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City Guide: Darkside |
$2.75 |
Average Rating:3.4 / 5 |
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A useful-looking collection of diverse, sometimes surprising locales and inhabitants of the poorer parts of a city, including shops, taverns, alleys and various other common encounters, with passable art. Unfortunately doesn't seem to include the New NPC Classes mentioned in the Alleyways section.
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Dark Quest Games? City Guide: Darkside is the fifth release in the City Guide series of supplements designed to add a number of detailed locations to your city encounters. This book is designed to look at locations on the seedier side of time. The PDF is fully bookmarked and weighs in at 40 pages for $5.50. There is no print-friendly version of this PDF.
The product is loosely broken into two sections. The first section details eleven locations and the second details five alleys or streets. In the first section each of the locations is set-up to provide you with a standardized set of information. Each entry begins with ?boxed text? to describe the exterior of the building, the basic concept behind the location, layout of the location, statistics and descriptions of important Npcs, and about three adventure seeds. Contrary to the product adcopy, not every location actually lists what is on the shelves or what the price is for some services. The locations include:
Belugar?s ? A store specializing in exotic or illegal items that must be imported or smuggled in. The cover for this operation is as specialty wine shop.
Light of Hope ? A mission nestled in the shadowy part of town.
Samot Samir Barber-Surgeon ? Is, um, well a Barber, just like it says.
The Bloody Hand ? An intermediary to act between the criminal elements and the respectable people that want to high them.
The Beggar King?s Court ? A local beggar who acts and is treated like aristocracy by the local people.
Avar?s Antiques, Artifacts, and Curious ? A secure magic item and historical item shop.
Mochate?s Potions ? A potion dealer, who dabbles in necromancy on the side.
Burgher?s Common ? A wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Tarvis? Boarding House ? A boarding house run by an honest and upstanding older couple
The Guildhouse of the Sisterhood of the Tainted Spider ? Secretive guild of kidnappers and torturers who can make sure a message is delivered without killing the target.
Jola the Junk Man ? A collector and reseller of discarded goods.
There are a number of interesting locations here in this section. I particularly enjoyed the Light of Hope, The Beggar King?s Court, Avar?s Antiques and Jola the Junk Man. The adventure seeds allow for quick integration of any of the locations into a city-based campaign.
The final section of the book is entitled ?Alleys and Streets? and provides the harried gamesmaster with five streets and alleys to drop into your city-based campaign. Each street provides the GM with some ?boxed? description, purpose of this site and a number of quick encounter of people on the street. The streets and alleys include:
Catpurse Alley ? A deadend where information can be gleaned if you do not tarry too long.
Tankard Road ? A lively mercantile road home to many a street performers.
Pork Street ? A rural road that has begun to experience urbanisation.
Hive Street - A run-down area home to criminals and vermin
Cur Alley ? A neglected area home to feral dogs.
I do have some concerns about the mechanics presented in the statistic blocks of this product such as some entries such as missing feats, 3.0 feats, incorrectly stated familiars, inconsistencies in the names of magical items, and inaccurate magic item prices. There are also other logistic problems like Mochate, the potion maker, can not make must of the potions he sells, the sisterhood of the tainted spider ?has enough resources to purchase and manufacture the exotic poisons they frequently use?, however none of the sample characters possess ranks in Craft (alchemy) or Craft (poison), and there is also some closed content from the DMG that was not caught in the production of this section. Another problem that appears in the Alleys and Streets section is that it lists several new NPC classes such as the Goons, Harlots, Loonies and Vagabonds and instructs us to look to ?*See New NPC Classes section for information on Goons, Harlots, Loonies, and Vagabonds?, however this section does not appear in this book.
Despite the mechanical issues demonstrated above, the layout, art, and general text editing were spot-on throughout this product. I would have liked to have a print-friendly version that lost the border.
Ultimately there are some good locations and ideas that are hampered by the execution of the mechanics. I'll likely keep the ideas and ditch the stats for my own use. <br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: A number of interesting locations with listed adventure seeds.
Nice to have some darker locations to add to earlier City Guide products.
General editing was excellent throughout the product.
Layout and artist duties were well handled<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I didn't find the locations presented to be as "dark" as I hoped in fact only about half the locations were particular seedy.
I have numerous mechanical issues with the game statistics as presented.
There are logistic problems (ideas not matching the stats as delievered).<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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City Guide: Darkside is a 40 page d20 pdf product. This product is the fifth product in Dark Quest Games' successful City Guide series and features a number of locations which would be found on the darker or more seedy side of any city or town. City Guide: Darkside presents 16 unique locations to use in your city or town adventures, and they should be suitable to any fantasy campaign setting.
