I had mentioned something in the last thread about the threat level in games I run, specifically as pertaining to monsters used in my game.
Quote:
So far, my players have found wights, ghouls, gargoyles, deinonychus's, Velociraptor's zombies, wraiths, orc's, a baby green dragon, wizards, sorcerers, paladins and a tiger on this god forsaken island. You know which one was the deadliest? The Tiger.
Well, currently my players are stranded on an island, its a big island, but they're not near any known trade routes and are largely cut off from the outside world and the area of the island they have attempted to take refuge on is infested with shambling mounds and a rather large yellow musk creeper the natives call the Soul Flower, because as one rather plainly pointed out, it steals mens souls.
I seem to remember there being an ecology of article on shambling mounds but have no idea which Dragon it was in, I figured that it might be in one of the Elminsters Ecologies box sets but that doesn't appear to be the case. I googled them and found that the Shambling Mound article is in Dragon Annual #2 but I am not sure if that refers to an issue of Dragon Magazine or some sort of compilation. Does anyone know where I can find more of these, and specifically if there is an Ecology Of article on the Yellow Musk Creeper?
One of my favorite H.G. Wells stories is called The Flowering of the Strange Orchid and I think it may have had some influence on who ever created the Yellow Musk Creeper. I've already read a bunch of really neat stuff on Orchid and carnivorous plants but I was hoping for a more official GH explanation.
The Dragon Annuals were extra issues of Dragon Magazine that they sent out to subscribers, once a year, for several years. They were about the size of a regular issue. The Dragon Annual #2 came out in 1997.
That was one of the reasons I liked 2nd Ed so much was in the format of the monstrous compendiums there was usually some sort of write up on how something behaved. It wasn't super detailed butit was better then how information was presented in 1st, 3rd and 4th. 1st and 3rd at least had a few blurbs about monsters, 4th is just stat blocks which is irritating. I like the system in 4th but the detail of the environment is somewhat lacking.
Happy to oblige, my friend. And welcome to the club. I never did agree with the "leave out everything but the stats so DMs can tailor it to their own needs" approach. I could do that with or without the additional information, but providing a starting point for my own development was most welcome. Ah, but those were the days...
I guess it never really seemed like a big deal until my most recent group of players who belong to the Stat Block school of thought. One of my biggest complaints about 3rd ed was the trimming down on story material and the perverse reliance of prestige classes. The prestige classes are something that they all seem to love, and when I tried explaining what I didn't like about them none of them seem to get it.
My point was that when it comes down to mechanics, I can generate that on the fly and its typically more balanced then the established prestige classes in the actual game because its setting appropriate. What I need are story ideas and those require a lot of in depth plot and that's something that the newer editions seem to be short on.
I guess it never really seemed like a big deal until my most recent group of players who belong to the Stat Block school of thought. One of my biggest complaints about 3rd ed was the trimming down on story material and the perverse reliance of prestige classes. The prestige classes are something that they all seem to love, and when I tried explaining what I didn't like about them none of them seem to get it.
My point was that when it comes down to mechanics, I can generate that on the fly and its typically more balanced then the established prestige classes in the actual game because its setting appropriate. What I need are story ideas and those require a lot of in depth plot and that's something that the newer editions seem to be short on.
Agreed.
Oh, and back on the subject of plant monsters, you may want to check out "The Ecology of Carnivorous Plants" from Dragon #137 and the Ciruja Plant from "Denizens of the Wormcrawl Fissure" in Dragon #276.
See this ENWorld thread for an index to all old Dragon Ecologies. The poster Richards who supplied the index is the author of several Ecology articles. He has posted more Ecologies that he submitted but didn't get published. Check out his signature...
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