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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6057895" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 300: October 2002part 4/10Bazaar of the Bizarre: Magical items made by hags? I suppose witchy stuff definitely fits the horror mould, and has possibly even being neglected a bit, with undead and their vanquishers stealing the spotlight. Let's take control. Nyahahahaha! Bone Rattles mess with your mind, causing you guilt and disorientation. Ah yes. Evil can delight in using good against itself, triggering guilt for things you have no control over or responsibility for. Now that's vile and dark. Black Hour Pillars unhallow the area as long as they burn. And look creepy, of course. Gotta set the right mood in your little crooked house. Bramble Men are a nasty little way of setting up a delayed action spell trigger. The effect in them doesn't activate until they're broken. This makes them the perfect blackmail device. Crone's Canes seem to magically age you. They don't actually, but they'll be both crippling and demoralising if used in combat. All the sadism with reduced long term screwage. That's progress for you. Dead Man's Bottles let you speak with the dead if you pour a drink on their grave. Now your primary limiter is the amount of booze you can afford. Go for cheap rotgut. The Head of the Loveless was forged in tragedy, and keeps you from being mind<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ed. Given it's size and awkwardness of carrying, there are probably better items for that purpose. Maiden's Hands let you turn into the person they were taken from by putting them on. This is obviously no-where near as good as general shapeshifting, but has it's uses. And it'll be pretty horrific if you once knew the person killed. I think there's some more good stories in here. The Tomb of Weeds is a rather unpleasant way of putting someone into healing stasis. Evil may be able to heal it's own, but it certainly isn't nice about it. Enjoy being buried underground for a week. Yackti Figures are just voodoo dolls, albeit somewhat nerfed for the new edition. Burn them, drown them, bury them, laugh as the person connected to them suffers. Meh. How far should you go?: Or putting a ratings system on your game. Of course, since D&D makes it very difficult to have adventures without killing things and taking their stuff, even the mildest of the ratings is going to be the equivalent of a PG-13 rather than a U. It's merely that the violence will be glossed over, and the good guys will be firmly good, and the bad guys definitely diabolical, with any shades of grey at least soluble rather than no-win decisions. Of course, we're not talking questions of real maturity here, like the movie ratings system, but the amount of sex, guts, and other icky stuff that appears on screen. After all, Star Wars has ridiculous casualty rates, dismemberment and barely avoided incest as integral parts of the plot, yet still retains a family friendly rating; while Avatar: the last Airbender tackles complex moral questions and goes some quite dark places while never actually showing on-screen death. Meanwhile, you can have torture porn films that gleefully show the full effects of losing limbs with exaggerated bloodsprays, and hentai which grossly overexagerates the sex in the opposite direction, with a distinct lack of actual maturity in the design and writing. So this is a very complex issue, that they once again show they aren't quite equipped to handle an in-depth debate on. They do get marks for trying, especially as I remember all too well the days of Lorraine ( roll of thunder, stab of organ music, etc etc) where even the thought of nipples was an absolute no-no, let alone the thought of some mighty-thewed barbarian nibbling on them while pushing their owner up against the wall and penetrating them with his mighty :CENSORED: Sorry about that. Where were we? Oh yes. While the editorial and letters showed  how much more conservative they'd become in many ways, this at least shows they've become less so in others at the same time. Still, the overall trend isn't a positive one at the moment. So in the immortal words of Vicky Pollard, I'm forced to give an overall conclusion of yeah but nah but yeah but nah but yeah but NO!</blockquote>

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