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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6131649" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 318: April 2004part 4/8The wickedest city in the world: Our second piracy article is far more interesting to me, mainly because it's highly specific, and grounded in real world historical info. Port Royal in Jamaica was once one of the biggest hives of scum and villainy in the world, providing a place where pirates could rest up and sell their ill-gotten goods with the consent of the British government. One might well say that the internet Pirate Bay was named after it, and it demonstrates how illegal activity is often enabled by governments and corporations, whether openly or tacitly, because the potential profits are enormous, and besides, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, so you might as well do unto them before they do unto you. This is particularly the case for underdogs, who then turn around and try to go legit, then enforce their own rules when they get a decent amount of power, which we're also seeing quite a lot of on the internet at the moment. Adventurers thrive on the boundaries between wilderness and civilisation, be it venturing out to pacify untamed lands, or seeing what lurks in the cracks underneath the neat facade. Remove the boundaries and frontiers and the world becomes substantially less interesting. This article not only provides me with plenty to philosophise about, but also good adventure hooks, and a demonstration of how these kinds of places change over time. They will eventually either become settled, or be destroyed. It's the stuff that happens in between that's the exciting part, and you've got to hope you can ride the wave, and get off before it crashes. Dungeons & Dino's: We've had the ninjas, we've had the monkey, we've had the pirates, now it's time for the dinosaurs. At this time, archaeologists were increasingly becoming aware that dinosaurs weren't just scaled creatures, they actually have closer surviving relatives in birds than lizards, and many of them probably had feathers. (which would enable them to cope with warm climates better than modern-day reptiles even if they weren't fully warm-blooded) This article has a good mix of well-known and slightly obscure dinosaur types, and gains extra points for not being afraid to make up ecological details for them too, making them feel more like fleshed out fantasy monsters than real ones we still don't know a lot about. It also includes a fair few creatures that aren't technically dinosaurs, but lived around the same time, and also make interesting encounters, whether on land, sea or air. While this obviously can't match the multiple articles from previous editions for quantity, it does pretty well for quality, not just being another collection of statistics, and including rules for making them familiars or animal companions. (which also means this article is good for both players and DM's) Yet again James Jacobs manages to produce high quality material with a distinctive voice.</blockquote>

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