Tell me about the city books for Scarred Lands

[Knightfall]

Okay, I don't know anything about the Scarred Lands beyond the fluff given in Creature Collection: Revised and Creature Collection III. So, I'm not sure how 'portable the city books for SL are to other campaign settings.

• Burok Torn: City Under Siege
• Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers
• Mithral: City of the Golem
• Shelzar: City of Sins

I would appreciate it if someone can give me an overview of each book. What makes each city great? Could these cities fit into another campaign world easily?

Any help would be appreciated,

Knightfall

 

[humble minion]

Burok Torn is about both the dwarven city of the title, and a dark elven city that is locked in war with it. I like the city in general a lot - there's a traumatised, battle-scarred air about it that appeals to me greatly - but the real nitty gritty of the history and culture revolves around an event in the Scarred-Lands-specific Titanswar, which would be difficult to completely excise without somewhat lessening the flavour of the place. Very usable if it's just going to be a spot on the map in your campaign world though, and the PCs don't expect to get involved in royal politics or deific history.

Hollowfaust is a LN city dominated by a college of necromancers - the use of undead as labour and in war is routine, largely socially accepted and legally formalised. It's a pretty nifty place and is not tied too deeply into the rest of the Scarred Lands mythos so ,should be easily co-optable into your homebrew setting, but depending on your world's death gods, good-aligned churches, and their views on such things, it may be problematic from a worldbuilding consistency point of view.

Mithril is an island fortress-city ruled by paladins, and dominated by a monstrously huge mithril golem that stands inert (not destroyed, but currently inactive) over the place. The built-in bad guy is rather lame and cookie-cutterish, but he's easily removed and replaced with someone more interesting and campaign-specific. This one is quite modular and useful.

Shelzar is a big, vaguely Arabic-flavoured cesspit of vice and intrigue, but is not as interesting as it sounds. There's not much that's too Scarred-Lands-specific here, so it's probably a useful book to detail a dot on the map when your high-level players happen to teleport there on a whim and you haven't detailed the place, but I don't find Shelzar very exciting to be honest - a bit lacking in originality and catchy hooks.

 

[Knightfall]

humble minion... thanks for all your insights.

Burok Torn is about both the dwarven city of the title, and a dark elven city that is locked in war with it. I like the city in general a lot - there's a traumatised, battle-scarred air about it that appeals to me greatly - but the real nitty gritty of the history and culture revolves around an event in the Scarred-Lands-specific Titanswar, which would be difficult to completely excise without somewhat lessening the flavour of the place. Very usable if it's just going to be a spot on the map in your campaign world though, and the PCs don't expect to get involved in royal politics or deific history.

Well, that one is definitely out. There aren't any drow in my Kulan homebrewed... well, not TRUE drow.

Hollowfaust is a LN city dominated by a college of necromancers - the use of undead as labour and in war is routine, largely socially accepted and legally formalised. It's a pretty nifty place and is not tied too deeply into the rest of the Scarred Lands mythos so ,should be easily co-optable into your homebrew setting, but depending on your world's death gods, good-aligned churches, and their views on such things, it may be problematic from a worldbuilding consistency point of view.

That might work for me. I could probably change the city's name to match one of my homebrewed city names and drop it in the worst area of the Lands of Harqual. Hmm...

Mithril is an island fortress-city ruled by paladins, and dominated by a monstrously huge mithril golem that stands inert (not destroyed, but currently inactive) over the place. The built-in bad guy is rather lame and cookie-cutterish, but he's easily removed and replaced with someone more interesting and campaign-specific. This one is quite modular and useful.

Mithril sounds interesting and I could see it fitting in to the western lands of my largest continent, Kanpur. How important is the golem to the city's overall design?

Shelzar is a big, vaguely Arabic-flavoured cesspit of vice and intrigue, but is not as interesting as it sounds. There's not much that's too Scarred-Lands-specific here, so it's probably a useful book to detail a dot on the map when your high-level players happen to teleport there on a whim and you haven't detailed the place, but I don't find Shelzar very exciting to be honest - a bit lacking in originality and catchy hooks.

That's interesting... Shelzar is the Scarred Lands city book that I've been most interested in. From its blurb on the EN World PDF Store, I realized it was Arabic is style. Yet, I figured I might be able to drop it on the edge of my version of the Land of Fate, close but seperate. How "Arabian" is it? Is it a mix of that culture and western ideas or a full-fledged Arabian only city?

 

[Scribble]

Scarred Lands was my setting of choice in 3e. I think it would work pretty well with 4e because some of the main ideas are relatively similar to the 4e story.

One thing that's pretty interesting about the Scarred lands thing is they kind of tried to play around with stereotypes with a lot of their books:

Well, that one is definitely out. There aren't any drow in my Kulan homebrewed... well, not TRUE drow.

What I found interesting about this one is that the Dark Elves aren't really the typical we're evil for the sake of being evil and our crazy spider demoness...

The Dwarves are kind of just.. well jerks.

It's been a while since I read the story but basically: Durring the titanswar when the gods and titans were fighting the dwarves and the dark elves were friends, and fighting side by side. The dwarven god and elven god were about to go head to head with the plague titan guy on a bridge, but someone did some spell or soemthign that convinced the dwarves they were about to be betrayed by the elves. So the Dwarves at the last minute ditched, leaving the elves to fight alone. They survived, but their god got al plague ridden, and to save him he had to be stuck in a golem body. He's still racked with pain, and the only way he can be fully healed is to travel through this gate located in the Dwarven kingdom which will get him back into the godly realms, and heal him. The dwarves, however, as I said are jerks and won't let him. So they fight.

