Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 1/7


114 (116) pages. Well, here we are at the 4/5th mark. Still feels like a pretty substantial time since the last landmark like this, and the big 300 and 5/6ths will also take a good few months to get too as well. Still not the time to get overconfident and try to rush for the ending. And there'll certainly be a few more horror themed octobers as well, so this issue doesn't feel particularly special from looking at the contents. Let's see what the new guy in charge does differently with a familiar idea.


Scan Quality: Good, indexed.


In this issue:


The table of contents becomes the temple of contents. Hee. You might even get some use out of that layout.  Very neat.


Wyrms turn: Looks like the new guy in charge is Jesse Decker. He spent a little while as assistant editor in 1999, then moved sideways in the company, while still contributing a few articles to the magazine, and now he's been brought back to take on the heavy responsibilities of the big seat. Well, it's not as obvious a choice as promoting the current assistant upwards, but at the same time it's not a complete leftfield recruitment either. And since he was probably working in the same offices most of that time, he'll know the culture of the magazine already. We might actually get through this without the quality control slipping for a bit. His storytelling style already works better for me than Dave's did too. So far, so good.


Scale Mail: First off is another letter of praise for their cities of the ages series. It seems to be rapidly building a decent fanbase for itself.

Greyhawk also retains a fanbase that's smaller than the Realms, but just as enthusiastic. And they want MORE! Apparently, next year will bring exactly that. After all, it is supposed to be this edition's official setting. They ought to act like it.

The Shannara issue proves contentious, with one letter that really likes it, and another that's very skeptical about that kind of cross-marketing. The compromise they come too here is saying they'll only do one or two themed issues like that per year. After all, they have a busy schedule of classes, races, and the inevitable april fool, birthday and horror themes to fill out the other months. Surely they can keep from repeating themselves until the 3.5 revision at least.

The new format also gets some complaint, although not nearly as much as last year's change. Once again, it's made very obvious that you can't please everyone. Blueprint style is a bit sterile, it has to be said.

Their puzzles get erratad. Careful. Criticise these too much, they'll just take their ball and go home.

And finally, we have some nonstereotypical halflings. With millions of people playing D&D, some were bound to come up with pretty oddball ideas.


Nodwick meets his zombie clones. Quite a lot of them. Guess who's fault it is.

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 2/7


Previews: And again with the format changes, to a slightly more conventional appearance. The degree of color used is still massively up though. With the current software, it really is no bother to have it on every page.

First up is Oriental Adventures, another big release. James Wyatt follows in Zeb Cook's footsteps, and manages to imbue it with the same degree of compulsive readability, (at least IMO) despite the quite substantial differences. L5R continues to make it's mark in multiple ways. There's also Enemies and Allies. More stuff to save time, in creating characters, along with all the adventures they release. Money=Convenience.

One novel for each surviving gameline this time. Greyhawk draws upon their old modules again for Queen of the Demonweb pits by Paul Kidd. I don't think they've had an original thought in their heads since they brought back this gameline in '98. The Realms also continues to do what works with Sea of Swords, the latest instalment in the adventures of Drizzt and Wulfgar. Be ready for more cool action sequences, and quite possibly brooding. And Krynn shows us the sideways perspectives on the war of souls in The Search for Magic, another collection of short stories edited by Weis and Hickman. Yup. Formula formula formula.


Up on a soapbox: Even back in the old school era, Gary wasn't averse to a little PvP, and having them develop their own goals and challenges. After all, it'll take the pressure off a bit from constantly sketching newer, deeper levels to Castle Greyhawk, and get people into the roles of their characters. And using your spells creatively is to be encouraged as well. So this is a fairly amusing little actual play story that works in favor of the sandbox playstyle. You give them open-ended options, and they'll reward you by doing surprising things with them. And hopefully that'll give you good stories to tell to other people as well. And everybody's happy except the people who lose at PvP. Hopefully they'll learn to take the joke, and give as good as they got next time.


Dork tower has an attack of squarehead stretchmouth. Oy cherubima.

Ooh. An actual RPG advert. White wolf manages to get their Sword and sorcery books in, along with some good reviews. Flying the flag for d20, and creating a new campaign setting along the way.


Four faces of death: Last month, they showed us 4 different variants of the plane of dreams. This time, they start us off with 4 very different takes on gods of death from various real world cultures. India's Yama. China's Decemvirate of judges. Persia's Ahriman, and voodoo's Baron Samedi. Another good reminder how having one true answer to a question can be restricting, and certain concepts are big enough to be examined again and again from different angles, and reveal something fresh each time. Sex, death and dreams certainly qualify for this, (and they've never done a romance themed issue yet, have they. ) and it's very interesting to see how the culture a god comes from affects it's aspects. Still, the amount of new mechanical information here is tiny, and most of this stuff has turned up before in official D&D books, as well as being easily researchable elsewhere, so this isn't a particularly innovative article. It reinforces their current toolkitty attitude, but doesn't break new ground much. Guess Jesse hasn't had the chance to change things around yet. Still, this would definitely please a new reader more than it does me.


Plots & Schemes: Ah yes, murder mysteries and other detective stories. As last covered in issue 240, where they wound up mostly giving examples rather than advice. Guess it's time to try again, and see if we can do better. This time, the answer's a pretty definite yes, with a fairly long, nicely organised, and interestingly laid out article, that looks at common plot elements and ideas, and also goes into quite a bit of detail on what not to do if you want to create a mystery story that your players can actually solve, and feel they got a fair challenge while doing so. It's all too easy to make your puzzles impossible to solve if you don't give the right kind of descriptive detail, or make the players feel like they only managed to accomplish anything due to luck/railroading. So it's full of good advice for a roleplaying game where the rules are supposed to stay consistent enough for players to understand and exploit them, and have a good idea what would be possible and impossible in world, even if it wouldn't in reality. Which I suppose fits in with the 3e style, even if it isn't the best ruleset for detective games in many other ways. Surely there's a D20 variant out there that further supports this playstyle. Hell, even d20 modern would make it much harder to take the plot breaking divinations for granted. So I'm still not sure about the wisdom of doing detective stories in D&D, but this article is a definite improvement on previous attempts to get us to try it.

