DragonMagazine419.pdf

Issue 419 | JANuARY 2013

A Dungeons & Dragons ® Roleplaying Game Supplement

ContentS

22 Winning raCeS:

bLadeLingS

Written and illustrated by Claudio Pozas

They slice, they dice, they shoot spikes

out of their skin! Find out what’s up with

bladelings in this full racial write-up.

the Fire-eyed Maid OF

SMOk y War

By Steve Winter

Sentient Living SpeLLS

By Doug Hyatt and Robert J. Schwalb

They do not eat; they do not sleep; they do

not breathe. They are living spells, and

they exist to destroy and consume. Visit

the blighted landscape of the Mournland,

and discover the inner workings of these

sentient magical monstrosities.

28 engineS OF War

By Claudio Pozas

Killer treants? Deadly chariots? Equip your

game with the engines of war to give player

characters something to chew on, battle

against, or run from.

10 Winning raCeS:

hObgObLinS

By Jim Auwaerter

Conquer the new year with a full racial

write-up of these goblinoid bad boys. Being

evil makes everything more fun, right?

32 CLan harhund and

dead dWarF Mine

By Ed Greenwood

A dwarf long ridiculed over his dogged

quest for a lost mine has turned up with

proof that the mine actually exists. The

catch? The “lost” mine is actually just a

few feet beneath the cellars of buildings

in Saradush, and that information got the

dogged dwarf murdered.

15 the FirSt WieLderS

By Logan Bonner

Some worship the gods, while others bow

to devils or dragons. A few follow the Path

of Steel, devoting themselves

wholly to their weapons. Learn

about these weapons and the

people who choose this path.

On the COver: What’s cooler than an illustration of a large, angry treant? An illustration of a large, angry treant smashing through

legions of hobgoblins, as shown in Chris Seaman’s cover piece.

EDITORIAL

The Fire-eyed Maid

of Smoky War

By Steve Winter

419

Dr agon

Januar y 2013

Senior Producer

Christopher Perkins

Producers

Greg Bilsland, steve Winter

Managing Editors

Kim Mohan, Miranda Horner

Development and Editing Lead

Jeremy Crawford

Developers

Chris sims, Robert J. schwalb

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

ifs, for sure—then being at war could be easier on sol-

diers than on civilians.

Until the day of battle, that is. That could be an ugly

day for everyone, but especially for the losers. The

idea that any enemy—man, woman, or child—should

be left alive is a relatively recent advance in civiliza-

tion. We have a long and ghastly relationship with

slaughtering everything that breathes, and only a few

centuries of practice at clemency.

When war makes the jump to movies, to young

adult adventure books, and to D&D, we strip out most

of the horror and instead shine a spotlight on the hero

who shouts, “Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colours

wave! And either victory, or else a grave.” We can do

that because the grave is only make-believe, while

our thrill at imagined danger and our admiration for

courage are real.

War isn’t the only thing on our minds, though. We

also have fresh looks at hobgoblins and bladelings,

an evolutionary new development in living spells, the

secret location of the lost Harhund mine, and the lore

of the first magical weapons ever fabricated.

Oh, and one other thing: I’m delighted to be back

in the saddle here at Dragon and Dungeon online. The

next few months look very exciting.

Senior Creative Director

Jon schindehette

Art Director

Kate Irwin

If we are mark’ d to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

Publishing Production Manager

Angie Lokotz

Digital Studio Consultant

Daniel Helmick

Contributing Authors

Jim Auwaerter, Logan Bonner,

ed Greenwood, Doug Hyatt,

Claudio Pozas, Robert J. schwalb

Lay on, Macduff,

And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Contributing Editors

Michele Carter, Jennifer

Clarke Wilkes

Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen!

Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!

Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;

Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!

Contributing Artists

Jason Juta, Claudio Pozas,

Chris seaman, Beth Trott,

Mark Winters

War is our nominal theme this month, and no one

does war like Will Shakespeare.

Once upon a time, war was seen as a great adven-

ture. We know better now—mostly—but it isn’t only us

that’s changed. War itself is different.

Before it became a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year

industry, war was intermittent. Soldiers spent most

of a campaign marching from place to place, stand-

ing guard, tending to gear and animals, foraging for

supplies, and occasionally skirmishing with their

opposing numbers who were up to the same things.

If the camp wasn’t ravaged by dysentery, malaria,

food poisoning, or a hundred other maladies, if the

weather wasn’t too wet or dry or hot or cold, if the

countryside wasn’t stripped of forage, and if the com-

manding general wasn’t an idiot or a drunkard—big

Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, D&D Insider, their

respective logos, D&D, Dungeon , and Dragon are trademarks of

Wizards of the Coast LLC.

This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States

of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or

artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written

permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC. This product is a work of

fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events

is purely coincidental.

Sentient Living Spells

Magic with a Mind of its Own

By Doug Hyatt and Robert J. Schwalb

Illustrations by Mark Winters

From sheets of roiling f lame to spheres of crack-

ling lightning, from howling snowstorms to clouds

of f lying daggers, living spells haunt the blighted

landscape of the Mournland. Remnants of the

apocalypse that destroyed the nation of Cyre, these

magical effects chase any prey foolish enough to cross

their paths.

Most living spells encountered in the Mournland,

although technically alive, have little in the way of

motivation; they do not eat, sleep, or breathe, and,

other than being drawn to pockets of arcane magic,

they exhibit no behavior other than sheer aggression.

A few living spells behave in unusual ways. They

avoid conf lict, make efforts to communicate, and

even gather in small communities. These living spells

stand apart from others, because they have an attri-

bute that no ordinary spell possesses: sentience.

away the nation’s citizens and reduced its land to a

poisonous desert was the same force that created one

of the deadliest threats to those who dare brave these

lands—the living spells.

