#eastern dragon kobold

[quilveor]

Kaox, The Tide's Conductor

Just a random character idea because the sound of violins was incessantly torturing my mind the entire day. I probably won't do much more with him, but I still like the vibes.

Linebreak for lore and me rambling.

Young Chaoxi knew he was just a tool. Sold like one, treated like one, being a servant surrounded by nobles constantly jabbering and gossiping. He resented every single reminder that his scales are "dirty", and that he's not "proper" enough. His master was the only one that showed him any respect, teaching him ways of the court. But magic, Chaoxi taught himself and he was incredibly good at it. Surprising everyone with his abilities, which have been called divine, Chaoxi managed to break through the social barriers, gaining more and more respect.

The kobold adapted phenomenally to it. Playing with people was just as natural to Kaox as magic, and soon enough he himself had servants to tend to his needs. Those, of course, Kaox treated fairly and with understanding. Nonetheless, some nights Kaox was nowhere to be found, escaping the self-important society to hide in some bar, drinking cheap ale and throwing coins to performers, enjoyment that he never got but always desired. After all, if you force a river to dam up, you should be prepared for it to burst with more strength than you could ever fathom.

Having incredible affinity for water, Kaox is resourceful and clever, able to manipulate circumstances and people into his own favor. A servant ennobled, driven by his ire towards the nobility, rebelling with every breath and act while still staying within their made-up rules. Despite his name being Chaoxi, he goes by Kaox with anybody he deems worthy of his real respect, and is a patron of numerous artists, often employing street musicians as background for his own performances of magic.

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So, Kaox. First of all, the most base inspiration was Saba: A Sonnet of Scales [Youtube link] which I found out like two days ago. Pretty much fell in love, and to my dismay I found out that none of my characters fit a violin background track.

I always liked violins though so I spent a whole day thinking about it, because I didn't want to just do the same story beats as anything that ever fit a violin [vague 1900s rebellion vibes, gentleman thief and/or european nobility [honestly it's mostly that, i love that vibe a LOT but i didn't want to just do a knock-off of Saba]]

Hit by a different inspiration [I could blame Xiran Jay Zhao [Also youtube] for this, I found her unrelatedly but really enjoyed her view on Mulan movies] I decided to go with an eastern vibe and somehow it all kinda fell together?

To note, Chaoxi is not chinese, he just takes inspiration from chinese culture. His "nationality" is completely undefined, if vaguely modernish. On that note, his name means tide [if google and wikipedia didn't lie to me], and the three lines to the left of K in Kaox are a radical used to symbolize water [but only in combination with other things].

He has eight fasteners on his coat for good fortune, and black pants to fit the color associated to water with wuxing. The gem on his horn, however, is there as a slight reference to a magic system I made up.

However both his hair color and scales color... are a complete accident! Like, okay, I intended for hair to be blue, yes, but I kind of did them too harsh at first and had to attempt erasing them. I think everyone knows how hard it is to actually erase a color pencil. But the result looked pretty neat so I went with it.

And now for bonus character traits: - Kaox is utterly awful at all instruments. All of them. He tried. It did not work out. - That's why he employs musicians though - he still really likes music. He might as well get it his own way. - His hair is dyed, it's actually just white. He's acting up the whole "water mage" thing. His eyes are natural though. - He had an eastern dragon father, but never really knew him as originally he was in a regular kobold burrow. That's also why he's so good with water. - He also didn't knew his mother - the burrow was communal. He doesn't blame the elders for selling him though, but it took many years for him. - 90% of things he does are motivated by spite. - He's bi. Also out of spite. - He genuinely enjoys low quality food and drinks. A cheap beer for him is much better than ancient wine. He sometimes gets hot dogs from gas stations, and gas stations alone. - Violin + Accordion is the best combo and he will fight you on this. It reminds him of himself, a mix of high culture and street culture working together - He owns a double bass. It's mistuned and he's too short for it, but it's still his pride and joy.

If you reached here, thank you, have a nice day =]

[sabastory]

The Saba Family Tree and a Brief History of Kobolds

Kobolds and Dragonborn were mortal beings crafted in the image of the Bastion of Life, god of arts, music, and medicine. This deity as well as their servants eventually faded into obscurity and their existence has been disputed, usually being relegated to the subject of fairy tales.

