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Thieves' World Gazetteer

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Thieves' World Gazetteer
Publisher: Green Ronin Publishing
by Rob M. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 11/30/2006 00:00:00

Thieves? World Gazetteer is a 142 page PDF (145 with Full color cover, credits & OGL License page) for D20/D&D 3.5. It consists of seven chapters. Chapter one covers running a Thieves? World campaign, chapter two provides a timeline & history of Thieves World setting, chapter three provides an overview of the known world, chapter four provides a discussion other the other planes of existence & cosmology of the Thieves? World setting, chapter five contains an survey of the God?s of the Thieves? World setting, chapter six provides additional rules material, including new cultures and prestige classes, and a chapter seven provides a short bestiary.

Chapter one provides an overview of the continent on which the city of Sanctuary is located, describing its various environments and how they are related to Sanctuary, and how the relative cultures/lands are viewed by the peoples that inhabit it. Chapter one also includes a brief section on linking Thieves World to other campaign settings. Then campaign types based on the various historical eras are discussed, which amount to different ?power? level campaigns focused on the Ranken era, as represented in the first set of thieves world books, and the Irrune era, as presented in the second series of Thieves? World books.

Chapter two provides a historical overview of the continent, detailing the rise, and fall, of the Ilsig, Enlibar, and the Ranken Empire. With details on current events leading to the present situation in Sanctuary, as presented in the 2nd series of Thieves? World books.

Chapter three provides an overview of the Known world, detailing the main nations & city states of Thieves? World, along with information about their people and culture, government, religion, resources, notable locations and interesting features. It should be noted that characters are likely to have relatively little knowledge of other places in the Known World, and such information could be incorrect, due to the lack of widespread travel in Thieves World. This chapter is quite lengthy with entries on the major cultures, as well as sections on the minor cultures. A large scale map of the continent is provided, spreading across multiple pages, as well as a detailed grayscale map of Sanctuary and its immediate environs. Also included in this chapter are small rules bits, such the stats of an Ilsabari knife, or the Greater God Azen. The chapter concludes with a section on Lost Civilizations, chiefly Enlibar, home of the famous Enlibar steel. Also included is a section on Yenized.

Chapter four covers the cosmology and ?outer planes? of the Thieves? World setting. It includes discussions of the 12 Planes of Magic, the Many Paradises, the Underworld, and the Seven Hells, and The Astral Plane, and a few other miscellaneous mystical dimensions, providing additional opportunities for adventure outside of sanctuary.

Chapter 5 provides an overview of the gods of the Thieves? World setting. It includes a section describing worship of God?s in the Thieves? World setting, including a detailed section on Avatars, and their appearance in the setting. Next the gods of each pantheon are discussed, including details on their priests and Godsworn. This chapter is filled with lots of cool little rules bits regarding divine powers, avatars, familiars and similar rules bits.

Chapter 6 provides additional rules for cultures, such as the black-haired barbarians, and Firaqa. Also included are new backgrounds, such as dancer. (which is what, presumably, to which the rather interesting picture on page 108 relates? can you say HLA?) Rules are also included for epic level characters, as well as applying templates to characters. Next is a section on birthright feats. Finally, the chapter closes with additional prestige classes, some of the more interesting ones being Demonologist and Enlibrite Steelshaper.

Chapter 7, weighing in at a scant 12 pages, provides a short bestiary. Though, to be fair, it should be pointed out that monsters do not play a large role in the Thieves? World setting. Notable creatures from the books include the Sikkintar, and the Spiders of the Purple Mage, and the Winged Folk.

A 3 page Index is included as well.

The PDF itself is a very attractive affair, done in black & white with grayscale artwork. It is laid out in two columns with plenty of white-space. It features an appealing decorative font for section headings, and a clear readable font for body text. However, many section headings are done as a white text on a solid black bar, another ink waster, while others use a thick rule or thin double rule. The header and footer use a dark text color on a solid textured graphic, which was presumably colored in the print version, which is going to kill your ink and mortally wound your toner if you print the PDF. The color is a nice full-color piece featuring some Thieves? World character?s I don?t recognize heading up a hill from a bay in the background. Pretty, but another terrible ink sucker. The artwork is of decent to good quality, done by a number of artists, ranging from simple line art to ?painted? grayscale pieces.

