The Gates of Troy
By Andrew Kenrick
SteamPower Publishing product number SPPAL001
45 pages (PDF), $5.00
The first in SteamPower Publishing's "Ancient Lore" line of PDFs,
The Gates of Troy offers a look at the historical city of Troy as seen in Homer's epic work,
The Iliad, viewed through the lens of d20 gaming. It offers a great location not only for those interested in running an ancient Greece setting (although it's understandably best suited for such use), but pretty easily fits into just about any standard d20 fantasy setting: if you can use a walled city in your campaign, then
The Gates of Troy has something to offer you.
The "cover" (it feels a little weird using book-based terms on a PDF) is either a painting of the crumbling ruins of a set of city walls or one of those Photoshop deals where you can make a photo look like a watercolor; the author, Andrew Kenrick (the guy behind SteamPower Publishing, and whose previous works include Mongoose's
Slayer's Guide to Lizardfolk) is credited with the cover so unless he's also a talented painter I'm willing to bet it's the latter. It looks nice, in any case, although it's admittedly a bit "generic." (I would have expected the Trojan Horse to grace the cover of a Troy-based game supplement.)
The interior artwork is not credited to anyone in particular, but since it consists of black-and-white illustrations of ancient Greek figures and what look to be reproductions of Greek paintings, I'm willing to bet Andrew got these from the public domain. In any case, they are very appropriate to the subject matter, and the authenticity of the actual Greek clothing (and armor) styles will go a long way toward helping DMs and players in a Greek campaign to "get in the mood" and visualize the PCs and NPCs inhabiting the game world. Of particular note, however, is the excellent drawing of the city of Troy and maps of the surrounding area on page 19 (by Clayton Bunce). I referred back to the map several times while reading through the city's description, and it really helped everything click into place for me. Very nice job, Clayton!
One final thing worth mentioning about the artwork is the border art, in this case a column of Greek text on alternating sides of the pages. The background is in yellow to help set it off from the actual text (in English, naturally), and while I can't read a word of Greek (must...avoid...obvious...joke...), I admit to curiosity as to what it says, whether Andrew just grabbed something written in the Greek alphabet or whether it's appropriate to a book on Troy. Again, whatever it actually says, it certainly fits the tone of the PDF.
Okay, on to the text itself.
The Gates of Troy is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: a brief introduction of what you'll find inside the pages of this sourcebook
- Playing in the Heroic Bronze Age: quick rules adjustments for playing in an ancient Greek campaign (minor changes to some of the character classes, skills, feats, and available equipment, plus how magic differs from "normal" D&D and which monsters are the most appropriate to the setting)
- A History of Troy: how (and why) the city was founded, who ruled (and renamed) it over the years leading up to the siege of Troy, plus game stats for the typical Trojan guard
- The Trojans: typical Trojan names (both male and female), character backgrounds for PCs from Troy (kind of like racial adjustments), plus brief descriptions of Troy's ten dynasties, government and law, military, religion, trade, and 2 new feats (Mercantile and Horse Tamer)
- The Geography of the Troad: geographical points of interest in the lands around Troy
- The City of Troy: the city layout, breakdown of its citizens (in game terms), an Urban (random) Encounters chart, and brief descriptions of some of the more important buildings (and their inhabitants)
- The Fall of Troy: prophecies, the Trojan Horse, and the sack of Troy
- Using This Book: using Troy in various campaigns (even non-ancient Greek ones)
- Trojan Heroes: game stats for 10 of Troy's leading citizens (although it's worth pointing out that game stats for several other Trojan NPCs are sprinkled throughout earlier chapters as well, where appropriate)
Before I forget, I wanted to point out that
The Gates of Troy is laid out in landscape as opposed to portrait: the pages are all longer than they are tall. I don't know what everyone's preferences are, but I prefer my hardcopy books in portrait and my PDFs in landscape (it's much easier to read them on a computer screen that way without having to bump the page up and down all the time). Admittedly, I printed the 45 pages out anyway because I still prefer printed products to electronic products, but I applaud the layout decision to go with landscape.
I guess I'll get my few negatives out of the way first, so I can concentrate on the positive aspects. Editing and proofreading was a bit hit and miss, with numerous spacing issues throughout. (Granted, some of these were to fit words around a non-square bit of artwork, but many of them seemed to be for no discernable reason - perhaps a peculiarity of double-justifying the text?) I noticed a few capitalization problems as well, most noticeably in the book's title:
the Gates of Troy is used throughout instead of
The Gates of Troy. There were also instances of compound words being broken into two words ("mad man," "any one") and some misspelled words and punctuation errors, but nothing too bad or incomprehensible. (Editor Matt Drake might want to give future products a few more sweeps, however.)
Another thing I found troubling was the fact that
The Gates of Troy is the first in a series of planned PDFs in the Ancient Lore line, and as such makes several references to future PDFs that haven't been released yet. (For example, the concept of heroic bloodlines comes up several times, but those are detailed in the not-yet-released
Ancient Lore II: Of Legends Born.) I don't really see any way around this, though, short of making sure that the follow-up PDFs are released as soon as possible.
Finally, there were some mistakes in the NPC game stats. In the interests of ensuring that the game stats are as accurate as possible, I recommend making the following changes:
- p. 11, Trojan Guards: their AC 15 is correct, but they should only gain +1 for their shields, not +2.
- p. 21, Ulyssia One-Eye: "HD 8d12+8" should be "HD 8d12+16" as she has a +2 Constitution bonus. Thus, assuming average die rolls, her hp total should be 73, not 65. Flat-footed AC should be 15, not 17. "DR 1/-2" should be "DR 1/-" (I'm not sure what that "2" is doing there). Fort save should be +8, not +10. Initiative should be +6, not +2 (due to her Improved Initiative feat - however, if you trade in her Improved Initiative for Great Fortitude, then both her Initiative and Fortitude saves line up as listed).
