Rule Your World!

Stake your claim! In the anarchic hills and valleys of the River Kingdoms, all you own is what you can hold by force. Dozens of nations flourish in this land of outlaws and scoundrels, from high-walled city-states to tiny tribal enclaves, and any hero with strength and vision can claim a throne at the point of a sword. Here secretive druids protect ancient forests, and downtrodden refugees and exiles cast longing eyes toward lost homelands.

The Play's the Thing

To banish the monstrous shadows that stalk Westcrown by night, the PCs go undercover, joining the city’s chaotic theatrical community in an elaborate plot to infiltrate the estate of the decadent lord-mayor. Yet theater life turns deadly when they become players in a spectacle no actor has ever survived. Can the PCs endure their debut performance in a city where an actor’s first big hit is often his last?

Ecology of the Phantom Fungus - Scott Gable
True Paladins - Richard Pett
Knights and Pawns - David Schwartz
Secret Messages - Tim Connors
Blood Magic - Phillip Larwood
Ioun Stones - Jonathan Drain
The Alchemist's Lair - Darrin Drader and Sean MacDonald
The Clockwork Oracle - Wolfgang Baur

Kobold-in-Chief Wolfgang Baur
Advertising & Sales Ed Healy

Blacksink Marsh has always had an ill reputation. The thorns that grow there are poisonous, beasts and changed things rove the waters, lurking in wait for foolish travelers, and the twisted descendants of an accursed tribe hunt beneath the dark canopy of black willow trees. Explorers tell of strange crumbling buildings suddenly happened upon at dusk and vanishing with the last red rays of the sun, and gators who walk on two legs and drown men from a far with a mere glance. Something has risen from the mire and walked clumsily onto the lands of men.

Old Korvosa is under quarantine, a sprawling slum contained by roadblocks and guardposts manned by remorseless Hellknights and sinister plague doctors. While the rest of Korvosa stifles under an increasingly brutal martial law, the quarantined streets of Old Korvosa descend into true bedlam. Yet the one man who may hold the truth behind the perils that have brought Korvosa to its knees is lost inside the quarantine zone.

Ecology of the Lich - Richard Pett
Arcane Spectacular - Star & Shadow Magic - Wolfgang Baur
Princes of Hell - Arbeyach, Prince of Swarms - Ari Marmell
Dungeon Design - Hardboiled Adventure - Keith Baker
Kobold Diplomacy - Edtime Stores: Ed Greenwood
Character Design - Optimizing Power Attack - Jonathan Drain
Character Design - More than Dragon's Blood - John E. Ling, Jr.
Flashing Blades - Ask the Kobold: Q&A - Skip Williams
Flashing Blades - Up the Action! Cinematic Combat - Benjamin Hayward

A sudden string of brutal killings terrorizes Sandpoint, and the killer’s mark bears a disturbing similarity to the strange rune the goblins in the previous adventure had taken as their tribal totem. Investigation leads the heroes to confront a sinister murderer who has claimed a notorious haunted mansion as his lair. Yet this murderer is one of many, a member of a group of killers who call themselves the Skinsaw Men and have adopted an ancient magic involving the seven deadly sins.

This special issue of Dragon magazine contains 128 advertising-free pages of the best ecology articles from the past three years. Drawing from the ongoing and popular "Monster Ecologies" series, this giant collection features new rules, art, details, and encounters for some of the most fearsome and fantastic monsters in the history of Dungeons & Dragons.

Serpents of Scuttlecove - Richard Pett
The Sea Wyvern sets sail for a city whose streets are more savage than the darkest jungle of the Isle of Dread. Scuttlecove awaits! A Savage Tide Adventure Path scenario for 15th-level characters.

Escape from Meenlock Prison - Tim and Eileen Connors
What was supposed to be a simple prisoner transfer grows complicated when the PCs arrive at a prison that’s recently come under new management. A D&D adventure for 1st-level characters.