Sample File Palpable

CONTENTS 3 KING OF THE MONSTERS 29 WONDROUS WEAVINGS By Stan! By Jennifer Clarke Wilkes It’s the end of the world as we know it. Deck the halls with the finest tapestries. 4 THE TARRASQUE 35 INNS IN AN INSTANT By Jeff LaSala By John Hasznosi Learn the secrets of this primordial, Inns and taverns made easy. party-eating monstrosity. 49 THE WIDOW’S SPIRIT 9 THE END IS NIGH! By Rodney Thompson By Dennis Johnson She’ll make you wish you were dead, too. MeetSample the new and improved file tarrasque and its twisted cult following. 52 THE WINTER OF THE WORLD 13 YE OLDE CREATURE By Keith Baker CATALOGUE Beware the bogeymen of the Eldeen woods. By Tim Eagon Behold four monsters plucked from the Palace of the Silver Princess, the halls of 55 THE HIGH PRIEST Castle Amber, and other classic dungeons. OF BEHOLDERS By Ed Greenwood 21 BACKDROP: HOCHOCH Meet the eye tyrants’ number-one fan. By Claudio Pozas Visit a town in dire need of adventurers. ON THE COVER: Craig J Spearing rocks your world with his awesome illustration of the terrible tarrasque. TM EDITORIAL 418 DRAGON December 2012 King of the Monsters Senior Producer Christopher Perkins By Stan! Producers Greg Bilsland, Stan! Managing Editors Kim Mohan, Miranda Horner Here is it, the end of the year—plus, if you believe Of course, there’s more to our “Doom and Gloom” the doomsayers, the end of the world. In honor of issue than just the tarrasque. In Eye on the Realms, Development and Editing Lead Jeremy Crawford the close of the Mayan long-count calendar, and the you’ll meet the self-styled Priest of the Beholders. Developers Tanis O’Connor, Chris Sims mystic apocalypse that some claim this event augurs, In Eye on Eberron, you’ll travel with the Children Senior Creative Director Jon Schindehette we’ve made this month’s theme “Doom and Gloom.” of Winter, whose goal is nothing less than bringing and to set the right tone, we’ve included a pair of about the end of the world. There’s also a “Backdrop” Art Director Kate Irwin articles about one of my favorite D&D monsters of all article that takes us to the city of Hochoch in Grey- Publishing Production Manager Angie Lokotz time—the tarrasque! hawk, and “Wondrous Weavings,” which presents a There’s pretty much just one tarrasque adventure collection of enchanted tapestries. Digital Studio Consultant Daniel Helmick plot, and it goes something like this: The tarrasque Unfortunately, this issue also marks the end of my Contributing Authors Keith Baker, Jennifer wakes up and starts smashing everything within involvement with Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Clarke Wilkes, Tim Eagon, reach. Everyone else in the surrounding countryside It’s rare, after you’ve been in the industry as long as I Ed Greenwood, John tries to survive. Most do not. have, to be able to find a project that fulfills a lifelong Hasznosi, Dennis Johnson, In many ways, the tarrasque is like my favorite dream (one only has so many lifelong dreams to go Jeff LaSala, Claudio Pozas, movie monster, Toho Studios’ venerable “King of the around), but this one has. I’ve been a fan of Dragon Rodney Thompson Monsters,” Godzilla. And the similarities are more since I first encountered it in the early 1980s, and it Contributing Editors Michele Carter, Scott Fitzgerald than just superficial. Sure, they’re both titanic liz- was a moment of intense pride to see my signature Gray, Tanis O’Connor, ards that, while similar to dinosaurs, clearly stand gracing the editorial page, where so many names Penny Williams apart and aboveSample that classification. file However, both are I’ve known and respected for years have previously more than mere gigantic beasts—they each represent resided. I’m honored to have played a part in the his- Contributing Artists Zoltan Boros, Christopher the unbridled fury of an aggrieved primal force of tory of this great gaming institution, even for just a Burdett, Matt Dixon, Tony Foti, nature. With the Big G, it’s Mother Earth wounded by few short months. Aaron Miller, Hector Ortiz, Chris nuclear weapons, while the tarrasque is quite literally The time has come for me to step away from my Seaman, Phill Simmer, Craig J the personification of the primordials’ rage at having duties at Wizards of the Coast for at least a little Spearing, Ben Wootten been pushed aside by the gods. while. But I’ll still be around, just on the other side of Cartography Mike Schley When the tarrasque shows up, the best the PCs the metaphorical DM screen. So thank you for letting can do is redirect its rage so that it doesn’t flatten me join you around the gaming table. I hope we’ll get innocent towns and villages. And even if they do to do it again