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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009333" data-attributes="member: 1129">Geanavue The Stones of PeaceWritten by Ed Greenwood with John O’NeillPublished by Kenzer & Co176 b & w pages, full color fold out map, 19 pages rumor quest$24.95How best to describe The Stones of Peace?  I think I’ll steal a paragraph from the book that does an almost perfect job.  “…Geanavue as a herd of nose-to-their-tools crafters ruled over by a decadent lord while debauched nobles battle guildmasters for true political power… (p.81)”In short, this is an independent city that is ruled over by a single house that struggles not only with a group of nobles who often boasts hundreds of years of history behind their lineage, but also merchant houses who form themselves into guilds.  Of course not all the rulers in the House of Geana, the ruling house, have been bad and of course not all the nobles are insufferable and not all the guilds are criminals.If there is one thing that the book succeeds at, it’s providing a very detailed look at the city not only in terms of noble families, merchant houses, powerful individuals, and a ruling family, but also Geanavue’s trade port, the town of Loona.  The ties to Kalamar are visible in some instances but can be easily removed without too much difficulty.The book is broken up into different sections that allow the GM to quickly find information.  Want to know about the nobles of the city?  Look under the The Talasaara.  Want to know about the royal family?  Look under The Emerald Eagle.  Want to know about the various merchant factions?  Look under The Guilds.  What about freewheeling individuals?  Look under the Dangerously Wealthy.  What about religion?  The Holy Houses provide your meat.  The city has a lot going on and certain themes, like hidden treasure, hard work, and a distrust of magic, arcane magic at least, crop up repeatedly. One of the things about the city being in transition is that it requires a bit of work on the GMs part to decide where he wants the city to go.  The nobles, the Talasaara, have young ‘blackflames’ who feel that they’re invincible due to their family lineage and often get away with crimes that would result in death.  Now in a more realistic view, if the Talasaara do something bad to an adventurer, the adventurer wouldn’t be able to retaliate, but players tend to take a “push me, shove you” type of attitude so GMs have to decide if this young upstarts are going to be bothering the players at all.  Choices like this have to be made for every factions.  Will dark religions emerge from the shadows?  Will slavery become more publicly accepted?  Will the guild houses slip back into decadence and corruption?  In its coverage, practically no stone goes unturned.  It covers not only the city, but also the sewers.  As a matter of fact, the sewers are one of the richest places to mine for ideas.  Seems that not only have rogues fought down here before, but mage duels have also taken place.  In many cases, the treasure, one of the themes here, goes unclaimed and is just waiting for the right individual to find it.One of the things I enjoyed about the book was the Promenade.  This chapter is a walk through the city coming from different directions to help GMs get used to the layout of the city, which in turn allows him to take the players through a Promenade of their own as they get used to the various sites of the city.  One thing I didn’t like though was how this section was separate from Selected Attractions.  The Selected Attractions do go into much greater detail, but having the two closer would make it easier for GMs to more effectively see how things work in the city.Another important aspect to the book is Loona.  This port city is where a lot of shady deals go down.  It’s not quite as lawful as Geanavue itself (read not at all!) and is more open and welcoming of adventurers and the might they represent.  It’s also a good place to launch nautical adventures that range from pirate hunting to battling sea beasts.  One of the new things Kenzer introduced with this book is the RumorQUEST encounter system.  This is a series of rumors that can be handed out to the players are they move through the city.  Certain rumors are linked and can be built into larger adventurers with some work from the GM.  The rules for using them include advice for slowly accumulating players to the detail found in the book.  One thing I enjoyed was the rumor quest pack to get the players into the Coin of Power series.  This works best if the players are actually residents of the city.In terms of layout, the book looks crowded.  The bottom text is very close to the edge of the paper and the main body text is tightly packed.  It would be interesting to see how this is actually effected by the placement of the outer border though as a solid, what appears to be stone border, still has about a quarter of an inch between it and the text, meaning that there is about an inch border on the outer edge.  Internal art is top notch and includes not only illustrations of people of the city, but numerous buildings as well.  This helps know the structure of the city not just from some vague overview from the map.Now the full color map is a strange thing.  It’s not quite the standard size of the book but it’s still huge.  It’s a four by two panel with most of it taken up by the map.  The bottom fourth includes shops and services letter codes, map key, overland map of Reanaaria Bay and Geanauvue and Loona, as well as a miniature map of the continent with the area squared off.  Map quality is high as the map is easily readable.  Better than just a map though, Kenzer & Co must’ve been listening when I wondered why Freeport didn’t have a map of the sewers because this map has, yes, you guessed it, a map of the sewers on the back.One of the nice things about the way NPCs are done here, is that it follows the standard abbreviations, name, class, level, very high stats, when first mentioning them, but goes a little further by providing an appendix where all the characters are listed.  This works great for me because it keeps the stats in one location while still providing the GM a rough guideline of how powerful said individuals are.Those looking for a quick location or family will get a lot of use out of the glossary.  Here, noble houses, merchant guilds, and other information, like local inns, taverns, churches, and where the kitchen sink is at, are provided with a quick definition and a page(s) reference. I had some problems with the book though.  Ed’s writing is sometimes a little unclear.  Take the information on Ilikeir, one of the early rulers of the city.  He’s described as a dabbler but its rumored that his magics still lives on.  In addition, while I would love a book of fiction set in Kalamar, I don’t want a short story in my role-playing book.  A Slip of the Knife is a good example of how the people of Geanauvue are suspicious of magic while having pride in their work ethic, but it’s a short story.  Those six pages could’ve been used for maps of guildhalls, common houses, manors, or the castle itself.  In addition, there is an Appendix devoted to spells.  Here I was thinking, “Great, we get to see how Ed handles magic and expands upon it in Kalamar.”  Two spells.  Samar’s Coin Beacon and Taatiir’s Tearing Talons.  The former is a spell that allows the user to put a beacon on a coin that lasts 2 hours a level and gives the caster a feel for where the coin is while the former summons some monstrous claws to attack the casters foes.  Nothing wrong with them, but two spells?  There were several rulers of the city, as well as numerous spellcasters in various noble houses, and all we get is two spells?  Lastly, and this is purely my opinion, but I don’t like having the RumorQuest cards being in the book.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I love the whole RumorQuest idea.  It works great.  However, I dislike having to pull maps out of my books and I certainly don’t want to pull another ten pages from my book.  Sure, they’re meant to go.  I understand that with no problem but then we’ve got the question of storage.  It’s the same problem I have with the Fiery Dragon Counters.  Where do you put ‘em once they’re punched?  This is a case where I think the web, perhaps with a password related to the book, would’ve worked out much better.  This whole section could’ve been removed so that we could get some maps of Loona.This are all small issues but they do up add.  Despite those issues though, I found the book to be useful to almost any sort of campaign.  The city is in a period of potential flux making it an excellent place for adventurers.  Take for instance an ambitious rogue who wants to put together a thieves guild.  There would be lots of opposition to the creation and maintenance of one, but not impossible.  How about a political campaign?  GMs could make party members hail from different families, perhaps even have them start off as a group of young ‘blackflames’ who have to find their own way in the world.  Want monster bashing?  Go fight the fire giants.  Want a combination of elements?  How about a war with Kalamaran soldiers as nobles and merchant houses try to rearrange the political structure of the city?  Adventurers will find no end of work as guild members, important families, and even the crown, may have use of their skills.  Of course they’ll all disdain the party for their rough ways, but the glint is good.</blockquote>

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