Overall, this is an excellent product, packed with lots of meaty detail to expand a Thieves World campaign to include elements of the larger setting. The various cultures and history are described well enough for players to involve the rest of the Known World in their adventures, and the world beyond, as the case may be, opening up a vast array of adventure possibilities. The information provided on the gods and their worshipers, as well as the additional cultures, backgrounds, and Prestige Classes, can add a lot of variety to an existing game. So, if you are playing a D20 Thieves? World game set in Sanctuary, and want to include adventures beyond its walls, this is a great buy. If you want to run a Thieves World game in another system, it is still worthwhile for the world details and information on the gods and it is even a worthwhile purchase for a plain old Thieves? World fanboy. Unfortunately, as PDFs go, it is a masochistic purchase if you want a print-out of it. So only print out bits you need, or get it printed a print-shop, your ink/toner cartridge will appreciate your mercy, not to mention your wallet. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Section on Gods and outer planes, Avatars, Sikkintar stats. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The print version of a PDF should not be the PDF converted from the dead-tree version of the product, but the PDF with the ink-wasting decorative elements and fancy backgrounds removed, thank you, drive through. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Thieves' World Gazetteer
Publisher: Green Ronin Publishing
by Chris G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/29/2006 00:00:00

Thieves? World Gazetteer

Thieves? finally gets a look at the world around the famed city of Sanctuary. In prior books there has been great detail on the city it self with less focus on the world around it. Finally many questions on history and relationships between many of the ancient city states is explored and detailed. This is the fourth book in the Thieves? World line and with luck more will be published. Thieves? World Gazetteer is the latest book on Thieves? World by Green Ronin. The book is out in both print and PDF formats. It has the standard high quality lay out and art that most Green Ronin books have. The PDF version is well book marked and prints out pretty easily for a one hundred and forty five page book. The book starts with a great overview of the continent. It does a nice job of explaining different places but not getting bogged down in exact details. The maps of the world are not claimed to be accurate. I think it would have been interesting, but also confusing, to have seen a second or third take on the world map to show how things could be different and reflect the unreliability of maps. The chapter gives great general overviews of the different directions and how to play on the feel of them. This section also gives specific ways to fit Sanctuary with other published settings. All of them are other Green Ronin settings and while it would have been nice to see ones by other Companies it really was not expected. This section does a good job of going through some of the trouble areas of using Sanctuary in another setting. The book then gives some good campaign ideas for running characters of different levels in the two time periods. I think a low level game is easy to imagine, but this part shows that even high level characters can be played and challenged in the Thieves? World Setting. To support this even more there are rules for higher then twentieth level later on in the book. The second chapter goes into the history of the known world. There is a lot about the world and it?s history that is unknown. There are plenty of things a DM can do with defining things that are left vague. At the same time the history in here really brings a lot into perspective with questions I had from the novels. I was not really expecting that and it was good to finally learn more about Enlibar and how they came to power and who took that power away from them. The history brings the reader up to the present times of the current books. It does sum up some of the events of the first anthologies of Thieves? World written in the 1980?s. I would have liked to seen a little more done with that time period and explore how campaigns can be set and entwined in a time period when people can read what happens. The book though does a good job with suggestions for making a campaign have that anthology feel with multiple characters and round robin DMing. The book then covers additional places in the known world. This really covers many places that are not written about much and just get a few passing entries before this. Each section is really covered well making t easy to use it for adventure or just base a character out of it. There are unknowns and mysteries hinted at throughout the section giving DM?s plenty of story ideas for all these places. This covers the big civilizations, the small ones, the nomads, and even lost civilizations. Then we get to the Lands Beyond chapter. This is a little light on info as it obviously does not want to define many of these mysterious places. It goes into alternate planes of existence and the after life that one might expect. The book talks about how to deal with some different mechanics that can happen from combining planes that use other aspects of the d20 system. The gods are really well covered and more then I expected are listed here. The chapter starts with the mortal followers of the deities and of the Avatars that characters can encounter. The Ilsig and Rankan pantheons are of course given the most coverage. There are many independent gods such as Death, Dyareela, Mother Bey, and others. The book finishes up with more rules of backgrounds and cultures, some prestige classes my favorite of course being Enlibrite Steelshaper, and the higher then twentieth level rules I mentioned earlier. The book also introduces Birthright feats. Each is attached to a specific culture and represents a unique aspect that culture can gain. There is also a bestiary though it is a bit short. Monsters are rare but not unheard of and it does a nice job of covering different types of monsters like dragons and outsiders and explaining how they can best be used and keep the feel of the world. I like that there is finally a write up for the winged people referred to just as the Winged Folk. They are presented as a playable race and I like that that option was included. The fourth book in the Thieves ?World line really covers information not easily available anywhere. Unlike books about the city of Sanctuary which much of the feel and NPCs can be learned through the novels the lands around the content are rarely talked about and never in much detail. This book is a good supplement for anyone that is interesting in the setting. The rules are d20 focused but the book is focused on information that can be applied to any rule set.

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Covers the world outside the city and provides great deatil about it<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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