morgue's page

This is about the representation of women on Dragon covers...

Yeah, I know this subject has come up a lot through the years - I remember countless arguments in the Forum way back when - but I've recently been motivated to return to it.

So I've surveyed the representation of women on Dragon covers from issue 1 to issue 350. How often does that chainmail bikini turn up, really? When was the first time Dragon showed a woman holding a weapon on the cover? Have things improved since 3E, or got worse?

Check it out here:
http://community.livejournal.com/gametime/19820.html

There are seven posts in all. They include lots of cover images so you can see what I'm talking about...

Comments there, or here, are very welcome.

Heya. would appreciate a second opinion here...

My group includes a Shadowdancer, who has used her Prestige Class special ability to have a Shadow serve her. The shadow roams around as instructed and the player has got into the habit of having the shadow peer, incorporeal, through closed doors to see what's on the other side and then report back.

They tried this trick on the little room with the statue of Malcanthet. I ruled that the Shadow sticking its face into the room counts as 'entering the room', and the Shadow is an intelligent creature, which two facts set off the magical effect.

So, according to the room description, the Shadow goes into the room and "climbs on" the statue of Malcanthet. And will happily stay there forever unless someone else comes in, in which case it attacks in a jealous rage.

So, questions: was I right to rule that the Shadow would be affected? And if I stick with the above ruling, is there anything that will cure the Shadow of its affliction?

Ran a fifth session of Maure last night.

My previous thread was discussing how the gnolls would get back through the unopenable doors - as it happens, the gnolls were all dead before anyone asked questions. However, the group were keen on interrogating the Seekers they later nabbed.

With this info and careful planning, they have taken out the entire Seeker crew and they're now ready for their first raid down into level 3. Their success so far is mostly because they've been so damn stealthy.

That's why I loved the very last thing they did at last night's game. They forced a captive Seeker to touch the Black Hand to see what would happen to him. I rolled a random connection with Eli Tomorast.

So the characters all stood around watching as the Seeker telepathically told Eli everything he could about them! Now Eli knows who they are, where they are, and what they're capable of - and he's pissed. And, unless they mess more with the black hand next session, the characters have no clue what they're in for...

Heh heh heh...

Hi,
I started running Maure Castle last night. Lots of fun, with the first party fatality in the first encounter - the barbarian up the front ran into the wandering bodaks and rolled a 1 on his Fort save.

Anyway - the answer to this might be somewhere in the text that I didn't see - but the wandering encounter gnolls are delivering a message to the outside. How are they planning to get back in once their mission is complete? How do the Seekers get in again when they leave?

There are, of course, a bunch of answers that would work without giving the gnolls magical keys of opening or whatever (for example, every day at x o'clock someone opens the Unopenable Doors from within to see if the travellers had returned). But if my characters catch the gnolls you can bet they'll pump them for the answer to exactly this question, and I want to have an answer ready.

What have you guys used, it it's come up in your games? And is there an answer in the text somewhere that I haven't noticed?

Cheers!
morgue