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 3/7


Master Villains: Confusingly, this runs on alternating columns in the same pages as the previous article, which I didn't notice on first reading. I expect that kind of mucking around on the letters pages, but not later on in the magazine. Still, it complements it's counterpart, so I can see why they did it. It provides more examples of how to create interesting villains, and has surprisingly little overlap with the similar advice last issue in the DM's toolbox. While less analytical and organised than that, this has some more inventive ideas to make the players more emotionally invested in fighting the villain, and quite possibly conflicted as well. The reasons that people become enemies can be strange sometimes, and the people you trust most can become the bitterest enemies. Watch out in particular for people who say they've redeemed themselves. Chances are, they'll backslide at some point, because the laws of drama love stuff like that. So this is a pretty good article that loses a mark for annoying formatting.


Unhallowed ground: Adventures in a graveyard? Sounds like fun to me. There's certainly room for plenty of interesting encounters in a place like that. Still, it'll differ quite a bit from a dungeon because you have tons of freedom to go off the path and explore in any direction, and the ground is uneven and packed with interesting little obstacles. Plus in the real world, graveyards are ironically one of the places most packed with natural life in a mostly urban environment. There's plenty of room for animal encounters and other people as well as the stereotypical undead, and it's easy to insert new features onto the map and say they were always there, you just didn't notice them in the last trip. So this is a damn good idea, that curiously enough, they haven't done before in the magazine despite all the stuff on the dead, undead and resurrection.


Dungeons in Disguise: Another little article on investigative games, and how to make them work. Just reskin dungeon crawls, with the walls replaced by obstructive NPC's, and keys by clues. Ok, you don't have to be that literal, but creating a good flowchart for your adventure will help you remember what the obvious options are, and what the players can do to accomplish them. That definitely makes a fair whack of sense. Just don't get hung up on it when the players come up with an idea that isn't on your list. This feels a bit fillerish really, mainly notable because we're once again seeing the idea of reskinning promoted and starting to catch on. I suppose once you've introduced a universal resolution mechanic, the idea of applying the same principles to different but analogous situations is a much smaller conceptual leap. History ticks onwards.


Tag team terror: The whole of last year, they've been doing things like the Power Plays and Class Combos, to encourage players to get into the optimisation state of mind and look for the most awesome synergies possible with a set number of resources. Well, it must have worked, because now it's time to raise the game, do the same with the monsters. What combinations of two different types of monsters wind up punching well above their CR, even if it's counterintuitive to have them working together? Well this is a fun topic to explore. This lists 20 ideas in rough order of deadliness, from a werwolf with a pet rust monster to nom the silver weapons of any attackers, right up to the red dragon with iron golem servants which'll be healed if caught in it's breath weapon (the lich with the tarrasque trapped in it's phylactery and released when you destroy it doesn't really count as you don't fight them both at the same time. ) Some have templates or class levels just to really take advantage of these synergies. So this is pretty fun and imaginative stuff, encouraging the DM to be inventive and interestingly adversarial in the challenges they throw at their players. Give them something they'll remember, something that'll make them laugh when they first see it, and cry when they get their asses kicked. The age of Encounter-centric play approaches, and like most of these waves of fashion, the first bits are fun, different and refreshing, which explains why they catch on and get driven into the ground by unimaginative bandwagon jumpers after a reliable formula for profit. So this is a really cool article, introducing a really cool idea, and I wonder how long it'll take for it to lose it's shine, like location based dungeon crawls and metaplot heavy campaign settings before it. Oh well, they won't ruin this's classic position.

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 4/7


Class acts: From Lifebearer, to Lifedrinker. Or, how to make your vampire even more vampiric.  Yeah, I very much doubt we'll be seeing many PC's take this one. This one would later appear in the book of vile darkness, and is incredibly easy to get into if you're a vampire. It's essentially a racial paragon class, giving them new uses for the blood they drain, and generally making them even more badass. Because it's powers are so dependent on the amount they've fed recently, it's one that is scary when facing properly prepared NPC's, but might be a problem for PC's going through multiple encounters in a day anyway. So I guess it's well designed for it's job then.


Cities of the ages: Baghdad? Now there's a city that's definitely seen better days. Time was, it was one of THE cultural centres of the world, a crossroads where east and west could exchange ideas and goods. Now? Decades of dictatorship and a poorly managed "liberation" have not been kind to it's economic position or it's ancient buildings. But of course, we're not looking at modern day baghdad, but the legendary one as shown in the 1,001 nights tales. Which is has to be said, was pretty interesting and full of room for adventures. So there's a lot of emphasis on the 8th century set of characters, their interrelations and things they got up too. Between the sultan, his vizier, his wives, guards, clerics, etc, there's a pretty headache inducing amount of politics, and since none of them have alignments listed, who exactly the good and bad guys are is up to you. The maps aren't as impressive as in previous instalments though, and I suspect accurate streetmaps that far back are pretty much nonexistent.  So I guess this is one for people who prefer their roleplaying over dungeon crawling, and aren't afraid to go up against things way above their CR and win through trickery. Fairly interesting, really.


Elminsters guide to the realms: The rustic illustrations work particularly well this month, as we detail an interesting little inn full of ne'er do wells and the remnants of their contraband deals. There's a secret passage, a whole load of interesting items, and of course the magical precautions that keep PC's from just slaughtering the owner and running roughshod over the whole thing. After all, you really think a hive of scum and villainy wouldn't have had to deal with high level characters getting rowdy before? Not sure how effective a swarm of crawling claws would actually be in play, but it'd definitely make people think twice. I'm not entirely sold on the mechanical side of this, but the flavour is up to Ed's usual high standard. More mid-level characters to keep the players engaged but not overwhelmed is definitely a good thing here.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Vampire Slayers Toolbox. A pretty promising title, and a theme we haven't had before. Blame Buffy for bringing the focus back on people who hunt the undead, rather than the sexy sexy vampires themselves. Strahd'll probably still survive no matter what you throw at him, but lesser vamps have been mookified quite a bit in the new edition. So let's see what we have to help us get our stake on.

The Deitus Daggers not only burnses vampires with their radiated light, but break a master's hold on their spawn when they hit. Occasionally, they'll even bring them back to life instead of killing them. Truly a panoply of mercies. I very much likey.

The Silver Collars of Adrentius prevent vampires from turning to gas and escaping when hurt too much. You get this on them and kill them, they stay dead.

The Coffin Clamps of Aziell Moonchild have a rather less pleasant history, since they're more deadly against creatures that still need to breathe. Vampires may be trapped in or out, but you'll still have to figure out how to kill them later.

Barthon's Delving Doves are awesome returning magical arrows that are designed to take out scuttling climbing things. This of course includes vampires using spider climb. The visuals are great too.

