25 Years Ago...

We continue with the Baneguard. This is another undead, Medium-size, with 4 HD and a CR of 2. It looks more or less the same as a regular skeleton, but it's got a few surprises that are sure to give your players fits of joy. They can fire off magic missiles  or blink  as a 4th-level sorcerer, which makes them a wee bit tougher than one might think. Some of them are called Direguards, and they're basically the same thing except that they have semitransparent, shadowy black armor and red flames for eyes. And they can see invisible creatures; otherwise, they're basically the same thing as a normal baneguard. The Banelar is a Huge Magical Beast with 7 HD and a CR of 5. They're very intelligent and strong, and they're evil naga-type creatures with plenty of spell power: 6th-level clerics and 6th-levle wizards. And their bite is poisonous, and so is their tail. More importantly from an adventurer's perspective, banelar collect magic items...and they use them if they ...

A busy day for online releases. First up, we have a new spell: Master's Touch . This is a 1st-level spell for either bards or sorcerer/wizards. It's quite handy for casters who fancy themselves combat-ready. It lasts for one minute per level, and it makes the caster proficient in one weapon or shield that he is currently holding. Only one item, and only that specific item. So, if a bard is holding a small shield in one hand and an elven thinblade in the other, he can cast this spell and be proficient in one of the two items. Assuming he picks the thinblade, he will remain proficient with that weapon for the duration of the spell. However, if for some reason he drops the thinblade and picks up a different thinblade, he will not have the proficiency. If he picks the original thinblade back up, he's good to go until the spell expires. So, it's very specific. And it can be cast multiple times in order to use more than one item. Seems like a waste of spell slots to do it tha...

We'll get back to the monsters soon enough. For now, here's our weekly map, following in the vein of wizard's towers. This is the School of Sorcery . It doesn't look all that much like Hogwart's, does it? And this one has most of the rooms already labeled. From the description: What magical map collection would be complete without an arcane academy? The uninitiated cannot even fathom the mysterious activities and articles behind this structure's elaborate facade.

Alright, finally. Working sixteen-hour days sucks. Anyway, let's dive into this collection of monsters from the magical land of Faerûn. You'll notice I have found the quick-key to put the accent on that 'u'. It's much easier to type that word now. The first thing I notice about this book is that it doesn't look at all like a Forgotten Realms book. Instead, it looks like a core rulebook, doesn't it? Complete with the spine and gems. I wonder if they did the same thing and made an actual book to photograph for the cover art? Looking online, I don't see it; this might just be how they did the art. It certainly looks cool, though. As far as I know, this is the last 3rd edition Forgotten Realms product that doesn't have the distinctive trade dress that would appear with the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting  book. So, the table of contents is very similar to that in the Monster Manual , with an alphabetical list of all the monsters within and ...

Alright, let's get this bad boy finished up. Our next article is 'Just the Facts, Mage', or 'The Fine Art of Gentle Persuasion'. this is about getting information from NPCs. It's almost a psychological study of different behavioral cues and environmental clues that can suggest ways of convincing them that you're someone they can divulge all their secrets to. I'm not really a big fan of this one; it looks like it would add a lot  of work to the DM's plate to make this work properly. Ah, here we go: Familiars. We get new types of familiars, from dogs to skunks, feats related to familiars, and of course spells to cast on your familiar. Very handy stuff to make familiars a more useful and interesting part of the game, especially since every wizard and sorcerer gets one. Reel Heroes is yet another article about the D&D movie. This time, we get stats for the movie characters. Ridley (Ftr 1/Rog 2), Marina (Wiz 3), Snails (Rog 3), Norda (Elf Rgr 7), Elwo...

Finally. This took longer than I wanted it to, but life happens. This issue is about magic and sorcery, rather than having a racial theme as the previous two did. So, this should be an interesting change of pace. It's the first issue of the 3e era to focus on magic, too. The cover art is pretty straightforward; there's a sorceress casting a spell while a dragon of some sort coils itself around and near her, not squishing her like Kaa in the Jungle Book. The editorial talks about the price increase in the magazine and how you really shouldn't be worried about that extra dollar. A dollar is quite a jump for a magazine in that time. But at least the subscription price hasn't changed...yet. In Scale Mail, among other things we get a discussion of fonts, a promise that the iconic characters from the Player's Handbook  will be statted out later this year in Enemies and Allies , and an RPG version of the 2000 presidential election (Gore vs. Bush). Which is about as coheren...

