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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2333475" data-attributes="member: 1129">Not your ordinary site based adventureRuins of IntrigueWritten by Mike MearlsPublished by Malhavoc Press96 b & w pages$19.99ISBN: 1-58846-783-XA new supplement for the Arcana Evolved setting and game system, Ruins of Intrigue is a semi-sourcebook with a quasi-adventure feel. On one hand, it presents the ruins of Serathis in general chunks for the GM to manipulate and customize with NPCs, adventure seeds and unique locations. On the other, most of the material is left for the GM to actually flesh out in terms of up detailed maps, servants, and other bit players. One of the rarely used things that Mike has done, is provided the GM with alternative motives for many of the main characters and secrets. This allows two GMs to both run Ruins and have completely separate campaigns.Ruins is laid out in standard two-column format and like most Malhavoc books, has a clean look. The cover art isn’t my style, too dark and the details too hidden.  The winged creature, the dracha, also looks physically weak, lithe almost. What’s worse is that cover art is chopped up and put into the inside of the book for various chapter headers. Not counting the reprint of the cover on the first page in black and white. Thankfully, Scott Purdy and Patrick Keith add their own touches to the book and add some more flavor to it. The proofreader does a fairly good job as nothing struck me as wrong out and out. The book is priced competitively at $19.99 for 96 black and white pages.Ed Bourelle of Skeleton Key Games handles the internal cartography.  This includes an overview of Serathis with the various areas broken down, as well as up close maps of the various detailed areas like the Safe Quarter, Slums, Barrens and Forest of Towers. Sadly, no up close maps of any temples, towers, or taverns. Ruins is broken into five chapters. The first chapter provides some background on Serathis and shows that in many ways, this is a one trick pony. See, back in the day, a very powerful dragon hid the city from the Akashic memory. Now if you do that too much, it frustrates the players and renders the memory pool itself useless. In addition to background, there are numerous ideas on how to run Ruins. Because it’s in many ways a “boomtown”, it could be run much like Deadwood from the HBO series because even though the giants are on one side and the dragon and it’s servants are on the other, it’s got a lot of lawless places that clever players could hide out. For those looking for new mechanical bits, a few new monsters are also introduced with advice that if the GM wants to keep the city with it’s own unique feel, that she should use rare monsters that fit into the campaign theme that aren’t too well known to the players. Been looking for a reason to break out the Tome of Horrors 2? Now you’ve got it.The other chapters detail various areas in the land. This starts off with the local that players may start at, the safe quarter, where the giants, dragons, and others, like the agents of chaos, all have a toe hold and are watching the other parties, waiting for someone to blink, or in the case of the agents of chaos, waiting for their chance to strike.In providing options for the characters, Mike has also provided some background on what the people of the ruins think of the groups depending on which background option is taken. If the giants are little more than bullies, they still work for the good of everyone, by preventing others from taking potentially dangerous artifacts, but they’re very harsh in their enforcement of their ways.Other areas allow the GM to use other tools to keep the game moving. For example, if the party is in need of some rogue merchants carrying items that the giants might not find appropriate, then in the slums they’ve have a good chance of finding the right contact. Of course while doing that, they have to avoid groups like the Blood Hook Gang and the Crusaders.Or course some may feel that their abilities are beyond needing merchants and seek out more dangerous adventure in either the barrens or the forest of towers. Now the forest of towers is a unique site in that it’s a ‘forest’ not in the sense of woodlands and trees, but in huge buildings that resemble a modern city more than some ancient lands.For the most part, Mike’s writing is easy to read. A few times his NPC’s go the path of “generic” in that they’re big plot lines waiting for the GM to use and have some silly names. What game master hasn’t had his own Tyrant, Reign, or Nemesis? While those names are missing, we do get individuals like The Master, an extremely powerful vampire akashic or Grothnak Blooddrinker, another vampire.By providing a ton of NPC’s with multiple backgrounds, and in a game setting without an alignment, the game master can have a lot of fun arranging things for the players. Some tools are included to help the time pressed GM such as the names and brief details for some of the bars and taverns, but overall, this is not for the time pressed GM who only has time to read an adventure once and then run it.It’s important to note that while this has the d20 logo on it, it’s an Arcana Evolved sourcebook. What does that mean? Well, if you don’t have Arcana Evolved, a lot of the text isn’t going to make sense as it’s default background setting is the Diamond Throne and many of the creatures are from the Arcana Evolved book, or the old Diamond Throne book. While most of the monsters game mechanics are perfect for d20 campaigns, there is no alignment, not a huge deal, but something the reader should be aware of. Ruins is for the GM who wants to make notes on how the various factions all work in the city. How do the hidden factions, and those not known even to each other, work overall? What goals and attitudes does the GM assign the ancient entities that have made the ruins their home? How does the GM integrate the new races with those already in the setting?If you’re looking for a potential dungeon crawl with near unlimited potential, Ruins is for you.</blockquote>

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