Heart Tracker is a crossbow that naturally stakes vampires. It can immobilise several in a round no trouble if the wielder is good. Buffy would once again be proud. No way you could do that in either world of darkness.

Holy Bone Shackles (batman) trap undead and kill them with reasonable rapidity. In the meantime, you can give them a good examination. Careful you don't turn into a monster yourself in the process.

The Breastplate of Righteous Endeavours is slightly less impressive, enabling you to cast a collection of your usual buffing and shielding spells. Still, it's hardly weak, just not as cool as the previous items. Your players should still welcome it.

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 5/7


Nodwick has another attack of continuity. Oughta get that looked at by a doctor, or else it could turn into a full-blown case of metaplot before you know it.


Chainmail: So how does the D&D minis game differ from regular D&D, if the statistics are pretty much interchangable? The devil's in the details, as usual. Initiative is rolled for the whole group on a per round basis rather than individually and cyclically, not all your pieces get to act every turn, and there's a whole new set of tactical options based around the leader pieces controlling the regular members of the army, and morale for all sides, reflecting that not every creature you control is actually a PC, and your role as a player is more detached. So it trades off complexity in some areas for more in others, and actually has quite a few old school elements that regular 3e got rid of. That's very interesting, and makes it almost an alternate 3.1 or 2.9th edition which is better suited to handling large groups where each player controls multiple characters. My interest grows, as morale rules were one of the things I definitely missed in 3 & 4e. This looks like it has lots of potential for plundering and mixing & matching parts to customise your regular 3e games. I wonder if it'll get many supplements before fading away.


Forum: Kraig Hausmann looks at Hades' place in greek mythology and finds that he was not a popular dude at all. Anyone who puts nearly all souls in a position of endless tedious low-grade misery regardless of how good or bad they were in life doesn't sound like a nice person to me.

Morgan Vergara thinks that while rangers may not be the most powerful class, that's no reason not to take it. Concept should be more important than min-maxing. Another very familiar statement.

Daniel Bates makes a facepalming misinterpretation of druid's wildshaping abilities when trying to justify why some people would pick ranger over druid. Sorry, another bit of fail here.

Peter Jones finds it ridiculous that people are complaining about gratuitous violence in a game where killing things and taking their stuff is integral. Particularly when the real difference is the visible blood. It's like Mortal Kombat recolouring the gore green to get around the censors. Some people are just pointlessly pedantic or don't want to confront the realities of what they're imagining doing.

Chad Riley finds it embarrassing that some people are so threatened by feminine pronouns getting equal time. You are not going to get cooties just from reading books just because of their choice of descriptors.

Geoff Davey wants to play good characters, while the rest of his group want to be bad guys. Sounds like you need to get'cha'self a new group there sonny. What we have here is a conflict of playstyles.

Matthew Stagg joined in on introducing role-playing to the younger generation. It was a resounding success. You've just gotta make sure the first adventure is fun to hook them.


The play's the thing: Robin goes into filler territory again, talking about various combinations of high and low ability scores, and how they ought to be roleplayed. That's the kind of thing we've seen before, and anyone can come up with a couple of pages of waffle on. I've done it, the editors have done it, you can do it too. Given the granularity of ability scores in D&D, and the quantity of characters people have played over the years, you could get so many takes on this that they become meaningless. And it's left incomplete so he can spread talking about various ability combos over multiple issues. This could turn into padding on an epic scale if he doesn't come up with more ideas soon. Not impressed.

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 6/7


Sage advice: Can you stack soulknife and rogue sneak attack bonuses (yes)

When do soulknifes get imbed power and mind blade (2nd level)

How does embedding psionic attacks work? (exactly as it would normally)

What effect do sever life and knife to the soul have on nonpsionic creatures (Stunning. Meh.)

How does the ability bonus from animal affinity interact with the stacking rules. (It changes your base score. Other bonuses apply to that base normally.)

Can savants find and disable magic traps (Depends on your cosmological underpinnings )

Do maximized creatures get max hit points (no)

How does body feeder work. Does it stack (It stacks with itself, but nothing else, I'm afraid.)

What psionic items require psionics to use (Ones that give points, or require you to give mental commands. No know, no show.)

How much info does druids nature sense give. Do fungi, oozes, etc count as plants.   (About as much as an encyclopedia entry. No)

Can you detect evil on characters as well as creatures. (The words are interchangable. You are drawing distinctions that do not exist. )

What's mental control ( Duh. Charms and ongoing compulsions.)

Will protection from evil block mind affecting spells from other schools (no.)

Can paladins and rangers use wands of cure light wounds (yes, but not for the reason you think. Metaphysics strikes again! )

Can you memorize metamagic enhanced domain spells (Yes. Skip apologizes for the implication it is otherwise.)

What does red wizard's enhanced specialization do (See the rest of the prestige class)

If you're a multiclassed archmage, can you use the powers with both spellcasting classes (Yes. Good luck getting that high without being seriously suboptimal.)

What are the rules for clerics in the forgotten realms (Remember the one step rule. That's all folks. )

Do FR characters get all the stuff in their entries, or do they have to choose (Read the descriptions. Ed's stuff is generally pretty self-explanatory.)

 Can you have multiple persistent spells up (yes)

Can you make touch spells persistent (no)

Can wizards benefit from the bloodline of fire (No. Only sorcerers. You have not grasped what bloodlines mean in 3rd ed. You'll get plenty more chances afore it's out. )

Does thunder twin really boost all your charisma based skills (yes. Looks like FR is as munchkin friendly as ever. )

What are the benefits for having an underdark region origin. (None. Does not compute. Your depth above or below ground is irrelevant in region selection.)

How long does it take to trigger a rune (A standard action. Trigger and run.)

Are the planes in the FR book the real ones? What happened to the old cosmology. ( There is no longer one true cosmology. This is the FR cosmology and always has been. Pay no attention to where this makes the old books make no sense at all. If you don't like this one, another one'll be along in a few years to always have been, making even less sense. )

Where is the equator on torill ( In the ocean between the continent maps.)

Are the map scales right (No)

Is the riding lizard's carrying capacity right. (No. What?)

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 7/7


Silicon sorcery: Baldur's Gate again? When's Neverwinter going to show up, give them some 3e based games to draw from? I guess development times are pretty extensive these days. A year just isn't enough to really polish a product. But anyway. This time, we get the template for Bhaalspawn, so you can use one in your game as either a PC or antagonist. If a PC has it, it'll push the game in a decidedly WoDish direction, as you play a creature that has to constantly struggle against it's darker nature, and gains more powers, but also more self-control problems and social issues as you level up. Monsters will just be made even more able to rip you to shreds. Since it scales up as you level, it is probably worth the LA +2 adjustment, although a level 1, CR 3 thing would be rather fragile. Balance is a precarious thing, and the LA system is a blunt tool. I guess it'll come down to your charop skills to make these powers synergise with your level and feat choices.  