In antiquity, kobolds had extremely limited rights and were seen as “inferior” versions of their larger and more regal relatives. Thus, they were the subject of ridicule, prejudice, exploitation, and forced slavery of every kind for generations. It wasn't until a violent uprising that kobolds were truly given freedom, and allowed to thrive in society. As the centuries passed and the tales of the revolution were immortalized into the pages of the history books, they now live relatively normal lives (yet echoes of the prejudice from ages past still remain)

The Sabas are directly descended from groups that were liberated on that fateful day.

[angelswithscalywings]

Page 319 of #AwBH is here!

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Golems, Orcs, & loser party that got TPKed by bugs (<3)

He's so competent, I love him. I really appreciate that post pointing out that this whole party is pretty near the top of the game in terms of genuine competency at adventuring. It's hard to tell when we rarely see other adventurers.

Just a few pages later, Senshi seamlessly takes out 3 golems on his own!

Water fountain shaped like a lion head!

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Senshi has just been single-handedly keeping the dungeon from getting so dangerous that the Elves get to bully their way in, huh. Do you think dungeon experts have been wondering what's taking so long, and will one day find out that it's this one weird dwarf. I hope so.

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I like the dragon being so goat-like.

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HUZZAH!

Side note: I think an ideal live action Senshi would be played by Nick Offerman.

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Marcille and the orc chieftain fighting while Senshi pointedly makes bread gives me such "The Last Supper" vibes - that is, the song in Jesus Christ Superstar. Two people having an increasingly vicious argument over dinner while everyone else in the room says increasingly loudly, "Wow, this food is great!!"

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HEY LOOK THE NEXT CHAPTER STARTS WITH MY MAN!!

I'm sure this isn't novel analysis but man I like how directly Kabru's party mirrors the original Touden party. (Side note: I wish each party had a name that wasn't just the name of the party leader...)

Toudens':

6 members

3 fighters (Laiois, Shuro, Namari)

2 mages, 1 for damage (Marcille) and 1 for healing (Falin)

1 lockpick (Chilchuck)

2 long-lived (1 dwarf, 1 elf)

4 short-lived (3 humans, 1 halffoot)

3 men, 3 women

4 tall, 2 short

1 Easterner

leader is a mall tallman fighter

lockpick is halffoot

1 mage is tallman, 1 is long-lived magic-heavy race

1 fighter is a dwarf

Kabru's:

6 members

3 fighters (Kabru, Kuro, Daya)

2 mages, 1 for damage (Rin) & 1 for healing (Holm)

1 lockpick (Mickbell)

2 long-lived (1 dwarf, 1 gnome)

4 short-lived (2 humans, 1 halffoot, 1 kobold)

4 men, 2 women

3 tall, 3 short

1 Easterner

leader is a male tallman fighter

lockpick is halffoot

1 mage is tallman, 1 is long-lived magic-heavy race

1 fighter is a dwarf

A) it's obviously a solid party composition in terms of classes, and playing into D&D stereotypes (born of Middle Earth, as many D&D stereotypes are) of correlations between PC race and class.

B) Ryoko Kui was like, "There are going to be PARALLELS in this story and you are going to APPRECIATE THEM", and she was so goddamn right. Subtle themes are great but you know what's even better? Like 5 different really overt themes that are all happening all the time and interweave so constantly that subtlety is created in the infinite nuances of overlap. Eat or be eaten and to eat is to live is to want and understanding is compassion but it's also violence and we're all incredibly different and we're all incredibly the same and we're all trying to eat or be eaten in an elaborately connected web of life, and--

I want an orchestral arrangement of this story.

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I'm not carefully counting all winged lion motifs but I AM going to count the number of Kabru Winks(TM). We're at 3 in this chapter.

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EXQUISITE SMASH CUT

[dunmeshistash]

What languages are there in Dungeon Meshi? We know there’s the Common Tongue, as well as Kobold (the Kabru and Kuro extra) and there’s a Half-Foot language (when Chilchuck starts cursing at Laios in the dragon fight) and some eastern languages (Marcille didn’t recognise Izutsumi’s hag spell). Are there more?

