DragonMagazine403.pdf

Editorial:

Darwin’s

Finches

By Steve Winter

Illustration by William O’Connor

You’d think there’d be no chance to work on a

Dragon editorial at a place as jumpin’ as PAX Prime,

but in this particular instance, you’d be wrong.

A busy convention hallway is not a productive

place to write—there’s usually too much noise and

always too many distractions (especially if the only

place to sit is a spot on the f loor where people con-

tinually step over you). It can be the ideal place,

too, because you’re surrounded by what make this

hobby worthwhile--happy gamers who are excited

about playing D&D with countless other fans and

friends.

We don’t like to admit it, but residing inside For-

tress WotC isolates us from you, the people we’re

working for and trying to please. Meeting fans face

to face and joining their games at conventions or

Dungeons & Dragons ® Encounters sessions is

invaluable, because it shows us what happens when

D&D meets the real world.

I tend to picture individual gaming groups as the

Galapagos Islands, and the D&D rules as Darwin’s

f inches . At one time, all of those finches were the

same species. Isolated on their individual islands,

each group evolved in different directions in response

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Editorial: Darwin’s Finches

to local conditions. By the time Darwin found them,

they had become many distinct yet clearly similar

species. In the same way, diverse gaming groups, all

starting with the same set of D&D rulebooks, can

wind up playing versions of the game that are similar

yet clearly different.

In that regard, we’re no different from anyone

else. D&D campaigns played by R&D staff run the

gamut from by-the-books purity to widely divergent

and experimental. Like you, we develop idiosyncratic

house rules and peculiar forms of shorthand.

When we get a chance to see “real people” play-

ing D&D or, better yet, sit in on your games as

players, we gain a perspective that can’t be had

any other way. We’re reminded what it’s like when

everyone in the group doesn’t have access to the

complete D&D library or to endless supplies of

miniatures and Dungeon Tiles. We’re reminded

that the rules can be hard to remember and the

manuals confusing to navigate if you’re not steeped

in them for 40+ hours a week. We’re reminded that

people play Dungeons & Dragons for diverse rea-

sons and draw diverse rewards from the experience.

Maybe most of all, we’re reminded of how liberating

it is when your play isn’t dominated by game-design

questions such as whether a rule is doing exactly

what it should; whether a race is missing something

that would add to the experience; or whether a class

has some “design space” for an interesting Dragon

online article. Those concerns can distract us from

what really matters, which is that people play D&D

because they want to sit around a table with like-

minded friends and let their imaginations soar into

realms of fantastic wonder, terrifying danger, and

heroic deeds.

The fact that Dungeons & Dragons can mutate

this way is one of its great appeals and one of the rea-

sons why it has endured for more than thirty years.

How has your game evolved away from the main

trunk of Dungeons & Dragons rules to match your

group’s preferences? How often have you plugged

in a quick ruling for something that was unclear,

and that ruling became the accepted way of doing

things? Have you ever switched groups permanently

or temporarily and wondered whether you were still

playing the same game? Share your experiences in

the comments below, in the forum, or email them to

dndinsider@wizards.com .

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Class Acts—Warlock:

Strange

Constellations

By Bruce R. Cordell

Illustration by William O’Connor

In June, we presented rules updates to the warlock in

the form of a playtest article. After receiving feedback

from the playtest, we made some changes and posted

the final updates . One piece of consistent playtest

feedback was the need for more star pact warlock

powers that rely on Constitution at certain levels. To

that effect, we went to warlock-and-tentacled-horror

expert Bruce Cordell and asked him if he’d write an

article responding to the desires of the fan commu-

nity. This is what he wrote. Read at your own peril!

Star Pact

Some stars are said to provide good luck; to see them

wink from heaven’s vault is considered a blessing.

Other stars are associated with benign omens and

powers of beauty, healing, and clarity of thought.

Quite a few serve as beacons for navigation.

But other stars are stranger, such as the stars

used by alien creatures as illumination to peer into

our reality. These entities are lumped together and

described as residents of the Far Realm. Labeling

them as such is a reasonable first organizing prin-

ciple, and it’s the safest too. Attempting to gain deeper

clarity on the true nature of such stars can bring

researchers an unhappy fate. When it comes to alien

horrors, truisms about “the more you know” being an

advantage crumble to dust.

