Ship Date to Subscribers: 01/03
Date Recieved: 01/16
Average Shipping Time (Jan-Dec '07): 13 days
Cover
I don’t think Dragon has had a very good track record with devoting a large section to one campaign world. There was an issue about Shannara, which I don’t know anybody who runs it or has taken anything from it and put it into their own world. The Dark Sun issue didn’t go over well, either. I love Dark Sun, but I wasn’t going to run a campaign set 500 years in the future and had paladins. So the theme for this issue is the world created by China Mieville. I had my reservations.
I did look forward to reading the article about custom warforged. I’m biased to anything Eberron. I’m also biased to FR. I have been tired of it since shortly before Eberron hit the scene (so, for a short while I didn’t like any published worlds, which is rare for me). I could only guess that the undead abominations article was the Volo’s Guide portion of the magazine because it was lumped with the Eberron one on the cover.
I enjoy the ecology articles, so the one on the yrthak sounds interesting. The artwork is a welcome change from anime-inspired works that seem to be saturating our society right now. I must say that I didn’t notice the cords attached to the sword and I had no idea what a possible sword was.
Shorts and Staples
The editorial was a nice like description and opinion of Mieville’s novels by Eric Mona. I do have to say though that it didn’t get me excited about reading those articles.
The first watch section I enjoyed. I’m glad that Paizo doesn’t just reprint the text from the back covers of the WotC books, like WotC does in their web article ‘Previews.’ On the other hand, Paizo didn’t write anything about the miniatures they previewed, which WotC does, so if I were to score points, Paizo and WotC would be even on this regard. I have no desire to buy busts of any kind, especially from LotR. I was tired of it before the first movie came out. None of the additional products reviewed looked interesting to me. They usually don’t.
Something that has always confused me is this. Why is there a preview of a Dungeon issue that will be off the shelves right after this Dragon magazine hits the shelves? I think they should have a preview of next month’s Dungeon; the one that will be out very shortly. The Dragon preview of next month’s issue always excites me. I guess I am never happy with what I have. Before I have even flipped through the magazine, I am looking at what is coming next month. Other than the FR article on outsiders (we had an FR article on half-outsiders very recently!) there is a Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Malcanthet (love these articles) and the Princes of Elemental Good (I just reread the evil archomentals article last week, so this is fresh in my mind).
I enjoyed Scale Mail this month. I like to play monstrous characters, so some of this was helpful. The Class Acts articles are probably 95% exciting. This month’s bundle was around 75-85%. I really enjoyed the skill specialization rules. You get some type of benefit for having certain skills while also being forbidden from taking other skills. It’s described as being like a specialist wizard for skills. It’s something I wish I had thought of. Now I get the pleasure of making my own. Thanks Hal Maclean. The Sorcerer Guide was one of those things that doesn’t help me. I have most of the information presented, plus a lot more. I make my own charts and tables and such that includes races, feats, skills, alternate abilities, classes, etc. I can see how this will help someone new to the game or just hasn’t taken the time (or doesn’t want to) to organize stuff like this. Aztec Mythos I (so we can look forward to more) was a little interesting. It includes two new deities: Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. There is even a blurb about them being used in the Savage Tide adventure path in Dungeon. I have gotten to really like organizations. It is a way for characters to get more benefits, more contacts, more plot hooks, without sacrificing levels or feat slots. The Burning Gauntlet Sisterhood is one of my favorites. It even has a new feat (I love feats).
Regulars
I like reading mythologies of creatures. It’s a way of saying how something happened while still leaving it open to debate. If the DM doesn’t like how the creature came to be (in this case a prideful bard who was tempted by a succubus), he can easily change it. Knowledge checks and creating advanced versions also really helps. The Colossal yrthak (He-Who-Hums) looks like a great alternative to the tarasque.
I’m going to assume that the new adventure path in Dungeon deals primarily with the Isle of Dread because there has been quite a bit about it in the Savage Tidings articles. This article describes the Olmans, with weapons, feats, and the Olman Tribes organization. All good stuff for characters.
Volo’s Guide to the Forgotten Dead has two 2nd edition updates and one new creature. Other than being FR specific, I thought these undead creatures were well done, with a good range of CRs (3, 9, and 11).
Warforged: Fierce and Furious was really good. There are tables to help customize your warforged. It is also fairly easy to come up with new tables if these are not enough for you. There are also two new components and a warforged-only organization. I was a little dismayed to find out that Keith Baker didn’t write this article. When I read months ago that ‘Dragonshards’ (an online article by Keith Baker) was returning, then these ‘Dragonmarks’ articles started appearing last moth, I thought these were it. At first I was glad because the first one was written by Baker. Now I hope the ‘Dragonmarks’ returns to the online because I can’t get enough of Eberron’s creator’s insights.
The Meat
The first two pages of the “super-spectacular” articles is an interview with the author himself, China Mieville. This gave me a quick overview of his novels Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council, which all take place in the featured world. This interview told me what type of novels he writes. Mieville is influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, specifically Call of Cthulhu. Everything I have read about Cthulhu, mostly in the pages of Dragon Magazine, has steered me away from it. So far, I still am not interested in Lovecrafts’ works.
Now for the large chunks. Here is the list in order: Bas-Lag Gazetteer (predominately about the city of New Crobuzon but with a healthy chunk of other stuff outside the city), People of Bas-Lag (four new races to play, the cactacae with LA +2, the khepri, the remade template with LA +1, and the vodyanoi with LA +1), and Monsters of Bas-Lag (the anophelii with females being more powerful than males, the garuda which is a playable monster, the grindylow, the symbiotic handlinger, the scabmettler with solidifying blood, the slake moth, the weaver, and the wyrmen.
I really enjoyed the gazetter, especially the detail of on politics and government. It seems that the novels are thick with political concerns. That interests me. Remember that ‘possible sword’ I mentioned at the beginning? It’s a 3,000-year-old artifact. It takes up about two-thirds of a page. Is that enough for something featured on the cover? I don’t think so. It brought back memories of when D&D Online was given a headline on the cover a couple years ago, but it only had a quarter of a page inside. I think that anything featured on the cover should have a significant amount of content inside the magazine. Other than that, it is a really cool sword. Using a charge duplicates your attack 19 times (for each value you didn’t role on the d20) deal different amounts of damage whether they hit or not.
The new playable races, while having very interesting societies, histories, political issues, and interesting abilities, they don’t interest me, I hate to say this, physically. Plant people, especially cactus’, don’t do anything for me. The khepri are humanoid females (the males are not playable as they are large bugs) have insect heads. Again, their nonphysical aspects are quite cool, but I hate bugs. The remade seem to me like living zombies. Criminals and others that offend the powers that be are recreated as cyborg-like creatures. They gain some enhancements, but also some drawbacks which I feel have a deeper impact on roleplaying than the advantages. Finally, the vodyanoi are frog-like creatures with the power to manipulate water. I guess the type of races I like, even though I think it is a wide variety, doesn’t include any of these.
I think each and every one of the new monsters are very imaginative. I could see them popping up in campaigns that have nothing to do with Bas-Lag. I was raised in a part of the U.S. that has swarms of large mosquitos, making the anophelii would be something I would dread. The rest all could have their place in my worlds.
All in all, I would have to say that China Meiville has an interesting imagination. I wouldn’t be opposed to reading any of his books, but as for running Bas-Lag as my campaign world, I’d have to say no. Both worlds I have created have their own mixture of adventure and political intrigue, so I don’t see any reason to add anything like it to my gaming worlds.