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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6120011" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 315: January 2004part 2/8The return of Strahd: Ravenloft's problem was always the conflict between the weekend in hell style players, and the ones that wanted to make an internally consistent setting that just happened to be ruled by and filled with horror monsters who were themselves prisoners in their own way. In the first, the PC's can roll through and beat the Darklords before rolling out again. In the second, metaplot bogs everything down, and the writers wound up making many of the darklords either literally unkillable or only defeatable by complex and obtuse weak points. Funny that it's the second style that gained supremacy in the full books then. But here, they're going for the toolkit approach, giving us both I6 style stats for Strahd and souped up Lord of Barovia, second biggest and most powerful darklord in the Domain of Dread ones as well. They also provide the map for Castle Ravenloft too, which virtually lets you play the adventure. (who cares about or remembers all the other monsters in the module? <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" /> ) So this is pretty pure rehash, giving us nothing new apart from 3e stats. Since this is one of the easiest modules to find online or second-hand, I can't really get excited about it. Sundering Ka: The Hollow World, on the other hand gets all-new material that examines some of the assumptions of the setting. As it's essentially a preservation zoo for the destroyed cultures of Mystara, and they're magically forbidden from advancing technologically, that means newer cultures have serious tactical advantages against the older ones. If it weren't for the same immortal interference preventing them from being wiped out entirely, this static setup would not be viable at all. But that doesn't mean they can't cheat a little, as this article shows. By stealing a little bit of Immortal essence, they transform themselves into dinosaur hybrids, which offers a pretty substantial power boost while not violating their cultural restrictions. Goes to show how change is inevitable, and even gods can only do so much to prevent it in the long term. A lesson every setting designer should keep in mind. So this is a pretty interesting article, that reminds us just how weird they got in the past, and what you can do when you build on odd premises logically. Maybe this issue will be worth it after all. Sin eaters of Eilistraee: Even in this issue, the Realms is effectively going to wind up with more than it's fair share, since they're counting the other continents as whole settings in themselves. Nice accounting trick if you can pull it off. What's the betting Earth'll do something similar if we ever get extraplanetary colonies going, since even if we do, it'll be centuries before it's population isn't bigger than everything else put together. But anyway. Here we have an attempt to put a bit of pacifism into the Realms. The Silverhair Knights are followers of Eilistraee who try to convert other drow by being living examples of the benefits of not being a backstabbing bastard, and refusing to kill them no matter how annoying they are. This means any special powers they get which make it easier to survive and convert people are very much needed. Ironically, they still get full BAB, even if they'll be mostly using it to deal nonlethal damage. (which they get sneak attack-like boosts if they use that are not to be sneezed at.) They also get 3/5 spellcasting progression, and magic which inflicts guilt overloads on enemies, making them more amenable to alignment changes. It's fairly heavy-handed in achieving it's goals, but at least they're trying something different. Even most of the Exalted Deeds prestige classes are still all about the killing. The only problem will likely be getting the rest of the party to play along. Even Paladins will tend towards killing drow after the third betrayal. Good luck trying to overcome racism in a world where it's entirely justified.</blockquote>

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