Denizens of Freeport

[Messageboard Golem]

Your campaign would go nowhere without characters. You need ruthless villains, steadfast allies, and colorful locals to bring your game to life, but creating believable characters takes time. Enter Denizens of Freeport, a rogue gallery of characters from the Green Ronin trademark setting. You will find more than 75 ready-to-use characters, with backgrounds, personalities, portraits, adventure hooks, and accurate d20 stats. This is the perfect complement to Freeport: The City of Adventure, but like all Freeport books it can be used with any campaign setting. From pirate captains to barbaric wizards to martial arts masters, Denizens of Freeport has a character for every occasion.

 

[JoeGKushner]

NPC books are often a hit or miss factor based on a number of elements. For me, one of the most important is art. A poorly illustrated NPC doesn’t provide me with a lot of inspiration but one that look impressive, even if I don’t use it, may lead to the illustration being used for another NPC. Denizens of Freeport isn’t quite in the same class as Allies and Adversaries, a full color book, but it is top notch.

Now when I say top notch, I mean that there are many well-known illustrators who’ve done the honors here. One of my personal favorites is David Griffith, whose work I first spotted in a Mongoose Slayer’s book. Other fan favorites include Toren Atkinson, Marcio Fiorito, and Chris Martinez among others.

Another factor is uniqueness. Is there something that this NPC brings to the table that I couldn’t have assembled myself? With an ever growing range of sourcebooks, more often than not, the answer is no. Fortunately, some NPC books like Denizers of Freeport and Bonds of Magic go out of the way to make new items, spells, and other goodies to add to your campaign, even if you’re not using the book. In this case, not every character has something unique about them, but there are several new items like the Robe of Mundanity, where it provides the user with a +15 bonus to Hide checks and a Change Self at will, granting a +10 bonus to Disguise Checks.

A third element is creation rules. What game mechanics were involved with the creation of the NPC. By knowing this, I can advance or decrease the abilities and equipment of the characters. Unfortunately, Denizens of Freeport doesn’t provide any rules on how the characters were created. Most have stats in the 12-20 range with few having any stats below 10, indicating that even a high fantasy point buy value of 32, was probably not used. This means that you’ll have to eye the stats and make adjustments accordingly.

Another point of reference is organization. Here, everything is laid out in alphabetical terms. For me at least, not the best way to do things. I prefer some type of organization that puts people into some type of classes like warriors, wizards, and rogues, or by type or something. In addition, a table that summarizes name, class, level, hit points, page number and CR is a useful tool for when I’m looking for something to throw in the player’s way. That’s not in here.

Fortunately, the book is self-referencing so there are characters within the book that know of each other. This helps the GM provide a consistent internal background. Those who own the Freeport hardcover also have advantages over those who do not as several things mentioned in the Freeport book are utilized here ranging from feats to the Freeport Pirate Prestige Class. In some ways, this is good as it provides further benefit to an earlier book but in other ways, well, those without the book will be able to make do as most of the material here is self contained but there may be some brow scratching.

How about an example? Take Husani, the Sage, an apparent human who is actually a Yuan-Ti, exploring the ruins of Valossa and if used properly against the civilized Serpent People who hope to reclaim their ancient home one-day. If you don’t’ own the Freeport book or any of the other modules, the use of this character is a bit minimum. Why you’d buy a Freeport book of NPC though without owning Freeport or any of the modules… well that’s another story.

The book provides some odd seventy-six NPCs. Each character starts off with name, type, stats, background, personality, physical description and hooks. The type by the name is a quick reference as to what the character is. Take Rat, a Halfling whose listed as an Urban Druid or Nevtalathien, a retired mercenary. Background provides quick information, usually a paragraph of two, that highlights important events in the character’s origins and why they’re in Freeport. Personality shows some quirks that the individuals have. For example, Mother Mirren “is often crotchety and difficult”. One of the strengths here are the hooks. While not enough information to outline a whole campaign, the hooks provide enough raw ideas to run several campaigns in Freeport without ever running into one another. Good stuff there.

