Magius's page

Thing is, I was thinking about some really iconic monsters, such as illithids, beholders and yuan-ti, and I couldn't help but think that someone would have done this already. So, first of all, how will I know whether or not it has already been done in the past? I know that most of the monsters have been done in ecologies in the past, before 3.5, but I don't know how much weight to associate to it. Apart from not submitting monsters from the past year or so, any other ways of avoiding redundant ecoligies? For example, would ecology of the goblin make sense?

Concerning ecology submissions, I was wondering what creatures can be submitted? Obviously submitting an ecology on dragons is silly, and many of the iconic monsters have already been done. How can I know what creatures are possible?

Thanks in advance!

I wrote a similar post on Dungeon. Here's why.

Me and my brother sent a query to dragon a while back, giving four article proposals. One of them was a "campaign components" idea, aiming to do another in a series we considered excellent. When we sent it, the response was "you should pitch this to dungeon". I submitted a thread on the dungeon messageboards about this and they suggested re-sending it to dragon, since dungeon is mostly about adventures and standalone articles don't fit in the new format.

My question: before I send in an unwanted query, is there a possibility of a CC article in Dragon, or is it a thing of history by now? I personally would love the idea, but with the new format and the huge amounts of template articles which have to be in each issue I thought it might cause a space problem.

So, is it worth resending the query?

I sent the query on the 28th of October, 2004 and recieved the following reply on December 1st (the query first, then the response):

>
> Campaign components: Pirates. Though not as long as the old
> twenty-page articles, this 8 to 10 page article (I haven’t finished
it
> yet, but that’s my estimate) shows how to launch a pirate campaign,
> whether the players are the actual pirates or pirate-slayers (think
> Deudermonte from The Halfling’s Gem or Passage to Dawn). It provides
> a history of pirates, explains the role of each class on a ship, and
> gives new ships, uses for skills, feats, equipment, and rules for
> running a campaign on the ocean. It will also have a small section
> for DMs to help them get a pirate campaign up and running.
>
>

You may want to pitch this one to dungeon.

So, you can understand why we (me and my brother sent the query) then sent it to dungeon. When we pitched the idea to dungeon, we suggested that an adventure of that theme to show how it is implemented (like having an urban espionage adventure after the "spies" CC). We never got a reply and let it die, since we realized it was a little over our heads...we had never so much as written a critical threat for dungeon or dragon and now we were proposing both a backdrop and adventure.
So I started thinking recently that while I may not be able to write such a thing it would be a great addition to the magazine in general.

In a query to Dragon I once proposed a "campaign components" article, like the "war", "spies", "knights", "swashbucklers" and I think a few other articles, involving all the different elements required to make thematic campaigns. The response was "check in with dungeon on this one".
I was wondering whether such an article, which would obviously help DMs a ton, could ever appear, as the responder said, in dungeon, in place of the usual fourth article, usually a backdrop, bonus adventure or somesuch. It would come up probably less than once per year; it would be a highlight. Though this is more dragon-esque, I think it fits as a Dungeon issue and dragon seems to have passed the ball over.
I know the space is little but I think every single CC got hugely positive reponses; the magazines with those articles are considered major classics and are extremely memorable. It could be another one of the staples of dungeon.
Just a thought.