Streets of Silver

[Messageboard Golem]

A Twin Crowns Adventurers Guide

Explore the streets and canals of the Novarese city of Parma from its slick cobble-stone alleys to its shining plazas

Find your fortune in service to one of the ruling families or one of the powerful guilds

Admire the wealth of the docks, the craft of the artisans, and the smells of the trattorias

Buy and sell goods, services and information in hundreds of establishments

Meet the characters that make Parma one of the most vibrant, exciting, and dangerous cities of the Empire!

 

[GameWyrd]

Streets of Silver is a 312-paged book from Living Imagination Inc.. The website quotes the RRP at US$ 29.95. There are two ways at looking at that; that’s a lot of money for a single city but it’s not too bad for such a hefty book.

Streets of Silver isn’t going to win any beauty pageants. It’s blocky at times, with short paragraph entries and bold type headings of the same size as the default text. The book can be reminiscent of an encyclopaedia in places. It’s little surprise that illustrations start to run thin in such a large book. This is especially true at the end of the book where you can go pages without a break from the squared paragraphs of text. There’s plenty of cartography and that’s a good thing, if you’re buying Streets of Silver then you’re paying for a minutely detailed city guide. It’s not all peaches and cream with the cartography though. The book itself succeeds gracefully in conjuring up a Renaissance flavour for the city of Parma but many of the maps in the book are blocky computer generated images and this proves to be counter productive for the atmosphere. The exceptions are the great maps on page three and the double-paged entry on pages 10 and 11.

Then there’s the poster. The colour poster in the back of the book that unfolds to be four times the surface area of the book itself. Okay, so this map is in the blocky cgi style but the shades of colour really do help counter the square feel. I’m playing in a Freeport game where the GM makes good use of the coloured Freeport map and now with Parma I have a bigger map to call my own. Even if I don’t use Parma, or the Twin Crowns world, this map will do for any city on a pronounced peninsula. Fair enough, by itself the map isn’t worth nearly $30 but it certainly does add a point to the book’s rating on the GameWyrd scale.

Yes, I said Freeport – that’s Green Ronin’s special interest city. Comparisons are inevitable. Comparisons with Ghelspad from SSS seem especially likely to. Both Ghelspad and Streets of Silver are light on crunch and heavy on theme and flavour. The difference between Ghelspad and Streets of Silver is that Ghelspad enjoyed very much more foreshadowing. I was eager to find out about some parts of Ghelspad by the time the book came out. For Streets of Silver I’m reading about places and people for the first time and that makes it very much harder to get sucked into the book.

There. That’s it. That’s the bad stuff out of the way first (not that the poster map is bad stuff) and that leaves the review to consider Streets of Silver’s persistent successes. Persistent is a good word to use. That’s how the book works; it builds up layers of details until, by the end of the book, there’s nothing wanting. With that level of completeness comes success.

The book’s divided in to three sections and many chapters. The first section can be read by anyone, the second section has more detailed information on the city that perhaps only characters with suitable knowledge skills and familiarity would know about and the last section is for GMs only. In fact the cheeky book suggests you should go to the website and be screened for GM clearance or risk being cast into the void if you read the last section.

As mentioned above you don’t have to be using the Twin Crowns campaign setting to use Streets of Silver and the book is happy to help out if that’s the case. Straight up there’s a conversion note for deities and the reminder that unless your game setting actually blesses people with five lives each (as is the case in Twin Crowns) then it might be best to assume the mention of multiple lives in the book refer to resurrections or recovering from serious wounds.

The first chapter concerns itself with geography and to this end it freely covers areas outside Parma itself. There are quite a few relevant small cities with about a tenth of Parma’s population that are mentioned in Streets of Silver, a number of towns too. You’ll see these locations on the double-paged map early on in the book.

The history to Parma pretty much sits as a stand-alone entry although knowledge of the wider world would be helpful. This isn’t a long chapter; just a couple of pages long but it’s enough to build the city from and ties in strongly with the Government chapter. The government system in Parma gets a half-dozen or so pages all to itself. Its details like this that helps nudge Streets of Silver out from an average rating and into the heights of a good rating. Of particular note here are the two pages of The Laws of Parma presented in an easy to read table. Whereas these laws must be far from complete they cover what’s likely to occur in a roleplaying game and really do make it clear that Parma isn’t a generic fantasy city. Murder, for example, is punished by purification and restitution where restitution is a payment to the victim’s family. Prostitution is legal. Rogue Magic is the use of magic without approval from the Mage Guild but first level spells and cantrips are sufficiently low level as to be exempt.

