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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 2008934" data-attributes="member: 3087">About six months ago I picked up Hollowfaust on a whim; after that my interest in the Scarred Lands has grown steadily. So why am I writing about Mithril? Because, among all the Scarred Lands products that have come out Mithril is a pretty major disappointment. Which is a shame, when the original books about the Scarred Lands started to come out (especially Relics and Rituals and their treatment of Paladins through different spells and images) the city had a great premise. Unfortunately the book is uninspired (especially compaired to the other two city books).If you like the Scarred Lands the product is around a 2. Its basically useless but there are a few bits that may be useful to you. If you love the Scarred Lands, and really really want to run a canon (whatever that means) game in Mithril then its probably a 3. The book fufills its basic mission: it tells you about Mithril. If you are just looking for ideas or are looking for a city to drop into your own world its probably a 1, there are a few ideas but they are presented poorly, are often derivative (have been done elsewhere better), and will have to be completely fleshed out by the DM. Choices for what to stat and what not to stat were a bit unfortunate (more below). Though I don't find it to be a fatal flaw there also a lack of what people have taken to calling "crunchy" bits. I don't need more feats, classes or magic objects but if you are looking for things of this sort you'd best go elsewhere.It's 90 some odd pages repeating a few simple themes. The writers have made an effort to have just about every location or NPC involve something like a plot hook. So Azatan, a rare book seller, has recently been approached by a mysterious, threatening figure trying to obtain an indecipherable book in his possession. These hooks save the book from being a 1. They would be more useful if more was written about the hook (a suggestion or two for a direction it could go in) or if the hooks were more interesting.In general I expect two things from a city/location based sourcebook: interesting ideas and situtations (adventure hooks, evocative descriptions, novel quirks about the city) which hang together with a common theme and also stats for things I'd rather not create. Preferably this is all organized in an easily acessable way. While taste is certainly a factor Mithril short these fronts. Despite an inspired premise the book doesn't advance the ideas presented in the Gazetteer, R&R or tD&tD.The book manages to provide information without really reducting the DM's workload. For example: the city has different sectors, which are policed by different groups. Exactly what groups police the lower vaguely outlined, later on there are few groups provided from which the DM can select to use to actually police the area. This is unfortunate. When buying a book (ideally) it actually tells you who is where and doing what. A DM can change it if he or she likes but if they don't want to waste their time creating these things then its in the book. Unfortunately Mithril does no such thing. Basically the books explaination is that "The poor areas are patrolled by somebody who is payed by somebody else who eventually is somewhat connected to the paladins in their temple city". The DM has to make up who all these people are (either ahead of time or on the spot), with the help of a few vague paragraphs and names. Unlike the later city books there are no stats for sterotypical guards, the average watchman, etc. (though if the PCs choose to attack the Paladin in charge of the beacon towers she has 90 hit points and is armed with a +5 cleaving longsword -- good to know, that).The "Anceints" are worthly of their own little mini-rant. SL is chock full of lots ancient civilizations. Lost civilizations of great power which were laid low by their own hubris, dark forces or both are a D&D staple near and dear to my heart. Having said that Mithril does a particularly terrible job of it. There are already numerious lost civilizations in the SL, Mithril introduces another one. Its called the Ancients (very creative). They had some kind of neato magic, it may have been runic. They were destroyed suddenly by a "dark power". There isn't anything remotely resembling something interesting about them; its just like every other setting with ancient ruins, removes all the interesting details and then sticks it in the setting. Since they leave their ruins everywhere and are offered up as the lame genisis of a number of the adventures the PCs will probably want to investigate them. If the PCs choose to investigate them the DM has to make up everything by his/her self.[Not to keep going on about Hollowfaust in the review of Mithril but at least when Hollowfaust did it they created an actual civilization, Sumara, and spent a page or two detailing what the place had been like.]The Adventure chapter is the weakest section of a weak book. There are a variety of different types of adventures outlined. A poor attempt at a mystery, what seems to be a rip-off of the orcs from Warcraft (appearance of a Shaman with message of peace), etc. The final eco-adventure was an interesting change, though it kind of fails the logic test.... If the whole region's magical ecology is being destablized by the Wind Spires why has it suddenly (after a century) started to cause ruinious fires?The only real stats to speak of appear in the form of NPCs some of whom are scattered throughout the book and the rest of whom presided in the the NPCs chapter (which runs about 18 pages). I subscribe to the idea that good characters don't need to be borning (and paladin's are one of my favorite classes) but after encountering the character sheet of sixth devoted paladin of Corian with nothing of any interest it gets a bit much. I figure 5-10 pages could have been saved by creating one "loyal servant of Corian" sheet and just noting any special traits elsewhere. It was impressive the number of different ways the authors managed to write about their "total devotion to their god" and the different ways that they express this devotion (usually by skipping meals and having no social lives). I should point out that I don't see anything wrong with a city of paladins being run by devoted paladins. There were other things (like town guards, or things in the adventure section) whose stats should have appeared first, however. Furthermore the writers might even have tried to flesh these characters out a bit. Its not really enough spend a paragraph (the only paragraph about the character) telling me that the 19th level paladin is really devoted to his god. This isn't news.Mullis town. There is a whole segment on Mullis town (which sounded like a fairly neat place when presented in the Gazetteer). Unfortunately its basically a stock cut out of any old town. It has some details presented but a DM would have to do a lot of work to breath life into the place and the attached adventure hooks are sterotypical.This is fairly minor but its a pet peeve: Especially since the Divine and Defeated S&S has done a good job of keeping supplements from being too contradictory. Mithril is an unfortunate exception. The ultimate adventure (its more like a rough schetch of what could be a sterotypical adventure) involves a final confrontation with a mighty titan spawn created in the final period of the titans war. To further enhance the creatures prestige the description states that the creator was fashioned by Mesos himself (though compairing the titans power levels is kind of ridicious Mesos was probably one of the most effective and dangerious of the titans). There's just one sticky little problem, Mesos' destruction by the gods was the first act of open hositility. It really doesn't affect the adventure seriously but if I'm paying for an SL product I'd like it to adhere generally to the published history. A DM who runs the game as is (ok its not runnable as is but if you go through and do everything which would be required to make the adventure into somethign you could actually play) will probably be embarised by his/her players or else will have to do some pretty quick thinking.</blockquote>

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