PC Portraits: We go for a monstrous theme this month, with most of the portraits showing visible signs of undeath. Some are well preserved, some rotting, and some skeletal, but none of them look like a model of health. That doesn't mean they don't need love, and couldn't make a valuable adventuring companion. There's a lot to be said for having someone along who doesn't breathe, eat or sleep, even if they might have issues with clerics and easily spooked peasants. So any edition other than 3e, I could accuse this column of being a bit misnamed this month. As it is, it just reinforces their current permissive tendencies. Pick an odd race, stack up on the templates, multiclass into several obscure prestige classes, we don't mind at all. It's all just part of the character building fun they want to encourage at the moment. Just don't get caught eating brains in public, as that tends to make people uncomfortable.


Dungeoncraft: Ray finishes off his map key with the essentials of life. Food sources, merchants, temples, places for ordinary people to live, and mounts. (the fact that these mounts are giant pterosaurs is irrelevant.   ) While there may not be decent amenities by modern standards, the basics are there, and there's enough resources to get a group of adventures decently outfitted to go out and kick ass. As with most creative works, the last bit feels like it was done on perspiration rather than inspiration. We need this stuff, but it's hard to get excited about it. Still, once again, it does a good job of showing us the logistics that underpin the setting. The degree of safety they have here is precarious and hard-won, and one rampaging horde would ruin it for everyone. Are you going to defend it, or run off to explore and leave that responsibility to other people? Hopefully there'll be decent stories to tell whichever option you pick.


Namsco? I don't remember this? Another flop?


DM's toolbox: Another very cool idea in the toolbox this month. To get your players more involved, encourage them to fill out little details of the worldbuilding connected to their characters, or possibly just in general. It helps them invest in the world and remember things in a way that infodumps don't, it makes the world less homogenous, as it isn't all the product of one brain, it gives them something to exploit, and you can further reward them with XP or other cookies for doing so, which hopefully creates a positive feedback loop and encourages them to stick with the game and do this sort of thing again in the future. This is the kind of thing that I strongly approve of, and is only a problem if the players start getting competitive OOC, and the people who can't keep up get resentful of the more creative ones. You can frequently benefit from blurring the role between player and DM, and keeping people thinking about the game between sessions. I encourage you to try it, but also to be aware of it's pitfalls. Emotional investment and sharing the load good. Overcompetitiveness, (a life without competitiveness would be like a life without explosives ) bitchiness and burnout bad. Take that risk, go for the big payoff. It's only a game, after all.


Sunburn's a bitch in dragonmirth. What's new goes mindlessly throughout its familiar routine. Just like me, at this stage.


Not that much horror material this year, but the issue is all the stronger for it, once again having a very high batting average indeed. This has certainly been one of the smoothest editorial changeovers the magazine has managed, and shows them really getting the hang of 3e in general. How long will this quality boost last? Let's hope it's for a while yet. Next month please, waiter!

Dragon Issue 289: November 2001


part 1/7


132 pages. Oriental special time! One of the most popular optional books of 1e is back, and it's not doing too badly for itself this time either. Whether it'll get several more specials this edition due to the public sending in tons of submissions remains to be seen, but this is another topic that seems pretty promising, given the vast quantity of source material the writers have to draw upon. Let's hope this isn't a let-down.


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: Another member of staff leaving? Yup, this time it's the art director who's heading off to pastures new. They may have improved the magazine a fair bit this year, but that doesn't mean it's not still a pressure cooker to work at, that gradually burns people out. This shakes my optimism coming into this issue a little bit. Still, let's hope this is handled as smoothly as Dave's departure, and the replacement doesn't start doing annoying things with the layout and art style. As long as you stagger the staff turnovers sufficiently, the whole continues uninterrupted, like any large organism. Eventually, everything can be changed, but it's still the same thing in principle. Let's hope I'll still be able to say that with the big changes to come.


Scale Mail: Our first letter praises the part of the DMG that shows you how to change the rules. People want to houserule, because one size does not fit all. As we've found from 4e and their change of tactics for 5e, trying to standardise everything alienates a lot of people. If you want a wide tent, your system and settings need to be flexible.

The second one points out just how good value for money a magazine subscription is, especially when compared to buying supplements. In fact, it's actually gotten better over time as well. And yet people are still more likely to allow stuff from the complete books than they are Dragon Articles. Funny, that.

Next we have someone who's finding the articles they're producing perfectly anticipate the needs of their game. Co-incidence, or mind-reading? I guess it doesn't really matter as long as it keeps working.

People continue to want more stuff from the magazine put up online. Once again, this is a slow process, but we know they'll get everything up eventually. Not that this'll please everyone in itself. WotC! Y U remove print versions?!

Planescape continues to have a fanatical following who are very happy to see the planes return, and want more stuff converted to 3e. I think we can safely say you'll be seeing more of that over the years. The new halflings, on the other hand, aren't so unanimously received. I don't think you're onto a winner there.

Also onto a loser are people who want to redistribute the magazine electronically on their webpages. The OGL may allow you to make new D&D compatible stuff, and distribute it widely, but direct copying of existing material without changing the names and wording will still get you C&D'd.

This month's pair of opposing letters are one from someone who's annoyed they completely stopped covering 2e cold, and is considering leaving, and someone who's recently been brought back, after a lengthy hiatus. It's true, they didn't have to make the cutoff so abrupt, after all, last time they tapered it over 3 whole years. Still, even with that, they're still picking up more people than they're losing at the moment. Would they have done even better if they'd kept supporting 2e, and possibly other systems as well? Oh for the ability to access alternate universes, and know for sure.

Another opposing pair are bitterly divided over the merits of the Shannara series, and it's statistical conversion & quality of artwork in issue 286. That issue is proving even more problematic than the historical ones.

Still, at least Chainmail seems to be getting a generally enthusiastic reception, with people wanting to see more of the setting ASAP. That's fairly pleasing. Some people still want to try new things.


Nodwick meets the most pitiful monster of all. An economics major. Yeah, like those could ever get a proper job in a D&D universe.