It sounds like the culture in Parma is quite interesting and so I was pleased to turn the page and find the culture chapter sitting right there. Holy days and special events are marked on the calendar. We’ve a list of excuses to hold a party – a grand opening of a business, celebrating a victorious duel, the lunching of a new capital ship or even the loss of virginity! Oh yes. Parma is quite the party port. You’ll find plenty of brothels and bordellos inside. It’s also quite easy to get into trouble in Parma, a social faux pas (eating while standing up, for example) might result in an official vendetta is things truly spiral out of control. You’ll find price lists for exotic and fashionable items (rose oil, for example) and even stats for different sizes of gondolas. Parma may get its nickname of "Streets of Silver" from the way the canals shimmer in the moonlight.

It’s a religious city and so the first of the organizations that appear in the chapter of the same name are all churches. There are arcane organizations too, the aforementioned Mage Guild, the Dragon Guild, College of the Magi and others. There are martial and mercantile organizations, all the sort of places and people that are just waiting to get tangled up in plot.

There are new rules in Streets of Silver, there is crunch and even if that surprises you, I doubt you’ll be too surprised to discover the Courtesan prestige class. There are a couple more prestige classes, all suited well enough to Parma and all 10 level classes. There are new rituals like the Comfort Zone, Ghostly Curse and Household Staff. There are a few new creatures as well and I think the Pulley Golem, made up of magically animated rope and wooden pulleys, scores a hit as the most original golem yet.

Chapter Seven, Neighbourhoods of Parma, marks the start of the specialised knowledge section in the book. Do American spells neighbourhoods without the u? I guess they must, Living Imagination does. It’s here that the referenced paragraphed information about places around the city begins – the section of the book that reminds me of an encyclopaedia. Okay. That’s not a bad thing but at this point Streets of Silver isn’t really the sort of book you can sit down and read page by page along with a mug of coffee. A sample entry might look like:

"D3 Sole Centisimo
(Restaurant *****, 650 gp, 25 employees, 3d20 customers)
Size: 45’x45’
Wares: Fine foods and wine (7 gp – 25 gp) 90%, price 500%
Proprietor: Arnoldo Sole – elf, medium height, bright blonde hair, consistently smiling, scintillating green eyes..."
... and then a paragraph about the Sole Centisimo.

There are pages and pages of these entries. D3 refers to the five star restaurant’s location on one of the maps. These paragraphs are divided up by neighbourhood and presented alphabetically therein. This info dump starts at page 55 and concludes at page 215. Wow. Lots.

Except that’s not the all of it. The next chapter, the GM only bit, chapter 8, "Below the Surface" picks up on some key areas or organisations in the city and dishes the dirt on them. Here you’ll find some plot overviews and some hooks as well as the full low down on what’s going on. If you want to know who’s doing what (and to whom) then it’s here.

Chapter nine is similar in the sense that "Behind the Scenes" re-visits many of the location entries in the travel guide like "Neighbourhoods of Parma" chapter – except this time we’re either given a snippet of stats, notes of traps or items of interest (where there’s a magical dagger hidden under the bed, for example) and tit-bits like that. The map reference key (D3 in our example above) becomes really useful in quickly finding the matching entry on this side of the GM screen. You still need to know which neighbourhood entry the location is in first though since the division by neighbourhood and then alphabetic ordering is maintained here. Sole Centesimo (D3) is in the Ducal Gardens (P3) for example. This chapter starts at page 242 and concludes at 291.

Some of the NPCs in the city need more than just the snippet of stat that "Behind the Scenes" has space for. The final, 20-paged, chapter in Streets of Silver is a collection of full stat blocks. It’s ordered alphabetically by last name except where the NPC only has one (known) name or is better known by title. The Grey Knight, for example, is found with the other Gs and High Priests under the Hs. Streets of Silver is big book but it could have done with one of the mega-indexes sometimes found in books of it’s size (the Mongoose Ultimate supplement series, for example).

There’s no doubting the successes of Streets of Silver; it does what it sets out to do and it does it well. Whereas the book doesn’t have you whisking through the pages and eager to see what comes next it is certain that you will know what comes next if your players are exploring the city. Parma feels real. It’s not some token city. There’s more than just one tavern with a rude name and one posh inn. It’s an expensive book but if you demand carefully planned details for your game and are just too busy to design a whole city then Streets of Silver is probably worth your money. If you’re playing in the Twin Crowns world then the book’s use is tripled.

* This Streets of Silver review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.
Please note that this review contains some spoilers in the discussion of Chapters 8 and 9.

Streets Of Silver is a city sourcebook for the Twin Crowns campaign setting from Living Imagination.

