Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6240799" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 352: February 2007part 5/6The ecology of the Yrthak: A fairly obscure monster here. One of the new edition's creations, they're a creature I've never actually seen used. But they are fairly interesting creatures, so bringing new light to them is just what the magazine should be doing. They do a cutaway diagram to show how this odd looking creatures' sensory organs work, which is something we saw in the very first ecology, but surprisingly few after that, and go into plenty of detail about their physiology in the text as well. So while not quite as old skool as last month's ecology, this is another quirky and intriguing one full of potential plot hooks and bits to exploit. The new statblock applies the kaiju template to the creature, which I find amusingly appropriate.  A well above average entry in the series. Savage tidings: Having made our way to the isle of dread, it looks like they're opening up the sandbox again, giving you another chance to wander around, see the sights, make friends and enemies, and amass those all-important XP. We get plenty more info on the various Olman tribes, including roleplaying advice, martial arts, weapons, tribal traits, and affiliations. Very definite temptations for you to generate new characters while here, even if you didn't lose any in the last adventure's trials. Much of this stuff is system free, and can be back-converted into the original adventure, giving it greater depth as well. They really are organising this very well, keeping it accessible as the adventure develops, giving you plenty of choices of how to accomplish your big objective, and making full use of the various cool mechanical bits introduced in recent 3.5 supplements. They have learned from their previous efforts, and are taking care to hit buttons that please all  of their intended demographics. This really is going very well. Lets hope they have the rest of the adventure planned out in advance properly to keep this momentum going. Volo's guide: Last month they effectively gave us a Bazaar of the Bizarre entry. This time, its a FR specific bestiary that they cram in this column. What's the bet a few new spells are just around the corner. The Realms already has enough undead variants to fill an entire monstrous compendium on it's own, but new ones keep showing up. Often as not, they're just variants on an already busy niche. It's enough to keep a necrologist running all round the world trying to keep up. Charnel Custodians are another angry guardian. Forming a body out of grave-earth and bones, they can suck you under, and reform if you destroy their body. Fortunately, like most undead, they're homebodies, so steer clear of their haunt and you don't have to worry. The fluff is pretty meh, but they do have quite interesting combat abilities. Inquisitors are torturers in the pinhead mould. Mutilated beyond human endurance, they relish inflicting the same kind of pain on others, be it to get information out of you, turn you into some other form of necrosurgical abomination, or just for the fun of it. Losing in a fight to them is very much a fate worse than death. Skuz are another undead variant formed by dying horribly. In this case, it's from being sucked into a swamp and slowly drowned. Their abilities should come as no surprise. Another one that tries to suck you under and turn you into one of them, thus creating the potential for exponential population expansions. Again, a fun fight, but not too surprising conceptually. Dragonmarks: Warforged. One of Eberron's more distinctive features, as they have some very concrete features and are strongly tied into the setting. And of course, the more something differs from reality, the more they need to define it to make it accessible. So a little more roleplaying and mechanical advice rarely goes amiss. This month, they go about it in curiously old skool style, providing us with a series of random tables for generating a random warforged's appearance. Golems can have a lot of variation in shape and adornments, and this ought to help you break writers block. I'm vaguely surprised and approve. We also have some more modern crunch, in two new components and an affiliation. Pacifist robots? Next thing you know your knife'll ask if it can be a vegetarian, and only be used to cut plants and inorganic stuff. Yeah, looks like both ends of this article have managed to please me. Pretty strong showing. What will they tackle next? Shifters? The railroad tracks? Something that doesn't get talked about in the forums? Lets hope I can still be surprised after all this time.</blockquote>

Verification