As an NPC book, it has a few flaws. No listing of characters by CR. No table of contents, no index, no real organization. As a general NPC reference, it fails a little too due to its close association with Freeport. This isn’t saying the book needs Freeport. No, you can use many of the characters with little to no difficult in any setting but will have a gestalt effect where owning both is better than only owning one. For those who own Freeport and weren’t satisfied with the way their trilogy originally went, try to rework it now with some extra NPCs to add flavor and background.

 

[Arnwyn]

It seems many reviews are getting more ridiculous as time goes on. Normally I don't mind JoeGKushner's reviews, but this one is absolutely horrendous, IMO.

"A third element is creation rules. What game mechanics were involved with the creation of the NPC. By knowing this, I can advance or decrease the abilities and equipment of the characters."

Huh? Of *course* you can modify anything you want without knowing exactly how the character was created. There is not additional work and "balance" is not affected in any meaningful way. Needing to know how an NPC was created before being able to modify it is bordering on imcompetence.

"Most have stats in the 12-20 range with few having any stats below 10, indicating that even a high fantasy point buy value of 32, was probably not used. This means that you’ll have to eye the stats and make adjustments accordingly."

Why?

"As a general NPC reference, it fails a little too due to its close association with Freeport."

Yeah, like *that's* a failure. Sorry, but that doesn't fly. A Freeport book dealing with NPCs from Freeport? *Gasp*! Some news for you - it's NOT a general NPC reference, so don't even try to judge it as one. It would be a failure if the connections to Freeport were too loose.

 

[Arnwyn]

And apparently I'm an incompetent speller, looking at my comment above. Just as an aside, I'm not pointing out that JoeGKushner (or anyone else) is incompetent in any way.

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.
This review contains spoilers.

Denizens Of Freeport is a book of NPCs for the Freeport setting by Green Ronin Publishing.

Denizens Of Freeport is a 96-page mono softcover product costing $18.95. Space usage, font size, and margins are all fine. Artwork runs from average to superb, most of it being pretty good, including the front cover showing a street brawl. The writing style is punchy and written with vivacity. Editing seems good.

Denizens Of Freeport contains over 70 characters residing in Freeport. Each character has between 1 and 3 pages dedicated to them, and each comes with a stat block, information on background, personality, looks, and a few adventure hooks. For more detailed characters, there may also be information about some of their compatriots (e.g. the crew of the ship the Kraken's Claw are briefly covered in the section on Morgan Baumann, Buccaneer Captain) or rules to use set apart in sidebars (such as the new item, Master Hovith's Tired Liver Tonic Potions - actually a fairly potent magical drug). There are also a few new Freeport locations to be found within the pages.

My favourite characters were:
* Gregor Grundi - the suicidal dwarven guide
* Lou, Lorelei & Durph - a half-elf with a talking iguana familiar and a multiple personality disorder
* Raziya - a strange child that exhibits 'reflexive sorcery', which protects her when she is in danger, but which she is unable to control

Some important characters in Freeport society are also covered such as Thorgrim (Lord Defender of the Wizard's Guild) and Tanko Sandek (Sergeant Major of the Sea Lord's Guard). The CRs of the characters presented run from 1/6 to 15, but most are around the 2-9 mark.

Two example characters from the book are avaialble from the Green Ronin website.

Conclusion:
The characters within the pages all have a colourful personality that begs the GM to play them, and the hooks are very useful for expanding plot lines and integrating them into your Freeport campaign. Equally, most would be quite useable outside Freeport. What I would have liked to see was a listing by CR for when the PCs take a surprise decision mid-adventure, to find suitable scenarios to quickly throw at them with an NPC as the centrepiece. Also useful would have been a table showing Freeport districts cross-referenced with NPCs likely to be in these districts - so, for example, if the PCs decided to investigate a lead to a mystery in the Old City, one would have a quick reference as to the possible NPCs from the book that tend to frequent that district. A break down of NPCs by class might also have been helpful. Perhaps these will be given as a web enhancement.