Streets Of Silver is a 312-page mono softcover product costing $29.95. There is very good use of space in terms of font, margins and white space with just a 1-page ad in the back of the book. The artwork runs from average to good, with a particularly evocative front cover showing gargoyles crouched on ledges and winging their way over a lamp-lit city waterway. Maps are basic but clear, except for the scale, which is so minute as to be mainly unreadable, and there are no compass directions. This is not true of the colour map attached in the back of the book, where scale is readable and compass direction given - this makes a useful resource for both GMs and players. Writing style is good, as is editing, with only occasional minor errors (the most amusing one in a section regarding a ritual that destroys all plants in an area - "If left completely fallow, wild pants will begin to invade the barren area").

Streets of Silver deals with the metropolis of Parma, located in the Duchy of Parma on the Novarese Coast (part of Living Imagination's Twin Crowns setting). Parma resembles one of the cities of mediaeval Italy, and the information given has an authentic historical resonance, despite no mention being made of sources of inspiration.

Introduction
This short intro outlines the contents of the book and gives some advice for conversion to other campaign settings, which mainly gives a list of the fields of influence of the deities of the Twin Crown setting. There are also a few paragraphs of in-character flavour text giving an overview of the city.

Chapter 1: Geography
This short chapter gives an overview of the Duchy of Parma, concentrating mainly on the cities and towns that hold most of its population. The entries give both general information on location, population, and trade, and a few adventure seeds encapsulated within the description. There is also a two-page map of the area surrounding Parma.

Chapter 2: History
I find long histories fairly boring so I was pleased to see this chapter was fairly short, giving a general overview of the founding of the city, the destructive Thieves War about a hundred years ago, the background of the war of succession that closely followed, and the history of the Duke of Parma, a khesta named Elghin, who acceded when he was adopted by the previous human Duke, and now puts his plans for rebuilding Parma into practice.

Chapter 3: Government
This looks at the government structure of Parma - the duke and the nobility, the senate (which proposes and passes the laws of Parma as well as economic investment in new projects), the ducal council (which looks more at administering the law, and controls trade, building, works of art, and military control), the Parma Nationale (the police force of Parma), and the local naval base. There is also a section on the laws of Parma with a table showing crime and punishment.

Chapter 4: Culture
This chapter begins with the year's calendar for events in Parma, including elections, carnivals, and holy days. There is a simplified list of social status from highest to lowest, a discussion on Parman greetings, table manners, and rules for polite conversation (and social faux pas). There is also a section on vendetta, with details on how these wars between important families start and develop. There is further information on Parman dress, and art and theatre. The next section looks at the economy of Parma, with a table showing the trading prices for imported and exported goods, and shipping and passage fees. The chapter ends with stat blocks for gondolas and the Parman fishing vessel in line with the rules from Living Imaginations 'Broadsides' product.

Chapter 5: Organizations
Various churches are represented in Parma and the religious organizations that run these churches are described at the beginning of the chapter - arcane organizations such as the College of the Magi and The Magus Guild are also described. A couple of mercenary companies are covered, before the rest of the chapter outlines the main mercantile groups in Parma, including a semi-secret smuggling cabal.

Chapter 6: New Rules
The chapter begins with four 10-level prestige classes:
* Courtesan - gains an increasing ability to charm others, with good Reflex and Will saves, and a Rogue's BAB & HD.
* Inspector - 1st-level entry point for this PrC is a bit odd, with four skills at 4 ranks each, the Alertness feat, and the ability to cast two divination spells. A 1st-level spellcasting character should be able to meet this requirement with a reasonable Intelligence score. This 'prestige' class gains various investigative powers (including an arcane spell list up to 5th level) and acts as the only honourable members of the otherwise corrupt police force of Parma.
* Mendicant - gang leader or crime boss, another PrC with a low (3rd-level) entry requirement and abilities that enhance their ability to run an organisation.
* Shifter - a consummate actor who gains magical abilities to enhance their performance (as well as helping them in their alternative role as a spy or assassin).

The next section introduces eleven new rituals for use with Twin Crowns' ritual rules. These include Foul Land (renders a square mile of land infertile for a decade) and protection from scrying (which permanently blocks magical scrying). Two new creatures are also given - the insidious Milano Cat and the odd Pulley Golem. Two new magical items - potion of invulnerability and a minor cursed artifact, the Bloodstone Ring, which makes an appearance with one of the NPCs later in the book.