And do we know if any other main character’s first languages are not common?

Here's how I have answered this before in addition to the ones you mentioned elves and gnomes have at least different ways of writing spells, and dwarvish is also a different language since "Senshi" means seeker in dwarvish and warrior in common (japanese)

[xyazats-tf-or-pass]

Tf or Pass: Kobold (Eastern and Western)

Interesting fact: The most popular depiction of kobolds is radically different between the East and West! I don't know the reasons why off the top of my head (and such discussion is not exactly the point of these posts anyway), but for all intents and purposes, they are anthropomorphic lizard and dog people respectfully, and I like both. If I can't be a dragon or majestic wolf, I'll gladly settle for yappy, industrious cavern dwellers.

Verdict: Transform

(If you're wondering other types of kobold, such as the warcraft kind, those will be covered in another post)

[space-writes]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday!

What's a worldbuilding detail from your setting that you haven't talked about as much as you'd like? Ramble at me, please :D

hi saran, ty for the ask!! happy Worldbuiding WeSunday - im gonna ramble about dragons because. dragons are cool

[ID - a green and black decorative divider]

in Valloroth, there were only ever five dragons: Cidra the Red, Sirsassa the Black, Vulkora the Blue, Ruvosha the Green, and Irta the White. Of those five, only Sirsassa is actively alive in the world right now.

Cidra got bound in sleep for nearly exterminating dwarves in her hunger. Vulkora did magic crimes and turned himself into a lich, and got bound beneath the desert for eternity. Ruvosha got pissed off at Sirsassa's relentless empire-building, and destroyed most of it, turning the eastern half of Valloroth into what is now the Wilds and (supposedly) destroying themselves in the process. Irta vanished shortly after that, and no-one's seen her since.

Sirsassa's the only one still alive, running her Empire: which mostly means lazing about on a giant horde and having the dracari and kobolds she made from a slice of her divinity worship her. She's the only one that god made into an Earthbound god, which didn't particularly endear her to the other dragons when they were alive.

so that's lore, but here's also some neat worldbuilding - dragons need three things in order to survive: meat, magic, and stone. Meat to live, magic to think, and stone to breathe fire.

The latter two are part of the reason Cidra ate so many dwarves; dwarves carve themselves out of stone, and are living rock with magic in their veins. Tasty dragon treats on two legs, unfortunately.

Another fun fact is that, since they were made from a piece of a dragon, the dracari and kobolds also need those three things to live properly, although they don't entirely know it/know why. They do know that outside of the Empire, they sicken quicker, feel sluggish and slow. Those that travel take bags of things like ground quartz or similar with them, as a dietary aid.

Wyverns too, need these three things, which is why they zero in on wizards so much when they're hunting - they can smell the magic in the person and in the components they're carrying. It's also why there are so many wyverns in the Wilds, because there are shitloads of lost magical artefacts from the Old Empire out there. Artefact-hunters venturing out there use wyverns as markers to try and track down items.

(asd;kasd this got so long i hope you enjoy)

Valloroth taglist: @cherrybombfangirlwrites @reininginthefirewriting @memento-morri-writes @foxboyclit @lawful-evil-novelist

@at-thezenith @morganwriteblr @fayeiswriting @serenanymph

@sam-glade @viscerawrites @thegreatobsesso @flower-reads (ask to be +/-)

[daily-kobold-facts]

Kobolds for eastern dragons look exactly like other kobolds except they have the cute little moustache tendrils.

[puppy-wife]

(I made this it's own post so it wouldn't get too long cause I know I'm gonna yap)

so there were a lot of ways I jumped in and just started doing shit, but I think the very first thing I did was make a first draft map of like, a general landmass (I actually based the initial landmass on the shape of Spain) and then I just started adding my own features and deciding climates and weather types and biospheres and created my primary landmass first (I went into it knowing I was designing one kingdom, not the whole world)

then once I had decided what the general shape would be, I was able to figure out the most likely places for major cities to be (one at the southernmost coast, one in the lagoon/bay, one deep in the forest high on a cliff easily defensible, one built into the mountains, one on the eastern shore, one in the middle by the giant lake, etc.

