The Player's Guide to Ptolus is everything a good introduction to a new setting from the players' point of view should be: it gives you key information about the setting itself, the particular focus being on Praemal (the world) first, then Ptolus in particular (the city itself), provides you with all the mechanical information you need to create a flavorful character (races, specificities of core classes in the setting, some cultural traits, etc) and basically makes you, as a player, hungry for more by playing the game itself.

All around, a great player's guide that would be a great read for any DM running Ptolus or not, since it could provide anyone with a good model to follow for creating your own handouts when starting a new campaign.

This work is an attempt to get around that common problem of your character knowing more about his surroundings than his player does! Distributed as a free PDF or sold as a bundle to pass around the table so that each player has a copy, the purpose is to provide sufficient introduction to the Ptolus campaign setting (calling it a mere 'city' does it a disservice) to enable the play of character who are either natives of the city or have at least had time to look around a bit.

But first, there's a bit of an introduction from author Monte Cook in which he explains how this is a true D&D city, designed from the outset to inhabit the same world governed by the D20 ruleset, where people expect magic and monsters to exist, and where delving into dungeons can provide great rewards as well as great perils.

The book goes on to present overviews of the districts of the city (and where to get the best pastries as well as other commodities), the important families and personalities in town, and a wide range of organisations. You can also read about the local religions, the main one being the worship of a lawful good deity called Lothian, whose church is embedded in the structure of the empire in which Ptolus (at least nominally) belongs. There's a growing tolerance of other faiths, and - fortunately - of arcane spell use, which the early Church of Lothian attempted to ban as deviltry! There is also a 2-page map showing some of the more important locations your character may wish to visit.

Overall, this is a very good introduction to the city and will be very useful to anyone whose character is going to visit (or come from) Ptolus - and well-nigh essential if you are going to participate in the Ptolus Campaign.

Read the full review at http://www.rpg-resource.org.uk/