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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6250643" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 355: May 2007part 5/6The ecology of the devourer: Another undead monstrosity gets it's turn in the spotlight this issue. A soulless abomination that wants to consume yours to fuel it's existence. Perfectly standard trope really. How can we make it distinctive? Tie it into D&D's planar cosmology, and have it eternally seeking it's original soul to gain some peace. That adds aaaaaaangst and pretty backdrops to the recipe. Then we give them cool visuals where the soul they're currently digesting is trapped in their chest and visible. As with wights, this makes quite a bit of an effort to differentiate these creatures from other undead in terms of behaviour patterns and personal advancement preferences, as well as talking about the creatures they're likely to associate with. Seems fairly decent, and well tied into the D&D setting and history as well. Another one I have no objection too. Savage tidings: A bit of a side-track in this month, as we leave the central depths of the isle of dread, and head for Scuttlecove, the city of pirates. Another chance for your players to go shopping, and load up on all the gear they need to be level appropriate for the next adventure. No walk in the park though, because most of this stuff was pirated in the first place, and this town is a hive of depravity and lawlessness, where you'll get backstabbed and robbed if you don't watch out. And you'll need to get an ear to the street and cultivate some contacts if you want good gear at a reasonable price. Here's some of the stuff you can find here, and the people who sell it. Poisons, magic items, even flesh golems made from yuan-ti parts can be had if you're willing to pay the price (or kill them and take their stuff. ) This is pleasantly <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ed up stuff, which makes sure that even this section remains an adventure, while having plenty of crunch you could extract and use elsewhere. This is much more interesting than simply making the pirate base another site based dungeon to attack and clear out. I quite approve. Volo's guide: Another extraplanar entry here this month, albeit a rather short one. The abyss is one plane that connects here pretty much unchanged, with the same demon lords that plague the rest of the multiverse engaging in their usual attempts to corrupt and destroy as much as they can. They tend to be found out and destroyed eventually due to their own innate chaoticness, but as long as they survive in at home, they just take out their temper on underlings and start over again. Baphomet, Dagon and Graz'zt are given as specific examples, making people (and gods) lives a misery, often over surprisingly long timescales. Plenty of examples for maniacal laughter invoking xanatos gambits here. A nice example of just how elaborate you can make your plans in your own campaign. Not bad at all. Dragonmarks: I totally called it! I knew shifters would be one of the things they'd want to cover in this series. But I didn't particularly expect the specifics. The way of the shackled beast is a fighting style and set of philosophical teachings aimed at them, saying that you have to chain your beast and gain control of it to become truly free. (and the video game I'm having flashbacks too this month iiiiiis - Cornell's quest in Castlevania 64! ) Mechanically, this is represented by a bunch of feats any class can gain, although fighters can get them as bonus feats; a monk fighting style,   a new magical item, and shiftsilver weapons, which are so blatantly an rip-off of Exalted's moonsilver weapons it hurts. So yeah, they sure do know how to pick and mix their influences. I am amused, but do not entirely approve. This does have the air of being written by someone who has to come up with several things a day like this to make paycheck. And if there's one thing that we've learned over these past few years, it's that even doing what you love gets exhausting and sanity destroying when you do it to a production line schedule. So yeah, this is the kind of article that wouldn't get published if they didn't have a regular 4 pages a month slot devoted specifically to Eberron that they had to fill. Add up all the ups and downs, and it comes out pretty average.</blockquote>

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