've found these articles tend to draw more than their fair share of annoying nitpicking, which grows tiresome to the editors after a while. Scanning ahead reveals it lasts less than a year before being consigned to the scrapheap. But anyway, they're starting off with London. We've already had a fairly substantial adventure set there in issue 100, so this shouldn't be unfamiliar to long-term readers. What's interesting is that they choose to concentrate on the way it was in the elizabethan era. It's population was only in the hundreds of thousands, but many modern land marks were already in place, and it was more than crowded enough for disease, smog, and some fairly complex industrial setups. They also stat out the major figures of the day, although I'm dubious how well they map to D&D classes. Well, many of the adventure hooks are explicitly supernatural as well, so strict realism obviously isn't on the agenda. It's more another reminder that there's tons of stuff you can plunder from historical and folklore books for a game. So so far, this is pretty interesting. Let's see if it's short run was due to a descent into moribundity, or lack of popularity. Giants in the earth: Thomas Harlan follows up his fiction with the stats of some of the characters. Jerusalem in the time of the crusades was obviously one of the most ethnically diverse, interesting places you could live, with plenty of opportunities to both kill and be killed in the name of your principles. Pity the people who just want to live a normal life there. Golonza di Barratti demonstrates the general low power level of the setting. At only 6th level, he's one of the most powerful spellcasters around,  and his spellbook is still lacking the big blasty spells a Forgotten Realms one of the same level would take for granted. Which means he still has to worry about the church and respect of his peers. Oh, if only you could be a sorcerer instead, then they'd all pay!!!! Sir Harold Edwinson is the young impetuous knight who was the star of the story. Despite his temper, he's still more than principled enough to keep his paladin status, and has more than enough personality quirks to not be just an engine of righteousness. Now he just needs a master he can respect, who can keep him pointed in the right direction to do the most good. Sir Carl Zorn Zugott is older and more cynical, but has managed to retain his faith nonetheless. Spend a while dealing with the best and worst of people, and you'll learn it's not about sides, there are good and evil people of all races and religions. I think that applies anywhere. Manwys ap Lleidd is the wise old squire who tries to keep Harold alive, both in battle and in the kitchen. <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" /> This means he has plenty of stories to tell, and a dry sense of humour about the strange things he's seen. It's the old ones you've really got to watch out for, as they're the ones with the biggest set of tricks up their sleeves. Jacopo Ghiarelli reinforces again that this is a magic low world, and most musicians are simply experts or rogues, not D&D style bards. Even a single level in a spellcasting class (gained due to an encounter with the fae) is a big deal, that can leave a person traumatised. He still pretends to be a happy-go-lucky rogue, but it's not easy. Still better than being burned at the stake I guess. Fingold Torfinson also shows that there is more supernatural stuff going on outside the realms where christianity holds sway, as a half-elf who has a serious vendetta against the drow. So this leaves me interested in finding out more about his setting, and if he can manage to avoid the rapid escalation that the rules encourage. It's nice to see them still trying to integrate historical stuff into the game. The bestiary: Johnathan M. Richards shows that not everyone is keen to leave the excesses of late 2e behind, by giving us the same birthday gift he did 2 years ago. More Greater Drakes. More little attempts to find rational biological excuses for breath weapons, and give low level characters the chances to ride dragons without it completely breaking the game. It's not as bad as getting socks, but it does seem a little played out, especially now you could add half-dragon to all manner of riding beasts and have your flying, firebreathing mounty fun that way. Yawn. Barautha spit venom like cobras, blinding you in the same way. Ermalkankari store stones in their gullet, then spit them at you. Mardallond store fermenting liquid in their throat bladders, then do the fire-breather trick. Their breath must constantly smell like they're totally pissed. Trilligarg are chameleonic, and have lots of inflatable spikes on their throat bladder. The puffer fish trick works better when it's your whole body that does the inflating. Vallochar spit web fluid at you, and can walk in webs. Just the thing for spiderman to ride, should he ever desire a dragon mount. And let's face it, that idea should appeal to the 5 year old boy in all of us.</blockquote>

Verification