Welcome back to Let’s Dissect D&D 2e’s Dragons!
After bearing witness to some truly severe anti-draconic stereotypes, we’ve reached the halfway point of this hella long entry. Let’s see if it can get any worse from here.
Dragon Hide: Dragon skin is prized by armorers with the skill to turn it into shields and armor, valuable because of its appearance and the protection it affords. Dragon armor grants its wearer an Armor Class of 4 less than the Armor Class of the dragon it was taken from, for a minimum Armor Class of 8.
Yes, it sure can.
Who the fuck wrote this, Ed Gein?!
These are sapient beings you’re talking about skinning and making clothes from! I don’t see you talking about making elf-hide purses, or using dwarf skulls as ashtrays.
For example, armor from a juvenile brass dragon (AC O) grants its wearer AC 4. Dragon armor is supple and non-bulky, weighing only 25 pounds.
Who fucking statted up the properties of armor made from children? And they don’t even get the “oh, it’s an EVIL colored dragon, so it’s okay” excuse, since they clearly mention a brass dragon.
Are we going to talk about how to harvest dragon fat for lamp oil, next? How about tips on what spices go best with braised dragon tail?
I get the feeling the only reason these degenerates stopped just short of talking about how to make stuffed dragon heads into waterspouts is because they were running out of page le—
Hang on, Mikks is yapping about adding something… Dragon Magazine #332? Page 49?
Let's Dissect the 2e Monster Manual's Dragons! - General, Part 1
After reading a few entries from Your Dungeon is Problematic, I felt compelled to write my own take on a few entries. Namely, the dragons.
They’re what the game’s named after, after all (though it’s bizarre that it took them so many editions before they finally made them a standard player race)!
I’ve reached out to the author of that blog through the same crazy mojo that lets me post shit back in time in the first place, and maybe, MAYBE we’ll get ourselves a crossover post. Who knows!
As a heads-up, this will be referencing real-world racism, simply by necessity, so… there’s your warning to back out if you’re not interested. I promise I won't be too preachy.
At any rate, I’ve rarin' to tear into the AD&D 2e Monster Manual, myself.
Why 2e in particular? Because 2e's MM has so much content that's just hella fun to riff on. I blame noisms' 2e MM thread for making me love it. You can pick a page at random from that massive fucking tome, and the chances are high you'll strike gold.
While later editions have a lot of the same problems, they're presented in a tidier, less cheesy format. Without 2e's cheese, you're just pointing out problematic elements in an otherwise solid work. And frankly, that's not fun. And if it's not fun, it doesn't belong on this blog.
Meanwhile, the 1e MM is rather terse and non-judgmental with its descriptions. Oh, sure, it’ll tell you Black Dragons are “Chaotic evil”, but it won’t slander them any further.
2e, however, makes no bones about how exaggeratedly eeeeeeeevil its “evil” monsters are, describing in hateful detail everything from how they love kicking puppies and not showering to how they lust after yo’ elf women.
Well, I ain’t letting that shit slide!
You listen here, Mr. Tim Beach, Doug Stewart, Slade Henson, Thomas Reid, Jeff Grubb, Wolfgang Baur, Jon Pickens, John Rateliff!
You appropriate our image and name, you cast us as the bad guys, and now you slander us with your blood libel?!
Well, COWBOYS, I ain’t gonna take that!
It’s time for this dragon to sass your asses!
Let’s do this!
First up, we have “Dragon, General.”
This entry is long, and not really structured like the other ones, so think of this as the prelude to the massive roast I’m about to dish out.
They’re what the game’s named after, after all (though it’s bizarre that it took them so many editions before they finally made them a standard player race)!
I’ve reached out to the author of that blog through the same crazy mojo that lets me post shit back in time in the first place, and maybe, MAYBE we’ll get ourselves a crossover post. Who knows!
As a heads-up, this will be referencing real-world racism, simply by necessity, so… there’s your warning to back out if you’re not interested. I promise I won't be too preachy.
At any rate, I’ve rarin' to tear into the AD&D 2e Monster Manual, myself.
Why 2e in particular? Because 2e's MM has so much content that's just hella fun to riff on. I blame noisms' 2e MM thread for making me love it. You can pick a page at random from that massive fucking tome, and the chances are high you'll strike gold.