- p. 25, The Egyptian: 46 hit points is too many for someone with 2d8+8d6-10 HD. (Again, assuming average die rolls, 30 hit points would be more like it.) Initiative should be +1, not +2. AC should be 14, not 15 (he's only got a +1 Dex bonus). Flat-footed AC should be 13, not 15.
- p. 32, King Priam: Grapple should be +4, not +5. Spear attacks should be at +5 melee, not +6 (and +5/+0 for full attack). Also, either his AC is wrong as listed or he only has +1 robes of resistance instead of +2, as listed under his possessions. He knows three languages, but is literate in "both." Also, what's he doing being almost 200 years old? No explanation is given.
- p. 33, Queen Hecuba: Likewise, how'd she get to be almost 100 years old and still look so young? Plus, it's stated that "Hecuba is the daughter of Dymas and brother of Asius..." [emphasis mine] -- obviously, that can't be right. Is she the sister of Asius or is Dymas the brother of Asius? (okay, I just realized this isn't a game-stat problem, but it's thematically related.)
- p. 33, Typical Handmaiden: Grapple should be at -1, not +0. Dagger attack should be at -1 melee, not +0, and damage should be 1d4-1, not just 1d4.
- p. 34, Paris: Composite shortbow attacks should be at +17 ranged, not +16 (due to his Weapon Focus). Oddly enough, his Full Attack is correct at +17/+12.
- p. 35, Helen: Touch AC should be 13, not 11. Flat-footed AC should be 11, not 13.
- p. 36, Hector: AC breakdown should include +9 breastplate, not +9 scale mail, and his AC should be 28, not 27. Flat-footed AC should be 27, not 26.
- p. 37, Aeneas: Surely the Bloodline of Aphrodite prestige class includes hit points? None here are given. Likewise, doesn't the prestige class provide a Base Attack Bonus? I note that all he gets for hp and BAB are taken directly from his 12 fighter levels.
- p. 38, Theano: Initiative should be -1, not +1. Grapple should be at +0, not -1. Hit points should be 16, not 13 (due to the Toughness feat).
- p. 39, Cassandra: AC listings don't take her amulet of natural armor into account; she should have AC 13, touch 12, flat-footed 12.
- p. 40, Helenus: AC shows +2 due to an amulet of natural armor, but possessions show it as +1; which is it? Spear attack should be at +13 melee, not +12, or +10 ranged, not +9 (due to Weapon Focus in both cases; apparently he doesn't throw his +1 spear, only his mundane ones). Likewise, his Full Attack should be +13/+8 melee or +10/+5 ranged. Initiative should be +4, not +0 (he has Improved Initiative).
Okay, that's it for the negative stuff; despite it taking up a lot of space in the review, I actually thought there's much more positive than negative. On the plus side, as this is a PDF, it should be easy enough to fix up these mistakes and get an instant corrected copy out to those purchasing
The Gates of Troy.
Back on the positive side, I was pleased to see that Andrew really did his
Iliad research, because he has a very good grasp on the history of the city, and excels at explaining all of the complicated bits like the multiple names of the city and even some of its rulers. (You could actually ignore all of the gaming aspects of
The City of Troy and still get a bargain for your money if you're interested in Greek history and/or mythology. On a personal note, I was overjoyed to learn that "Laocoon" was one of the high priests of Apollo; I'm only familiar with that name as a musical group and had often wondered where they came up with the weird name. It's pronounced "lay-ok-oh-wan," for anybody interested.) I was also pleased to see that the PDF discusses the city of Troy not only during the siege by the Greeks (or Achaeans, as they're referred to throughout) but also before and after, making this city sourcebook that much more useful. There are adventure hooks sprinkled liberally throughout the whole PDF, making it easy on the DM to come up with a slew of adventures for his gaming group's PCs in the city and its immediate surroundings. Even though the whole PDF is only 45 pages long, I was very grateful to see an Index at the back, especially since all of the Greek names and personages get muddled up in my mind easily.
Andrew writes in a very clear manner, and I think I enjoyed his writing style even better here than in
The Slayer's Guide to Lizardfolk (where he did a lot of self-referencing). Apparently he's pretty much the main guy behind SteamPower Publishing, and it seems evident that running the company is a labor of love for him. I don't know whether it was a lucky coincidence or exceptionally cunning planning on Andrew's part, but the release of
The Gates of Troy was brilliantly timed to coincide with the release of the mega-budget epic movie
Troy, which certainly can't hurt sales any. Plus, there seems to be some real interest in historical Greek campaigns; I notice that even Sean K. Reynolds is running a D&D campaign in ancient Greece. (Check out his campaign logs at www.seankreynolds.com and see for yourself.) One of the best things about
The Gates of Troy (in my opinion) is how well Andrew captures the spirit and feel of ancient Greece with just a few minor tweaks to the existing D&D rules: use sorcerers instead of wizards for arcane spellcasters, and even then assume that the magic comes from the gods (and concentrate more on personal-affecting spells rather than the "flashy stuff" like
fireballs and
magic missiles); instead of clerics, use the priest core character class provided here (on page 38, with additional spells added to the cleric list to make it better fit the "ancient Greece feel"); although there are rules in D&D for bronze weapons, since everybody's using them just ignore the changes and go with the standard rules. In each case, Andrew uses a minimalist approach to get the job done and still ends up with an authentic-feeling rules base.
Overall, I can recommend
The Gates of Troy to anyone interested in a historical campaign or pretty much to anyone interested in a well-thought-out walled city sourcebook with a slew of interesting NPCs.
The Gates of Troy rates a "4 (Good)" in my mind, and I look forward to further PDFs in the Ancient Lore line.