All in all, whilst this could have been better as an in-game resource with better organisation, it makes an excellent reference for adventure and campaign design, obviously most useful in conjunction with the Freeport setting.

 

[Psion]

Denizens of Freeport

Freeport is the name given to the central city in Green Ronin's well received d20 System adventures. The city was soon expanded on with its own volume, Freeport: City of Adventure. Denizens of Freeport brings would be Freeport DMs a variety of new NPCs for use in their games.

Denizens of Freeport's design is headed up by Chris Pramas and Chris Wilkes, with character contributions from Keith Baker, Bret Boyd, Elissa Carey (Swoon*), Jennifer Clarke-Wilkes, Steven Creech, Jesse Decker, Gareth Hanrahan, John Kasab, Brian E. Kirby, Jennifer Kirby, Jim Lai, Todd Miller, Brad Nieder, Patrick O'Duffy, Charles W. Plemons III, Chris Pramas, William Simoni, Robert J. Toth, and Chris Wilkes.

* - Forgive me the (dated) RPGnet tangency reference.

A First Look

Denizens of Freeport is a 96 page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $18.95. This is a slightly above average price per page for this price range.

The cover of the book is illustrated by Wizards of the Coast alumni artist Wayne Reynolds. The illustration depicts a fight between two citizens of Freeport in a crowded street, with a variety of other interesting characters looking on. As with most of Reynolds work, the cover illustration has good detail and a very active appearance.

The interior is black-and-white and is illustrated by artists David Griffith, Drew Baker, Chris Keefe, Marcio Fiorito, Michael Phillippi, Toren "Macbin" Atkinson, James Ryman, Britt Martin, and Chris Martinez. Most of these artists are fairly seasoned RPG artists. The illustrations range from mediocre and "way too sketchy for my tastes" to excellent.

The interior body text uses a small but readable font. The header font is stylish yet readable. Most of the entries take up 1-2 pages; many entries begin on a new page, but not all of them, and there is little wasted whitespace. Overall, the presentation is attractive, well organized, and readable.

A Deeper Look
(This section has some minor spoilers regarding secrets of characters in the book.)

Denizens of Freeport is composed almost entirely of various character descriptions. Most character descriptions take up a page, though some are more and a few less, and in some entries, multiple characters are gathered into the same section such as The Blooms, Herbalists and C.Q. Calame and the Shipping News Staff. Each character description follows a similar format, including:

-Game statistics block
-Background
-Personality
-Physical Description
-Hooks

The game statistics appear generally solid; a cursory glance reveals no major problems in the stat blocks. There appear to be no major mangling of the rules. Where new rules elements are introduced, they are set apart in a shaded sidebar in line with the text of the section to which the material pertains.

The character concepts are, in most cases, not simply retreads of classical fantasy tropes. The authors fully utilize multiclassing and other techniques in order to realize some unique characters and in most part their use of the rules is sensible.

Occasionally, the book does resort to introducing new rules elements. For example, Portha Poorbelly is a huge halfling woman who has been cursed to consume a different meal each day or be consumed by a demonic curse. The book could have simply threw this element in there and it still would have made for a wonderfully compelling NPC. However, Green Ronin goes about handling this sort of detail with care, and fully defines the nature of the special quality resulting from this curse.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a very good offering. The characters are well-designed, and many of them are very creative.

The book is primarily written for the city of Freeport setting. If you don't use the Freeport setting, there are still plenty of useful ideas and statistics that you can take away from this book. However, some characters, and in particular the background and hook sections, depend on the character being in Freeport or a city with very similar elements.

The only complaint I might level at the book is that there is no index, table of contents, or any other cross reference (like a race, class, or CR list.) The book is in alphabetical order, but you had better know what you are looking for.

Overall score: B

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[GameWyrd]

This GameWyrd review was written by Guest Reviewer Caliban's Toybox.

Preamble

Another day, another collection of generic NPCs...

