Kobold Quarterly #13 just released and reviewers are posting their comments. Find out what the buzz is about.
Great artwork, interesting articles, loaded with fun…
Tom Allman gave it 5 stars at DriveThruRPG.
And…
[Monte] Cook, the famed havoc mage, rambles for pages on his theories of the Unknown, and ought to fascinate even the sanest among you, and is matched only by the vulgar rantings of Mario Podeschi in his essay on sex and romance—both men write admirably on how to enhance the private worlds we mages spin.
Read the full review at Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.
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“Ecology of the Shoggoth” by Phillip Larwood… These grotesque creatures embody chaos itself and leave a path of destruction and insanity in their wake. Larwood introduces the concept of cults to these strange creatures who actually feed and worship them… not the kind of folks you want to take home to eat meet your mother.
And if that wasn’t enough to scare your players, Aeryn Rudel describes the properties of some of the Cthulhu elder god and some of the qualities of their worshippers in his article “Lovecraftian Gods.”
If you’re looking for inspiration as a player or a GM, look no further than an issue of Kobold Quarterly, past or present. Every time I crack open a copy I learn something new or find a new way to look at things…
Read the full review at Moebius Adventures and Blogcritics.
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Who doesn’t want to stick a Cult of Nyarlathotep under a tavern in the Realms?
“Scions of Shadow”… to me this was the most interesting article. Basically your progenitors make nice with the Shadows and the whole family pays the price. Like it!
Last is a nifty underwater adventure seed. I like the idea and the map. I might use this to kick off my Sword and Sorcery/Cthulhu Mythos TPK. Oops, I meant adventure.
Read the full review in 3 parts at The Vorpal Spork: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
And…
First thing worth mentioning is the very randy and very sexy cover by Malcolm McClinton, it was worth a double take, and I’m sure it’s there to complement the article on sex and romance in your fantasy rpg game.
There’s some good stuff in here for players and DM’s of both D&D 4e and Pathfinder, but the best stuff in the magazine for me was the system neutral stuff, especially the Dragon Age stuff. There is a Chris Pramas interview (the designer of Green Ronin’s Dragon Age RPG) and a conversion for using Dragon Age with Green Ronin’s Freeport flagship city setting. It looks like the engine behind Dragon Age, which is d6 based, will be applied for other games later on, and that’s pretty exciting as I’ve had the chance to mess a bit with Dragon Age and I like it.
Read the full review at NewbieDM.
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“Lovecraftian Gods” by Aeryn Rudel—who I must admit I’ve become quite a fan of his work—has a great article about adding terrible elder gods to your D&D campaign. He even includes Channel Divinity powers and magic items for use by Characters that are devoted to the likes of Azathoth and Nyarlathotep! Clearly, because most of these entities are profoundly evil, they will not be useful in some campaigns by Player-Characters, but it still has uses by DMs to create mad NPC cultists. The artwork of the Clerics of these horrid “divinities” by Cory Trego-Erdner is superb, and quite inspirational—in a scary lovecraftian kinda way.
“Gambler’s Magic: Wondrous Items of Chance” by John Flemming is a great D&D 4E article, introducing a range of wondrous items that are based upon enchanted game pieces —dice, tokens, coins, etc. The items are really nicely thought out, and present all manner of possibilities to add them to a campaign. Given that several of these items have attacks, they could represent a great “holdout” weapon, like say, in a place where swords and daggers might be confiscated at the door. Very well written ideas here!
Read the full review at Neuroglyph Games.
We’ve got a little something for everybody. Pick up your own copy of Kobold Quarterly #13.
