The Inside Scoop on Gaming

In the late 1980's, 1989 to be precise, White Dwarf began to sporadically run a series of articles for Warhammer Fantasy Role Play on the city of Marienburg. For those unfamiliar with the Warhammer World, Marienburg is the largest and wealthiest port in the Old World, one where anything can be bought or sold. The series had a number of authors, and advertisements in White Dwarf claimed that there would soon be a Marienburg Sourcebook. Shortly after White Dwarf stopped running the articles, and the eager gamer would have to wait until 1999 when Hogshead, under license from Games Workshop, would be able to publish Marienburg: Sold Down the River.

The author of this Hogshead version is Anthony Ragan, one of the many authors of the White Dwarf advertisements, and it appears that only his original material appears in this book, so it is not a reprint of all the White Dwarf articles. The work done by other authors is not included in Marienburg: Sold Down the River, but this book expands Marienburg in a far greater fashion than the short-lived White Dwarf articles.

Marienburg: Sold Down the River serves as an introduction to the Old World's biggest city. The author does not attempt to map out every inn, brothel, and cobbler, and such a task is far beyond the scope of this book. Instead Anthony Ragan provides some general information on the city and then explores some of the more famous and infamous sections of the town in greater detail.

The introduction is quite extensive, taking up a third of the book, and describes the geography around Marienburg, its history, foreign affairs, politics, crime, and religion in great detail, and provide a strong foundation for the GM to extrapolate those areas not represented in the later sections. Overall the section is well written and thorough, although I do have some quibbles with the history which is not entirely consistent with that published in the WFRP material published beforehand.

The remainder of the book primarily concerns itself with an evocative but spotty picture of Marienburg's more notable locations and residents. Although the book lists 29 Wards and Boroughs of Marienburg, only seven are given any in depth description, the others are merely consigned a sentence worth of notes. A few paragraphs could have at least been provided to give a better picture of the town as an integrated whole. The author does mention that the rest of the city is open for the GM and players to explore on their own, but this is little consolation for the tired, complacent, or hurried GM.

The chapters on the individual sections are extremely well written, providing the reader with interesting personalities, from the poor and disenfranchised to the wealth and powerful. Most of these intriguing characters are tied to a location, and their descriptions provide a wealth of information for the GM, including their appearance, motivations, and common quotes to give the GM an idea of the character's persona, considerable more detail than is typically offered in games. A handful of characters are not tied to any locations, and provide a variant on the generic "beggar" or "poor pedlar" so common in games. Some of the ideas and characters are quite ingenious and certain to be memorable to the players. I won't ruin it by giving away any of the dark secrets that seem to burden some of the city's citizens. It is in these chapters that the book proves its worth, and the descriptions are engaging and evocative, offering a feel for the city, its inhabitants, and the activities transpiring within.

The book also includes an adventure that serves as an introduction to Marienburg. The last few pages of the book have an appendix that provides useful details for the GM, such as descriptions of deities, common NPCs, a list of encounters, and creating Wasteland PCs, as well as other material. The material in these pages is quite valuable and its inclusion further strengthens this product.

Included in the back of the book is a beautiful bird's eye map of Marienburg, far superior to the one included in Greyhawk City (AD&D) or the Middenheim: City of the White Wolf for WFRP. Inclusion of this is a nice touch.

However the map itself is tied to my biggest problem with the book. Although it is packed with information, accessing it is difficult. Lets start with the included pull out map. The map itself is not labeled, although this is understandable, why mar such a nice piece of work. But the problem is that it is very difficult to determine the locations of the desired building. Each chapter provides a small close up detail from the large map, with the descriptions labeled, which helps alleviate the problems but due to the darkness of the images this can still be difficult, especially if flipping back and forth between the various chapters. There is no one master map for all the locations. The Middenheim map in the other WFRP city sourcebook is much more utilitarian and useful, if less attractive.

