Publisher: Paizo Publishing

Dragons were awesome before awesome meant cool. Paizo tries to define these creatures and their role in Golarion in this Pathfinder Chronicles sourcebook.

 

 

Expectations

Dragons aren’t actually in the title of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, unlike Dungeons & Dragons. So while dragons naturally serve as the backbone of the generic fantasy setting D&D takes place in, the same does not necessarily have to be true for Pathfinder’s fantasy setting Golarion. It will be interesting to find out if and how the option to have dragons a less influential race is explored. Either way, based on Paizo’s track record, this book should be a real winner.

 

At a Glance

The cover is in the letterbox format that visually defines Pathfinder Chronicles covers. The focal point has two huge dragons –a red and a silver- fighting on a castle ledge that is too small to support either. The red dragon breaks bricks on the wall it is forced against, the silver dragon’s weight collapses the edge of the rampart. Within the mouth of the red dragon is a yellow glow, a clear indication that it is about to unleash its breath weapon right in the silver dragon’s face.

Darin Bader’s cover art is dynamic and full of story. His style is perfect for large scale fantasy scenes such as this one. However, the piece has a glaring problem. The silver dragon does not look silver. Instead of being a dark grey highlighted to look metallic, the dragon is coloured extremely pale and mat, basically resembling a white dragon. The tears in its wings are a signature of evil dragons in fantasy art as well, and the creature’s cowardly expressing all make it hard to accept it as a silver dragon.

The inside cover has headshots of the ten primary dragons, a great reference guide to the new looks of these old icons. 3^rd edition did a great job of distinguishing the dragons by giving identifiers to different types, like the gold dragon’s Chinese influence or the black dragons forward facing horns. It will be hard to adjust to a new set of identifiers, especially with the Pathfinder green dragon resembling the D&D blue dragon. The best updates are the brass, copper, and bronze dragons, the three true dragons most often mistaken for one another. In particular the copper dragon with its Bart Simpson hair of spikes stands out in a crowd.

Although the redesign is a good idea, the Paizo artist that drew these headshots failed at a critical component of dragon art. The crucial difference between a dinosaur and a dragon is the emotion and wisdom conveyed in the face. Todd Lockwood’s metallic dragons in the Monster Manual were clearly intelligent and most importantly good creatures. That is missing here, especially in the gold dragon’s face. The cornerstone of good dragons doesn’t look noble, he looks annoyed. The brass dragon looks more sinister than the white dragon next to it. It may seem like a minor complaint but this failing makes the awe or terror that dragons are supposed to instill one and the same, and that is very unfortunate.

Of the interior artwork, the introductions to each dragon entry are the best of the book, but a few separate themselves as greater pieces of art.

The artwork introducing the bronze dragon teaches that truly, the best way to kill a giant shark is to drag it to the surface between your claws then blast it with lightning breath. Putting aside the mindblowing circumstances of the battle, this is one of the best depictions of lightning breath ever illustrated.

Speaking of best depictions, the red dragon introductory art conveys the terrifying presence and hunger for destruction of the cruelest of the evil dragons. Through an ants-eye-view, we witness hell on Earth. Or Golarion.

Surprisingly, the white dragon entry introductory is visually stunning despite being almost entirely white. In a winter forest during a snowstorm, a frost giant has a white dragon by the throat, his axe raised to strike. The artwork has the same effect as a whiteout, where so much light-catching whiteness obscures vision so that it is not immediately obvious to us (or the frost giant) that there is another white dragon about to enter the melee.

 

Highlights

Intriguing Ideas

The problem with icons is the little room they offer for change. Indeed, “icon” means instantly identified and therefore it is hard to tell which or how many details can be altered before the icon is unrecognizable. That makes it impressive that Dragons Revisited can bring in new ideas to freshen up dragons while keeping them recognizable.

Each dragon type has been personalized in some way, with the relationship between dragons given a new perspective. Bronze and green dragons shared drive for knowledge supersedes their differences in alignments and they can collaborate quite effectively. White dragons are inbred pack rats. A well-conceived detail can inspire a scene or encounter. There are a lot of well-conceived details in each entry.

The most intriguing idea introduced is the turn. Up until 4^th edition, dragons have been defined as much by their alignment as their colour and breath weapon. Spotting a metallic dragon means back-up, a chromatic dragon means trouble. Dragons Revisited spins that notion with tarnishing and redemption.

Good dragons can be tarnished (a great play on their metallic colour), turning to evil, and evil dragons can be redeemed, turning good. Although it is made clear that this is a rare occurrence, occasionally a good dragon has a dark side and an evil dragon has a hint of compassion. The idea is explored further by analyzing how likely a race is to turn. Silver dragons are the most likely good dragon to turn evil. Red dragons are the least likely evil dragon to turn good. Green dragons that turn tend to become neutral. This further separates the dragon types from each other and from D&D dragons.

Darkly Funny

Writer Mike McArtor has no problem exploring evil. In fact it is his strength. Although he does a fine job defining the good dragons, the humour he conveys emphasizing the deeds and behaviour of evil dragons makes for far more entertaining reading.