While later editions have a lot of the same problems, they're presented in a tidier, less cheesy format. Without 2e's cheese, you're just pointing out problematic elements in an otherwise solid work. And frankly, that's not fun. And if it's not fun, it doesn't belong on this blog.
Meanwhile, the 1e MM is rather terse and non-judgmental with its descriptions. Oh, sure, it’ll tell you Black Dragons are “Chaotic evil”, but it won’t slander them any further.
2e, however, makes no bones about how exaggeratedly eeeeeeeevil its “evil” monsters are, describing in hateful detail everything from how they love kicking puppies and not showering to how they lust after yo’ elf women.
Well, I ain’t letting that shit slide!
You listen here, Mr. Tim Beach, Doug Stewart, Slade Henson, Thomas Reid, Jeff Grubb, Wolfgang Baur, Jon Pickens, John Rateliff!
You appropriate our image and name, you cast us as the bad guys, and now you slander us with your blood libel?!
Well, COWBOYS, I ain’t gonna take that!
It’s time for this dragon to sass your asses!
Let’s do this!
First up, we have “Dragon, General.”
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| Sadly, the MM doesn't have an illo of a dragon in this section, so I'll just use this public domain stud, courtesy of LadyofHats. |
DRAGONET Mini-Reviews
So, while my other articles have been gestating, I noticed that the ones that seemed closest to realization weren’t game-related.
Two consecutive non-game-related articles in a row after joining Game & Love didn’t seem right, so I figured I’d throw together a few quickie reviews for pre-Fusion Earth games starring dragons in a new bit called:
Same rules as my “Dragons as Protagonists” (Prodragonists?) series apply:
1. The main player character must be a dragon (with exactly one exception I'll be getting to later). No dragon riders allowed.
2. NO SHIFTERS. Shifters do not count as dragons. To define a shifter: a shifter is a dragon that can take on human or mostly-human form. Dragons taking anthro form is fine, so long as it's an anthro dragon like in real life. Exceptions can be made for games where 100% of the actual gameplay loop is spent as a dragon (a la Dragon Spirit).
3. I must finish at least one round of gameplay before starting the review.
4. Given that these are video games, I'm not going to knock them for being inaccurate. Back then, there was no "inaccurate". As long as the game itself is solid, I will look over any breaks from reality.
For each of these, I’ve adapted The CRPG Addict’s [link: https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/] GIMLET system, in my case called DRAGONET.
Categories 1-6 are given a score from 1 to 10.
Two consecutive non-game-related articles in a row after joining Game & Love didn’t seem right, so I figured I’d throw together a few quickie reviews for pre-Fusion Earth games starring dragons in a new bit called:
Same rules as my “Dragons as Protagonists” (Prodragonists?) series apply:
1. The main player character must be a dragon (with exactly one exception I'll be getting to later). No dragon riders allowed.
2. NO SHIFTERS. Shifters do not count as dragons. To define a shifter: a shifter is a dragon that can take on human or mostly-human form. Dragons taking anthro form is fine, so long as it's an anthro dragon like in real life. Exceptions can be made for games where 100% of the actual gameplay loop is spent as a dragon (a la Dragon Spirit).
3. I must finish at least one round of gameplay before starting the review.
4. Given that these are video games, I'm not going to knock them for being inaccurate. Back then, there was no "inaccurate". As long as the game itself is solid, I will look over any breaks from reality.
For each of these, I’ve adapted The CRPG Addict’s [link: https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/] GIMLET system, in my case called DRAGONET.
Categories 1-6 are given a score from 1 to 10.
My Incident in the Krassartha Tundra
Even dragons get tired of lying around in our hoards, soaking in
the endless praises of our beloved kobolds.
My jikhri wasn’t a problem today, either.
I just felt like seeing the world, flying off into the wild teal yonder. One of my favorite places to fly, from time to time, is the Krassartha Tundra. The way the light plays through the ice, the clarity of the night skies letting you see the stars brighter than anywhere else…
All in all, it’s nice to get out of your element, away from civilization (yeah, yeah, me, Mr. Lives-in-a-Mountain talking about being away from civilization).
After spending the day sightseeing, stopping to take a quick nap wherever I found shelter, and munching on just enough rations (read: Mr. Kindle bars and a thermos of homemade kobold egg soup, courtesy of my roomie Mikks) to refuel my fire, I stopped to get a drink from the river.
Big mistake.