Chapter 7: Neighborhoods Of Parma
This chapter constitutes the meat of the book at over 160 pages and is essentially a detailed gazetteer of Parma. Each location use a template that covers the following aspects:
* A location identification code to find it on the accompanying neighbourhood map (unfortunately this does not also relate to the larger colour map in the back of the book).
* A Star Rating (from 1 to 5) giving a comparison with other establishments in Parma.
* A gp rating giving an idea of the amount of wealth generally found in the building or location.
* The number of occupants (including transients such as customers or guards/employees, and permanent residents)
* Size and number of rooms
* Wares (types of items or services to be found)
* A description, giving further information on the location

Chapter 8: Below The Surface
This chapter gives eleven shortish adventure ideas exploring the dark underbelly of Parma. It includes concepts such as a foreign spy ring whose intelligence source is cunningly hidden in a gift of magical statues, the subversion of a prominent magistrate using a magical poison to further the ends of a cult cell, and a vendetta between two rich merchant families focused on support of two opposing entertainment ensembles. Each adventure idea covers two or three pages and is quite well fleshed out, including a few paragraphs on the adventure background, a plot overview, and PC hooks. Some of the adventure ideas may contain further information such as a new poison, some information on the gargoyles of the Piazza di Courtilay, and other information to help develop the adventures.

Chapter 9: Behind The Scenes
This 50-page chapter uses the format of the gazetteer in Chapter 7. However, for each location, a secret is given (from minor information such as the location of a locked wall safe behind a painting and its contents to significant detail such as the activities of the nefarious Mithral Guard under the Donjon) as well as brief stats for the major NPCs to be found at each location. This effectively provides the GM with further plot hooks and allows the information in Chapter 7 (which could be made available to players) to be clearly demarcated from the GM-only information in this chapter.

Chapter 10: NPCs
This chapter gives stat blocks for the NPCs introduced in Chapter 8. These stat blocks seem fairly OK with a few minor mistakes (such as giving a rogue a longsword as their main weapon with no weapon proficiency feat, and the penalty not applied to their attacks). There is no additional information on their background or personality here, above and beyond that offered in the adventure ideas in Chapter 8 or at their locations elsewhere in the book.

Conclusion:
This is an interesting and detailed look at a bustling and decadent port town. In many ways, it reminded me of Freeport: City Of Adventure, in that it contains a mixture of detailed gazetteer and adventure hooks with some new rules to suit the setting. The splitting of the information between player and GM has its advantages and disadvantages - on the one hand, the GM can freely show a player relevant information or know that he can safely impart information from certain chapters; on the other, finding all the relevant information about one location (general information, secret information, adventure idea, and NPC stats) can be quite tricky and would need some organisation pre-game by the GM to ensure she can access the correct information easily and quickly in-game. The lack of index in the book exacerbates this disadvantage. Highly recommended for those running a Twin Crowns campaign, this accessory can still be of great benefit to anyone wanting to add a detailed port setting to their medieval fantasy campaign. The major question mark as to its success would be that it is similar to Freeport in its tone and type, and will probably suffer because of it, but Streets Of Silver stands on its own and should actually appeal more to those looking for a greater historical influence or an Italian feel. Better presentation and an index (and possibly linking the location codes to the colour pull-out map) could have earned the book top marks.

 

[Psion]

Streets of Silver

Streets of Silver is a book describing the city of Parma. Parma is a major port and center of commerce in the Northern Empire of the Twin Crowns campaign setting, but bills itself as being usable in any d20 fantasy campaign setting.

Streets of Silver cites Harald Henning as the lead developer and there are numerous contributing authors. The book is published by Living Imagination, publisher of the well received Broadsides! naval rules supplement.

A First Look

Like the Twin Crowns campaign setting book, Streets of Silver is a very thick perfect bound softcover book. Streets of Silver weighs in at 312 pages for $29.95. This is an extremely competitive price for a book of this size.

The cover of the book has the same blue marbled tone that other Living Imagination products use. The cover has a nice painting of some buildings in the city surrounding a canal, with gargoyles looking on the citizens below. The cover illustration is by Jhoneil M. Centeno.

The interior is black and white, and includes work by Milos Milic, Marcio Fiorito, Jose Rivera Pares, Eric M. Lofgren, Jeff Himmelman, and Owen Kuhn. The quality of the art is a significant improvement over the much less professional and polished looking Twin Crowns.

The book has a significant number of maps of the city. There is a large color fold-out map in the back, and several black-and-white maps of different parts of the city embedded in the book. The maps appear to be done in Campaign Cartographer 2 judging by the building features. The maps do look crisp and professional. They look more attractive than those of Bluffside, but are not as attractive as the maps in Geanavue and Freeport. The black-and-white maps don't look quite as attractive as the color map, as the color scheme does not seem to translate well to grayscale.

The book uses a stylish but readable header font, and a compact body text font. The text and paragraphs are single spaced. The layout is simple but functional, with a two-column format and clear but conservative chapter headers. The cost, use of space, and presentation make this book a good value based on content density and presenttion.

