"I am an explorer, a man of action, and foiler of nefarious plots. Come read my book, Evocative City Sites, and I, Owain Northway, will guide you to a house of ill repute filled with shapechangers. I will tell you of The Intimate Shape Festhall."
Evocative City Sites: a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game compatible supplement detailing small locations that you could find in any urban campaign setting. Each site is detailed with its own cartography, a 1"=1 square scale map pack, two unique NPCs, and 5 adventure seeds, all presented in the unique, useful, and entertaining form of Owain Northway's first-person point-of-view guidebook.
The Intimate Shape Festhall is a place where you can relax and indulge your every desire. You can find any companion you desire, as the attendants here can read your very mind, all in a building that could deal with any threat and possible even break a dragon under its massive weight. You will find it in a secluded spot just down from the Next Inn.
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A festhall... it doesn't sound like much, but an Intimate Shape Festhall sounds mysterious and, if you ask me, promising. So what is it? Well, certainly something out of the ordinary, something that brings a new game to the table. It reminded me of a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser story where our two heroes also encountered a living house. The author of this location may have been inspired of Leiber.
Honestly, this pdf is a little rough around the edges. It could really benefit from another round of editing, it seemed rushed. It had a lot of little mistakes that really bothered me as I read it, mistakes that would be so easy to change.
I really do like the basic idea here, but the pdf just doesn't offer a lot of information. What you get is a short introduction to the place by some unknown narrator, a few short adventure hooks, two NPCs (with a lot of unnecessary information, like all the bard abilities), a gargantuan mimic and a couple of monstrous feats.
What I really wanted to know was how to use the Intimate Shape Festhall... ideas on implementing it in a city. I mean, how would a city react if they learned that a gargantuan mimic lived amongst them? What purpose does it serve? How will it interact with the PCs?
Lastly, I want to mention the maps. These are amateurish, which is fine when you look at the low price, but I would rather have been without them, since I guess the Festhall can and does change shape... all the time.
I'll give this pdf 2.5 stars, rounded down for the purpose of this format. Promising with a really good idea, but rough and lacking a lot of simple information that make it truly useful.
Let your PCs have some fun, too...of the sort they won't forget
This pdf of the EVC series is 25 pages, 1 page OGL, front cover, back cover and 1 page of credits that also includes 5 adventure hooks.
The normal-sized maps of the two floors of the festhall take up 2 pages and feature a clear legend.
Once again, the IC introduction prose to the location and character descriptions are top quality and once again feature the evocative flair I liked in "Rogue's Gallery Tavern".
After that, we get 4 pages of statblocks for the introduced characters, which are, quite frankly, among the most useful I have ever stumbled upon due to the fact that both are more manipulators and have a huge amount of abilities and an interesting build. Very nice.
There are also two new feats for shapechangers there, that will make DMs like me cackle with glee.
Then, we get one side with a new feat and a "surprise" third being. I'm not going to spoiler what it is, though. Just know that it is one of the concepts I really love.
Pages 13-23 are made battlegrid-versions of the map, easily printable.
As a great bonus for poor Europeans like yours truly, this installment of EVC includes the battlemap-versions of the festhall in A4-format (2 separate pdfs à 6 pages each), making it significantly easier for us to print it out. Great customer service.
Conclusion:
The characters made me instantly come up with ideas, the location is cool (there should be more maps of festhalls like that - my players ALWAYS make sure that their characters get some fun, too), it can easily put in any campaign and is really...evocative.
My only criticism here is that there is no quick-and-dirty 1-page map of each of the floors WITHOUT the legend, like there was in "Rogue's Gallery Tavern". I know I'm probably in the minority, but I think that numbers and letters detract from the atmosphere and that's why I prefer to have small, player-friendly maps without letters.
That would cost the product one star, but due to the A4-printouts and the fact that I REALLY liked this location, I'm going to give it 5 stars. It's only 2 bucks, after all.
I picked this up today and I thinks its very nice, well worth the price tag and full of good ideas (the adventure hooks a lone are nice, especially because they will cater to different types of players and characters...either helping to save the festhall, destroy it, invade it, or use it to help cover for someone else's indescretions...a nice blend.)
The characters are fun.
As before, my only gripe is the "painting-quality" artwrok of some of the pieces. With all fo teh inexpensive art packs available, this kind of art looks cheap and takes away from the feel of the hall.
Giggle stick, sorry unfortunately we spent our money on the Cartography with 6 issues in I would be afraid to change the style too much but I will see what I can do.
@Endzeitgeist Thanks again your really burning the reviews out.
Quote:
it can easily put in any campaign and is really...evocative.
Thanks, so much that's the nicest thing anyone could say. I love when we hit a bullseye.
Miranda and Steve, this one is nearly perfect! Especially for me as a passionate Ravenloft-DM! It's an awesome piece of work!
I'd really love an additional version of the map without the letters, though. ;) If the pdf included one of those, I'd consider it perfect!
Thanks for the love, the staff of the festhall would like to "love" you as well :)
Greater doppleganger was taken from Goodman Games 3.5 The Complete Guide to Dopplegangers by Kieth Baker (of Eberron Fame)
Inveigler is a template taken from the green Ronin 3.5 Advanced Bestiary by Mathew Sernett, which has seen alot of use in the Adventure Paths.
You will find these books listed in the section 15 of the OGL.
Thanks for the responses. I have the AB and I'll have to check it out again.
And the funny thing is, I was wondering about the 'Complete Guide to Dopplegangers' as a possible source for what I was seeing here on the 'gangers and mimics.
