Night Howlers

Review:  Night Howlers.  (PC4) By Ann Dupuis.  Published in 1992.

Night Howlers is the fourth and final installment in the Creature Crucible series.  It is about playing were-creatures in the Mystara (Known D&D World) setting.  It provides a location for the adventures (part of a principality in Glantri) but has suggestions for adventures in other locations.

From a construction standpoint.  It is a very solid, well-written product.  It provides rules mechanics and story ideas.  It has suggestions for different kinds of were-creature campaigns from ones that are like Ravenloft to ones that are far sillier.

I am not sure how sustainable a were-creature campaign is but it probably would make for interesting change of pace.  If you are looking to run a D&D werewolves-as-players campaign, this would be an excellent resource.

4 out of 5 stars

Dragonlance alignments

The other night, one of my gaming groups got into a brief discussion of evil in Krynn.  Here is a look at some of the evil alignments of main evil characters in Krynn.

 

LAWFUL EVIL

 

Toede

Gildentongue

Kitiara

Verminaard

Ariakus

 

CHAOTIC EVIL

 

Lord Soth (how he became evil is clearly not a lawful act- but for most of the Chronicles trilogy, he seems fairly obedient- I think he is a little more chaotic in the Legends trilogy.  Chaotic Evil obey those stronger than them if it is expedient to do so.)

Fistandantilus

Raistlin (listed as Neutral as a player character- obviously he was neutral at one point)

Dalamar

 

 

Continuity is surprisingly difficult for settings that are published in such piecemeal fashion.  There are lots of opportunities for errors.  Sure enough-

 

Tales of the Lance lists Fistandantilus as Neutral Evil.  I think perpetually trying to steal the souls of young male apprentices is more a Chaotic Evil act than a Neutral Evil one.  Although Neutral Evil's description is not contrary to Fistandantilus's behavior ("greed").  Chaotic Evil is a better description "the strong have the right to take what they want, and the weak are there to be exploited".  (In fairness it should be noted that Tales of the Lance does claim to be authoritative and overruling previous works.)