A Deeper Look

Streets of Silver has ten sections that can be roughly divided into three sections. The first five chapters are general details about the area: geography, history, organizations, government, and culture. Chapter 6 (mislabeled chapter 4 in the table of contents) contains new rules. Chapters seven through ten comprise a bulk of the book and addresses details of the city. (I notice the authors also state that the book has three sections, but their first section lumps together the sections as I saw them, and their last two sections split my last section between public and GM only information.)

The ad copy on the back claims the book is designed for use in any d20 fantasy setting. The city is the psuedo-European sort that pervades most d20 fantasy settings. There is a small section devoted to the two major issues that would come up if trying to port Parma to another setting: deities and the unusual resurrection rule of the setting.

The deities of the Twin Crowns setting are fairly generic in nature and it should be fairly straightforward to port them to another typical d20 fantasy setting. The conversion notes provides a guide to areas of influence of the various deities to assist in this effort. The biggest issue will probably be the NPCs. Twin Crowns introduces its own deity-specific domains, as well as introducing the concept of initiated characters in service to the deity, which in turn allows access to a number of powerful specific feats defined in the Twin Crowns setting book.

A bigger potential problem is the idea of gifts. All characters in the Twin Crowns begin play with five gifts; restoring a character to life who has remaining setting gifts requires that the spirit be present and an initiated character perform a ceremony of hallowed ground. This makes bringing a character back to life significantly easier than in a standard fatasy campaign.

As you might imagine, this would have a profound impact on society. Streets of Silver takes this ball and runs with it, integrating this convention into aspects of society such as the legal code. This is great if you are using the Twin Crowns rules, but will require some adaptation if you are not.

Parma is a major port city on the Great Inland Sea in the Northern Empire in the Twin Crowns campaign setting. The city is a major center of commerce with a comparatively high standard of living. The city plays host to a major naval base of the Northern Empire.

Parma itself is split into two major sections. A major portion of the city, "Parma Vecchio", is on a promontory jutting out from the mainland. Another major section of the city, "Parma Nuovo", is situated on an island in the bay. There are several canals that cris-cross the island portion of the city. Several other islands in the bay have facilities and settlements on them.

A large scale illustration of the city that shows the many buildings of Parma clustered on the hillsides by the sea. This illustration, the use of Italian sounding names, and the use of Vennice-like canals give the city a decidedly Mediterranean feel.

The text claims the population of Parma to be 90,000. A cursory glance at the map does not seem to reveal enough living space for that many people, so a GM concerned about this sort of detail may have to assume a number of residences that aren't shown, or tweak down this figure.

The background sections regarding the city are fairly detailed, painting a picture of a well-to-do city with a colorful history and that parties at the drop of a hat. Social conventions and expectations are well mapped out, and a little easier to digest than the exhaustive social commentary presented in the Kalamar city book Geanavue: Stones of Peace.

The New Rules chapter introduces new prestige classes, rituals, creatures, and magic items.

The classes have generic names like courtesan, inspector, mendicant, and shifter. Despite the generic names, the inspector and the shifter are rooted in the background of the city. Inspectors are proteges of an inspector named Vitalas Fondaco who combines magic with traditional inspection techniques. Shifters are a select group of performers that moonlight as spies and assassins with many spell like abilities.

The classes are generally well laid out and balanced. The only thing I found a bit disconcerting was that the courtesan had a number of spell like and supernatural abilities and no sort of background that would explain these sorts of abilities.

Rituals are an aspect of the book that, again, will likely not be too useful to you if you do not use the Twin Crowns setting. Rituals are much like spells, but require special skill checks and components. Rituals were introduced in the Twin Crowns setting book, but you can also find complete rules for them in the recently released Spellbound by Living Imagination.

The Neighborhoods chapter is the most significant in the book, taking up half of the book all by itself. A significant portion of the buildings in the city are covered with details on quality, goods, size, occupants, and wares (complete with variations from the standard prices.) The occupants section includes both the normal staff or residents at the location, as well as a likely range of visitors or customers. Each description also includes one or more paragraphs outlining the function and known facts about the place.

The Neighborhoods chapter defines more public aspects of the various locales in the city. The three chapters that follow it are more GM information.

Chapter 8 is entitled Below the Surface, and details several major plotlines that GMs can use as the basis for adventures. Many of these plotlines reveal secrets about major edifices and institutions in the city, and all include a number of PC Hooks to work the characters into the plotline. The plotlines do not follow any sequence or timeline, but some may be only suitable for specific levels.

Chapter 9, Behind the Scenes, defines a number of minor plotlines and secrets associated with specific locales within the city, which adds another level of detail to the already exhaustive details about the city.

