This review concerns the 1999 edition of the Council of Wyrms setting, published to celebrate the Silver Anniversary of TSR. The cover claims that it is "Updated and Expanded from the Original Boxed Set!". Said boxed set was published in 1994 and all I know is that it contained three books and some other stuff. I do not know in what way the original product was enhanced.
The scales of the dragon: Appearances
The Council of Wyrms setting is now presented in one hardcover book with 208 pages. The front cover is by Brom and depicts a dragon having just won a struggle by Wing and Claw in front of the Council. The interior art is mostly black-and-white and done by Arnie Swekel (design & pencils) and Glen Angus (inks). Swekel also drew the thirteen full colour pages depicting the dragon races, kindred, kits and NPCs in the back. I like the dragons, for every type of dragon is distinct in appearance: which is as it should be. I don't like the priest and mage dragons, however, for they look silly and awkward.
Dragons as player characters?
Yes, you heard it right. This book gives you all you need to play a dragon and not just as a monster to be fought or an NPC to be dealt with: you can play a dragon as your player character. Mr Slavicsek tells us that "the introduction of such powerful PCs into the game setting is not something to be handled lightly", and rightly so. A dragon, fresh out of the egg, has at least 5 hit dice and at most 10 hit dice. As if this ain't enough, a golden Great Wyrm has 24 hit dice.
You probably deduced from my tone that I don't like this — and you're right. The awesome might and majesty of dragons, should, in my eyes, be reserved for NPCs. Dragons should be the ultimate enigma in a fantasy world, a mystery best kept at a good distance. Apparently, TSR did not hold the same opinion, and the fact that the setting was re-released is also saying something. (How much this reissue is a direct consequence of the 1994 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Adventure the boxed set received is another question.) A dragon PC is probably a wet dream of many AD&D players, but not one of mine. Just thought that you should know.
What's inside this Campaign Option?
That out of the way, let's get on with the contents of this book. It's divided into a brief introduction, three main sections and an appendix.
The Rules of Dragons
This first section is concerned solely with the rules. It lets you build a dragon, a half-dragon or dragon kindred (I'll get back to the latter two further on). We get a grand total of fifteen different dragons: 5 metallic, good dragons; 5 chromatic, evil dragons and 5 gem, neutral dragons. That's right: the type of dragon you play dictates your alignment. It also dictates your ability modifiers, your type of breath weapon, your hit dice, your admitted classes, your preferred kindred, your level progression, etc. Almost everything is based on race. Almost every rule makes this division and introduces another table. For instance, the bonus proficiencies get one table, for each type of dragon gets another bonus. It's a quick way to raise your word count and adds little.
Enough bitching for now. As I said, the first section is all about rules. Rules for dragon combat (new combat proficiencies like Aerial Combat, Claw Attack, Plummet and Stall), new and revised noncombat proficiencies (Debate, Danger Sense) and Kits. The majority of the contents goes to dragons, but we also get some information on half-dragons and kindred. Half-dragons are the youth of a polymorphed male dragon and a female demihuman. Half-dragons are considered inferior (at least) or as abominations that should be killed at birth (at worst). They are very much outsiders, but outsiders with some powerful abilities to balance it. An interesting class, but the book doesn't give them much time. You can read more about them, however, in this RTF file from Wizards of the Coast's site.
As a third option we get dragon kindred. These are elves, dwarves or gnomes that have bonded with dragons to form a kind of master-vassal relationship. In a campaign, you can alternately play the dragon and its kindred. This makes for great contrast. An interesting idea, which is lamentably left unexplored and vague.
A Dragon Campaign
The middle section introduces Io's Blood Isles as the setting the book is built upon. Io's Blood Isles are an area on world. The rest of the world is kept vague: we only know that to the north and south there is a land of Giants. Obviously this is to prevent the powerful dragon PCs to wander around in the rest of the world. We get a write-up of many dragon clans and the lands they govern.
Next is a the actual Council of Wyrms: the organisation of all 15 dragon types that is the supreme authority in all things dragon. Once, the great god Io sent a race of human dragonslayers against his children to punish them for their petty, bloody disputes. To teach dragonkind its proper place. These dragonslayers nearly wiped out dragonkind before the clans united and killed almost each and every dragonslayer. The Council was formed to prevent disputes growing into war. Duels between clan champions are now the way to decide who's right. There's a lot more to tell, but I won't do that — it's the meatiest part of the book and one of the few things to make this product interesting. (Come to think about it, a campaign set in the times when dragonslayers attacked dragonkind would be interesting indeed...)
Chapter Seven and Eight give you good advice on how to run a dragon campaign. How do you make a campaign for creatures for who one life stage spans an entire life for the normal races? You'll find the answer here, along with information on how dragons are connected to their hoards, how they see time and all that. What we don't get is information on what would interest such a powerful being enough to go adventuring.
Dragon Adventures
To get an idea of that, we need to turn the pages to Section Three. It includes four adventures for dragons which are loosely connected. Each adventure is for higher-level dragons than the previous and assumes that some adventures have taken place between them. The adventures are not much more than skeletons which the DM needs to flesh out. I applaud this approach: there's more place now for other things and it's a fair assumption that the only DM to try and run this kind of high-level campaign has a lot of experience already.
The first adventure is a nice one. The PCs are just getting out of their eggs when a band of ogres is stealing the eggs. A nice introduction and one with a bang. It doesn't waste any time and the players have to learn quickly what it means to play a dragon, while the characters are learning what it means to be a dragon.
The second adventure involves some negotiation and detective work. It also introduces some NPCs who will reappear in the third and fourth adventure. It's OK.
Sad to say, the two remaining adventures are pure hack-and-slash dungeon crawls. Sure, they're high-level dungeon crawls with powerful PCs fighting enormous enemies, but they're dungeon crawls all the same. Boring. Surely there's something more to do when you're the king of monsters, a god on earth, the personification of majestic might? Too bad the author dropped the ball after the excellent first adventure.
Appendix
Here we finally find the dragon slayer and the slayer mage kit, the Dragon Sage kit and monster for dragons to fight: an Undead Dragon Slayer. Following these kits is a three-page Random Spell Generator for Dragon PCs, THAC0 and Saving Throw tables and four pages of encounter tables. Closing the appendix are six different one-page character sheets.
At the very back of the book is the full-colour section containing the pictures I mentioned above.
In the eye of the dragon: Conclusion
All things considered, this book just seems to do no good with me. OK, I don't like the goal the Council of Wyrms sets out to achieve, which is making dragons available as player characters. Apart from that, I found the execution rather poor. Lots and lots of descriptions of 15 dragon races, which are very similar in some cases. It glosses over the interesting options of having dragon kindred and the possibility of half-dragons, instead giving 15 types and god knows how many clans. This leads to lots of tables and rules. I liked the new proficiencies and the dragon mythology/history. The actual Council was also quite good, but frightfully brief. Campaign information and advice, about the only thing worthwhile, is crammed into 15 pages. The adventures can't save this Campaign Setting, either. Apart from the excellent first adventure and the moderate second adventure, we get two dungeon crawls. Too bad.
No my cup of tea at all. Maybe it's somebody else's.
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