It could be argued that jokes undermine the cruelty of the acts. What that argument fails to acknowledge is that looking at the amusing side of evil gives readers a better perspective of how evil thinks. Rare is the person in the real world that does not see humour in what they enjoy. Although it may be arrogant to assume that all intelligent creatures in a fantasy world operate the same way as we do –in particular creatures with genius levels of intelligence and wisdom like Dragons- applying human standards to fantasy creatures lets readers better relate to them.

Sample Encounters

At the end of every entry is a fully stated out dragon with backstory provided to run an encounter straight out of the book. Although mostly epic level encounters, there are a few midlevel encounters as well. At a glance this may seem like page padding. Remember that dragons as presented in the Monster Manual require some assembly. Having a few dragons to plug and play in a campaign saves a DM prep time. Unless that DM has access to the Draconomicon, where a sample dragon of every type at every age category is provided.

There is variety between the encounters. Metallic dragons are not always allies in need and chromatic dragons are not always rampaging though cities. For example, Spravilvost the bronze dragon is disguised in human form during encounters until his humanoid friends are threatened. Misunderstanding and underestimating can make for a fun encounter.

 

Low Points

Writing and Editing Issues

The introduction begins with a quote from The Hobbit, which the text reflects on in the first person from the point of view of someone in the real world with an interest in fantasy. Within a couple of pages, the text gives second person advice about not using the term “breed” around dragons from the point of view of someone that lives in fear of actually being eaten by dragons. There is no clear indication of when the switch in point of view takes place.

Narrative voice is the kind of issue that goes unnoticed in a gaming sourcebook when written well but disturbs flow when written poorly. It is more easily forgiven in a typical splat book because the options are more important than pace or immersion. However, the Pathfinder Chronicles series focuses on fluff. In a fluff book, this inconsistency should not happen.

In addition to this confusing voice, the subheadings are indistinct and the boundaries not respected. Each dragon entry starts with a quote, followed by an introduction, then ecology and society, hoard and home, campaign role, on Golarion, names, and then a sample encounter. It is fine that the quote and introduction share information. It is not fine that every section repeats what came before. A more subtle and appropriate technique would have been to refer back through sections instead of presenting old information as though it was new.

The worst incidence is the repetition between ecology and society, and hoard and home. The two sections are so similar the book seems to have no idea what information goes where. Almost as bad, the campaign role section is basically the introduction again.

Billboard

Previously, “revisited” meant the fluff was reinterpreted from how it appeared in the Monster Manual. Here it seems to mean pointing out the previous Pathfinder books that have already covered this material so that readers can go elsewhere to get the whole story.

Asking a reader to reference Gods and Magic for more information on dragon gods in Golarion is acceptable. Both Gods and Magic and Dragons Revisited are part of the Pathfinder Chronicles series and likely have the same audience. However, “this book assumes passing knowledge of, or access to, the “Dragons of Golarion” section of Pathfinder #4, and some terms and proper nouns originate in that book… For more information on draconic history, see Pathfinder #4: Fortress of the Stone Giants.” Pathfinder #4 is part of an adventure path, an entirely different type of series and it should not be assumed that someone who purchased Dragons Revisited also purchased that adventure path, nor should it be assumed that they are willing to buy a book in the middle of an adventure path to get the full history of dragons in Golarion. If Dragons Revisited is not about the history of dragons in Golarion, then what is it?

White Noise

This is not the first book to look at dragons more closely, nor is it isn’t the closest look. In fact, dragons are the single most explored creature in the 3.5 OGL. Each type has already been so well defined that Dragons Revisited has to fight common metagame knowledge to justify its existence. But a DM that wishes to use dragons as presented in Dragons Revisited instead of the Monster Manual can not simply tell his players to “forget everything you know about dragons”. Some dragons have had nothing but a facelift. Others had everything below the skin reimagined. Condolences to the DM that tells its players “forget some things you know about dragons, I just can’t tell you what.”

 

Juicy Bits

Unlike in other Pathfinder Chronicles sourcebooks, there are no additional chapters with related crunch or tips on running a campaign that uses the information. The occasional feats that are presented are too specific and nothing special.

 

Personal Experience

As a DM, I have run every colour dragon at least once. As a player, I have encountered almost every dragon one way or another. Dragons Revisited does not make me rethink how I play dragons or make me want to try something new with them. The only exception is the white dragon because of the redneck-parallel Dragons Revisited implied.

 

Overall

With the existence of the Draconomicon, I can not recommend Dragons Revisited. The writing is too weak by Pathfinder Chronicles standards, the worthwhile content too sparse, and the subject of the book has been done better. Dragons Revisited proves too late that in the expansive library of 3.5 sourcebooks, dragons do not need revisiting.

 

If You Liked This Book…

The Draconomicon is just a better book. It goes into the physiology and psychology of dragons and looks at the ten dragon types in more depth than Dragons Revisited.

Classic Monsters Revisited actually takes something old and makes it feel new again.

 

Date Released: March 2009

Date Reviewed: July 2009