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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6094338" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 309: July 2003part 8/9Campaign components: In any normal issue, the themed section would have run out by now, and they'd be filling up the rest with generic material that could go anywhere, and is probably stored up well in advance in a slush pile. This time, however, is very different. All this talk of war in general has been leading up to a 32 page epic on what might happen if the githyanki tried to take over a planet. Since they're relatively unified for an evil race, and can travel the planes with ease, this seems quite achievable. They more than have the numbers, and there's no cosmic rules keeping them at bay like with fiends. Only the fact that it's a big multiverse out there keeps the odds of it happening to you low. Be afraid. While they have abandoned genericness at this point, they're still putting a lot of effort into making this modular, with advice for using it in both active campaigns. Unsurprisingly, the first thing the lich-queen will do if invading the forgotten realms is kill or magically imprison Elminster, the Simbul, etc etc, giving PC's a genuine chance to become the big damn heroes. Similarly, in Greyhawk, Iuz'll be first target of a clever scheme to shatter his power base, as she wants to conquer good and evil alike. In your campaign, who knows. In any case, it also underscores that they're using the lessons from the earlier articles. It's not some ravening horde pouring through an extraplanar gate, killing and looting everything in it's path. It's a planned assault with scouts sent beforehand to get information on the lay of the land, recruit the local red dragons into service and use their intimate knowledge of the world's history, and even when it is time for the big showy displays of power, they're in exactly the right places and times to cause maximum devastation, and force the countries to move their troops in ways that leave them vulnerable for the next move. In short, they're playing like highly intelligent and magically capable creatures who's primary powers are mobility ones, and are led by an immortal epic level spellcaster who has planned quite a few steps ahead before starting this. After setting up the premise, and the ways you can tweak it, the rest of this article is broken up into plot ideas for low, mid, and high level characters, ensuring that this really can become a full campaign spanning 20+ levels, or start out as something else before morphing into extraplanar invasion sometime in the middle. Each tier has plenty of statblocks for example enemy groups, including the full mix of githyanki knights, warlocks, gish and special forces. Ultimately, it ends with the premise that they figure out how to take the fight to the enemy, and kill the lich-queen, which breaks their spirit and ends the ability to gate en masse everywhere. (ahh, the perils of never letting your underlings get anywhere near you in level) However, that isn't detailed here, but in a tie-in with Dungeon. (which I note is having it's 100th issue this month, and is celebrating with a 180 page monstrosity that tops even Dragon Issue 200) And since when I check there's a 44 page adventure, and 35 page player's guide to Githyanki in there, I'm left feeling that this feature, as cool and spectacular as it is, is really primarily theirs, and Dragon is the secondary partner in this epic co-ordinated tie-in. That takes my overall opinion of this from stunning to absolutely gobsmacking. One of the largest features ever that isn't spread across multiple issues, and it's still the SMALLER part of the special? Wow. This might top even the 9 hells stuff. What I've seen so far definitely gets a 10/10 for both effort and execution. I really really wish I was reviewing the other half, and this increases my desire to hunt down the remaining issues of Polyhedron, and do a second pass through the other D&D periodicals when I finish Dragon. This definitely cements that Dungeon is now an equal partner rather than just a little brother to them, and I hope I will be able to report just as positively on the other 2/3rds of this epic adventure sometime in the distant future.</blockquote>

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