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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6194923" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 337: November 2005part 4/7The Lords of Dust: Keith Baker once again shows how to put a very distinctive spin on pre-existing D&D creatures when incorporating them into Eberron. This time, it's Rakshasa's turn. Without the need to eat brains to survive and stay underground, they're capable of even greater subtlety than illithids in messing with your mind and carrying out really long-term, machiavellian plans. And like Sahuguin, Aboleth or real world ants, if you ask why they don't rule the world, the answer is Don't They? :evil grin: They may not have the numbers or raw power to openly command, given the sheer number and variety of other supernatural beasties in eberron, but immortality, wealth and a few identities in the right places gives you a lot of influence. So this is for those of you who want to make your Eberron game into one of intrigue and conspiracy theories. With their exceedingly high spell resistance (albeit not immunity like previous editions), conventional divination magic won't help much in rooting them out, (although keeping up your shields against mind reading is a very good idea in general anyway) and they've developed new tricks to make it even harder still. Nor will brute force suffice to solve the threat permanently, as the more powerful ones reform after being killed unless you use soul-destroying magic on them. (which again, is exceedingly high level stuff) This essentially ensures that there are threats out there big and tricky enough to challenge even epic level characters in Eberron, which becomes increasingly important the longer it's out, while still allowing low level characters to get in on the action. The mechanics are up to Eberron's usual high standard too, with plenty of effort put into making sure the big bads can no-sell your obvious solutions. Good luck, because you are seriously going to need it if your DM incorporates this one. The ecology of the shadar-kai: Shadow and fae. Two concepts that have got substantial upgrades in 4th edition, getting their own planes in the considerably cut down cosmology. And dumb grimdark names. (wilden? Seriously?!) Here we see one of the bits of foreshadowing for this change. This also, curiously, gives us a good reason for why the plane of shadow went from a demiplane in 2nd ed, to the primary means of getting from one alternate reality to another in 3rd edition. It gives them a curiously White-wolf ish twist, making them evil, but also tragic and filled with Aaaangst. They eternally struggle against their curse, that threatens to draw them away from the material plane and deadens everything they do and feel. And their favoured weapon is the spiked chain. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Straddling the boundary between cool and Kewl, this is pretty easy to mock, but does make interesting reading because of that. Maybe we should pair one of them with a Dark Stalker, that'll keep the fangirls happy. <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 yeah, lots to love, lots to hate, I'm rather amused by this one, and may make use of the ideas within. Wormfood: Another bit of worldbuilding here, as they confront the issue of magic shops. Always a contentious one in D&D, here they decide to bite the bullet and embrace commercialism, ensuring that you can not only make sure you have level appropriate items of your choice, but can do so with style and flavour, making the shopping process interesting in itself. You can go to the big emporium, managed by the smart archmages and their canny salesman who won't fail to get a good price from you. You can go get nature related items direct from a dryad druid living in a ruined manor. And of course, there's all sorts of dubious bargains if you know where to look downtown. They tread a careful path between adding flavour and keeping things generic enough that you can insert them into your own campaign without too much trouble. And the result is indeed pretty well done, if a bit bland. But since that's what they were aiming for, I can't fault it too much on that front. I just wish they were taking a few more risks here.</blockquote>

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