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<blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 7920961" data-attributes="member: 11760"><p>It's vastly more detailed than Sharn. I don't know enough about Waterdeep to do a one-to-one comparison.</p><p></p><p>But it's <em>not</em> just a city book. You also have a light sketch of the world of Praemal, lots of chapters devoted to the Dungeon below Ptolus, major adventure sites on/above the Spire -- one of them epic level.</p><p></p><p>Without dipping into any of the supplemental adventures, you have the equivalent of a full adventure path (or more) woven into the city and in later chapters.</p><p></p><p>From a "what you get" standpoint, it's probably closer to Waterdeep plus some of the more fleshed out Undermountain content over the years, all laid out in a hard-to-overstate better and more usable fashion than other setting books.</p><p></p><p>From a tonal standpoint, the setting is different than either Eberron or the Forgotten Realms:</p><p></p><p>The Tarsisian Empire is falling as the adventure begins, with three people claiming to be the emperor, with three different seats of power. The Emperor of the Church has chosen Ptolus as his seat.</p><p></p><p>In addition, the empire has just survived an invasion by barbarians from the east. (And in the Night of Dissolution adventure, which seems like a good bet for conversion during this campaign, they come back and you find out why.)</p><p></p><p>The Spire in the center of Ptolus has a supernatural origin, obviously, which is explored in the Banewarrens adventure (which I would bet is the first converted content they'll do, given how key it is to the setting). But two of the most evil beings in the history of Praemal (which is saying something) have their citadels on or in orbit around the Spire and not all of them are empty or quiet.</p><p></p><p>It's also a setting where technology existed but, as the empire falls into a dark age (even independent of what the various evil forces want to do, none of which is great), the ability to use it is being forgotten and there will soon be more unusable antiques than actual working technology, which allows DMs to customize how much or how little of it they want in their campaigns. (In mine, a working semaphore telegraph system is used for long distance communication, but the towers are breaking down, making it fallible and not a guaranteed way to get around the standard tech level of D&D adventures.)</p><p></p><p>Oh, and the dominant church of the land is a faux medieval Catholic church, with political and religious tensions between reformers and loyalists -- and it might all be founded on a lie about the church's predecessor version. And there's also the obligatory giant marketplace of other gods, so players who don't want to engage with that sort of stuff never have to. (I've found it a rich well to go to as a DM, but it wouldn't be all that appealing if someone just wants to murderhobo their way through the Dungeon.)</p><p></p><p>So, it shares some of the fantasy tropes in both Waterdeep and Sharn, but develops them in different ways, while also pulling in other tropes those two don't touch, to my knowledge. (You can do the whole Misty Mountain unworthy dwarves trying to reclaim their lost home in the Dungeon underneath Ptolus, for instance, which is something I've strangely rarely seen done in D&D.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Whizbang Dustyboots, post: 7920961, member: 11760"] It's vastly more detailed than Sharn. I don't know enough about Waterdeep to do a one-to-one comparison. But it's [I]not[/I] just a city book. You also have a light sketch of the world of Praemal, lots of chapters devoted to the Dungeon below Ptolus, major adventure sites on/above the Spire -- one of them epic level. Without dipping into any of the supplemental adventures, you have the equivalent of a full adventure path (or more) woven into the city and in later chapters. From a "what you get" standpoint, it's probably closer to Waterdeep plus some of the more fleshed out Undermountain content over the years, all laid out in a hard-to-overstate better and more usable fashion than other setting books. From a tonal standpoint, the setting is different than either Eberron or the Forgotten Realms: The Tarsisian Empire is falling as the adventure begins, with three people claiming to be the emperor, with three different seats of power. The Emperor of the Church has chosen Ptolus as his seat. In addition, the empire has just survived an invasion by barbarians from the east. (And in the Night of Dissolution adventure, which seems like a good bet for conversion during this campaign, they come back and you find out why.) The Spire in the center of Ptolus has a supernatural origin, obviously, which is explored in the Banewarrens adventure (which I would bet is the first converted content they'll do, given how key it is to the setting). But two of the most evil beings in the history of Praemal (which is saying something) have their citadels on or in orbit around the Spire and not all of them are empty or quiet. It's also a setting where technology existed but, as the empire falls into a dark age (even independent of what the various evil forces want to do, none of which is great), the ability to use it is being forgotten and there will soon be more unusable antiques than actual working technology, which allows DMs to customize how much or how little of it they want in their campaigns. (In mine, a working semaphore telegraph system is used for long distance communication, but the towers are breaking down, making it fallible and not a guaranteed way to get around the standard tech level of D&D adventures.) Oh, and the dominant church of the land is a faux medieval Catholic church, with political and religious tensions between reformers and loyalists -- and it might all be founded on a lie about the church's predecessor version. And there's also the obligatory giant marketplace of other gods, so players who don't want to engage with that sort of stuff never have to. (I've found it a rich well to go to as a DM, but it wouldn't be all that appealing if someone just wants to murderhobo their way through the Dungeon.) So, it shares some of the fantasy tropes in both Waterdeep and Sharn, but develops them in different ways, while also pulling in other tropes those two don't touch, to my knowledge. (You can do the whole Misty Mountain unworthy dwarves trying to reclaim their lost home in the Dungeon underneath Ptolus, for instance, which is something I've strangely rarely seen done in D&D.) [/QUOTE]
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