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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011429" data-attributes="member: 172">Thieves' QuarterThieves' Quarter is a city sourcebook detailing locales and characters in a fantasy city called Liberty, but portable to other d20 settings or cities. The book is written by JD Wiker and Christopher West, and was originally distributed as a PDF book by The Game Mechanics. The edition covered by this review is the print version published by Green Ronin.A First LookThieves' Quarter is an 80-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $17.95.The cover of the book is illustrated by Jonathan Kirtz, and depicts a pair of rogues menacing a captive in a tomb-like setting.The interior is black-and-white except for full color maps on the inside covers. The interior is illustrated by Toren "MacBin" Atkinson, Clarence Harrison, and Pete Schlough. The illustrations are nicely done and Harrison, a traditional TGM artist, does some of his best work here.Co-designer Christopher West is responsible for the maps herein. The maps are crisp and attractive, and includes a versatile selection of maps: there are full color versions of the city maps on the inside covers and unkeyed versions in the appendices for distributing to players. However, the player maps lack any sort of explicit permission to photocopy.A Deeper Look(This section contains some spoilers.)Thieves' Quarter is arranged into three chapters plus appendices. The three chapters cover places, people, and plots respectively, though NPCs associated with specific locales are covered in the first chapter.The book depicts elements of the "Old Quarter" or "Thieves' Quarter" of a city called Liberty. Though maps (and some vague descriptions) are provides for the city of Liberty as a whole, the intent is that GMs will be able to use the locales and characters in the book in their own cities without using Liberty.As the focus of this city is a somewhat lawless quarter of the city, the locales tend to focus on rather seedy to outright criminal locales. Though the Thieves' Quarter is depicted in the light of one in which crime is rampant, the authors are careful not to overplay this aspect of the quarter to the length that it seems implausible.One of the central features and power blocks of the Thieves' Quarter is the nameless thieves' guild. The guild is headed by a mysterious man leading a double life, while his lieutenant poses as a figurehead. The guild has the services of a potent sorceress, who is also the lover of the guildmaster.Other locales include multiple taverns and inns, a brothel, a gambling den, and more exotic locales. A good example of the latter (on par with the classic Citybook series) is Maegrim's Marvelous Menagerie, a zoo of unusual creatures, many of which are really polymorphed victims. This is a fine and good plot, but falls down on the d20 system details. The source of these transformations is a wand of baleful polymorph. The problem with this is that baleful polymorph cannot be used to transform victims into creatures with greater than 1 HD, and is too high level to be used in a wand.In addition to the city maps, each locale has a nicely illustrated map. The maps are textured and detailed, and use a "tile" effect to create a grid (similar to various maps for d20 system products by Ed Bourelle.) The various NPCs are all very useful, and aside from the gaffes already noted, have few system issues. In addition to the standard statistic block information, each NPCs has background and personal details and history, a summary of allies and enemies, and a description of tactics.The third plots chapter is brief. The plots are not full adventures, but well outlined plots for the PCs to get embroiled in that involve major factions and details in the book. The chapter also includes another NPC, a new creature (skincrawler tattoo), and a drug.An appendix provides random encounters for characters in the city. The encounters are not merely a listing of NPCs or NPC types detailed in the book assigned to a table; each encounter includes a brief description of the circumstances of the encounter, which can make things a bit easier for the GM and interesting for the players.ConclusionsI typically find NPC resources nice in theory but tough to use in practice. Thieves' Quarter provides what seems to be a good example to follow for other such supplements: it is more than just a series of stat blocks and background descriptions. It provides locales and situations in a manner that is flexible enough to insert in any game, but in a rather more useful format than more stripped down offerings.Overall Grade: A- -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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