Spider Queen

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the release of Fellowship of the Ring into cinemas. If you don't know which movie trilogy Fellowship opens, first off, welcome to our planet - it's not always this messy, we're going through a rough patch and haven't had chance to clean up in a while. Second, you're going to need to get familiar with The Lord of the Rings if you're going to understand any of our culture for the last twenty years, not just as it relates to science fiction and fantasy (although definitely that), but just in general. Daa, Daa, Da-Da Daaaa There are obvious, close-by examples with which fantasy fans will be familiar. The video game behemoth Skyrim wouldn't have happened, or wouldn't have been recognisable, but for the LotR trilogy. Sure, the Elder Scrolls game series was already a thing, and Skyrim would probably still have been made, but the thing that always struck me about Skyrim was that it was a fantasy rpg that was played not just ...

At the risk of stating the obvious, the B/X cleric is a little underpowered compared to their modern equivalent. Or should I say that the modern cleric is over powered compared to their B/X ancestor? I've blogged before about how the Cleric's niche has been removed by increments, to the point where there's now nothing particularly unique to the class. But this doesn't necessarily diminish the appeal of taking the cloth; the fact that the cleric has no particular specialism in the modern game means that they end up being pretty darn good at everything, arguably embodying the role of kickass warrior-spellcaster much better than either the Paladin or the Arcane Knight, and all without much in the way of religious requirements or limitations. But 'twas not always thus. It seems almost absurd now, but the B/X Cleric started play with no spells. This means that they, in fact, couldn't make use of their trademark healing abilities until several successful dungeon-craw...