City-State of the Invincible Overlord

[William Ronald]

A very interesting review for an update of a classic. I like the stress on how City State of the Invincible Overlord can easily be adapted to many published or homebrew settings. (Some RPG products are so setting specific that it becomes hard to use outside of a given setting.) I am a bit puzzled by what you meant about the missing city wall on the map. Hopefully it is an oversight.

 

[haakon1]

Missing City Wall next to the port

I think it's just an oversight on the map, sort of like a typo, but there's no wall between the "Estuary of Roglaroon" and the port area of the city on the west side (upper left). It looks like you could pull up a boat and walk straight into town.

You could say there used to be a wall but it crumbled into the estuary, or the wall was never completed. The Invinceable Overlord, like the Spartans of old, feels no need of walls, so he never had it repaired/completed . . .

Perhaps the outer wall of the buildings along the shore forms a sort of stockade. It looks that way near the collapsed bridge, but there are major wide open paths into the city.

- Water-Rat Road (it has an army barracks at 358, near the entrance from the water)
- Fog Street (I'd make the undescribed 1, 11, and 12 here part of a stockade, the inner side of which is the Mermaid Tavern at 165)
- Two alleys around the Temple of the Toad (65, it must be part of the city's defenses, though the description doesn't mention that)
- By-Water Road (the Sea Captain's house at 64 must be a watch tower on the upper levels; at least it's vaguely round).

 

[SkeletonKey Ed]

If these are the only oversights on the map then I'm a happy man! That city map was the single most challenging cartography job I've ever done.

I will say that the scan of the original CSIO map that I based the new version on didn't have a defensive wall at the estuary section in the south west (top left). Who knows?

- Ed