This could easily be forgiven, but sadly there is no index included, which makes navigating through the book difficult to say the least. NPCs and locations are mentioned in NPC locations, and the reader must either turn to the table of contents to seek it out or thumb through the whole book. It took me quite a while to find certain locations that were not listed in the Table of Contents. The Table of Contents does minimize the damage, since all described NPCs are listed there, sadly their locations are not. Furthermore none of the locations are mapped out, giving a brief description of their layout, another oversight, which if included would have probably raised both the page count and the price of the book.

These are my only reservations about the book: the difficulty of finding locations and the absence of sorely needed index. The rest of the layout of the book is good and the art is atmospheric, enhancing the atmosphere of the city nicely. Every NPC is illustrated and nearly every page has a drawing or two. The cover art is excellent and the Hogshead tradition of name puns continues unabated through the book, as well as the old WFRP tradition of naming NPCs with the names of famous figures.

For years players of WFRP have had to wait for something new that would substantially add to the Old World. This book has to be one of the more exciting releases for WFRP, on par with some of the early work done by Games Workshop and Flames Publication. This is an excellent addition to any WFRP collection. Furthermore, I would even recommend it to those who do not play WFRP. The book provides an ideal example of how to detail a city and many of the rules, descriptions, locations, and NPCs could easily be extrapolated for use in a different campaign. My only regret about the content is that more areas were not outlined in greater detail!

