I succumbed and bought this earlier than I had expected and was pretty pleased that I had as it's very good.
What's it about? Dragonewts, their culture, their physiology and their magic.
What's in it?
The Essence of Dragonewts is a very short introduction that covers Right Action, Duty and Honour, Ouroboros, Reincarnation and Advancement and Dragonewt Eggs, . This is all interesting and has a lot of new material without straying too far from what has been written before, which makes a refreshing change.
Myths covers Infinity and the Cosmic Dragon, The Grand Ancestral Dragon, The First Utuma, The True Dragons, Hykim and Mikyh, Dinosaurs and Days of Strength and Weakness. These are a combination of myths and ancient history. The myths are good and cover a lot of new material but, unlike a lot of new supplements, still refer to deities of the Gloranthan Court. Anyone who liked Gloranthan Myths will like this.
Dragonewts in the World is an overview of Dragonewt culture. It covers Dragonewts in Glorantha, Dragonewts and Aldryami, Dragonewts and Uz, Dragonewts and the EWF, Dragonewts and the Middle Sea Empire, Dragon Pass, Ralios, Dara Happa, Kralorela, Slontos and Teleos. The regional descriptions cover the Dragonewt Cities, complete with fairly detailed descriptions, different types of cities and major personalities. This is all excellent stuff and could probably be used in the Third Age, with a few changes.
Dragonewt Characters covers the Dragonewts as PC and NPCs. It covers Eggs, General Physiology, Dragonewt Characters, Dragonewt Behaviour, Creating a Dragonewt Character, Dragonewt Statistics, Dragonewt Cultural Backgrounds, Dragonewt Professions, New Base Skills For Dragonewts, Free Skill Points, Names, Dragonewt Weapons, Dragonewt Hide, Utuma and Reincarnation. Whew, that's a hell of a lot to fit into a chapter. It also allows players to play Dragonewts as PCs, something previously frowned upon. It's a solid chapter, very useful for a gaming point of view and very good. There are some issues, of course. The stats for the Inhuman King are woefully inadequate (take the stats of a Ruler Dragonewt and double INT and POW) and STR, CON and SIZ should be multiplied as well. It does, however, give guidelines on how many skill points an Inhuman King has, which can't be bad.
Dragonewt Cults covers exactly what it says, with Cult Descriptions, Adamant Truth Redoubtful, Arangorf Talker Listener, Aroka, The Earth Dragon Way, Empire of Wisdom, Golden Sun Dragon, Green Scaled Father, Night Dragon, One Closed Eye, Sh'kaharzeel and Wondrous Mother of Many. These are good cult descriptions with excellent myths, new forms of magic and reasonably connected cults. It even has some new information on one of my favourites, the Story of Death.
Dragonewts Magic covers the magic of Dragonewts and contains Magical Development, Crested Dragonewts - Rune Magic, Dragon magic, Dragon Effect Traits & Descriptions and Ancestor Magic. Once again, all solid stuff. Dragon Magic is more powerful than the EWF equivalents. Ancestor Magic has Future Questing which is a very intriguing idea. This is excellent and should make Dragonewts strong adversaries.
Dinosaurs and Dream Dragons contains Dragonewts and Dinosaurs, Dinosaur Types, The Magisaur Curse and Dream Dragons. These have impressive stats and nobody in their right mind would want to meet these critters. It doesn't mention Dragonewts being reborn as Dinosaurs, something that was stated in previous works, which is a shame but not a massive one.
Dragonewt Voices contains the now standard question and answer session for Crested Dragonewt, Beaked Dragonewt, Noble Dragonewt, Ruler Dragonewt, The Inhuman King and Barbarian Dragonewt. These are interesting, I suppose, but I was left fairly cold by them,, to tell the truth.
So, there we are. A very good supplement, much better than the RQ Trolls supplement. It has a lot of new material, a lot of familiar material and a lot of interesting material.
If you are interested in Glorantha or Dragonewts then this is a must. If you want a fascinating supplement about draconic humanoids, then this is worth buying.
I'd give it an A, Excellent, and a Buy It of 95%.
Well done, Loz.