In the far-off days of my youth, I was proud and cocksure and reflecting on it with the kind of scathing, soul flaying honesty that always earns a man plaudits in reviews like this (as well as on the trashier daytime chat shows) a royal pain in the posterior.

I'd lurk in alleyways, twin copies of first edition Vampire concealed in my trench coat, ready to spring out at the drop of a hat, pin, or any combination thereof to loudly explain to anything unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity exactly why roleplaying was a revolutionary new form of collective group interaction that would not only influence but actually redefine from first principles all narrative media, forms, and structures thereafter.

Back in those days, before a group of friends got together to give me the few concerned words of advice and sound beating that helped me see the error of my ways and put me in traction, I'd rather have supped from the very bladder of Satan than come within six miles of a book like "Denizens of Freeport."

This sort of thing was for people who lacked the commitment, the imagination, the flair, the sheer panache to be called real roleplayers (as opposed, presumably, to all those wannabe roleplayers we're always hearing about in the society columns). Someone else writing NPCs, adventure hooks, and stats with the intention that they be used in one's own game? Heresy! Blasphemy! Defenestration! (I've often had the sneaking suspicion, judging by the muffled sniggers of my audience, that this word doesn't actually mean what I think that it means. Tragically, I also suffer from a crippling phobia of dictionaries.)

Now, I'm older and far away from the person I was then. I have a job and videogaming addiction that leaves me precious little time to devote to doing all the little fiddly bits that game preparation necessitates. Books like this have become essential in freeing me to work on the exciting and important bits, and simply customising, reworking and refining the smaller details they supply.

How does "Denizens in Freeport" do in the time-freeing-up department? For those cursed with a short attention span or an aversion to meandering, "Ain't It Cool News" style introductions, the answer is "okay-ish." The rest of you can find out in more detail below.

The Physical
96 perfect bound pages, three of which are taken up with credits, introduction/OGL, and a so-so street scene featuring a few of the book's NPCs (including the second biggest pair of orc lips I've ever seen).

It's a good thing I've taken the old saw about never judging a book by it's cover to heart, because the cover of "Denizens in Freeport" looks exactly like the sort of cheesy waxwork tableau described within the first few pages of the seminal "World's Cheesiest Waxwork Tableaux."

The Contents
75 or so NPCs, including art, appropriate and accurate stats, personality/background notes, physical descriptions, and adventure hooks for each. I'll talk about these in just a moment, after I highlight the most glaring of Denizen's otherwise dim and shady flaws which I'll do shortly after lauding one of it's most shiny triumphs the layout.

The NPCs are neatly organised in single, double or triple page spreads with large headers at the top of each page giving the name and profession of the NPC dealt with therein, which doesn't sound like much but actually
turns out to be incredibly useful in play particularly in moments of desperate page-flipping to find a particular NPC. Coupled with the careful use of headers and sectioning, it's both useful and easy on the eyes.

It cannot, unfortunately, quite compensate for the lack of anything even faintly resembling an index. HELLO, GREEN RONIN! Here are seventy-odd NPCs and associated goons, new items, and new spells, in a book which you know
is going to see most use in the middle of game session which it gets picked up and leafed through by GMs desperate to find Wossername the Thingummy in a hurry. Perhaps a nice single page listing of where to find same would have been idea?

(If you tell me, "We only wanted to spare you from the kind of PAGE XX fiasco found in competitor's products, because we at Green Ronin respect you too much to pull that kind of stunt!" then we'll forget the whole thing. Oh, I'll still know you're making it up, but I'm a sucker for being sweet-talked by the imaginary collective voice of anthropomorphised games companies.)

The Writing
The personality and background sections of each NPCs are well, all of them are at least competently written, although few go beyond that. There's a certain sense that these are somewhat over-concise briefings rather than fuller and more descriptive pieces. Perhaps that's a problem with the format of the beast rather than the authors, however; a question of necessity, both (I assume) for reasons of space as well as to allow the scope for customisation required by the individual GM.

