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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6189427" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 336: October 2005part 4/7Fiction: Bandits in the paths of Fame by James Lowder. Been a long time since we saw Mr Lowder contributing to the magazine. Given all that he went through in the TSR years, being cynical about the whole heroic adventurer thing would be quite understandable. And indeed, that's exactly what this story is about, saying that while there may be a few true heroes out there, there's a lot more self-interested bastards who are only in it for the money and fame. Any brief shining moments of hope will eventually be crushed, and things will return to banality in the end. And then we die. Depressing, but unfortunately pretty realistic. Is it possible to get old and remain idealistic, especially if you don't succeed after a few tries? I know a few people that have managed it, but it's not easy. All I know for sure is that I'm not going to give up on you guys at this point, after all we've been through together. A few depressing stories are just a drop in the ocean by now. The ecology of the spawn of kyuss: No great surprise that they'd do an ecology for these guys when they've just started an adventure path focussing on them. One of the scariest bits of body horror in the book, these guys are even nastier than rot grubs because they go for the brain rather than the heart, so you have more time to feel things slipping away and your facilities being destroyed. And death doesn't end things, soon you'll be back up again and spreading the corruption around with great generosity. As you'd expect for an important tie-in like this, they put in lots of extra effort, both in the illustrations, descriptions and crunch. They include a new template that I expect we'll be seeing quite a bit more in this adventure path, the favored spawn of kyuss. Retaining more memories and powers than a regular kyuss zombie, and having wider and more versatile vectors of contagion, you want to take these guys out from a long range, because if they get within hand to hand distance, or even close, you are in deep danger of joining their ranks. Brr. Clerics are going to have to work overtime in this one, especially if the other players don't fight smart. I quite approve, and look forward to seeing what other tie-ins this series will spawn. Wormfood: Things pick up some more in the tie-in department as we head from the small town to the big city. If you've done things right, you'll be approaching mid-levels, which means a whole new load of options in what your characters are capable of. This also means they have the freedom to live how they want to a greater degree. They don't have to be obsessives who spend their whole time adventuring or looking for leads to the next big haul. So let's look at some more fripperies that are irrelevant to the direct adventure, but still help you quite a bit in the worldbuilding department. You can slot them in fairly easily whatever city you set this part of the adventure in. Prices, mechanical benefits you can get from frequenting them, and owners are also detailed, which'll encourage players to use them, and hopefully not just slaughter the joint. The Blueberry Theatre is a high class joint with a penchant for subversive political commentary in it's performances. Sound like the kinda place I'd enjoy frequenting. Gotta keep your cynicism levels up. The Checkered Circle is an illegal fight club, moving constantly to avoid the law. If you've got the underworld moxie, you can risk your life and money, and really make a killing. At your current level, you'll be able to breeze through the early rounds, but don't get complacent. You never know when you'll wind up bareknuckle fighting with an owlbear. Honest Axebeard's House of Dice is a nicely furnished casino, including VIP areas the players can splash out out on if they want to play playas. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> It's another good place to go if you want to hear rumours too. You've got to speculate to accumulate. Josiel's Bathhouse is a supremely relaxing massage parlor. So much so that it boosts your healing rate. Another one that makes it tempting for adventurers to live large on those ill-gotten gains. If you're going to go out there and save the world, you might as well do it with a straight back and pedicured feet.</blockquote>

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