Monstrous Mondays: What's Next for This Old Dragon (and more BB updates)

Combining two posts into one today. Mostly because I don't have a monster to share.

A few years back, I bought two large collections of Dragon Magazines. They were in terrible shape, most missing their covers, many had water damage, and a few were in great shape. So I started on a plan to do "This Old Dragon." I'd pull one out at random and review the contents. Not review-review, but talk about what was inside and reminisce about what was going on for me then and how I could or still do the material inside.

It has been a fun trip.  One of my personal goals was to reread the ones I had in the past AND to find new material from Dragons Issue #50 and below.  I had one other goal that developed in my readings too. More on that.

But I am now running out of Dragons. I grabbed one the other day, Issue 95, only to remember I had already done it. 

So how does this all relate to monsters?

The goal I developed while reading these was how much I enjoyed the old Ecology Of articles.  Since so many of these were in terrible shape to begin with, I was fine with cutting out these sections and putting them into my AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Compendium binders. I am growing the definitive collection of AD&D monsters over here. 

So for the next phase of my This Old Dragon, I want to go in the other direction. I want to find Dragons that cover the 2e era. 

My personal start of the AD&D 2nd Era would be sometime after Dragon #150. I know for a while Dragon was doing both 1st Ed and 2nd Ed stats for monsters, and some of those I still have here. I might re-sort what I have left and clear out all my ones from below #150. I think my cut-off Dragon for AD&D 2nd then needs to be #274 when Paizo took over.

Now I need to find a good collection that covers the 90s issues of Dragon.

Do not tell me I can get issues online. I don't condone piracy of any sort. Besides, I have the Dragon Magazine CD-ROM that goes all the way to issue #250. 

The goal here is to have physical magazines in hand to review.

I don't need collector's copies; I don't even need table copies. I need readable copies, and if they are missing a page here or there, no big deal.  Nor am I looking for handout copies. I will buy what I need. 

I will wrap up my "Classic" This Old Dragon copies and then move on to the ones I have that are after issue #150.  After that...well, it depends on what I can find out there.

If you see any for sale online, let me know!

Basic Bestiary Updates

Did not get as far as I wanted to get last week. I made some more updates to BB1 and BB3. What can I say? Demons are fun to write about. I am not happy with my stat-blocks for dragons yet. Glad that is for BB4, and there are no plans to get that out until 2024. All four may come out then unless I get busy.

I do need new cover art for all four, and I would like them all to be from the same artist.

I *DID* however, come up with the plan to include the various Witch Queens in my game world in an Appendix. Obviously, I will not include ones based on others' intellectual property. But I have enough mytho-historical ones and my own for it not to matter.  I like this idea a lot and it fills a gap I had in the various power structures of the book. These witches will be part of BB1. 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 3, Room 27

Coming down the hall from Room 26 is another chamber. This one has a locked door similar to those on Level 2.

Inside, this room appears to be empty. There is a door directly in front of the door the party just came in. Next to the door is the statue of a knight.

The statue is a Living Statue (D&D Basic Set).

This is a Rock Living Statue, a creation of the wizards that used to control these lands. Now it is a forgotten guard to the magic laboratories beyond.

Instead of spotting magma from its fingertips it will spit it up from its mouth. It can only do this once every other round. It does 2d8 points of damage. Its fists do 1d6+1 twice per round.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 3, Room 26

Going left, you go through a hallway to another chamber. This one is square. There is an opening straight ahead.  There is a statue of a demonic-looking dragon figure. It has gems for eyes.

The gems are not real but the dragon is.

Coming within 5' of the "statue" will breathe a gas that turns the victim to stone.  They get a saving throw vs. Petrify/Paralysis. Victims get a +2 bonus to their save, the dragon is rather hungry.

This is a creature, but its own skin has been turned to stone due to a horrible magical experiment to create a dragon that could breathe a cloud of petrification gas and it worked, to a degree.  The dragon turned itself to stone.  It is still alive and it can't move or eat, so it is quite insane now.  It can't be killed. 

Once it breathes it has to wait another hour to breathe again. Anyone turned to stone will become normal again in 5 turns, but their Dexterity will suffer a permanent reduction of 1 point. 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 3, Room 25

The hallway leads to another room. There is an opening on the right and one to the left.

In this room are 3 Giant Pythons.

How they got here is anyone's guess, but they attack the party as soon as they enter. They do not have any treasure.

The opening to the right leads back to Room #12. The opening to the left leads on to the rest of the level.

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Today's monster comes to you because I needed to reinstall Python 3.11.2 on my computer for work.

Kickstart Your Weekend: My Last Sunrise 2 - Women of Horror

A late entry today; really busy at work.

My Last Sunrise 2 - Women of Horror - 28mm Minis for TTRPG

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/badsquiddogames/my-last-sunrise-2?ref=theotherside

I like these minis, they have a really cool Hammer Horror vibe to them.

So much great stuff here I can't decide what level to pledge at!

I should at least get a Vampire Queen right.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 3, Room 24

Further down the hall there is a cell to your left. 

This cell is filled with a thick green haze/mist. Visibility, including dark vision and infravision, is reduced to 1 foot. 

After 1 round the mist will start to poison the PCs.  They must make a saving throw vs. Poison or be rendered unconscious. Any unconscious PC will loose 1 point of Con every turn until they are taken out of the mist. Any character reduced to 0 Con dies.  An unconscious character will revive in 1 turn and be back at normal Con with 1 hour of rest per Con lost.

I the character makes the save, their Con loss is 1 point per hour. These characters will regain Con at the rate of 1 point every 30 mins of rest.

There are three skeletal remains from previous victims here. They have 200 gp, 300 sp,  55 cp, five gems of 5 gp each, and a dagger +1.

 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 3, Room 23

Continuing through the door of Room #23, the hallway continues there is a cell on your immediate right.

Inside this room are three (3) large Giant Crab Spiders. They have maximum hp. Their bite has poison as per the B/X rules.

There is a glow coming from a portal 10' from the ground. If the PCs stay in this room for longer than 1 hour three more crab spiders will appear.

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Another dip into my Monster and Treasure Assortment tonight!