Dragon Issue 289: November 2001


part 2/7


Forum gets marginalised. No, really. Now it's just a little blue sidebar running parallel to the regular letters. This means it's getting considerably less page space and fewer contributors as well. They seem to be losing interest in debate. Or maybe it's us, not bothering to write in when we can get instant gratification on web forums. Hmm.

Brad Smith is tired of all the frickin' nitpickin'. Seems people these days want instant gratification more and more. If something's not useful to them now, they just throw it away, instead of storing it for a rainy day or looking for an unorthodox use for it. And if you can't take a picture with a little blood, you'd never cut it as a real adventurer! Get offa mah lawn!

Jon Mullenax thinks that is strength is more important than charisma or not very much depends on what kind of game you're playing. Technically true, but still a mixed message to send, which may have an underlying overall balance.


Previews is also reduced to a sidebar, and all the description is cut out. The health of this section is not particularly great. Still, I suppose we have the internet to get more info now. All it takes is a quick search.

Our big adventure is Deep Horizon. Skip Williams once again produces an utterly critically panned adventure with some bad bad joke items. Stick to sageing, ya twazzock. I don't know. :shakes head:

The Realms enjoys a supplement and a novel. Lords of Darkness helps you keep track of the all too many villainous groups spanning the Realms. With all the novels where the good guys win each time, you'd think someone'd manage to finish off at least one of them for good, but no, they keep proliferating. Speaking of novels, Black Wolf by Dave Gross takes us to Sembia, to spend a while in the life of someone infected by lycanthropy. It's a hard knock life.

Greyhawk continues making books based on old modules. Actually, this time, they don't even use a greyhawk module, but steal a Mystara one. What a load of cheek.  Keep on the Borderlands is adapted by Ru Emmerson. Once again, reviews are mediocre to poor. They're scraping the bottom of this barrel now.

Dragonlance gets Chosen of the gods by Chris Pierson. Another prequel, we go back to the time of the Kingpriests. We can make this work. Or something. We know how this one ends.


Sunscale, the gryphon's legacy. Another early d20 product that sank without a trace, despite being from Wolfgang Baur, one of TSR's big writers in the 90's.


Up on a soapbox: It's important to remember that back in the old days, the rules were pretty fast and loose. This includes things like monster descriptions. Sure oozes and slimes are supposed to be mindless, but if it makes a story more fun for them to have at least animalistic learning capabilities, go for it. That's basically the moral of this month's story. What are you going to place more importance on? Strict adherence to the rules, or fudging things to make the story more interesting? Gary may have sold playing it strictly tournament style for a while in the early 80's, but I think over the course of his life, he spent more time doing what seemed cool at the time. It's always important to remember that the people who write (and repeatedly rewrite) the rules don't see them as immutable canon like some fans do. And while this may be problematic when dealing with politicians and CEO's, It may be good advice here. When the primary objective is fun, not verisimilitude or winning, flexibility is probably the way to go. Still, we maybe ought to do something about the tendency of wizards to be the stars of the show, and everyone else their entourage, which is another lesson we can take from this tale. Just because we can change the rules, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make them as good as possible. Lots to debate here, and no real answers. Hopefully this'll keep the letters and forums busy.


Zogonia: Another little strip comic starts. Well, that's one way to break up a fight. Remember, violence is serious business in D&D, not some form of entertainment.


Dork tower fails to break out of its rut.

Dragon Issue 289: November 2001


part 3/7


The history of the ninja: Curiously enough, OA didn't include a ninja core class, instead splitting the concept up over a whole bunch of different prestige classes, just as 1e ninja were a split class that combined with all sorts of other core classes. Not that this hurts their popularity. If anything, it makes them stand out as getting special treatment all the more. But anyway, it's time to do the historical accuracy thing before we bring in the fantastical elements. If ninjas appeared these days, they'd be called dangerous terrorists, and demonised in the media, as after all, they were formed by families of poor people who couldn't use conventional means to fight the rigid established order, so they had to be sneaky and dishonorable and use whatever tricks worked to succeed. They even involved women in their fighting and information gathering. (shock horror) That they managed to become cool and popular is a testament to the power of distance and public relations. (and also how obnoxious and stompy the samurai could be when dealing with peasants) Plus there's the fact that they were notoriously low on collateral damage in their strikes, which you certainly can't say for modern terrorists. So this makes it clear how they differ from simple rogues, with a strong emphasis on family loyalty, secrecy, and doing things to fulfil a bigger agenda that they may not know all the details of. Having them in a party and keeping the fact that you are one secret from the other players makes for interesting but ultimately unstable stories. It also has some information on the various skillsets they trained in, and what feats and skills you should concentrate on for each. After all, they didn't actually have superhuman abilities, even if it might have seemed like it from the outside. Overall, this is one of those articles that's decent, but not great, and feels very much like a warm-up for the rest of the features. I doubt anyone reading this doesn't know what ninja are, but they might have seen nothing but pop culture versions. That actually might need fixing, you never know.


Silent warriors: Having got the historical stuff out the way, here's three more ninja prestige classes, concentrating on different areas of expertise. Maybe you'll get to epic levels and master all possible areas of expertise, but I doubt it. Plus they have mutually exclusive alignment requirements, which kinda puts a crimp in that plan. So let's see just how broad a church ninjing is, and what schisms are found within it's congregation.

Poison Fists are pretty self-explanatory. Their monkly powers let them poison enemies with their unarmed strikes, resist poison from others, and shapeshift into a tiny venomous creature to get into places and deliver stealthy death. While not bad in a fight, they're obviously intended to be the type of adversaries who prefer to kill without ever giving you a chance to fight back, by poisoning your food, or maybe bedclothes, hat, sword hilt, whatever would be ironically appropriate and not immediately thought of by the detectives. Honor? What kind of chump do you take me for? We're in this to win.

Ghost-faced Killers specialise in the invisibility, and eventually incorporeality business, allowing them to strike mysteriously anywhere, and also serve as a counter-squad for anyone dealing with actual ghosts and extraplanar creatures. They get full BAB, 1/3 sneak attack progression, and the full set of mundane stealth skills, which means they can also hit hard once they get wherever they're trying to sneak. Unless your place has extensive magical protections, you're probably in trouble.

Weightless Feet are of course all about going wuxia on your ass. Up walls, across water, off cliffs, and eventually full-on flight at 10th level. They get full BAB too, and are relatively easy to get into, so they can still be full frontal combat characters. They're a good deal less stealthy than the other two, and also more slanted towards being good guys, so they seem like the one PC's will most want to take. All of these seem pretty solid though, neither too strong or too weak. Individuals may stray from the path, but the balance as a whole will remain.