  Continuing the magic theme of this month's Dragon Magazine, we have the Tower of Deception . This one's a little bigger than the last one, and has the following description: A false beacon for weary sailors, this tower is the last resting place -- make that  restless  place -- of many a missing seaman. So, this is more of a haunted type of place, likely with a few ghosts and the like. There's also what looks like a maze on the very first level, not to mention a bunch of shipwrecks surrounding the tiny island. You would think those alone would discourage sailors from landing here, but you never know. That maze on the first level is actually tough. You want to reach the staircase that is in the tower just to the right of the entrance. And if you end up reaching the center, there's a trap there. What sort of trap? Probably something deadly enough to turn you into some sort of undead. But it looks like you have  to go through the trap to get to the staircase. Yikes. Th...

We get another Cliffhanger today: The Proper Count . This one is for 7th-level characters. It's set on the eastern coast of the Greyhawk map, but it can be set anywhere that has a bunch of fishing villages. They recommend a cleric, since things move fast and there isn't much time for healing breaks. And it uses the Lighthouse map from the Map-a-Week archive, which is handy. So, the adventure involves a pair of fishing villages that have a friendly rivalry; they hold a contest every year to see which village catches the most fish, with the winner getting custody of a silver trident until the next year's tally. The judge every year is a gnome lighthouse keeper, Perri. Unfortunately, Perri has vanished, and there's a sea serpent lurking about the lighthouse. Needless to say, the villagers aren't thrilled about either of those two things. So, adventurers are required to get rid of the beastie and find the missing gnome. The party could be looking for the gnome, or wond...

We're back in the wonderful world of Greyhawk with the fourth installment of the Living Greyhawk Journal. Yes, this is issue #3. There was an issue #0 , remember? So, this if the fourth. It's 32 pages long, so there's going to be plenty of stuff in here, I'm sure. We start with Campaign News. The Fright of Tristor is available, a freebie sent to all RPGA members. There is a hint that they might do more of these freebies, but as far as I know, they never did; apparently, this one wasn't as successful as they had hoped. They'll continue the look at the City of Greyhawk in the following issue (they skipped it this time). One of the magic items they sent out in a scenario has a major bug, apparently, and a replacement certificate is necessary. So...if you have the original magic item, it doesn't count and you can't use it in other Living Greyhawk games. Okay, then. They are also releasing some 'adaptable' scenarios which can be played in any region....

This should have been posted last night, but life happens. This short adventure was made available online on Feb 2, 2001. It's called One Last Riddle , and it's only six pages long. It's for characters of betweeen 5th and 7th level. That's a bit unusual for 3rd edition; most of the adventures I've seen have a specific level in mind, rather than a range. Oh, and it doesn't use a map. It's about a sphinx that died last night. The adventure starts when the party is just chilling out somewhere by the road. Any road; this adventure fits in any campaign and any setting. Sure, why not? Suddenly, the ghost of the dead sphinx shows up, challenging the party with 'the last riddle of Ujaset'. That's the dead sphinx's name. The riddle is as follows: “What is half of dragon, but has not a wyrmling’s strength? What is half of canine, but has not a mongrel’s length? What is it that is of two halves, but has but half to stand on? If the party can figure it o...

  Welcome to February, and we start off with our first map of the month: The High Mountain Wizard's Tower . I'll just quote the description from the Map-a-Week Archive... Ancient glaciers and other challenges of this tower's unforgiving location deter those who would plunder its magical secrets. That sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately, we get none of that on this map; all we get is a very minimalist, four-level wizard's tower that could be on any hillside based on the artwork. It's rather disappointing. So, let's look ahead to what's on tap for the rest of the month. We have the usual Dragon magazine (280), as well as Living Greyhawk Journal #3. Our main product (and the only D&D product released in February, 2001) is Monsters of Faerûn, a collection of Forgotten Realms monsters. And there's a web enhancement for it, so I'll try to make the book and the web enhancement coincide this time. It shouldn't be that difficult.

Okay, to close out the month of January, we have the beginning of a series on gateways in the Forgotten Realms. The series is Perilous Gateways, and our first entry is Voices of the Lost . This is set in the town of Illefarn, which should be familiar to old-school FR players and fans, as it was the site of the very first official Forgotten Realms adventure way, way back in 1987. It was called Under Illefarn , module code N5. And just because, here's the cover of that long-ago module: Ah, that brings back memories. Anyway, this is a fairly short article (clearly not written by Mr. Greenwood). It starts off with a history lesson about the ancient elven kingdom of Illefarn, which was at its peak even before the legendary Myth Drannor. Like Myth Drannor, Illefarn had a series of gateways or portals, though not as extensive as those in Myth Drannor. And unlike that cursed place's gateways, these weren't gates to other planes; they were instead teleportation portals that would ta...

