Dungeons & Dragons‘ Fourth Edition ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, and a similar fate befell the twin magazines that shared its name. Not that Wizards of the Coast ever seemed to know what to do with them ever since taking their license back from Paizo, anyhow. For most of Dragon and Dungeon magazines’ runs, they felt like passion projects—not everything within them was polished, but rarely would you find something published that didn’t have some real heart to it. Sadly, in contrast with these previous incarnations, the digital editions of these magazines always felt like an obligation, something Wizards knew it was expected to publish, but would rather it didn’t have to. I have no idea how many people were reading either periodical at the very end of their runs, but even if it was substantial, their buzz was insignificant compared to a decade earlier. When they ended, I don’t think many people even noticed, given that they’d been largely dead as far as the RPG fan base was concerned for several years.
Still, there was more than a bit of planar material in both of them during their final runs, with 2013 proving just as strong for the publications as any since their last change in ownership, if not moreso (a very modest claim to make). Which is not to say that most of these articles are worth seeking out, just that oftentimes they feature at least a few curiously intriguing ideas. For instance, “Winning Races: Bladelings,” both written and illustrated by Claudio Pozas for the January 2013 issue of Dragon (#419), is hardly usable for anyone who prefers Planescape bladelings. The Bladelings in Fourth Edition were created by Bane and have a dumb backstory suffused with the usual Dawn War bullshit that’s inescapable in this edition. In short, skip this article entirely unless you’re using the new cosmology (and if you are, why are you reading this column?). But even so, there’s a sidebar about the possibility of the Lady of Pain being a bladeling and information about how comfortable the bladelings feel in Sigil as a result of their resemblance to her. It’s a slight but notable plot thread that some might want to grasp at, even if the rest of this article is completely useless to Planescape fans.
The following month, Steve Townshend penned “Fey of Wood and Wind” for Dragon (issue #420, February 2013), and conversely it’s something I really enjoyed. One aspect of the Feywild I always loathed was that despite its title it featured so few of what I consider traditional fey, i.e. sprites and other small magical creatures. These are so important to mythology and folklore, but instead we ended up with eladrins and fomorians. Townshend rectifies this problem, though perhaps too late to do any good for the edition, by profiling brownies, grigs, pixies, and sylphs. Not only do these creatures receive excellent lore and statblocks, there’s also a sidebar short story for each one, which are actually quite fun reads. This fills out the Feywild, but also feels easily transplanted to any D&D cosmology, including the Great Wheel. These creatures return a certain magic to the game, and I’m a fan of anything that exists in D&D for reasons other than fights. These are all weak creatures, as they should be, because you really shouldn’t be trying to kill them in the first place. This sort of “monster” was so important in making D&D initially feel broad and usable for any type of roleplaying campaign and was something gradually whittled away through the editions, so it was revelatory seeing them all return to the game in such an excellent representation.
A counterpart to that Feywild-themed issue of Dragon appeared in Dungeon #211, which featured yet another version of Beyond the Crystal Cave. Before you get too excited, this is largely the same as the version featured as part of the Encounters Program earlier, so you can read my thoughts on that here. The word “filler” for some reasons comes to mind.
The mephits from “Creature Incarnations: Mephits” by David Flor and Jared Espley (Dragon #421, March 2013) are simply a duller, less coherent version of the ones from previous editions. Nine types are profiled, but basically they’re just statblocks. The best thing about this article is that it begins with an old piece of Tony DiTerlizzi artwork, just to remind us all of better times.
That same month featured a far more worthwhile article in Dungeon #212, “Court of the Dark Prince” by John “Ross” Rossomangno, who you might remember from his previous article “The Iggwilv-Graz’zt Affair” featured in our last magazine roundup. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this adventure concerns both of those individuals, and is a super high-level (as in 29+) adventure about thwarting Graz’zt’s recent trolling of Kord. One of Kord’s angels visited Graz’zt’s newly invented Whispering Library, which has tons of arcane information but usually at the cost of trapping researchers within it through brainwashing. Kord wants to beat up Graz’zt to get his angel back, but others fear that this will lead to a huge war, so instead the players are asked to investigate what happened to this angel and if possible rescue him from the Abyss.