Despite the dangers, the mad, the passionate, and

the nihilistic continue to seek greater understand-

ing of the very thing that tears asunder the minds

of most inquisitors. Through trial and error, these

people named new entities, guessed their natures,

and teased out new spells for those whose pact is with

the stars. These warlocks, sages, and scholars consoli-

dated the bulk of that knowledge in a wizard’s tower,

where they constantly researched more lore.

I ntroductIon

Pact-swearing warlocks live dangerously, but not

through choice. They can’t help having this personal-

ity trait. It takes a certain reckless craziness to pledge

oneself to an entity that is amoral, diabolical, uncar-

ing, or, worse yet, utterly indifferent to reality except

for its potential use as a chew toy.

Bizarre patterns in the sky are visible to those

in the right place, in the right time, or in the right

frame of mind. That’s when warlocks seize the power

bequeathed from the pitiless points of light that shine

unchanging beyond night’s void—points of light that,

in sum, form strange constellations.

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Class Acts—Warlock: Strange Constellations

Then rumors told of a horrifying new constella-

tion that would rise in the east and that would bring

in a terrible new age (according to some prophe-

cies). To prevent this prophecy from being fulfilled,

some enterprising people caused the tower and all

its contents to burn to the ground one night during a

spectacular meteor shower. None of those who origi-

nally pieced together the information survived. All

that remains regarding the nature of the enigmatic

star pattern that failed to appear, including many

of the constituent stars, is embedded in the crystal

headpiece of a warlock’s rod. The embedded message

(a sort of psychic engram) is called the Confession of

Melech .

Stars of the

Elder Constellation

When time draws to its inevitable close, most of the

stars visible in the sky will have burned out. Only a

scattered few will f licker with fossil light, peering and

presiding over the end of everything.

Besides previously named stars whose properties

have been partially described (including Caiphon,

Allabar, Nihal, and Zhudun), several other stars also

survive (or perhaps appear) at the end of time: the

stars of the Elder Constellation. Despite the fact that

the constellation shouldn’t be visible for eons beyond

count, visions of it have seared themselves into the

minds of those unlucky enough to dream too close

to weak spots in reality. Those who wake from such

dreams prophesy an early end to the cosmos that is

heralded by the appearance of the Elder Constella-

tion millennia too soon. These prophets then die an

early death or undergo a slow transformation into a

humanoid abomination.

Those who can imagine the Elder Constellation

without perishing or becoming an alien in their own

skin can also call upon the spells resident in each of

the primary stars of the pattern. The names include

the following: Atropus, Father Llymic, Pandorym,

Ragnorra, and the Worm That Walks.

Father Llymic

A mote of alien thought given form and f lesh, Father

Llymic dwells in an icy prison, awaiting a time when

the world will be right for his arrival. As his age of

freezing darkness draws near, his brood begins to

appear, stalking the wastes in preparation for his

reign. If he is released from his prison, he will cover

the entire world with a deadly glacier and remove the

world from light and hope for all time.

Pandorym

Pandorym personifies the emotionless void of utter

annihilation. Though imprisoned millennia ago,

a future era will see its release. The god-slaying

weapon awaits the arrival of a being powerful

enough to reunite its awesome mind with its potent

ConFESSion oF MELECh

The Confession of Melech is recorded as a psychic

impression inside a fist-sized chunk of purple

crystal set as the capstone of a rod. The rod acts

like a rod of wrathful dismissal .

The names and natures of terrifying new

entities associated with the Elder Constellation

becomes known to those who sleep or meditate

with the crystal in their possession for at least

one hour.

ELdEr EviLS

The names of the stars making up the Elder Con-

stellation first appeared in Elder Evils ™, a D&D ®

game supplement outlined by Bruce Cordell and

written by Rob Schwalb. Pandorym appeared

before that in the Forgotten Realms ® novel

Darkvision (2006).

Thus the entities of the Elder Constellation

are not all associated with the Far Realm as

some previous warlock star pact entities have

been; however, the names noted here are of

inconceivably powerful beings who survive to

time’s end. In that final gathering of monstrosi-

ties, it becomes difficult to distinguish which

entities were native to the Material Plane and

which came from some place farther. Ulti-

mately, they’re all creatures of such insane power

that they disrupt the flow of time in their final

apotheoses.

Atropus

Atropus, the World Born Dead, drifts through the

gulfs of space, searching for worlds to consume.

When it finds a world, it erases all life from it with a

single gruesome touch. As the afterbirth of creation,

this entity is committed to unmaking all things. Noth-

ing, not even the gods, can halt the relentless progress

of Atropus.

Se p t emb e r 2011 | DRAGON 403

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