Okay, better late than never, I suppose. This is the third 'official' adventure released for 3rd edition in the old module style, and it's for 5th-level characters with the expectation that they will get up to 7th by the end of the adventure. On the front cover we have an elf and a monk getting ready to fight what looks like a combination of a purple worm and a hydra with Lidda the rogue in serious trouble in the hydra-worm's clutches. And this isn't in a dungeon; this is in a city. The city is called Brindinford, and it's the setting for the entire adventure; no dungeon crawling here. The premise is that there's a mind flayer who intends to recreate the ancient illithid empire and make himself a god in the process. Well, even mind flayers can have big dreams...and mental illness. This mind flayer, named Ghaerleth Axom, is an outcast after an incident with a beholder mage and a gelugon devil. So, he's decided to start building his godly empire on the sur...

Today, we have three online additions to our collection: A spell, a Fight Club competitor, and a monster template. Let's dive right in, shall we? Our spell is called Bladesong . Fans of 2nd edition elves will recognize that name as an elven fighting style connected to one of the most broken kits in the game's history, the Bladesinger. However, despite that connection to this month's elven theme, the spell isn't going to make you a kick-ass warrior with an elven fighting style. It just makes your sword play music in combat. Oh, and it gives you an additional touch attack per round that does no damage but dazes the target if they fail a Will saving throw. It's a 2nd level spell for bards and sorcerers/wizards. This one is definitely on the 'meh' level. Our Fight Club competitor is  Muukk', a Green Hag/Rogue/Assassin/Sorcerer . Good Lord, that's just nuts. And this one ties into the monthly theme, as Muukk' grew up as a young hag having to move arou...

Well, as I mentioned on my other blog, this week was not a good one . But the show must go on, as they say. This is another tree-related Map-a-Week, The Swamp . As the description on the archive website says, "This ramshackle lair in the bayou makes a great out-of-the-way base for secret goings-on." Again, there's not much to say about this one.

We have a double-shot of online stuff today. First up is another Celebrity Game Table article, The Campaign Kick-Off by Ed Stark. Here he discusses how he started playing in someone else's 3rd edition game, but soon took the plunge to do his own game. He decided to let his players create 6th-level characters rather than starting at first, and ended up with an interesting group: The halfling thief who is actually a wizard, the cleric of Wee Jas who is far too friendly with the undead (I've seen this before ...), a barbarian, and a multiclass rogue/cleric/something else. The backstory was a Thanedom where the Thane was dead and his rightful heir was away. The local council kept him in the dark long enough to consolidate power in their own hands, and the players were hired by the heir to recover the sword of office (buried with his father). Typical stuff, right? Ed got creative in the dungeon, giving the players mystic puzzles and challenges to overcome rather than the usual unde...

Our new Map-a-Week is the Evergreen Forest , continuing the elf/forest theme. There isn't much to it, really; it's just another tree house. And...that's all I've got to say about it, frankly.

Alright, we're back with the latest issue of Dungeon magazine. We have five adventures in this one, ranging from 3rd level to 15th, so plenty of variety. The big one (and by big I mean 40+ pages) is elf-centric, or at least drow-centric. Let's get to it. There are a couple of 'Maps of Mystery' here. The first is a mountainous peninsula with a few small islands off the coast. I'd say this should be scaled pretty big, so that this is easily big enough for an entire campaign to take place. Then there's a two-page map of the Halls of Huhueteotl, the Lord of Fire. This is 100% Aztec in nature, complete with step pyramid overlooking a lake of lava. Sure, why not? It wouldn't be too hard to make an interesting adventure with this map. The Harrowing is our first adventure, and it is the aforementioned 'big one'. It's for 15th-level characters, and it's about Lolth's daughter's efforts to take over the Demonweb. Yes, Lolth's daughter. Sure...

Alright, let's wrap this one up as we're more than halfway through already. The next article is our D&D Movie pimping article. This time it's a profile and interview of Bruce Payne, who plays Damodar. It's only a couple of pages, so it's not overly burdensome. We learn that Payne does do fencing and likes armor, so playing Damodar was a natural fit for him. However, he's not a gamer except for video games. Next up, we're back with more Unusual Suspects. This time it's about monks and druids. We're told that the monastic tradition, while assumed to be primarily a human thing, can also be set up as demihuman traditions in your campaign. After all, you can do whatever you want now. So, there might be a sect of dwarves dedicated to Moradin that embraces the idea of dwarven perfection, achieved through monastic discipline. Drow monks might have training in unusual weapons in addition to their unarmed combat abilities. And so on. The interesting part o...