Chapter 10 provides statistics blocks for major NPCs in the city. Each has a complete stat block, with only a few rules errors that I could spot with a cursory glance (one example is a wizard with a low dex that actually lists a higher flat-footed AC than normal AC.)

Conclusion

Overall, Streets of Silver is a fantastic city supplement, providing a great level of detail and many good plots, all at a very reasonable price for the size. If you are already following or are interested in the Twin Crowns setting, there is no reason not to look into this book.

As a generic city supplement, the book is not quite as generic as Bluffside and Freeport. However, it is more detailed, and the size and price of this book certainly makes it a competitor in this category.

Overall Grade: A- (as generic supplement: B+)

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Brad Mix, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
This review is for Living Imagination’s new city guide Streets of Silver. This 312-page softbound book retails for $29.95 and is designed for LI’s Twin Crowns campaign world. With 17 authors credited the editor did a good job of keeping everything flowing smoothly.

First Blood
The city of Parma is a huge port city set in the Twin Crowns campaign setting. It can be adapted to any setting with a little conversion. The deities of this world are given spheres on page 5 to allow for an easy transition to your own world.

Geography is the topic of chapter 1. This city of 90,000 is a large, prosperous port city. With a total population of 400,000 is close proximity. The duchy of Parma includes 450 villages which average two to three hundred each and 45 towns that have over 2000 citizens. This offers innumerable opportunities for adventures. Some of the larger towns in the area are given a little write up. A 2-page map shows the city and several islands that are used as additional docks and naval bases.

Chapter 2 gives a 2-page history of newer events in and around the city.

Chapter 3 details the government and punishments for crimes. This is an interesting chart that helps set the tone or mood of the setting. Crimes from simple assault to mass murder are covered. One of the interesting punishments is conscription, or forced service in the military. Of special notes is prostitution is not against the law.

Culture is what Parma is all about. Parma prides itself in its great cultural achievements more than its financial success. Festivals and holy days are stacked into the calendar. A brief description is given for each special occasion. Transportation is included in this chapter and gives fees and prices for common goods.

Organizations and how they affect society are covered. A couple of different churches have the most power it seems. The most popular is the church of Brashtamere, who is the patron of festivals and joy. Even the patron of merchants has conceded its dominance. A pure (no bards or sorcerers) wizards guild and a Magus guild are the two biggest magical influences in the area.

Chapter 6 introduces some new prestige classes, Courtesan, Inspector, Mendicant, and Shifter The Courtesan is the master or playing the game in high society. Quick thinking allows courtesans to rise to the forefront of high society. My favorite new skill is Pillow Talk. This ability exudes a zone of truth that allows the courtesan to gather information. Bards and rogues are the most natural choices for the Courtesans.

The Inspector is a traditional police detective that can use magic to help find someone. A limited amount of spells can be acquired and does require a spell book. The Mendicant is an underworld gang leader who gains abilities to lead a small number of people with the leadership feat. A whole syndicate can be gained at 10th level. The Shifter belongs to the actors guild of the city. But this guild doubles as a home for assassins, spies and infiltrators. This cross training helps with the subterfuge that is needed for a rogue.
The classes are good but would be better suited for NPC status.

Chapter 7 is the meat and potatoes of the book Spanning 160 pages it details the city and breaks it down into different neighborhoods. Each ‘hood is given a black and white map and important buildings are given a code. By looking up the code you can get information about that particular building and any special inhabitants. The Flying Fish Inn tells how much business it does per day, how many employees are used, how many guests on average, price range for food and rooms, information about the proprietor, and a brief history of the inn. This attention to detail is great and saves the GM a lot of time.

Chapter 8 is called Below the Surface. This is where all of the GM sub plots and schemes are detailed. With a city this big a lot is going on beneath all those parties. The plots are not time specific and can be included as the GM sees fit. An overview and character hooks allow these to be easily introduced.

Chapter 9 builds on what was included in the previous chapter. Behind the scenes gives the stats and any other pertinent information for the NPC’s. Everyone from the Duke to the local church leaders to the gang leaders is listed along with other notables.

Chapter 10 rounds out the book with a few less notable NPC’s.

Critical Hits
What I really like about this book and setting is the culture aspect of the game. A simple act of eating while standing up could result in a loss of social stature. The social stature can rise and fall very easily and could result in some interesting roleplaying opportunities. Woe be to the player who wears high boots in summertime. If the offense is serious enough, in the eyes of the offended, then a vendetta can be called. Vendetta is a way for peers to settle affronts to their social status. Vendetta usually starts off small and could end up with someone dying. Local law usually stays out of these matters as long as only the two participants and families are affected. Typical strategies include hiring away artists from the person, having political support pulled, having a daughter charmed to run away with a foreign minstrel. A lot of creativity goes into this process and could result in players getting in the middle of a conflict.