The physical descriptions are passable, and eerily reminiscent of alt-character MUSH descriptions. Few evoke particularly striking or memorable images, a flaw which is somewhat circumvented by noting that almost all of them seem to include what the old FASA Dr Who RPG called "recognition handles" unique props or signifiers associated with each character that serve to fix them in the mind of the players.

In general, the background sections are much longer than the personalities, which in turn tend to be fuller than the physical descriptions.

The adventure hooks are presented as a series of bullet points but resist the inherent temptation to skimp on thought and detail for the sake of quantity (and there are usually quite a few eight or nine in many cases). They suggest ways in which the NPCs might be deployed in your game and ways in which some of the things mentioned in backgrounds and personalities might come to affect both the city and your players.

Some are actually quite thought-provoking, and almost all of them make excellent kernels for custom adventuring though obviously, they lack development or suggestions on resolutions or pay-offs. A few of them do seem to make particular assumptions about the ways in which races (orcs, dwarves, and elves in particular) act and react in the gameworld which may need some careful reworking before they and their NPCs can be used.

Art
"Surprisingly variable" is the phrase that springs to mind: from bizarrely cartoonish to moodily effective to genuinely terrifying (though not, I'd wager, intentionally) monstrosities like the Amazing No-Necked Dwarf on page 38. I shouldn't complain too much about ol' No-Neck, however, as I've made a tidy sum selling photocopies of this veiny-armed beastie to farmers needing a quick and effective way to scare off unwanted predators.

In all fairness, the art is of a generally standard, quirky stylistic preferences aside, but any chance at an overall mood or theme is almost entirely lost thanks to the patchwork approach to the NPC portraits.

The Thoughts
For a book that wants to save me time, Denizens of Freeport is going to eat up a little more than I'm entirely happy with, particularly in fleshing out some of the occasionally skimpy personalities and descriptions. The hooks and backgrounds too are going to need some thought before being used again, since some of the assumptions they make about the game world aren't the ones my game world makes.

On the other hand, if you're buying this book then it's likely you've already accepted the assumptions (or at least worked out fresh ones to replace them) made in the Freeport setting itself in previous supplements, and will find this easy to overcome.

The lack of an index, however, you may not.

Overall, then, Denizens and Freeport does exactly what it says on the imaginary tin it doesn't come in: a solid, competent collection of NPCs, items, and spells that's not quite as generic as it hints at being.

6/10, scoring an extra point for "Mungo and His Amazing Monkeys" and "Thirsty Knob, Bizarre Cleric" which conjure up a whole world of possibilities with their names alone.

* This Denizens of Freeport review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[trancejeremy]

"Hippies! Hiiiippiiiies! Everywhere! They wanna save the earth, but
all they do is smoke pot and smell bad! Help!" - Eric Cartman

What does South Park have to do with d20? Not much (well, other than that episode about the Lord of the Rings). It does illustrate a problem I've had with Freeport since the City of Adventure book came out - it puts things from modern day reality into a setting completely related. In this case, hippies. When it avoids things like that, this is a pretty good book.

Denizens of Freeport is a 96 page softcover sourcebook from Green Ronin, priced at $18.95 (I got mine on ebay for the remarkably low price of $5 + $3.50 S&H). It's an NPC book, that is a book full of characters, complete with stats and background. Generally speaking, I like books like this, because they are very useful when you need to come up with an NPC to populate someplace. And not being a very creative person, most of the NPCs I come up with are either based on people I know or characters from movies or books.

There are a lot of NPCs in this book. More than 60s, the back cover claims, and as there is no easy way to count them, I'll take their word for it. Each entry is generally the same. The name at the top, followed by the stats, then entries on "Background", "Personality", "Physical Description", and "Hooks", the latter being what sort of hook they like to wear (Sorry, pirate humor. It's actually more like adventure seeds or ideas)

I thought the best NPCs in this book are the more mundane ones. For instance, a locksmith. A street vendor, a brewer, a lawyer, a tailor. Unfortunately, there are only a few of these.