Along the way, PCs likely speak with Iggwilv at her current residence, a weirdly boring demiplane that is going to require some fleshing out by the DM to make memorable. That same comment can be said for much of the adventure as a whole, which is sketchy in its descriptions of Azzagrat and the Argent Palace. Nonetheless, the core ideas here are extremely strong, and this is a surprisingly open adventure for Fourth Edition. Players are left to decide how to investigate this problem, and while it’s likely they meet up with an information broker named the Whittler (a wonderful NPC who should be cribbed for any adventure visiting Azzagrat) and sneak in disguised as chasmes, that’s not necessarily the case. Many conflicts can be more easily solved through diplomacy, and fundamental ideas here with the Whispering Library and memorable NPCs are excellent. It’s a bit sketchier than some people like to have for their premade adventures, but the bones here are strong and fleshing this out into a more robust and detailed story wouldn’t be difficult. Even its main conflict is only minorly irritating with its basis on Fourth Edition’s cosmology. A remaining problem is that it’s so high level that it’s unusable for most people, and even converting it between editions is going to require some effort at scaling down encounters for most people. Still, it’s a fun read all the way through, filled with creativity and wonder, and its few additions to the game’s lore are solid and logical enough to easily insert in other adventures.
Our final Dragon article (#428, October 2013) is another Bazaar of the Bizarre piece, covering “Treasures of the Far Realm.” Just four pages long, Eytan Bernstein profiles three magical items, none of which are terribly interesting to me, though these things rarely are. The Bone Scepter of Zceryll is just a way for Zceryll to trick her way back into the world, the Krylanthi Cloak has a fancy backstory about a “hungry star” despite being pretty dull in abilities and causing madness, and the Eye of Tkhaluujin is far less cool than you’d think considering that its backstory involves the word “Cephalopocalypse” multiple times. In all, it’s very forgettable, and I’d just come up with my own Far Realm items instead if need be.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just Dragon that ended on a down note when it comes to planar material, as Will Doyle’s “Blades of the Stygian Masks,” despite a promising start in Sigil, is just a very deadly and elaborate dungeon crawl. Also published in October 2013 (Dungeon #219), it concerns the PCs stopping an assassination group based in Hell. Their legendary daggers were “crafted from the chains imprisoning the primordial Mual-Tar,” and are kind of a weird magic item in that they add additional chip damage to each attack, but if you die they go nuts and attack everything nearby. The idea is a risk-reward sort of situation, which I can see being fun, but unfortunately this is once again a super high level affair, and as I said above it’s really just a series of deadly traps and fights. They seem well-designed, but it’s not a place for role playing, which is surprising considering that there’s a lot of character and mood in the assassins’ actual lair, which for reasons never explored is a theater. PCs will have to collect a series of mask McGuffins in order to summon a big boss, which really makes less than no sense given that it’s set up just for killing the head of this order of assassins.
The author had this to say about it:
Originally conceived for Fourthcore fans, I decided to take a punt and pitch it to Wizards before writing. Given its lethality I was quite surprised they ran with it, and especially pleased that it sailed through without a great deal of mechanical change.
…
For those who don’t know, Fourthcore puts the deadly back into 4th Edition, featuring truly lethal traps, cunning puzzles, and combats poised to punish poor tactics. I wanted to create a Fourthcore adventure that focused on combat over puzzles: in a sense, a “Tomb of Horrors” with deadly monsters instead of traps. 4th Edition does combat so well, so I wanted this to be my tribute to that.…In the end I came to look upon “Blades of the Stygian Masque” as being more akin to one of the “Lair Assault” Encounter seasons.
I’d never run this module in a million years, but it seems like a complete success as far as the author’s aims.
And yes, that’s it for both the edition and the periodicals. We will return again soon, don’t worry—I know that we’re all looking forward to Fifth Edition, which is to say books and articles people have actually read. This also shouldn’t take up too many articles, as despite how long Fifth Edition has continued to exist the number of actual planar releases has been small, at least until recently, though they may all end up requiring fairly lengthy write-ups. Will the ones that exist be good? I suppose we’ll find out in that regard soon enough, and maybe I can even tear Blake away for some commentary about them from a person coming into D&D as a new player rather than an old fart.