Levelled treasures: Bonded weapons which upgrade to keep pace with their owners aren't an exclusively oriental idea, but they have just been introduced to 3e in the OA book. Of course, the fact that unless the DM is being very stingy indeed with treasure, this actually results in Samurai being even weaker than a straight fighter of the same level is an issue. But they don't know that yet, and they have a cool idea to sell to us. So here's general mechanics for upgrading your magical weapons and armor, adding more plusses and powers at the cost of gold and xp. This means it's obviously aimed at fighty classes who couldn't make their own items anyway. And since they still won't have the same flexibility in choosing their powers, this throws into sharp relief one of the persistent balance problems in 3e, leaving me frustrated rather than excited. Definitely a case where more work is needed. Come back in a few years time, maybe, let's see how 3.5 treats you.


Palladium make an appearance in the first time in several years. I guess they've decided to go back to advertising other RPG's rather than taking the computer game dollar the whole time. Lots of new books available from these guys.

Dragon Issue 289: November 2001


part 4/7


The fantastic world of Hong Kong cinema: In the years since OA was first published, real world asia definitely hasn't been standing still. There's a vast quantity of books, TV and movies made there, and more of it is getting translated and released in the west than ever. (and hopefully you can get fansubs of the rest these days. ) So there's a lot of material for you to draw upon for your game, that you might not know about unless you're a serious cinephile. (even researching on the internet runs into problems when the other country uses a different lettering system. ) Robin Laws does his thang of mixing example material with rules hacks to show you how to emulate it in your own game. Everyone can do super jumps and flying, everyone of any note knows everyone else on the circuit, and you've got to train hard and find the right sifu if you want to unlock the super special secret maneuvers. Oh, and watch out for Eunuchs and Crossdressers, which isn't very politically correct, but what do you expect from fantasy legends. I think it's a pretty safe bet to say you can run a very fun game indeed by emulating this genre, even if there are many base systems better suited to it than D&D. In fact, didn't Exalted just come out a couple of months ago. If you want your spectacular yet highly crunchy action, get your ass over there before the number of supplements becomes too much trouble to keep track of. Once again, I have mixed feelings about this article, but it's still vastly superior to the filler he's been cranking out for his regular column lately. I think Robin really benefits from the freedom to completely redesign things and do them his way. It's not easy to do that in just 2 pages, and isn't the best use of his skills.


Thunder and Fire: Kaiju! Fuck yeah! :throws up the horns: Since giant monsters were one of the first ever templates, way back in the D&D companion set, and appeared in the original OA as well, I'm surprised they didn't get included in the 3e version. Once again, the book's loss is the magazine's gain, with this very fun article from James Jacobs, showing you how you can construct nicely unique giant monsters by scaling up regular ones, and then adding on a few more abilities on top of that. The three sample monsters would fit right into a japanese monster movie, A giant octopus that can also survive on land for a while, a Fiendish centipede that lives in a volcano, and a giant robotic bulette. All are quite capable of being in ur city, wrecking ur buildingz. (Hmm, giant kitten. There's a thought. ) So this isn't a truly original article, but is both a well done and well timed revival. As characters level up, they're going to want bigger challenges, and these definitely fit the bill. Go for the classics, only bigger. Maybe you can have a giant domesticated otyugh disposing of an entire city's waste, and defending it from invaders. Or a giant flying owlbear scooping up entire houses for future consumption. The possibilities are truly enormous.


Playful Phoenix fist: Ah yes, the random name generators. Couldn't go without those. To go with the theme, it's random martial arts manoeuvres. This has a particularly wide array of possibilities contained within it's tables, with 20 different word constructions, and many tables with a full 100 options. I find it unlikely you'll repeat the same move no matter how long you roll, although as ever, some of the results may be silly. So this definitely looks like an above average entry of this kind, with both serious and comedic uses.


Class combo's: Since we've just introduced a bunch of new oriental classes, that means we have a chance to dig this column up again. Our obvious combinations are Martial Artist (50/50 fighter/monk), Monastic Defender (55/45 monk/sohei), and spirit warrior (40/60 fighter/shaman). Since all these combos are heavy on the martial arts, they also include two new martial arts styles that you'll want to aim for with your bonus feats. So once again, this is filler, but not useless, especially if you need to build scaled NPC's quickly and don't want to spend ages combing through hundreds of feat choices. We all need the occasional badass martial artist for our players to fight in a hurry.


Cities of the Ages isn't in theme, which seems a bit of a shame given the many oriental cities with thousands of years of continuous development to draw upon. Instead, it's covering Paris, which certainly isn't a bad choice, but is a bit disappointing, especially since the previous choices have been mostly European as well. Kenneth decides to zoom in on the mid 11th century, the era of Louis IX, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. Notre Dame isn't quite finished yet, despite having been under construction for 85 years. (and to think I complained about the channel tunnel) The crusades are just starting to get interesting, and the knights templar are building up political power. There's a fair chunk of interesting stuff going on, even if much of the stuff we think of as their big landmarks isn't up yet. The number of overtly supernatural ideas isn't as great as most of the previous instalments though. So this doesn't feel very complete, partially because there's probably so much material to use. Sticking too strictly to a format can become a hindrance after a while.

Dragon Issue 289: November 2001


part 5/7


Rogues gallery: Sembia really is taking over around here. This is the third merchant family to get detailed, 6 months after the last one. I suspect these articles coincide with the staggered release of the books in the series. 4 so far? And more to come? Still, they're unlikely to get up to the 16 the Harper series managed. Now that would take years to cover all the characters.

Rusk the huntsmaster is a cleric of Malar who's lost his arm, and is now scared that he's lost the favor of his god. Well, if you're going to follow a savage monster who discards you as soon as you start becoming feeble, you deserve everything you get. Red in tooth and claw sounds good as long as you're doing the ripping. When you aren't compassion and helping the needy starts to look like a more sensible option.

Stannis Malveen is another guy who's died and come back, and is determined to get his revenge on the Uskevrens. Only instead of being a damned soul, he's a repulsive eel-vampire thing which wears a veil that really doesn't help. He's insane and flamboyant with it, which makes him an amusing villain to face, presuming your characters survive. Much fewer moral dilemmas than the one that appears to be polite and helpful.

Radu Malveen is the brother who provides the human face in this partnership. Actually, it seems he's the dominant one here, being an exceedingly competent fighter and focussed businessman. But he's still a creepy bugger. This'll probably let him down in the long run. Get yourself some actual friends.


