Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011130" data-attributes="member: 1129">Loona, Port of Intrigue, is the latest city sourcebook for the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting by Ed Greenwood and Phil Thompson. At $19.99 for 96 pages, it's slightly below industry standard due not only to the use of interior covers, but for the full color use of interior maps. The product description gives a lot of details as to what this product does, so these are more or less my own quick thoughts on the book.Like most Kalamar products, layout makes good use of space with outer and top margins standard but inner and bottom margins almost breaking out of the book. Art is well done and atmospheric in the game. The cartography on the city, while well done, needs more samples of what the standard buildings, like warehouses, look like. A lot of action can happen on the dock ward and more maps, especially in the combat oriented d20 system, would be useful.This isn't a book heavy in crunch but rather, in flavor. Despite that, I've found that it's easy to use either as a Kalamar product outside of the richly detailed city Geanavue or as a stand alone port town in another setting. I'm actually going another route though.See the book has a lot of characters, organizations and history behind it. Most of that can have the serial numbers filed off while retaining it's flavor. With that in mind, I've made Loona the dock part of Mithril, a city in the Scarred Lands campaign. The port is small enough that it's almost a modular fit wit the larger city of Mitrhil.When things get too crazy in Loona, the Fists, guardians of the city Geanavue come in to straight things out. When they get too crazy in the dock ward of Mitrhil, I see no reason why the paladins of the upper city can't come in and do the same thing. There are even tours of duty in Loona for the city guards, so the same concept can once again be applied.The good news for those who aren't following my thinking, is that the city is very self contained. It has over 100 NPCs including full statistics. Not just a name, sex, class and level, but the full details. It has tons of resources to help run a Loona game. This includes the following:Over 150 locations with various degrees of detail.Wandering encounters in Loona broken up by district.Loonan Names: Nice list of male, female, surnames and nicknames.Glossary: It's important to know that the Daar is the Old Man, god of war, tactics and strategy, as well as that Dolaar is Gate in Merchant's Tongue. Flavorful stuff.Multi-page Index.Several maps including player's map, district map, overland map.These different tools make Loona a very flavorful local without relying on exotic prestige classes, weapons, spells or monsters. While there is a new monster and some new alchemical goods, they are in the appendices and don't take up much room. The reason you want to go to Loona is for the intrigue.It's to see how pirates act in town. They don't want to stir up too much trouble and cause the Fists to rain down upon them, but they're not going to act saintly. It's to see the various factions like the Redshields, reliable guards who battle against the corruption that takes hold of the other watchsword groups. It's to see how the Vigilant Blade, a new organization, fits into the city. It's to hire individuals like Haruruk the Hammer to protect you while dealing with a squeeze dealing where competitors are trying to push you out of business.Loona would make a good starting place for low level characters as they have to learn the ropes and higher powered characters, especially those with much magic, may be the targets for various thieving events, would probably be a little too powerful for this city and move on up to the nearby Geanavue.As a companion piece to that city, Ed and Phil have done a great job of providing characters with a place to get rough and ready before coming home for the holidays.</blockquote>

Verification