Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khur" data-source="post: 2011741" data-attributes="member: 5583">Dungeons of Doom is a 80-page book of maps for fantasy roleplaying. It's a perfect-bound volume with a color cover and a black-and-white interior. The inside is all illustrations-the maps-with the exceptions of the introduction, table of contents, and an ad on page 80 for The Black Company. Cartography guru Ed Bourelle rendered the maps and the whole shebang retails for $19.95.The book itself is a solid piece of work, insofar as presentation goes, mostly due to Bourelle's wizardry. (A few editing errors managed to make it to print, even though the total number of words in the book is few.) Little doubt exists that maps would have been more compelling and even clearer in color. It's also true the binding could have been better engineered for the inevitable photocopying or scanning that most users will have to do. Spiral-bound or loose in a folder (like Wizards of the Coast's Map Folios) perhaps? It was nice of Green Ronin to give permission for reproduction for personal use, so one won't have to wrangle with a Kinko's employee over copyright law.Organized into five loosely related subsections, Dungeons of Doom presents three larger environments and two themes inside which all the other maps fit. The first environment is Dungeon Kingdom, which contains 15 subsections. Second comes Great Cave Lake, with 11 subsections. And the third of the environment sections is Fire Top Peak, with eight locales. Each area often has more than one map dedicated to its contents, from broader perspectives to specific buildings or areas. The first themed section includes seven tombs, while the second contains five labyrinths. Dungeon Kingdom is a loosely connected set of sites accentuating a variety of places with an underground settlement theme. The maps live up to the task. Locales range from the eminently useful kobold lair to the mysterious and intriguing crossroads with its well of peace. A multilevel cave complex might house a tribe of Shaaryan hunters in the Forgotten Realms or a band of Marguul goblinoids from Eberron. A keep, two towns, and a few other locations round out the collection, including an underground prison. The low point is an absurd clockwork gauntlet that manages to make a modicum of sense just because it's the only underground route to and from the prison. Evidently, someone wanted to prevent any one coming or going.Great Cave Lake is even more diverse than Dungeon Kingdom. Within a yawning underground mere (more than 6 square miles) are a variety of settings ranging from a fungus jungle to the 12-floor abode of an undead lord built in a massive flowstone column. Guard posts for the same lord are set in giant stalactites around the cave. In the Great Cave Lake, one also finds the City of Serpents, a winding, three-level haven suitable for yuan-ti, serpent folk in service to the awful Yig, or even a band of snake or dragon cultists. More mysterious is the City of Spiders, which could easily be a drider enclave, a settlement for a strange breed of cave-dwelling araneas, or something even worse. Yet the Great Cave Lake manages to delve further into mystery with its unknown depth near an elemental vortex (to the Plane of Water, perhaps) and a realm of giant crystals. Inside the crystal domain lays a temple built within a massive geode and an odd prison. Dire eel tunnels found in this section lack context within the core D&D rules (no dire eels), but even these lairs could become home to some Underdark water terror, such as an aboleth or even an underground morkoth.Fire Top Peak is, of course, a volcano. It's a fascinating place with an obvious history, with its abandoned dwarf city, mines, and shrines. The dwarf city combines the intrigue of a lost hold with the wonder of sections flooded by now-cool magma. While the city seems haphazardly planned and laid out for a race that's so typically lawful, the mines are a wonder of order and cartographic creativity. While the maps of the mines should have been labeled as to how they connect (the overview on another page isn't enough), they do look as if an underground race carefully explored the area for riches. A similar feel of careful execution exists with a fire giant settlement, access to its multiple levels provided by climbing holds inside the volcano’s main magma vent. Furnace of the Fire Giants only fails to hold the imagination when it provides what appears to be a modern machine (eruption control) to do something for which a fantasy race would use magic. Even if this apparatus is a magic item, it looks too much like a technological marvel. Fire Top Peak is finished off with a tower of brass atop which lives an efreeti. One could easily run a scenario wherein the wicked giants serve the evil genie and have driven off a large clan of dwarves. Each piece of Fire Top Peak also makes a sound capsule for a single adventure. Only the efreeti's tower falls short in this sort of evaluation, but it could be used as a launching pad to an expedition to the Plane of Fire.The seven delves provided in the section on tombs are, for the most part, excellent.  Here, the able DM has the makings of explorations into the burial customs of humans (pharaonic, barbaric, magical, and medieval), dwarves, goblins, and frost giants. The racial tombs, like other parts of Dungeons of Doom, serve to give a little insight into the cultural tendencies of each race. For example, the dwarf tomb has quarters for a live-in caretaker. A few of the sepulchers, though, might be hard to make an exciting setting out of because of easy accessibility to important areas and/or a little too much symmetry. (It should be pointed out, however, that the real world has examples of tombs built in just these symmetrical ways.)Equally hard to weave a daring tale with, the labyrinths section is almost a critical miss. Mazes are hard to make anything more than tedious in a game that relies so much on verbal exchanges. A brief maze can be mildly entertaining, as can one that can be cleverly avoided or quickly exited through ingenuity. Thankfully, though most of the mazes in Dungeons of Doom are too complex to serve as much more than a frustration device, there are only five of them, and one of those can be navigated more easily than one might expect.Critical HitThese maps are great and they'll provide fodder for many adventures. Dungeons of Doom is a great tool, especially with its nuances. The settings are lively and full of hints about how the inhabitants live, which means ideas can be garnered from Dungeons of Doom that transcend the book's utility as a collection of maps. This is an unusual bonus for a mostly visual book.Critical FumbleThe blurbs both on the back of the book and on the first page are misleading when they describe Dungeons of Doom as containing player versions of the maps. The player section contains only eight maps (the book itself containing 69 to over 80, depending on your definition of what constitutes a separate map). While one could find this out by scrutinizing the book's table of contents or by looking through it thoroughly, it's bad mojo to be less than perfectly clear in the promotional notes. The player maps themselves are the worst part of the book, and a buyer would have been better served with a few more pages of adventure sites and the like.Coup de GraceDungeons of Doom has a lot to offer for what could appear to be just a collection of maps. It completely lacks game mechanics, and it does not, therefore, fall under the purview of the OGL. The lack of mechanics (and d20 logo) is a virtue, because this map book can be used with any fantasy roleplaying game, from GURPS to HARP--oh, and D&D too. Originality takes a boost from the cleverly insinuated clues to inhabitant lifestyles in the maps. Ed Bourelle's draftsmanship is also outstanding, hampered only by the fact the drawings are all presented in black and white. This latter fact serves to weigh down the value of the collection. GMs will find Dungeons of Doom gets the creative juices flowing, though. Despite its very minor flaws, this is one book whose utility makes it a virtual must-have for overworked fantasy roleplaying referees everywhere. Navigate to your favorite gaming source and grab yourself a copy.Score: 4.45 out of 5This review originally appeared at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">d20 Magazine Rack</a>.</blockquote>

Verification