City Builder Volume 1: Communities is the first in a series of 11 complementary books that will help guide Game Masters through the process of designing exciting and compelling urban areas and places within them for their campaigns. It is not specific to any particular game setting and is designed to be compatible with the needs of any ancient, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, or fantasy milieu.
Contents of this book include:
An Introduction that describes the scope of the series and the contents of the upcoming volumes;
A section on the Characteristics of Communities that examines small communities, towns, cities, and special-purpose communities like military bases and plantations, along with regional and racial influences on the development of communities;
A section on Buildings;
A section on the Physical Characteristics of Cities that includes discussion of fortifications, lighting, and conditions on, above, and below city streets;
A section on Disasters.
This download includes both low-resolution screen-friendly and high-resolution printer-friendly versions of the book and its cover.
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Those wishing to develop a home-brew world will probably find this product of moderate usefulness. While it clocks in at 36 pages, ten of those pages are devoted to (not terribly good) full page illustrations and six pages of various indexes, product lists and OGL licensing information, so only about half the pdf actually contains information and almost every page includes at least a quarter page to half page illustration.
As I am currently creating a nation based around three large cities for my home-brew world, there's some useful information here. What I'm finding most useful in volume 1 are, essentially, things I need to address as I create a background for my cities, like size, resources, military garrison, fortifications all the way down to small details like lighting and buidling construction.
For the price, I think it's a decent buy for those looking to flesh out settlements from tiny hamlets to major metropolitan areas.
