AC10 Bestiary of Dragons and Giants
I just picked up this module/accessory thing and I’m really excited to run some of the adventures in it, since they are very appropriate to the area. This work has a bunch of adventures of scaling difficulty with giants or dragons. Take, as one example, dragons. In the Wyrmsteeth Range, adjacent to one of Alzar’s hexes in the southern part of his area, are more than 1000 dragons. Most people nearby don’t realize just how many there are, because a few of the oldest and most powerful of the dragons have sort of forced most of the dragons to raid and feed far away from home, and thus most locals would put the numbers in the hundreds, not the thousands. Meanwhile, the Island of Frosthaven alone has thousands of frost giants living there, and there are numerous giants in the Ljallenvals, right next door to Alzar.
Including this makes a lot of sense. I can’t tell you how excited I am…
Meanwhile, the AC series is an accessory one for the D&D line. They are very inconsistent with their concepts. Some of the accessories are just a book that gives you more of a certain group of awesome – the Creature Catalog is just more creatures, the Book of Marvelous Magic is a bunch of magical items, and so forth. Another common theme is an accessory with a quick 7 or 8 page adventure as well. The DM Master Screen, AC7, Comes with the Spindle of Heaven adventure (which I think we’ll play later on) and others (such as adventures in tile sets and such.). The Shady Dragon Inn simply gives you vignettes of more than 100 NPCs you can slip into your campaign and so forth. This one has some rules, but is almost all mini-adventures.
One set of rules is about the nature of flying and the use of weapons and spells. I had always just assumed that the Carpet of Flying would allow someone to cast spells and fire missiles without issue, but something like a Broom of Flying wouldn’t. And I’m right! There’s a while page for which steeds and which magical items and which spells provide what is referred to as a “steady platform.” And then it also gives which things enable a “swoop” melee attack, which I had also assumed a Carpet could do. And again, I’m right! Some can do a swoop, but not steady – Broom of Flying, Wyvern. Some can be steady, but can’t swoop – Air Elemental, Levitate spell. Some do both – Flying Carpet, Fly spell, Roc. Some do neither – Vampire, Cockatrice, etc. So you can’t ride a vampire and fire weapons, sorry! It’s an awesome section for rules.
One of which is set right here, and I personally picked up to run….