What happened next was almost instantaneous; in that moment, a massive chunk of ice chipped off, and before my reflexes could let me dart away in time, it fell into the water, sending a huge wave of water right at me, freezing me in place as the water flash-froze.
My jikhri wasn’t a problem today, either.
I just felt like seeing the world, flying off into the wild teal yonder. One of my favorite places to fly, from time to time, is the Krassartha Tundra. The way the light plays through the ice, the clarity of the night skies letting you see the stars brighter than anywhere else…
All in all, it’s nice to get out of your element, away from civilization (yeah, yeah, me, Mr. Lives-in-a-Mountain talking about being away from civilization).
After spending the day sightseeing, stopping to take a quick nap wherever I found shelter, and munching on just enough rations (read: Mr. Kindle bars and a thermos of homemade kobold egg soup, courtesy of my roomie Mikks) to refuel my fire, I stopped to get a drink from the river.
Big mistake.
What happened next was almost instantaneous; in that moment, a massive chunk of ice chipped off, and before my reflexes could let me dart away in time, it fell into the water, sending a huge wave of water right at me, freezing me in place as the water flash-froze.
 |
| My artistic impression of how I must've looked. Click here for full size. |
The Disjointed, Nihilistic Pantomime of Sonic 2 8-Bit (Warning for LOTS of images)
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| Literally only one thing on this cover ever actually happens in this game. |
The confidence this guy exudes, his unflinching can-do attitude in the face of impossible odds, and his free-spirited nature always resonated with my soft-scaled, awkward self ever since my hands first formed.
It only makes sense, then, that the second post on this blog would be about the 8-bit game that calls itself Sonic 2! Except it isn't, because it has nothing to do with that game apart from having the same name.
None of the improvements Sonic 2 introduced to the series are in this game: no Spin Dash, no Super Sonic, no Death Egg. This is as barebones a sequel to the first game as you could imagine.
As a first outing from Aspect, who later went on to create the beloved Sonic Chaos and Triple Trouble, Sonic 2 8-bit is... lacking. Yet, it's always stuck in the back of my mind, ever since I got my paws on a Game Gear as a hatchie (those scratches and minor scorch marks were there when I got it, I swear).
This game has a bizarre quality to it that I've never been able to pin down. It keeps me coming back to it every so often, soaking in its surreal, now-comfortingly hostile atmosphere.
Somehow, by virtue of sloppy game design, a few half-baked ideas, and bizarre decisions on the part of the development team, this game accidentally becomes a powerful nihilistic pantomime.
Reviewing Pre-Fusion Earth Lit with Dragons as Protagonists
In what I'm assuming will be
the first in a series of posts, I'll be reviewing some pre-Fusion Earth literature
wherein the main character is a dragon. I have a bit of a fascination with pre-Fusion Earth fantasy and its history.
The reason I'm doing this is, in any list of "dragon books" or "books about dragons" from that time period, you seldom see us as the main characters. We may be a crucial plot point, but more often than not, the protagonist is a non-dragon, or worse.... a shifter.
So, I have taken it on myself to write reviews of books from the era wherein we're the protagonists.
If nothing else, it might be enlightening to think about how humans envisioned our fantasy counterparts at the time.
The reason I'm doing this is, in any list of "dragon books" or "books about dragons" from that time period, you seldom see us as the main characters. We may be a crucial plot point, but more often than not, the protagonist is a non-dragon, or worse.... a shifter.
So, I have taken it on myself to write reviews of books from the era wherein we're the protagonists.
If nothing else, it might be enlightening to think about how humans envisioned our fantasy counterparts at the time.
An Introduction
Rawr!
This is Paphvul, dragon extraordinaire, and this blog is where I'll be posting anything I can think of, be it reviews, rambles, or random ideas.
One topic I love to write about is Earth's pre-Fusion pop-culture, particularly the strange and obscure, as looked back at through a queer, draconic lens.
As for me, IRL I'm a Flesh mage who does body mods for a living, and I like my men the way I like my steak (juicy and swimming in gravy).
This is Paphvul, dragon extraordinaire, and this blog is where I'll be posting anything I can think of, be it reviews, rambles, or random ideas.
One topic I love to write about is Earth's pre-Fusion pop-culture, particularly the strange and obscure, as looked back at through a queer, draconic lens.
As for me, IRL I'm a Flesh mage who does body mods for a living, and I like my men the way I like my steak (juicy and swimming in gravy).
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