I always found that neat, because it's a way to make a race "evil" because they fight dwarves and dwarves are good right? So the elves MUST be evil... But it's really just a politics thing.

That might work for me. I could probably change the city's name to match one of my homebrewed city names and drop it in the worst area of the Lands of Harqual. Hmm...

The necromancers here aren't evil- which again kind of plays with the stereotype. They just wanted to originally find a place to study death, and undeath in peace... But then a bunch of refugees showed up and needed a place to stay.

It's a neat city.

Mithril sounds interesting and I could see it fitting in to the western lands of my largest continent, Kanpur. How important is the golem to the city's overall design?

Meh... not SUPER important... They refference it a lot, but it's not like a thing that often comes into play. It's a non functioning golem that people assume will function again when it's most needed to.

Like a lot of White Wolf things it's one of those ideas where they alude to it having some other purpose, but never really get into that purpose, instead allowing DMs to do whatever.


I never managed to get Shelzar though, so I don't have anythign much to say about it. Haven't heard many good reviews about it though.

 

[Voadam]

Other things of note:

1 Burok Torn, the dwarves have one of the strongest traditions of arcane wizardly magic in the world, they are known as master rune magic users. They fight a two front war, one with the dark elves underground and with an evil human empire above who wants control of the pass over their mountain kingdom.

The dwarven and dark elven gods were fighting the titan of disease together. IIRC he infected the dwarven god's mind and when the two gods were doing a joint activity planar assault on the titan the dwarven god believed the dark elven god was betraying him so he dropped his end of the magic and turned on the dark elf and commanded his followers to do the same.

2 Hollowfaust, lots of nonsentient, non-spawning undead. They have strict rules against intelligent undead, undead that feed, and undead that spawn on their own. They are in a desert with hostile humanoids that invade. They have a hugely built up lawful aspect to their societies, necros originally left to study necromancy in peace and not be persecuted, developed defenses against the invaders and developed into a major city as people flocked to a safe place for humans. The necros were the leaders and got more and more involved as a ruling class on a day to day basis to the point of regularly sitting on legal panels as civil judges.

I read the first two cover to cover a while ago but I've only skimmed the latter two.

3 One aspect of Mithril is that all gods must be allowed to be worshipped, including the evil ones due to the divine compact which the paladin god takes seriously. There is some discussion of pirates and orc threats to the city as well as the big bad dark elf shadow mage. The golem is a historical reason the paladins flock to the city and established a base here, it is an inspiration but doesn't currently do anything.

4 Shelzar is a mix of fantasy decadent arabian and western fantasy, think a little more along Conan lines than anything truly Islamic. A fairly rich trade city with little outward ambition.

 

[Alas]

Hollowfaust has a lot of little gems in it, such as why their necromancers dress the way they do. Their "college" is primarily underground, in dank old volcanic tunnels (the "faust" in Hollowfaust is a dormant/extinct volcano). Because the tunnels drip, they wear broad brimmed hats; because of vapors, they wear scarves over the nose and mouth; because of the coolness underground, they wear long coats. Therefore, there's a perfectly legitimate reason for Hollowfaust necromancers to look like creepy Tom Bakers.

Really, it's a very engaging setting for an adventure. I'd port it to just about any system I use.

 

[Knightfall]

Hollowfaust, lots of nonsentient, non-spawning undead. They have strict rules against intelligent undead, undead that feed, and undead that spawn on their own. They are in a desert with hostile humanoids that invade. They have a hugely built up lawful aspect to their societies, necros originally left to study necromancy in peace and not be persecuted, developed defenses against the invaders and developed into a major city as people flocked to a safe place for humans. The necros were the leaders and got more and more involved as a ruling class on a day to day basis to the point of regularly sitting on legal panels as civil judges.

Interesting... but I don't think this one will fit in with my Harqual continent. However, it might work perfectly for Western Kanpur. I'm using the Dragon Sands book that goes along with Bluffside... Hollowfaust might work in that desert.

Shelzar is a mix of fantasy decadent arabian and western fantasy, think a little more along Conan lines than anything truly Islamic. A fairly rich trade city with little outward ambition.

Cool. So, should I be thinking its like Shadezar?

 

[Frost]

It's been a while since I looked through these, but I used Mithril a good bit back in the day. IRC, it has a pretty cool frontier town feel (sort of like the Keep on the Borderlands, but a whole city).

Interesting... but I don't think this one will fit in with my Harqual continent. However, it might work perfectly for Western Kanpur. I'm using the Dragon Sands book that goes along with Bluffside... Hollowfaust might work in that desert.


Cool. So, should I be thinking its like Shadezar?

Yes, I always assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the name "Shelzar" was sort of an homage to Shadezar.

I will say this, it's one of the more, uhm, adult cities for d20. It has a dirty Las Vegas/New Orleans feel.

 

[Knightfall]

Yes, I always assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the name "Shelzar" was sort of an homage to Shadezar.

I will say this, it's one of the more, uhm, adult cities for d20. It has a dirty Las Vegas/New Orleans feel.

Okay, I think the Shelzar book is definitely on my list.

And maybe Hollowfaust.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Okay, I think the Shelzar book is definitely on my list.

And maybe Hollowfaust.

Those are the best of the city books, imo, for Scarred Lands. Burok Torn and Mithral are good but suffer from really needing the SL setting to shine. On their own they are a little underwhelming (especially Mithral).