Dragon Magazine Annual #5

So, for a few years in the late 90s, Dragon had been producing an additional issue each year, the Dragon Annual. This was the fifth one, and the first one for 3rd edition games. There's plenty here, so let's get right to it.

Dave Gross starts us off with an editorial that talks about the new edition, of course. But the most interesting part of the editorial is the invitation for people to send in campaign descriptions of their ultimate fantasy realm that will surpass the Realms and Dragonlance as the Greatest D&D Setting Ever. Yes, they actually promised to read these brief descriptions, and they promised to actually print a brief article on the best one they received. Well, that's certainly incentive, isn't it?

The thing I like about this issue is that they don't waste a lot of time on ads; they get straight to the first article on page 10. This is a series of tables to randomly generate the names of various businesses in town. This is a really good idea, because I always found that generating the names of businesses was one of the most challenging things in town creation. This gives plenty of ways to do just that. You might get names such as The Grumpy Sage, The Secret Quill, The Magical Mug, or The Witch's Balcony. Notably, taverns and inns don't seem to be here. Too bad. Still, it's a great way to quickly populate a town, so thumbs up.

And then I turn the page, and there are the taverns. They get their own article. So you might sip a wineglass at The Golden Chalice (definitely a higher-class place), or down a mug of grog down at the docks in The Trident. Lots and lots of possibilities, with nine tables of descriptive terms. Another good article, and we're only 17 pages in.

No ads on the next page, either; we're getting an article called 'Fresh Stars: 20 Ways to Launch New Adventures'. These are broken up into four general categories: "Poof!" is where you end up...somewhere else, whether by their own decision or by unfortunate encounter with a pissed-off wizard. "Imprisoned" is pretty self-explanatory. "Castaways" covers ways the party is left far, far away from civilization...but right next to deadly peril, of course. And "Mystery" gives some ideas for how to give the characters a mystery to solve, such as why there are wanted posters of themselves all over the place. Each category has five ways to start an adventure, so it's easy enough to avoid repetition. Not a bad article.

I always love getting new spells in Dragon, and this annual does not disappoint. Our magic contribution this time around is a bunch of ray spells. There are a couple of them in the Player's Handbook such as ray of frost and ray of enfeeblement. This article gives a few more. Sixteen of them, in fact, plus a spell to defend against rays. The new rays are ray of clumsiness, ray of flame, ray of light, stun ray, targeting ray, distracting ray, ray of dizziness, ray of sickness, ray of ice, ray of stupidity, rust ray, sting ray, greater disrupt undead, ray of weakness, ray of deanimation, and ray of entropy. They range from levels 1 through 5. There are also a few new feats that will specifically affect ray spells; four of them are metamagic feats: Ray Burst, Ray Coning, Ray Extension, and Ray Splitting. The fifth is Ray Focus, which is like Weapon Focus except for ray spells, making them more effective (and stacking with Spell Focus). Like I said, I love articles like this, so this one is an instant win for me.

Following that, we get some new masterwork weapons and armor as well as some new special materials to make them. None of these things are magical, although they do get special bonuses. Lenaer Wood is an elven material that weighs less than normal wooden weapons, and also gives a range bonus to arrows and other ranged weapons. Mindsteel is effective in protecting from mental attacks; highly recommended with expecting to encounter mind flayers. Vakar is an unusual dwarven metal that exudes an oil, does additional damage, and is caustic to anyone with elf blood, doing even more damage to elves and half-elves.

The actual weapons and armor have backstories, which are interesting and generic enough to fit any campaign. There's armor made of mindsteel, a battle axe made of vakar, a sword that can be taken apart and stored in a small case, arrows made of lenaer wood, and a warhammer that has liquid mercury in the hammerhead that causes it to strike with additional force. All of these abilities are priced out so as to allow players to make their own weapons and armor from these things. Not bad.

And then it's more monsters. These ones are Greyhawk-focused, being liked to the darkest of gods: Tharizdun. There's the Julajimus, a Huge Aberration with 16 HD and a CR of 12 with several resistances and immunities that can cause panic and stun its prey. They can advance to 33 or more HD and Colossal size. The Kurge is a Medium-sized Undead with 6 HD and a CR of 6 that can dismember itself so as to attack multiple targets with its various limbs. Quite gross. They can get up to 12 HD, too. The Rogue Eidolon is a Large Construct with 9 HD and a CR of 9 that can advance to 27 HD and Huge size. It confuses its targets when struck, and it can spew out a gout of blood that causes madness in anyone struck by it. I can imagine it's quite gross, too. Finally, there's the Rotripper, a Large Undead with 8 HD and a CR of 8 that has several claws and arms. And if you're not careful, it will take yours and graft them to its own body, giving it even more attacks. Yes, they can absorb your limbs. And they can get up to 24 HD and Huge size, too. All in all, this is quite the collection of monsters, and if you're using Tharizdun and his cult in your campaign, these should definitely make appearances every once in a while. But not at low levels.

This annual did a couple of interesting things with its comics, too; the usual long strips are exchanged between the artists; Phil Foglio does Dork Tower, where Evil Dixie messes with Igor's head. Well, it's not that hard to do. But it's a great meta-comment on the collector's mentality, too.

The last thing I'll cover tonight is an actual adventure: Gorgoldand's Gauntlet. This adventure is for beginners (1st-level characters), and it's a gold dragon's lair. Don't panic; the dragon's not there, and in fact this is a test for would-be adventurers. The dragon poses as a book collector, hiring adventurers to recover some 'rare books' in the lair. There's a pseudo-dragon in the lair who works for the gold, but this time around there are also some other visitors: Jermlaine. The dragon doesn't see them as much of a threat, and in fact considers them part of the test for the party. There are a few puzzles as well, and the reward is small but worthwhile. The party can also get hold of a magical sword called a hoardmaster, which is actually a scrying device for the dragon to keep an eye on the party. It's not a bad little adventure, sufficiently challenging for beginners. I like it.

I'll continue the rundown on this magazine next time. In the meantime, keep calm and visit a tavern with a clever name.