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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 6196706" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/91110/Vornheim-The-Complete-City-Kit?term=vornheim+" target="_blank">http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/91110/Vornheim-The-Complete-City-Kit?term=vornheim+</a>IntroductionZak S is a long-time fan of old-school fantasy role-playing games, combining elements of 1st and 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons into his home games.  After running several campaigns in his homebrew dark fantasy metropolis of Vornheim, Zak accrued a significant amount of DM's notes detailing treasure, characters, and locations in the setting, and advice for how to run a city-based campaign.  He figured that it was useful enough to be shared beyond his local sessions and published it all into a single 64 page system-neutral book.Despite its size, Vornheim is high content.  In between charts and tables, Zak discusses setting elements of his home campaign and interviews with his players and adventure locations.  Despite what it sounds like, the layout is far from confusing and the placement of material does not feel jarring or unexpected.  Zak keeps details short enough to not hog the text on any one thing, moving from one section to the next.The Book ItselfVornheim itself is a sparsely detailed fantasy city.  It's set in an undefined northerly climate, with twisting mazes of gray stone streets and buildings and towering spires linked together by precarious bridges.  There is not much in the way of local environs and streets beyond a few locations, as Zak believes that excessive detail overburdens a DM with things better left to individual adjudication. However, the feel of Vornheim shows up throughout the text: nobles show off their privileged lives of leisure by walking "slow pets" down city streets; the town well is home to a wyvern which can answer any question with perfect accuracy in exchange for it asking a personal question of the speaker; a history of demonic pacts results in a dizzying array of strange local taboos and customs such as making animal sacrifices before getting onto boats (the God of the Sea has cursed Vornheim).  Enough is told about Vornheim's macabre history that we can get a feel for daily life and culture within its walls.  One of the best sections which can be easily ported to other games it that the skins of snakes can be read like books through a special lens chamber the serpent crawls through.  Garden snakes and common creatures usually have common, low-quality, and uninspired tales, while creatures such as dragons and medusae can hold esoteric and magical knowledge.  The libraries of major cities have chained hydras whose skin they slough off to keep up to date on scientific and cultural progress.The main strength of the book is the tools Zak provided for city-based adventures, and he does not disappoint.  Most are quick generators and tables for DMs with little time.  One's a city street and neighborhood generator, where the DM writes the words of numbers ("one," "two," "three," etc) onto a map so that they overlap on themselves in varying places.  This results in some labyrinthine alleys and roads.  Other house rules I particularly enjoy include giving mechanical benefits to books (grants bonuses on knowledge-related checks or automatically answers a certain number of questions within its field) for library research, and "city crawl" rules which determine complications and progress for PCs moving through a neighborhood under duress (chase scenes, lost in a bad section of town, etc).  The rules are overall useful, but a few feel too specific or complicated, such as a chess game played between sessions to determine plot elements, and an item cost shortcut based upon the number of syllables in the equipment's name and rarity.The other tools consist of various tables, from tavern generation of names, clientele, and games, to random encounters and noble NPC names and personalities.  They're full of enough strange and unorthodox stuff to be used for many gaming sessions, and the encounters and nobles in particular are good for generating adventure plot hooks.A significant amount of Vornheim (about 1/3rd of the book) details 3 dungeons in the city.  They are a mansion occupied by an ancient medusa, a hidden magical zoo whose valuable monstrous beasts are now overseen by a paranoid sapient nightingale, and the Library of Zorlac,home to a mad spellcaster with a retinue of thieves who steal out books for him.  The inclusion of adventures I feel goes against the grain of the book, even if they're otherwise very cool setting sites for adventures.  The main point of Vornheim is to provide inspiration and advice for DMs to build their own adventures and locations in cities.Final ThoughtsThis is one of the best 3rd Party Products I've read in recent years.  I highly recommend it for DMs of any Edition or retro-clone, as its ideas will definitely add to your gaming sessions and speed up setting and session planning.</blockquote>

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