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Cities of Fantasy 2: Racial Neighborhoods $3.50
Publisher: RPG Objects
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by Nathan C. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 11/07/2008 10:43:05

Living in a major city, you experience the significance of a multicultural environment. That feeling of diversity is often void in the fantasy world. Too often are a population’s denizens all human or all of one race with various racial NPCs sprinkled in to show a faux bit of diversity.

Cities of Fantasies Volume 2: Racial Neighborhoods incorporates another depth of realism into your campaign world by presenting several neighborhoods to introduce into any village or city. This product could have taken a simple route by presenting a few descriptions and NPCs. However, the authors and RPG Objects infuses a great amount of detail into each community, making them incredibly believable and far more useful than most city supplements.

The book is 37 pages and presents 5 communities. There are community descriptions for Dwarf, Halfling, Elf, Orc and Gnome. The descriptive fluff is well written and adequately encompasses the nuances of the race within the atmosphere of the community. Surprisingly, however, there is more to the communities than just nice descriptions. Each contains a thorough amount of mechanical simplicities and a handful of adventure seeds. The General Role section of each community notes purposes for the communities existence within a city. The Description portion describes architecture and notable places. The author does a balanced job of being vague enough to place these boroughs in multiple cities in your world while still giving enough detail to guide the dungeon master. The History section provides a history of the community. The Inhabitants section contains the same balance as the Description portion, not naming specific NPCs but general roles you would find in such a community. The Magic and Magic Items section not only lists common spells in the community but how they are utilized. Finally, the Special Rules section establishes mechanical changes in the environment of the community. Though the mechanics look as if they lean toward 3.5, they are again vague enough where any system could be used with them. There is also a list of plot hooks at the end of each of the communities.

For the Player Racial Neighborhoods feels like an extension of the racial descriptions in the core rules book. Players interested in enhancing their characters racial heritage would find the magic and magic items sections very useful from a mechanics point of view. Also, the well-written descriptions would be good inspiration for background.

For the Dungeonmaster Racial Neighborhoods is a cornerstone tool for dungeonmasters who like city building or need a city on the fly. You could easily take two or three of these and form a city out of them. You’ll find all of the communities as different as the races themselves. My personal favorite is Gnomelight, which contains all of the uncanny shenanigans I expect from gnomes. Illusionary magic for no good reason, illegal casinos set up in basements and street performers.

The Iron Word Cities of Fantasy Volume 2: Racial Neighborhoods is an inspirational plethora of building blocks for creating realistically diverse cities. The bountiful amount of information packed in each community description for just one neighborhood could motivate two or more campaign arcs.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Cities of Fantasy 2: Racial Neighborhoods
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