Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.
Price: $8.95
Page Count: 32
Price per page: At 28 cents per page, fairly high comparative to other publishers.
Format: Softcover
External Artwork: A colourful conglomerate of several of the locations with 'written' text about them to the side on a background of graph paper. Good marketing ploy, the actual art is OK, but nothing spectacular.
Additional Page Use: Both inside covers are blank, the first and second page contain contents, credits and the OGL. The last page is an advert.
Internal Artwork: There is no internal artwork (but see maps).
Maps: There is a full-page map for every location. All maps are scaled to 1 square = 5 feet and there are photocopying guidelines to enable the map to be printed out at 1 inch per square. The maps are clear and detailed, if a little drab.
Text Density: Text density is poor with regular amounts of white space. Each page of text is deliberately skewed across the page using a parchment-like edging effect.
Text Style: The descriptive text is well-written and evocative, whilst the rules text is clear and concise. The editing seems excellent.
Whats Inside:
After a summary introduction, the sourcebook provides fourteen 'ready-to-run' locations - each of which has some descriptive text with accompanying new rules on the left and a full-page map on the right. Each location has a couple of adventure ideas linked to them within the descriptive text. The fourteen locations presented are:
* A Bazaar, with new rules for engaging in combat within the confined area including the consequence of breakages.
* An Athanaeum (Library) with a book that passes on a contagious new magical disease when read.
* Baths, in the Roman style, with rules advice for intrigue, roleplaying and assassination, and a new contact poison (this location is currently a free download from the Atlas Games website).
* A Ship, with rules for combat in stormy weather aboard the ship, and the danger of crashing waves presented as a trap.
* A Wharf, with a knowledgeable NPC, 2 new traps (rotten pier and harbour litter), and some once-off weapons that can be found in the harbour gunk (like glass shard, fishhook and net)
* Stables, run by two unusual NPCs, and presenting a new creature, the Kuzyaka Horse, which has the spirit of a tribal king imbued into its soul giving it an increased intelligence and wisdom such that it can discern lies, use scent, and Sense Motive.
* A Smithy, run by a dwarf NPC, which has a minor artifact (the Forge of Ancestors) that summons Azers (LN Fire Outsiders) to craft magical items for three days four times a year.
* A Toll Bridge, riddled with magical and mechanical traps.
* A Temple, where magical candles are given in return for donations to the priesthood. The two types of candles (candle of guidance, and candle of insight) are both detailed.
* A Caravanserai (a fortified wayside stopping point for caravans), with stats for the building's features such as Gate Locks, Window Bars, etc.
* A Tavern, with a priced menu, and rules for performance for bards wanting to earn money through performing.
* Alleyways, including brief rules for avoiding airborne trash (being thrown from an upper window), a thief trick to attempt to rob PCs, and skill modifiers for alleyways at night when the lights are all out.
* A Merchants' District, including 20 ideas to spice up bargaining and haggling, such as a merchant who reports illegal activities to the authorities, or a devout merchant who will only sell to membersof the same faith.
* City Dungeon, basically cages, stocks, and pits, with rules for each type and stats for the immoral constable who oversees the dungeons.
The High Points: There are quite a few original and interesting ideas set within the fourteen locations offered up here. The concept, providing GMs with ready-made 'ordinary' locations to spice up life between adventures, is a strong one, and will appeal to those who have neither the time nor the interest to develop these for their own campaigns or adventures. The maps are particularly useful as they can be expanded via photocopying to provide instant maps for miniatures or counters.
The Low Points: My main gripe about this product is the cost versus what you are getting. In essence, you get 28 pages, of which half are maps. The text density itself is large, and the white space further diminishes the bang for your buck. For myself, I found the descriptive text pleasant to read but felt it was nothing I could not have developed myself, and more appropriate to my adventure or campaign. The rules themselves were a mixture, some of them bland or for unusual situations, some of them original and interesting. I intensely disliked the skewed pages and hope that Atlas Games do not repeat this layout.
Conclusion: Whether you want to get this book really depends on your time and ability to develop your own stuff. For those who have the time to develop standard locations, or who have a innate skill of in-game location description, there is a limited amount on offer to augment your game -many of the concepts are drawn from history, geography and film, and the price is probably not worth the asking. For those who don't, this could be a worthwhile investment to spice up some previously undeveloped locations in your campaign world if you're willing to pay the price. I'd recommend downloading the Baths from the Atlas Games website to give you a flavour of what they're about (though to my mind, the Baths is the best of the fourteen).