The product comes as a single, fully-bookmarked pdf file, and includes a handy table of contents as well. The look and presentation of the product is good, enhanced by some very good art, mostly, apart from the cover, black and white sketches. Editing and layout is good as well, with each page framed by a timber border. There are a number of errors in the stat blocks, covering the entire range from attack bonuses to languages known. Most are relatively minor, though, and some stat blocks are relatively error free. Writing is excellent and vivid, creating a imaginative description of a location and its people. A solid product from a presentation point of view.
City Guide: Darkside contains a number of different locations that are aimed at the more seedy part of a town or city. While this was the apparent aim, a lot of the locations are in fact not that seedy, and could be used equally well in any other part of the city. In that the product doesn't appear to achieve its goal, and certainly some of the locations could've been given a more sinister feel to them. Of the 16 locations and streets, there are a number of different types of places, from those working in information, to taverns, to shops, to barbers, to monasteries, to guilds, and various dark and dangerous streets. The latter are by far the better, being more on the darker and messy side of things, creating an atmosphere for the PCs more than in other locations.
Each entry in the product contains a description and history of the location and exterior of the location, followed by interior descriptions, other pertinent details, full statistics and mechanics for inhabitants, and lastly a number of adventure hooks associated with each location. I found the description imaginative and rich, with some interesting places, although as mentioned earlier perhaps not all fitting the context of the product so well. NPCs are interesting and useful, whether or not you use them along with the location or just as an NPC in another store or location in your city. In places NPC classes such as Looney, Goon, Harlot or Vagabond are used, and while the pdf refers you to a NPC Classes section, none such section exists in the product.
Overall, this is a good product with some imaginative content and very useful locations and streets. The locations don't always fit there theme, but should be useful nonetheless for any town or city based adventure or campaign. There's a good variety and something for everyone to enjoy, and most of the locations contain some sort of interesting spin that is different from the norm. A well thought-out product with good material.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: City Guide: Darkside presents 16 useful and varied location for the seedy part of a town or city. The locations are detailed and imaginative, with interesting encounters to entertain your PCs.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some minor editing errors such as statistics and the missing NPC Classes section that gets referred to in the text. Some of the locations could've fit the 'dark' them a bit better.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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City Guide: Darkside, may not be as dark as expected, but there is enough shining jewels inside it to brighten many a DMs day.
Despite what the name says, City Guide: Darkside, by Dark Quest, is actually quite colorful with a majority of its pages filled with Vivid NPCs. Its biggest strength is the book?s only downfall as there are few really dark places in the book.
The City Guide series is a very popular and useful DM reference series that provides detailed and interesting locations that are easy to insert into your game. The 39 pages of Darkside contains 11 locations and descriptions for 5 streets. For those intimate with the series, you will notice a huge step up in artwork and the latest series entry. The pages seem to read crisper and the flavorful art adds to the read.
Each description contains breakout box text of the location, a description of any NPCs, items or services the person sells including price and adventure hooks to get your PCs further involved.
For the Dungeon Master
All of the locations are located in the seedier part of a city or village. The descriptions are very well written, depicting many of the locations to be decrepit and deprived. From the title, however, I expected more blackmarkets and underground fight clubs, instead we get crazy old men and junk men. In the hands of less capable writers, this could have been a let down, but the good folk over at Darkside seem to have a knack for making the mundane interesting. Each location is very unique in design and the people whom populate the place. I have never thought about putting a roaming junk beggar or a crazy beggar whom thinks he is a king in my games, but after reading the suggestions, I do not see how I can not now.
Though I expected more darker characters as opposed to poorer ones, the dark ones in the book really go the distance. DMs will find a use for the Hostel like torturing guild The Guildhouse of the Sisterhood of the Tainted Spider. This place is dark, and I mean dark in the slow burning off of an ear way. They are hired assassins who mare paid to torture or maim their victims. This is also a place where PCs can find poisons and other banned alchemical items. There is also the Bloody Hand, an interesting place to go if you do not want to get your hands dirty.
The Iron Word
Again, though not what you would expect from a title called Darkside, there are enough dark locations in the book to get your fill. More importantly, I enjoyed the usefulness for less fortunate characters. The weakest part of the book is the alleys which are simply descriptions of the poor and rundown streets of a town. The rest of the book, though, more than makes up for this minor annoyance with interesting NPCs, well made places and good writing.
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<b>LIKED</b>: - good descriptions
- every place is unique, you won't find the common inn or tavern in here
- the npcs are useful. Even though some seem silly they each can provide some type of benefit or adventure hook for a party
- Though i expected all the descriptions to be downright dark the three dark ones are REALLY DARk<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - the alley descriptions seem to run together
- not as many truly seedy places as I expected<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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