soon. manage a victory over the creature, it merely slips back into a long slumber, from which it will even- Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, D&D Insider, their tually rise and begin rampaging again. In the end, respective logos, D&D, Dungeon, and Dragon are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the USA and other countries. ©2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC. maybe that’s what I like best about the tarrasque. It This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States presents heroes with a genuine conundrum. Do they of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written selflessly protect innocent lives, or simply try to save permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC. This product is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events their own? What are they willing to risk in order to is purely coincidental. stop the apocalypse that the tarrasque represents? History Check: The Tarrasque By Jeff LaSala Illustration by Craig J Spearing The script was elegant, unhurried, composed by the steady hand of an educated man in seeming possession of his fac- ulties. The pages had been neatly gathered, rolled into a scroll case of bone capped with silver, and delivered to the queen’s agent directly. Its writer and sender, purportedly an archmage, elected to remain anonymous. The courier relayed only this description of his client: a figure in gray, cowled and soft- spoken, whose certainty of purpose was so strong as to be Sample file palpable. Here follow the words that make up his attempt to understand the tarrasque, and his effort to pass that knowl- edge on. SOLE SURVIVOR You think you know monsters. You may spend your life battling aberrations in subterranean realms, demons in blasphemous temples, or angels in the astral skies. You may even have slain dragons. But you have never seen the wrath of a true monster—one that devils and archons alike would shy from, a beast that slumbers now in a place so remote even the deep-dwelling drow cannot fathom it. I have looked into the soulless eyes of the Great Beast, and it looked back into mine. Whether by fate TM & © 2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. December 2012 | DRAGON 418 4 History Check: The Tarrasque or fortune, I have been spared its teeth and the acidic higher and deeper—into the enmity between the gods divine prison, and the archomentals retreated into razors of its gullet. I have lived to tell the tale. and primordials, which began with the Dawn War. the depths of the Elemental Chaos to thwart their The monster gave no warning when it emerged It was in the hoard of Arvvestrix the Black, a enemies—but before they fled, they hatched a plan from beneath the countryside of my father’s land, wyrm of singular notoriety, that I found a rare book. to birth the most terrible monster the world has then quickly destroyed a nearby farm and devoured The writing was in the Supernal script, the language ever seen. every living occupant. In less than a day, the barony of astral and divine beings, and the author spoke was ravaged by its hunger: meadows and forests knowingly, seemingly at first hand, about the Dawn WEAPON IN WAITING trampled and desecrated, livestock and game swal- War. Now, I have read many texts about that mythic lowed or driven away. Our keep, which had withstood conflict in the Age Before Ages, but most of them are All wars beget new weapons. Conflict is the father of peasant uprisings and enemy sieges for centuries, contradictory and slanderous—the propaganda of one invention, after all. In the midst of its cosmic strife, crumbled under the fury of the tarrasque. faith or another. This tome, however, was different, the Dawn War propagated many abominations— I alone survived, whether by happenstance or and from its pages came the foundation of my quest living weapons used by both sides, some of which still some greater design. Was my escape from death a for answers. lurk in forgotten or familiar places. Atropals, astral sign? I began to believe so, and I became grateful not The world began with the primordials, elemental stalkers, phanes . the list goes on, and mortals are only for my continued life but also for the opportunity beings of godlike power, whose works were violent fortunate if they never meet a single one of them. The that my survival afforded me: The appearance of the and ever-changing. When the gods arrived and tarrasque was the last and unquestionably the most tarrasque on my family’s land set me on the path of shaped the churning chaos into a hospitable, stable powerful of these new weapons of war.

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