I think it was around then that I took a break from geography and created a pantheon of major gods and wrote a creation myth for the world. From there I had a few major historical events I knew I wanted, so I wrote down a very vague timeline.

at this point, I had enough places to start that I was able to pick a major city or location and I just wrote out a page of information. super basic stuff at first, name of the city, city leaders/nobles, notable features, notable shops, notable NPCs, and I would usually go ahead and create a number of threads for stories based in those locations and keep those in my DM Eyes Only document lmao

Then I kind of bounced around and did that and then I found some really good resources online for like, what do major civilizations need to have? and when I did a lore sheet for Castletown I wrote down a TON of information, cause it's a big city!! the biggest in Arcanum.

honestly from there I just kept bouncing around, never staying on one topic or location too heavily or for too long, and kind of followed a (chaotic) path led by my ADHD. Now at this point I have a map of the neighboring kingdom Ilshara, a custom calendar, it's own zodiac, a fuck load of minor gods and some gods from other realms, a bunch of fics for lore and worldbuilding, I even wrote a whole psionic system for d&d 5e that i never used lmao.

my biggest piece of advice as a GM is to follow the three layers rule. for any piece of lore you need three layers of Why to explain it. you can usually get away with less, but the more layers you can add, the more depth your world will have. so for example, why are these kobolds attacking travellers? well because they work for the dragon who's cave is nearby, and they need the gold because their dragon patron is sick and wealth is the only thing that helps them, and the dragon, well, it's sick because it's cursed by a witch that it slighted in the past, etc etc. that's what I did at least. most of my world isn't super well defined, and that's on purpose! I want to flavor it to fit the story I'm telling at that moment, and because I have sort of a natural understanding of the pattern of storytelling, I just sort of create without thinking too hard. so I like to give details to the major locations, and make everything else up as I go along (mostly)

lol this is so fun to talk about, thank you @valkyr-3 and if you (or anyone else really) are interested in seeing some of my lore documents, I do have them written in such a way that my players can access them anytime and probably find the information theyre seeking

[holycrapitsbags]

Silly DnD Idea Party is hired by a village of Gnolls and Eastern style K9 Kobolds to deal with a red dragon that has been menacing their people. So they get all geared up with fire resistant armor, spend a small fortune on potions of fire resistance, prepare spells to defend against fire and deal out ice damage. They think they are as prepared as they will ever be... until the arrive at the beasts lair and find a green dragon glaring at them from atop its horde of treasure.

[bluenightcomedies]

🗝️so, there are multiple cultural interpretations of kobolds due to mistranslations or misinterpretations of the text regarding them; the classic kobolds, which resemble gnomes and lived in caves (and sometimes houses as household spirits) the western kobold, which resemble lizard-people and are claimed to be related to dragons the eastern kobold, which resemble dog-people and the lesser-known northern kobolds that resemble rat-dwarves.

[ariminiria]

10, 26, and 39?

10. How does your PC fidget?

Selene has a metal arm and eldritch smitey powers, I imagine she likes to ticticticcytac her fingers and let eldritch sparks jump around them

26. How would your PC answer the trolley problem?

Let me see if I can just answer this in character--

*ahem* [rapidly and with a vaguely eastern european accent] "Okay soooo let me see, we got the one person over heeeree, and the other people over there, but I guess what I really want to know is who put them here? Like, that seems like a very not-so-nice thing to do and I am thinking that maybe we should be going to find whoever did this to stop them. Cause I mean if they cannot do this to anyone else in the future, it seems like it would be solving a lot of problems, you know? Like one time, my party and I, we have this assassin after our boss - his name is SinSin and he hired us to take him alllll the way across the continent to his home country (he is a kobold and also a prince you know, the youngest of many many siblings). And we were escorting him so he could claim his crown. All of his family was killed, see, very very sad, so he has to be getting home. There were like blue dragons and things after us too, and that was a whole big thing where I kept getting kidnapped and then I kept killing the dragons And yes, so we were having this assassin after us, and we just killed him! If we are killing him first, then he is not killing SinSin! But well, I guess it didn't really help in the end because the baldy kept coming back and back and back every time we killed him, including one time I accidentally turned him into a zombie and accidentally got killed, but it was alright cause Audra brought me back, so--"