All living spells are arcane powers given life,

becoming entities in their own right. A spell’s

essential function gives definition to a living spell,

determining its form, its capabilities, and the meth-

ods it uses to destroy any living thing it encounters.

From the dreaded living cloudkill, with its heavy poi-

sonous mist creeping across the broken landscape,

to the spinning and clashing living cloud of daggers,

a storm of blades made from magical force, nearly

all living spells present grave danger to those caught

unprepared.

Living spells have few common features because

they evolved from powers used by those who study

the arcane traditions, and arcane magic varies from

one user to the next. What they do share is the magi-

cal nature they retained after their creation. They

have no need for food, water, sleep, or any other basic

need of living creatures. They do not reproduce and

have little affinity for others of their kind, though

circumstance can throw them together. They are dan-

gerous and violent, hurling their undulating masses

against anything they find.

A rcAne P owers

G iven L ife

Years ago, a magical catastrophe leveled the nation

of Cyre and reduced its territory to a haunted waste-

land now known as the Mournland. The cause of this

event remains unknown to the people of Khorvaire,

and the bleak and twisted landscape casts a shadow

across the entire continent for fear that it might

happen again. The Last War, a century-long conf lict

responsible for the fall of the Kingdom of Galifar,

sputtered to a halt. Whatever magical force swept

Janu ar y 2013 | DR AGON 419

Sentient Living Spells

c ommunicAtion

Their heightened intelligence and self-awareness

makes it possible for sentient living spells to com-

municate with each other and sometimes with other

creatures. These creatures can hear others and can

learn languages, as evidenced in their understand-

ing of Common and other tongues—but although all

sentient living spells have the intellectual capacity

to communicate, many lack the means to do so in a

reliable fashion. A sentient spell’s physical form lacks

the necessary organs to produce speech, so these

creatures often rely on unconventional methods to

exchange ideas.

The communication method of a particular sen-

tient living spell depends on its nature. Some spells

develop complex lexicons based on changing their

colors, their forms, and the sounds they make.

Other sentient living spells, even those of different

natures, can easily interpret these messages and often

replicate them. The ease with which they commu-

nicate with each other does not, however, extend to

exchanges with other creatures. Such creatures have

to first recognize that a spell’s odd behavior is some

form of communication and then have the where-

withal to deduce the intent from the display. Since not

everyone has the patience or perceptiveness to under-

stand these facts, encounters with humanoids and

other beings often do not end well for those creatures,

even if the contact began with peaceful intentions on

the part of the living spell.

For example, a sentient living spell that evolved

from color spray or hypnotic pattern might commu-

nicate through f lashing colored lights or displays of

swirling hues. A different illusion-based spell might

alter its appearance and shape in specific ways, com-

municating through images that best describe the

information it hopes to share. Some sentient spells

can develop rudimentary speech if the original

spell had an auditory aspect, such as ghost sound or

focused sound .

Other sentient spells use more direct methods of

communication. A sentient living animate dead, for

example, could animate a corpse and use its vocal

cords to speak. A living bewitching gaze could domi-

nate a creature and speak through it.

Other races are of little interest to most sentient

living spells. Humanoids and other creatures are

seen as interlopers, meddlers, and thieves, and thus

explorers and adventurers might be subject to suspi-

cion or even hostility from sentient spells. A few more

enlightened spells venture out into the world, either

in borrowed vessels or in their native form, to get a

better understanding of the world in which they live.

G ettinG A LonG

with o thers

f Actions

Three major societies of sentient living spells have

formed since the Day of Mourning.

With sentience comes an existential crisis. Sudden

awareness of self, place, and identity result in myriad

questions. Finding no reliable answers in themselves,

sentient living spells set out to find others of their

kind. And when many gather, they might, in time,

form societies.

Three significant groups of sentient living spells

have emerged in the Mournland—the Builders, the

Teachers, and the Annihilators, all of which are

described in the following section.

Few sentient living spells have use for the reli-

gions of other species. Many of these entities believe

they are all fragments of a single Great Spell, which,

after becoming angered at humans’ pathetic efforts

to control it, struck down the vain nation of Cyre. In

accomplishing this deed, the Great Spell shattered

into many pieces that became the individual living

spells. Worshipers of the Great Spell seek to gather

and unite all living spells, and they believe the magic

that empowers each could one day allow them to join

and recreate the Great Spell.

Sentient living spells view mundane living spells

in much the same way that humans view animals.

Some sentient spells hunt them for sustenance, others

gather and protect them in the belief that they will

one day be joined to re-form the Great Spell, and

others still keep them for labor, companions, guards,

and sport.

the Builders

The most gregarious, curious, and industrious of the

sentient living spells are the Builders, so named for

their desire to build a place for themselves in the

Mournland, to become a true people with a culture,

a civilization, and a purpose beyond survival. Living

spells that identify themselves as Builders arise from

the same spells used to create warforged, to animate

objects, and to create and control other constructs.

In their native form they appear as streams of dark

mist, either black or gray. These spells awoke in

the aftermath of the great cataclysm and roamed

the mist-filled wasteland as clouds of black energy,

scouring the landscape for constructs to inhabit. The

warforged remains that littered the old battlefields

proved to be suitable vessels.

Most Builders can enter and animate only a dead

warforged body. A few can dominate even a living

warforged. When the ebon stream of a Builder occu-

pies the body of a slain construct, the warforged

seemingly returns to life, its eyes aglow once more.

Travelers and Explorers: Animating the remains

of a warforged provides a Builder with many advan-

tages. It can use the body’s sturdy form to work,

repair, and create. Through its physiology, the Builder

can speak. Best of all, Builders that occupy warforged

Janu ar y 2013 | DR AGON 419

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