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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 5148933" data-attributes="member: 232">Hammerfast    Hammerfast is a new type of product for 4th edition D&D and one that I hope we see many more products like this.  Unlike the rest of my 4e reviews this one is not a product I got for review purposes.  MerricB requested a review of it and I went out and hunted down a copy and was surprised that it was tougher to find than expected.  It was well worth the hunt.  Mike Mearls shows why he is simply one of the best RPG designers of the day with this great and highly creative and usable Dwarven Outpost.    Of everything published for 4e this aside from the mins and tiles is the most edition neutral.  There are very few 4e rules in here just some monsters and NPCs.  The assumptions of the surrounding area and the monsters and politics I believe could easily fit into a game of D&D from another edition and another time.  It has a great hex area map showing the outpost and the surrounding areas.  It has a nice color fold out map of the outpost and its smaller then I was thinking.  On the flip side of is a color map of a tavern that the PCs will most likely end up using.  It is designed to be the most accommodating to outsiders and there’s a nice full color map of it.  I find that places that have large maps for them get used more often than places that do not.    The town of Hammfast is unique in that the living and the ghosts of the dead live there.  In its history was an event that caused this to happen and the citizens of the city have learned to just accept that.  Many of the buildings are tombs that people and the ghosts live i.  Some of the tombs are still sealed and could hold vast treasures and mysteries.  Raiding them is against the law here though and death awaits anyone caught in this heinous act.  Orcs live in the town as well thanks to a divine compact that Gruumsh was part of.  The dwarves and orcs do not get alone but they do tolerate each other, mostly.  There is a tension there and the politics of the town can reflect this.      There are fifty places described in this outpost.  That is not every building but it is far more than some cities ten times this size get.  The book is not an adventure but it can easily lead to them.  It has many ideas for adventures for PCs but the DM will need to flesh these out and personally that is always one of the enjoyable tasks as a DM.  This does not lock the adventures into something simple or complex so the DM can really tailor them to his own group.  There are nine quest ideas in the books that basically form a heroic level adventure arc that should advance 4e characters to paragon levels.  Even though there is 4e terminology here there is no reason one could not use these to form a good campaign arc for other edition games.      Hammerfast is the type of book does not over burden the DM but instead inspires him to craft his own adventures around this well described Dwarven Outpost.  The ghosts and the orcs being not enemies at least in the town makes for some interesting encounters that are not going to be had in most other places.  There is conflict in the politics of the city, ancient evils, and bandits that need killing.  There is a good variety of adventures and even after the adventure arc is done that does not make this place useless or dried up.  Hammerfast will become the first 4e book that gets used in my own third edition D&D campaign.</blockquote>

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