39. What would your PC put on their pizza? 

I don't think she would like pizza at all tbh 😂 At gunpoint she'd choose one of those fruit pizza dessert/brunch things lol

[akirameta84]

saiki au. its in modern times but fantasy as well. the cast is fantasy creatures and stuff and ive done this in a similar manner a bit ago but ive a betrer idea now

saiki is still a dragon (eastern because noodle) and hiding it, and this time its being theyre nearly extinct and so powerful theyre usually compared to deities and worshipped despite often just wanting to live a normal life just like everyone else

so, aince his humanoid form he can take is kind of an anthropomorphic version of his true form (which isnt all that big, he can function decently well inside of buildings), he pretends to just be a kobold. kobolds here are not known for particularly strong magical prowess and arent all that uncommon.

his scales are white/gray because of his cat form in canon i always tend to do this, and back, head, and tail fur is pink. his kobold form still has fur (but long hair) which makes him a bit of an odd kobold, but its not outrageously suspicious, and can be passed off as odd genetics.

hes smol, only 5 feet or 1.5 meters because hes got quadruped styled legs despite standing on 2 like kobolds do. his true form is a bit taller than nendou in height and is very long.

a strange idea for this au as well is that saikis adopted, his adoptive family (which is his canon family) arent dragons or kobolds. idk what they are but yeah

and heres a quirk of this au that all my aus tend to have before i post them, i just usually cut them out because its getting to the point that its becoming just an original story but these stupidly specific aspects are always in my aus, i just wanted to share ine for once:

while living in the orphanage at a very young age, meaning his magic control was limited (except for his ability to take his kobold form, because hes been practicing that for his whole life because of how his true form is treated), saiki was hit by a car. his healing ability wasnt very refined and his leg was injured pretty gruesomely, and he healed it wrong. it was technically healed even if incorrect and very painful still, though, and he couldn't do anything more to it. its injured permanently, making it hard to walk sometimes if its hurting more than usual, and its generally pretty weak. he uses a cane in private but is sadly a bit too ashamed to bring it in public, despite there being nothing wrong with it

rest of the cast is fitting fantasy creatures that im pretty sure i have identical in my other very similar au

kuboyasu-werewolf

hairo-centaur

nendou-orc

teruhashi-harpy

kaidou-vampire

aiura-siren

toritsuka-pathetic kitsune

akechi-just a human. sorry akechi

this is probably pretty boring but i dont really care. i like it. and its probably more bizarre than most of my aus because i didnt cut the odd details that make it practically no longer an au and more of an original story

if you read this au regardless thank you

[theirishhalfling]

Just an occasional interlude in the Watcher pictures for something a little different. Have the party cleric as a (neon green as described) acid-spitting black dragon after he took a... Performance enhancing magical substance.

Dragon drawing is not my forte by any means, I can probably count on one hand how many times I've drawn a dragon. So this was a mix of a bit of western and a bit of eastern dragon, as Vetrak is a regular ol' kobold, but his god is an eastern dragon.

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Musing on Ages, & Dragon Prep

"Desire" mention - how much does Tensu know of the details of the origin of dungeons? (More than I do, probably...but I know this is thematically important.)

"Us"? Aren't gnomes another long-lived species? Ok this is going to be continuously relevant to the geopolitics so I need to break it down. From the wiki:

Elves: lifespan: 400; adult at 80

Gnomes: lifespan: 240; adult at 40

Dwarves: lifespan: 200; adult at 40

Tallmen: lifespan: 60; adult at 16

Orcs: lifespan: 55; adult at 14

Kobolds: lifespan: 55; adult at 13

Halffoots: lifespan: 50; adult at 14

I see - so really we're dealing with 3 factions: Elves, Gnomes & Dwarves, and Everyone Else. I find it interesting that the longer-lived races reach maturity at 17-20% of their average lifespan, while the younger-lived races all do so at around 25% of their average lifespan. I feel a little like this is a cop-out on the writer's part in trying to keep the ages of maturity a little closer to one another - though of course it's a cultural thing by each race (and, I'm sure, each culture within each race - idk how monolithic the whole comic will treat them, but it would track with the thematic worldbuilding for their to be multiple distinct social groups within each race, even if they do tent to band together against the other races!)