This book gets a bit silly (like I thought the Freeport: City of Adventure book did) when it comes to anachoristic NPCs. For instance, drug dealing/growing Hippies named "The Blooms". Get it? Yuk yuk. Or a police detective and a forensic scientist. (CSI: Freeport anyone? Bah). Still, these sort of NPCs aren't too common. Some of the names are again similar to real world people. An actor named "Rikard Burbage" (Richard Burton), a disease carrier is named "Mary" (like "Typhoid Mary"). Things like that ratchet up the dorkiness factor and ratchet down the suspension of belief and believability of the character and setting, at least for me. But again, it only happens in a few cases.

Some of the NPC groups from Freeport: City of Adventure are fleshed out. For instance, in that book there was a group of rich women who were bored and so became thieves and would bully inn owners (picture a bunch of Jennifer Lopezs, I guess). A couple of them are detailed here. One of the closest things to a Thieves' Guild in Freeport is "Finn's Syndicate", which is a halfling protection racket - an assassin from it is detailed here. And that annoying tabloid newspaperman is detailed, too.

As you might guess from the nature of Freeport, there are a number of Pirate characters. One is a mind flayer (whose inclusion has probably doomed this book to never being reprinted, as mind flayers are not in the officially released System Reference Document), one a viking lady, one a halfing, another a lady half-elf, and one just a human woman. Not quite the usual pirate demographics.

There's a lot of interesting other NPCs. A womanizing Paladin, a goblin fireman (with a protection racket), a couple really nice examples of how half-orcs can be productive members of society, a halfling version of Sally Struthers (as Jabba the Hutt). There are some misses: Mungo & his amazing monkeys, most of the villains (they're dorky rather than scary), Harcourt Horkel (a swindler, presumably named after Harcourt Fenton Mudd of Star Trek), "The Hat", a secret agent (it's also impossible for anyone who is a South Park fan, like myself, to use, as it's too close to "Mr. Hat"). Most of the 'urchins' are also really annoying, but that generally can't be helped. One of the most unbelievable characters is an assassin who kills people while shaving them. Um, in a small town (Freeport is something like 10,000 people, if that), just how often would that work? Once. Similarly, there is a halfling who is a child impersonator, who works the same area. Uh, wouldn't the people there catch on after a week or two?

Each NPC is illustrated, which is great, as it gives you a picture you can show your players, rather than having to describe them. Most of the artwork is excellent, and is in a variety of styles, from the fairly realistic to the impressionistic. The only exception is one woman on page 34, whose breasts apparently start at her neck. (Talk about a push up bra.). There's also one picture (of a laywer) that seems to have gotten the sex wrong, though it's a bit hard to tell with lawyers.

Besides the usually excellent Toren Atkinson, the artist whose work really stands out is Chris Martinez (though he doesn't have many, I think just 3 pictures). There are a couple others I like, but I can't tell who did it (not all the art is signed).

The typeface used for the is the same as in the Freeport: City of Adventure book, and like there, I found it a bit problematic when it comes to telling the difference between some letters (most notably a 'u' and 'v'). The normal typeface used is fine, and there's a lot of text in the book - margins are small, and the overall layout is good. The only real oddity is that stats for the characters are given first, with the description afterwards. Usually it's the other way around (but is not a problem once you get used to it).

It really could have used a table of contents, but presumably there wasn't room. A tiny map of freeport keyed to where every NPC hangs out would also have been helpful, but again, the book is absolutely crammed as it is - not wasted space at all, so it wouldn't fit.

Is this worth buying? Well, definitely, if you're a Freeport fan. This product goes a long way towards filling up Freeport with people and making it a more complete city (one of my complaints about the City of Adventure book was it was kind of skimpy on info about Freeport itself.)

If you're not a Freeport fan, obviously this will be less appealing, but it does give you a number of NPCs that can be used in almost any enviroment, and all but a handful can be used in a generic pirate or port town.

B. If not for the hippies and some of the other sillier characters, I would be inclined to give it a higher score. But I really hate hippies. Much like NRA meetings and showers, fantasy settings should be hippie free.