This is easily worth the investment, for the author succeeds in evoking the feel of a bustling city. For this reason I give it the highest rating for content. Due to the problems with the index and finding the material, I cannot in good conscience give it the highest rating for style, even though the cover, art, and general layout is excellent. The difficulty of finding locations and non-described PCs was at times bewildering, and required a thorough reading through and close examination to get a feel where exactly all the inhabitants are in the book. Overall this book is well worth the purchase, and I give it the high praise.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Marienburg: Sold Down the River
Author: Anthony Ragan Category: game Company/Publisher: Hogshead Publishing Line: Warhammer Fantasy Role Play Cost: 19.95 Page count: 159 ISBN: 1899749144 SKU: HP208 Capsule Review by Garett Lepper on 08/25/99. Genre tags: Fantasy	In the late 1980's, 1989 to be precise, White Dwarf began to sporadically run a series of articles for Warhammer Fantasy Role Play on the city of Marienburg. For those unfamiliar with the Warhammer World, Marienburg is the largest and wealthiest port in the Old World, one where anything can be bought or sold. The series had a number of authors, and advertisements in White Dwarf claimed that there would soon be a Marienburg Sourcebook. Shortly after White Dwarf stopped running the articles, and the eager gamer would have to wait until 1999 when Hogshead, under license from Games Workshop, would be able to publish Marienburg: Sold Down the River. The author of this Hogshead version is Anthony Ragan, one of the many authors of the White Dwarf advertisements, and it appears that only his original material appears in this book, so it is not a reprint of all the White Dwarf articles. The work done by other authors is not included in Marienburg: Sold Down the River, but this book expands Marienburg in a far greater fashion than the short-lived White Dwarf articles. Marienburg: Sold Down the River serves as an introduction to the Old World's biggest city. The author does not attempt to map out every inn, brothel, and cobbler, and such a task is far beyond the scope of this book. Instead Anthony Ragan provides some general information on the city and then explores some of the more famous and infamous sections of the town in greater detail. The introduction is quite extensive, taking up a third of the book, and describes the geography around Marienburg, its history, foreign affairs, politics, crime, and religion in great detail, and provide a strong foundation for the GM to extrapolate those areas not represented in the later sections. Overall the section is well written and thorough, although I do have some quibbles with the history which is not entirely consistent with that published in the WFRP material published beforehand. The remainder of the book primarily concerns itself with an evocative but spotty picture of Marienburg's more notable locations and residents. Although the book lists 29 Wards and Boroughs of Marienburg, only seven are given any in depth description, the others are merely consigned a sentence worth of notes. A few paragraphs could have at least been provided to give a better picture of the town as an integrated whole. The author does mention that the rest of the city is open for the GM and players to explore on their own, but this is little consolation for the tired, complacent, or hurried GM. The chapters on the individual sections are extremely well written, providing the reader with interesting personalities, from the poor and disenfranchised to the wealth and powerful. Most of these intriguing characters are tied to a location, and their descriptions provide a wealth of information for the GM, including their appearance, motivations, and common quotes to give the GM an idea of the character's persona, considerable more detail than is typically offered in games. A handful of characters are not tied to any locations, and provide a variant on the generic "beggar" or "poor pedlar" so common in games. Some of the ideas and characters are quite ingenious and certain to be memorable to the players. I won't ruin it by giving away any of the dark secrets that seem to burden some of the city's citizens. It is in these chapters that the book proves its worth, and the descriptions are engaging and evocative, offering a feel for the city, its inhabitants, and the activities transpiring within. The book also includes an adventure that serves as an introduction to Marienburg. The last few pages of the book have an appendix that provides useful details for the GM, such as descriptions of deities, common NPCs, a list of encounters, and creating Wasteland PCs, as well as other material. The material in these pages is quite valuable and its inclusion further strengthens this product. Included in the back of the book is a beautiful bird's eye map of Marienburg, far superior to the one included in Greyhawk City (AD&D) or the Middenheim: City of the White Wolf for WFRP. Inclusion of this is a nice touch. However the map itself is tied to my biggest problem with the book. Although it is packed with information, accessing it is difficult. Lets start with the included pull out map. The map itself is not labeled, although this is understandable, why mar such a nice piece of work. But the problem is that it is very difficult to determine the locations of the desired building. Each chapter provides a small close up detail from the large map, with the descriptions labeled, which helps alleviate the problems but due to the darkness of the images this can still be difficult, especially if flipping back and forth between the various chapters. There is no one master map for all the locations. The Middenheim map in the other WFRP city sourcebook is much more utilitarian and useful, if less attractive. This could easily be forgiven, but sadly there is no index included, which makes navigating through the book difficult to say the least. NPCs and locations are mentioned in NPC locations, and the reader must either turn to the table of contents to seek it out or thumb through the whole book. It took me quite a while to find certain locations that were not listed in the Table of Contents. The Table of Contents does minimize the damage, since all described NPCs are listed there, sadly their locations are not. Furthermore none of the locations are mapped out, giving a brief description of their layout, another oversight, which if included would have probably raised both the page count and the price of the book. These are my only reservations about the book: the difficulty of finding locations and the absence of sorely needed index. The rest of the layout of the book is good and the art is atmospheric, enhancing the atmosphere of the city nicely. Every NPC is illustrated and nearly every page has a drawing or two. The cover art is excellent and the Hogshead tradition of name puns continues unabated through the book, as well as the old WFRP tradition of naming NPCs with the names of famous figures. For years players of WFRP have had to wait for something new that would substantially add to the Old World. This book has to be one of the more exciting releases for WFRP, on par with some of the early work done by Games Workshop and Flames Publication. This is an excellent addition to any WFRP collection. Furthermore, I would even recommend it to those who do not play WFRP. The book provides an ideal example of how to detail a city and many of the rules, descriptions, locations, and NPCs could easily be extrapolated for use in a different campaign. My only regret about the content is that more areas were not outlined in greater detail! This is easily worth the investment, for the author succeeds in evoking the feel of a bustling city. For this reason I give it the highest rating for content. Due to the problems with the index and finding the material, I cannot in good conscience give it the highest rating for style, even though the cover, art, and general layout is excellent. The difficulty of finding locations and non-described PCs was at times bewildering, and required a thorough reading through and close examination to get a feel where exactly all the inhabitants are in the book. Overall this book is well worth the purchase, and I give it the high praise. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)