Elminsters guide to the realms could theoretically have been in theme, but isn't either, as they're more interested in Rokugan than Kara-Tur this time round. They are at least a little eastern though, detailing a minor Red Wizard hideout, and the tricks and traps they use to make it hard to spot and easy to defend. Since they're wizards, most of these are magical, and they don't have any trouble getting in some high level stuff like symbols of death from the home base. Where some of these instalments have been aimed at lower level characters, this one reminds us that there are some big villainous groups that you won't be able to do more than dent at less than epic levels, and doing so may result in escalating reprisals. And if you're dumb enough to take one of their enchanted items that let them track you wherever you go, then that becomes a foregone conclusion. So kill them and take their stuff (unless you fence it fairly fast afterwards) is a rather bad idea here. People who think like stereotypical adventurers will have problems. This is what happens when the villains have years of getting beaten and become self-aware. The Realms continues to evolve, and slowly become ever less generic. Let's hope it can remain gameable despite this.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Cups? Well, we've had two whole articles on bottles before. And the holy grail is a pretty famous item. I believe we can work this. Once again, it seems that ironically, the amount of rehash has actually gone down since the new edition started.

Alchemist's Glasses allow you to perfectly combine or separate any materials, even those that can't normally be mixed. This will require a bit of intelligence to get full use out of.

Bardic Cups identify liquids poured into them by singing certain songs. The code is fairly easy to figure out. Stay well away if it starts making death metal screams.

Dwarven Rune Steins give you a whole bunch of special powers if you invoke the right runes while drinking. It's basically a whole bunch of reusable potions. Another one any party will get a lot of use out of.

Caine's Flagons of Shadows creates liquid shadow, that can be used to boost your ability to cast shadow magic, or simply make sculpted areas of shade. A low-key but valuable item for your evil wizard looking to build a stylish lair.

Chalices of true seeing give you exactly that if you drink the liquid it produces. No surprises there.

Dragon's Goblets produce flaming liquid that you can throw, or drink and then use to get a breath weapon. Mind you don't burn your throat in the process.

A Rose of Kings is a neat device for ensuring honesty in your deals. It's reciprocal, so like the round table, it's puts everyone on an equal footing and should keep everyone trustworthy. Drink away, you have nothing to fear save your own secrets.

Spy Glasses let you see through walls. A basic but effective little trick that'll give you a few more chances not to be horribly screwed over by monsters and traps in the dungeon.

Talking Cups provide you with a rather fragile walkie talkie. Fill them with water, and they can transmit messages to each other. But any spillage wrecks them. You'll have to fit a stein container to make them more durable.

Vampiric Goblets drain the bluud of the drinker. But if you know the command word, you can get back those hp later. Like a real blood bank, this becomes a lifesaving service that'll add another bit of aid on top of the cleric.

War Mugs of the Ogre Magi are incredibly useful in barroom brawls. Not only do they do as much damage as a regular sword, but they never spill, no matter how vigorously you swing them. I can think of quite a few fighters who'd make this their weapon of choice all the time. I once again approve.

Dragon Issue 289: November 2001


part 6/7


Nodwick attacks continuity, coherence and pokemon in the latest instalment of his double page spreads.


Chainmail: The forces of the Gnolls and Demons get their history explained to us this month, along with the obligatory new monster designed to make an interesting fight in mass combat. Neither of these creature types is noted for making disciplined forces, so they work best in irregular warfare, using hit and run tactics facilitated by exploiting the terrain and exploiting summonings to suddenly turn the tides of battle. Creatures like Abyssal Maws can gobble up enemies rapidly after taking them down. (handy when dealing with the necromantic side, I presume) And there's plenty of half-demon badass individual gnolls to wreak havoc on the lesser troops of the other sides. Just watch out for the failed morale checks, which I think should be particularly problematic for this side. Presuming the mechanics match the fluff, anyway, which I certainly hope is the case.


Role models: Continuing straight on from the Chainmail article, we move to detailing the dwarven forces. Once again, they have a distinct colour scheme, combining warm skin and hair colours with cold metallic armor with gold and bronze trims. You want someone to go out drinking with and get into a brawl, these are your boys. It's nice to see that someone in design thought long and hard about these little details, and didn't just give each side a single colour to mark them out. I do wonder how much these details will be pushed forward in the marketing though. Will only the people who buy the magazine regularly know about them, or are they pointed out in the core set and made integral? Once again, I want to hunt some of this stuff down so I can know more, so they're doing their job properly.


The play's the thing: Another three ability combos covered here. Low intelligence, High Charisma. Low Wisdom, High Charisma. And High Wisdom, Low Charisma. As with the last time, the results are snooze-inducingly predictable, painting in broad strokes and saying nothing you couldn't figure out yourself. More filler I don't really want to waste time writing about, in other words.


Sage advice is still dealing with the fallout from the updated forgotten realms

Can priests of mystra get their temple benefit to arcane spells (yes)

Can you add your bard levels to your wizard levels to improve your familiar (no)

Where are the 10th+ level spells some FR prestige classes get (You use them for really uber metamagic. They used to have spells for those, but the gods banned them. Fortunately, this is a bit of rules/setting integration that the edition change didn't ruin.)

Szass Tam isn't smart enough to have 16th level spells (No, but since there aren't any, and he's just filling them with metamagic, it's all good.)

Can you use old FR books (As long as they don't contradict the new ones. If they do, you'll have to figure out if it's a timeline advancement or outright retcon. )
What new feats can fighters take as bonus (Ones marked Fighter. You should really have been able to figure that out yourself)

What are drow abilities (The special powers in their monster entry. That and being complete wankers and still having legions of fangirls. Not that plenty of humans don't have that skill too.)

Which new abilities should liches get (As many as you like! )

Can you make time stop persistent, then sleep and memorize it again (No, because no real time passes. You can't live your whole life in a moment, no matter how long it lasts for you. )  

How does spell-like ability work (same as any other spell, just easier.)

Does a familiars AC bonus stack with their regular one (no point otherwise)

Owls do no damage (Maybe not to you, but they can do some pretty mean mouse skewering)

What skills do owls have (see the monster entry if in doubt. Pay no attention to the ruling a few months ago contradicting this)

What's the point of giving familiars speech at 5th level when they can communicate with their master telepathicly anyway. (So when their master falls down the well, they don't have to resort to mime to get them rescued)

How do bladesingers learn and cast spells (Like wizards)

How many spells do prestige classes get (The usual for their base class per level. If they get new spells, read the description. If the description misses it out, come to Skip, and Skip'll cap the writer and Errata the prestige class.)