Critical Misses
There is not much in this book not to like. Very limited open gaming content is included. Along with the standard block text, only the system of arcane and divine rituals are OGC.

Color is not used in the book and artwork is used sparingly as page filler. Some sketches of the more predominate figures would have been nice.

Coup de Grace
Overall this is a great city setting. Unfortunately comparisons are going to be made between this and Green Ronin’s Freeport. Each is great in its own right and you the buyer will have to decide which one is better suited to your campaign or needs. I am not going to suggest one over the other, as that would not be fair to either. Either would be a great addition to your bookshelf.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[JoeGKushner]

If size alone were an indication of greatness, Streets of Silver would win the gold. Clocking in at a massive 312 black and white pages with a six page fold out full color map, you get your money's worth with Streets of Silver.

Streets of Silver is a city sourcebook for the Twin Crown settings detailing the city of Parma. Broken up into ten chapters, the book is easy to navigate around even as it sometimes makes finding things difficult. For example, the geography and history of the book starts off simple enough in the first two chapters and the government and culture are easy to navigate in three and four, but then we get organizations in chapter five, a mislabeled chapter six (four) with new rules, and then neighborhoods in chapter seven, adventurers in chapter eight, locations in chapter nine, and NPCs in chapter ten.

It works out well. Take the NPC's in chapter ten. These are individuals who might not be in one location or who have multiple uses. The bad news is that they're just stats and physical details like height and weight. This makes the GMs job of placing them by recognition a little more difficult as they're just stat blocks. Inspector Vitalis Fondaco Rog2/Div2/Ftg5/Inspector 10? What's he do? Where's he go. Nothing there so flip to the right chapter and place to read up on him. The good news is that they have the section they come from like High Priest Artus, location PS1, chapter five.

One thing that Streets of Silver does well is insure that some of the material is as all purpose as possible. Take the gods in the setting. There is a listing of the gods and their domains which allows the GM to look and see that Jaad has peace, knowledge and wisdom for his domains or spheres of influence. This makes it a snap to replace the Twin Crowns deities with your own campaigns.

The new rules in chapter six start off with new prestige classes like the courtesan, inspector, mendicant (gang leader), and shifter (actor). The PrCs add some unique aspects to the city but on the other hand, Freeport and other books like Traps & Treachery, have already covered the courtesan and gang leader bits. The inspector on the other hand, ties well into the setting as does the Shifter who is a part of the Parma Player's Guild.

If you're using the rituals from Twin Crown's Spellbound or the main rule book, there are new rituals to add to your campaign like Dome of Clearsight, a ritual that brings a wall of force in a dome shape into existence. The two new mosnters, the milano cat and pulley golem, add a little to the setting but won't be a make or break decision. The two new magic items include the potion of invulnerability, granting the user a damage reduction of 15/+5 and the minor artifact, the Bloodstone (no, not the ring from the Kane novel).

Now the rules are almost at a minimum here compared to the rest of the book. So what's the rest of the book about? The first section on geography provides the reader with an overview of the area and the numerous islands that are inhabited nearby. While most of the closer small villages only get a paragraph or two of information, this helps make the setting richer as it's not just a single city on the coastline but one with neighbors like Fulda, Porta Rossana and Succoro among others.

The bulk of the book takes place in Chapter Seven, Neighborhoods of Parma, over one hundred and fifty pages of different districts with different people, places and things to do in each one.Take the Giardini Verdi, an area of old money with gardens, manors and old families who've got the money to keep trouble and the unexpected out of their area to the Arena Distrcit, a massive stadium where gladiatorial combat is held and fighting is the only form of money here.

A book this massive might intimidate GMs into not using it but Chapter Eight, Below the Surface, provides different plot seeds to add to the campaign. Each one provides background and plot overview as well as character hooks. With over ten plots, the GM should have no excuse not to introduce the party to the city immediately.

Streets of Silver has a few minor issues. First up is the layout. It's a huge book with a simple two column layout but its so light on art sometimes that I wonder if more white space wouldn't improve the readability a little. While the art is a step up from their campaign setting and first book, Twin Crowns, it's still not always up to the standards set by Green Ronin, Malhavok and others in the competitive d20 field. Many of the stats look good at first glance but like many d20 products, there are some exceptions as some individuals seem to have bonuses that aren't warranted.

