This is a detailed description of a quarter of a particularly large city. It includes descriptions of every single building (albeit sometimes only a couple of short sentences long... but when there are 272 buildings to cover, that's not much of a flaw), encounter tables, and a more detailed description of one building in particular.

It's relatively easy to adapt to d20, although a bit tediously repetitive in places. Still, a lot of effort has gone into it, and it includes some usable ideas.

Surprising then, that the production quality is so low. There is no artwork, just a lot of small print text, and the maps are, quite simply, the worst I've seen in an RPG product since the 1980s. Astonishingly, there's quite a decent-looking map image on the cover, but it bears next to no resemblance to what's inside, either in style or street layout. The maps inside really do make the book look shoddy, and bring what would have been a 4/5 down a notch.

A set of beautiful quality maps, detailing a large country inn. If you're looking for good quality maps of an inn, you won't find much better than this, so you'll probably want to get the most out of them.

Accompanying the maps are a page of physical description of the building, and a page of more general text about the building's background and inhabitants. To be honest, this is generic stuff, and a lot less use than the maps, and not all that detailed, but the maps can be adapted to any similar inn elsewhere, so that isn't much of a problem.

Everyone uses swords, so a book about how to customise them is a pretty good idea, given how cheap this is. There's quite a lot in here for the price, and most of it could probably find some use in campaigns. ---- To be honest, the great majority of the information in this book could apply to any sword - longsword, shortsword, scimitar, you name it. In fact, it wouldn't take much work to adapt it to entirely different weapons, such as axes or maces. ---- On the downside, some of it isn't quite as original as might be hoped; quite a lot of it is an expansion of the obvious. The artwork consists solely of pictures of the swords (although, oddly, only the magical ones - not the psionic ones that are also described) which is fair enough considering the low price of the book. ---- The proof-reading is, however, very poor, the text being riddled with typing errors. It's difficult to tell whether these extend to the statistics for the magical swords - but, given the number of errors in the main text, it seems quite likely, and the figures should therefore be taken with a pinch of salt. Frankly, even the low price isn't an excuse for that sort of sloppiness. ---- So, on the whole, not as good as it should be, but there is some useful stuff here, and for just $4, it's not a bad deal.

This book attempts to take a serious look at sex and sexuality in fantasy RPGs, specifically D&D. As such, it largely fails, not because it isn’t serious, but because it just isn’t all that good.

To begin with, there’s the artwork. Someone, somewhere, decided that photography would be the best way of illustrating a book like this, rather than drawings. Unfortunately for them, it really doesn’t work. It’s just too obvious that the fantasy elements result from either low-quality Photoshopping, or from cheap costumes, which makes the whole product look rather shoddy. Incidentally, very little of the artwork is even slightly erotic, which is rather a good thing when the book is trying to be serious. (It is, however, difficult to tell whether this was a deliberate decision, or a lack of skill at this sort of thing on the part of the photographer).

But the appearance of the book, while distracting, is a peripheral concern. What about the actual substance? There is some good material in here, but a lot more that’s mediocre. The best section overall is that on deities in Chapter 6; they actually make some sense and would add something to a campaign. There are some other good bits here and there, including discussion of marriage, celibacy, childbirth, and other relevant topics, as well as the attitudes of the various alignments and character races towards sexuality.

But a lot of the book does not rise to this standard. The character classes, for instance, are uninspired, and most of them are fairly standard fantasy tropes with mention of sex thrown in to make them more ‘adult’. For instance, while a Voyeuristic Seer certainly could use his powers to spy on his nubile young apprentice in the bath, he’s really no different from any other sort of seer in terms of his abilities. Most of the feats are similarly unimaginative.

The selection of magic items is at times, downright strange. Many of them have absolutely nothing to do with the ostensible subject matter of the book at all, and its quite a puzzle what they’re doing there. I could say the same of some (though not, to be fair, most) of the creatures.

Overall, this book is not as good as it could be, or should be. It’s a valid topic for an RPG book, even if it won’t suit some people’s campaigns, but it deserves better handling than this. The subject has been handled better before (Naughty & Dice from Sabledrake, for instance), so its not that it can’t be done. More effort needed!

If you're looking for new player character races, this is an excellent book. The races are well described and thought out, and the details are easily adaptable to individual campaigns.

The artwork is also very good, enhancing the descriptions in the text (assuming you don't mind B&W line drawings, which I certainly don't). Kudos to the artist, especially for the dwelf, dweoven, elome, and thang-agar.

Unfortunately, there is a down side: the editing is really quite poor, leaving the book riddled with layout errors. For example, the page references in the Contents are wrong, one paragraph in the Prestige Class chapter is missing and replaced by one for another class, sections on a table that should be italicised aren't, and every now and then pictures cover up text, so that sentences just end for no obvious

I'd rate this as a 5 if the editing was up to scratch. But it isn't, so I won't...

This doesn't add much new that isn't published elsewhere, and the art looks recycled, too. The proof-reading isn't the best, either. Still, if you don't have any earlier versions, the world of Talislanta makes up for that, as its an interesting and different setting with plenty of opportunity for adventure. Being rules-free, this description of the world can be converted to any system you like, with a bit of work.