Can you use masterwork tools with ranged legerdemain (what tools)

Do prestige classes that boost spellcasting improve familiars (Only if they say so specifically. There's got to be some small downside to prestige sorcerers)

Is there an error to arcane trickster's sneak attack (yes. Toooooo Muuuuuuuuch!!!!!! Power!!!!!!)

 Can you get sneak attack multiple times with lesser orbs (no)

Do spells you specialize in get the damage bonus for each shot (no)

What happens if you advance in your old class after getting a prestige class. (Keep adding. This shouldn't be a problem.)

Can you stack the same metamagic feat (If it makes sense. Remember, multiples add.)

How does the dragon disciple HD upgrade work (It just boosts the prestige class's future dice. That's it. No complicated math required.)

Dragon Issue 290: December 2001


part 1/7


91 (132) pages. What have we in our presents this christmas? Eastern European fantasy? Nice. That's another theme they've somehow managed to miss before. We've had arthurian style chivalry, norse sagas and greco-roman pantheism done to death, but these countries between them somehow get missed out and trampled over. What interesting stories of their own do they have to tell? Let's hope it's some good ones.


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, Ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: Jesse's editorial this month takes the piss out of his co-players in Monte's game. Apparently, tactical astuteness is not one of their strong points, and were it not for the fact that Monte tends towards high action with hero points and stuff, they'd have a lot more silly deaths than they do. Even though an increasing proportion of the magazine is devoted to character optimisation and tactical thinking, the staff don't always play like that. Let us not forget it, or get too serious and hung up about the RAW ourselves.


Scale Mail: Our first letter is all about their death gods, both mythical and from their own campaign worlds. Should they keep them separate, or treat the two with equal weight within the same article? Now that IS a good question. Do the risks of confusing the mythologically ignorant outweigh the benefits? Definitely worth debating further.

We get another letter criticising their recent illegible fonts. This is one thing they have no problem complying with. New editor, new ideas, throw out the old ones that haven't proven themselves.

Robin Laws' often metagamey thinking gets criticised. You should solve problems from inside the box, not thing about how the GM put it together OOC. In an ideal world, maybe. Sometimes you have to put narrative conventions over solidity if you want to get things done.

Another complaint is that the maps they've been including with the magazine don't line up perfectly. That was true in the 2e days as well. It's hard being a cartographer sometimes. Shows they weren't printed as one giant map and then cut up afterwards.

Some carrying weight erratta. Size and number of limbs does make a difference, remember.

A letter from someone who loved issue 287's cover, showing that for many people, good central characters mean you don't notice an underdone background. The reverse can be true as well. After all, very few are good at everything at once.

287's contents get plenty of praise as well. As long as it doesn't contradict previously established information, people love their planar sheeeet. Just can't get enough.


Previews: Fourth splatbook in the series this month. They'll be finished before you know it, and wishing they'd covered each class individually. Song and Silence is for those of you who like a little larceny and high skill point selections. The usual array of prestige classes and stuff. Get ready for arcane tricksters to become rather popular.

Our novels also seem pretty standard. The Realms have The Siege by Troy Denning. More high power shenanigans as evil archwizards threaten the place. Dragonlance gets Conundrum by Jeff Crook. Gnomes take center stage. This is not treated with the horror I would expect.


Forum: Lisa Ohanian has get herself into the position of being an evil drow wizard in a group with 2 paladins, and is wondering how long she can keep up the charade. Until your friends read this letter, I'm thinking. Never give the game away in public.

Tom Chlebus thinks it's ridiculous that a single illustration or advert is managing to ruin the entire magazine for them. Some people seriously need to grow thicker skins.

Anonymous still manages to get a foot in the reduced page count, telling a story of how their group played evil characters, and took things to a degree where they were horrified with themselves. They soon stopped after that, not wanting to face the darkness that lurks in the human heart again.

Dragon Issue 290: December 2001


part 2/7


Nodwick shows his employers how to make more profit with less effort by judicious application of economics. Presuming it works, of course. I guess when you're on a fixed wage, rampant inflation every time they bring back a big haul is not what you want.


This years statement of ownership is actually in an easily spotted place. Not surprising, as it shows that last years dramatic upswing has not only continued, but picked up even more pace this year, with average runs over the year of 72,000, but last month sales of 78,000. Not quite in the league of their 80's heyday, but certainly not too shabby. They can quite justly feel proud about themselves. Let's hope it stays that way.


Up on a soapbox: Well, this is funny. As we've already found, Gary's players didn't have it all their way. They regularly faced killer monsters, unfair traps, insoluble mysteries, and recurring challenges that may have a solution, but it hasn't been discovered yet. And here's one of them, an animate statue that appears to be made of pure gold and covered with gems. Since they used to get XP for loot, this was a huge red rag to them, and they tried all sorts of tricks to get their hands on it. But they didn't work together very well, since they didn't want to share that haul, so it's managed to give them the slip every time so far. You know, a small slice of a big cake is better than no cake at all. This is what happens when you buy into the myth of the big damn hero. A sadistic DM will punk you with amusing ease. Definitely one of those occasions where a good muahaha is in order.


Zogonia gets roped into an adventure. Hey, if you're gonna sit in a bar all day, it's bound to happen.


Dork tower is very much in favour of capitalism. As long as you're actually buying stuff, and not just acting overenthusiastic.


Tempests on the Steppes: So, let's get stuck into this theme thing. What makes eastern european fantasy different from yer basic british or french variant? Tons of feuding ethnic groups, all of which are technically white by today's standards, but the differences are srys business to them. Waves of successive immigration/invading hordes that result in complex webs of trade, relationships and grudges, which should keep you in adventure hooks indefinitely unless your players get into full-on ethnic cleansing. Paganism stick around for a little longer than in England, but was eventually superceded by the orthodox church. There's plenty of interesting undead myths, and dwarves & trolls are fairly similar to their norse counterparts, if not quite as common. This article has a fair amount in common with the dark ages and robin hood ones, with a map, a timeline, and how various classes and races do or don't fit into the milieu. And it definitely looks more permissive than the english DA one, and way more expansive than the robin hood one. The shift in flavour might be a fairly subtle one, but it's there, and hopefully it'll be enough to keep your players from becoming jaded for another campaign, or taking the same old tropes for granted. It's amazing how something like your main settlements surrounding a sea instead of being surrounded by it changes how you view the world.