While the maps are great as a separate unit, the art and sytle of said maps leaves a little to be desired. This is especially true if you're one of those gamers who finds “Maps Are RPG Porno”. A meta issue is with the prestige classes. Do we really need another courtesan PrC when there are already so many out there? Reuse of OGC isn't a crime. Another meta-issue is the setting itself. While the Twin Crowns setting isn't so integrated that it can't be ignored or replaced, it's got a closer feel to the setting than Bluffside or Freeport in my opinion. This can be troubling at times as several of the characters make mention of the number of lives they have left, as Twin Crowns characters start off with five instead of the standard one. The worst crime to me though is the lack of an index in a book of this size. Over three hundred pages and no index?

Overall these are minor issues though and shouldn't stop someone from looking over Streets of Silver as it provides a setting with a higher technology and role playing atmosphere than either Bluffside or Freeport. The sheer size of the book also helps guarantee that there should be at least a few NPCs or locations that you can use for whatever campaign you run.

If you're a fan of city based supplements, Streets of Silver brings a lot to the table.

 

[Necromaster]

Streets of Silver [PDF Version]

This is a review of the PDF version that I bought from DriveThruRPG back in Mar 05:

Streets of Silver - A Twin Crown's Adventure Guide is Living Imagination's attempt in detailing the full fledged city known as Parma, the largest port of the Northen Empire province of Novarum. This book (in black and white except for the cover and pg 309) is self-contained and can be easily used in a city campaign. There are tons of hook-line-and-sinker type scenario gems that you can use found hidden within the text.

Parma is shown in all its glory on 2 pages and each neighbourhood is zoomed into further detail in the later chapters. It is made up of a mainland jutting out into sea and several large harbored islands. The names used in the book give a very distinctly Italian flavor (for example, you will see the name "Porto Vecchio" on the map and this actually means "Old Port" in Italian - try the Babel Fish translator available elsewhere on the net and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised).

The book is divided into three parts. The first part, consisting of the first six chapters, details geography and environs, history, political structure, law, economy and other important information that a player could now about Parma. The second part, or also known as chapter 7, is a big chunk describing the neighborhoods of Parma. Its like a grand tour of the whole city and it kinds of remind me of other city books like Waterdeep - City of Splendors and Ravens Bluff from Wizards. The last part of the book, comprising chapters 8 through 10, is essentially the territory of the DM where you find all the truths behind the plot lines and read about the NPCs and view their full stats.

Next I discuss what I liked and disliked in the book.

LIKES
The chapter on Law is a natural... I especially loved the page on The Laws of Solaron - it makes me wonder if it was closely based on ancient law from Italy. Culture is another chapter that is highly imaginative as I get to see a calendar and its holidays, and get to learn some of the strange customs in Parma... from simple ideas, like "there must be a dessert of some kind at every meal" to complex ones like the tradition of Vendetta. The main players and shakers within the campaign world of Parma are described in Chapter 5 - Organizations. Take for example "The Wizards of Jorkum", a guild who only accepts wizards in its membership and shuns all other types of arcane wielders - they love to put on demonstrations of their prowess in illusions for the public during Carnivale. Another example is to anticipate the "kiss" when you are dealing with the Red Star Company. These little details really make a world of difference. I won't say too much about the Neighborhoods except that the wealth of information is stupendous. Also, the plot lines are very interesting and can be expanded upon in many different ways by an experienced DM.

DISLIKES
Most of my dislikes and gripes about the book are actually very personal biases... I guess it's just me... but I have gotten really tired of prestige classes. So, I won't pin too much blame on Living Imagination's part... but would you fancy playing a Courtesan? Not me. Another dislike is the inclusion of rituals. I would have preferred to see more spells. Also, interior artwork is lacking in some areas. And the border artwork could have had some variation from chapter to chapter instead of the same artwork throughout the 313 pages. One other gripe is the Behind the Scenes chapter, I felt I was jumping too often between the Neighborhoods chapter and this one ... the material from both chapters should have been grouped together. I for one won't let my player's read the chapter on Neighborhoods discriminately. Guess that there's just too much page-flipping for my tastes.

That's it... I have come to the end of my review. I can sincerely say, buy this book if you absolutely love (and can't get enough of) city campaigns. Personally, as a city campaign lover, I would rate it a 4.5 out of 5... but after considering carefully from a neutral view, I would rate it 4 out of 5 because of all my dislikes and also that city campaigns would not be for everyone's tastes.

But, nevertheless, do consider getting this book. The stories that you can tell with this book could be easily profound for your group of players and yourself - with a little work, you can make your very own beautiful World of Living Imagination.

Addendum:
Strangely, I had a small problem viewing Page 4 of 313 on my PDF e-book. I find a "X" appearing on this page and it probably means there is a problem with the picture on that page. All I see on that page (at centre right) are the words "City of Parma". There has not been an official reply yet on this page. But really, it does not detract from the quality of the rest of the book.