Based on the categories of "long-lived" and "short-lived", the latter seem to view all of the former as much the same - but I'm SURE the Elves have a different view of it, and I'm sure the Dwarves and, as we see here, Gnomes, are very aware of and irritated by the Elves' view.

...and as we see here, and earlier with Chilchuck admitting to being 29 (solidly middle-aged!) and Marcille going, "Aw, so you are a kid!", people rarely make any effort to understand each others relative ages, instead just coasting on their own life-based assumptions.

With reference to above, we can see that Namari at 61 is pretty exactly equivalent to Kaka and Kiki at 20.

Also: this little scene wasn't in the show at all and I love it! Namari in mentor mode!

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ALRIGHT RED DRAGON TIME!! Hey look, literally the 2nd panel in this ghost city is 2/3 winged lions by volume. Hmmm...

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I love how it's explicitly Shuro's job to get the final killshot, presumably because he has Feats for this (ie, cool-looking moments) as a "real" anime character (Easterner). This literally bears up with what we see of him in the future.

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Chilchuck: I will NOT fight!

Chilchuck: I'll totally be dragon bait with you, though.

Chilchuck: Not that I care if you succeed or survive or anything! I'm only here because you paid up front.

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Laios using the Inspiring Leader speech feat! They're all having a Heroes' Feast before fighting the dragon, a classic pre-dragon act for bonus HP and immunity to being Frightened! I know this isn't actually D&D but that post that I think came through my queue earlier today is right: it DOES have the same bones. It's like reading the Locked Tomb and being aware that this author was deep in Homestuck, or Scholomance vis a vis Harry Potter canon and fandom. I know where this writer has been, because I have been there too.

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THE BOY IS HERE! THE MAN THE MYTH THE OVERWORKED* LEGEND!

THIS SISTER-EATING MOTHERFUCKER!!

*Crack AU where the whole dragon fight is averted because it talks and somehow the conversation leads to Chilchuck going, "And the Mage isn't even letting you sleep? Tsk. You've got to start a union." And then Laios gets all starry-eyed, "A Monster Union?!" And then the Mage is eventually defeated by all the monsters of the dungeon, and also the poor sane ghosts as well, unionizing against him, and "king" becomes just the title for the Union Rep, whose main job is to honk an airhorn at presumptuous Elves and tell them to fuck off like a Canadian goose.

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I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

[dndhistory]

171. Various Authors - Dragon #63 (July 1982)

The contents of this issue of Dragon announce themselves in the cover, there is plenty of banditry and malfeasance inside this volume, which is heavily geared towards AD&D, which seems to be more and more the case as other games by TSR become more of an afterthought. 

Gary Gygax has a big participation in this issue, contributing a number of different articles and starting out a column of "Featured Creatures", monsters for official use with AD&D, and a preview of the second volume of the Monster Manual that would be upcoming. In this issue we get the Devas. Gygax also brings us an article on the Barbarian and his work is also reflected in the Robert J. Kuntz penned article on events of the Eastern and Southern Flanaess, giving more depth to the World of Greyhawk. As usual this is an article very focused on military strength and movements, which isn't really what I'm most interested in. 

Len Lakofka writes an article on how to make Charisma matter, seeing as it is very often seen as a dump stat. Lastly Roger E. Moore gives two great articles, one on Bandits as NPCs and another finishing up the series on Races of D&D with an article on Humanoids (Goblins, Kobolds, Gnolls and Hobgoblins) and their gods. Ed Greenwood talks about how to create a campaign world, something he's uniquely qualified to do, and Gygax pans two movies in the critics sections, Conan the Barbarian (which is an awesome movie, sorry Gary) and The Sword and the Sorcerer, promising that D&D would have a "Star Wars or Indiana Jones" quality film by the mid of the 80s. Yeah... right.