Edit this Review | Unlink This Review from LNR1: Wonders of Lankhmar

Goto [ Index ]

Before moving onto the actual review, perhaps I should explain my intentions. I'm currently preparing a campaign for my roleplay group, set in Greyhawk City, where all the PCs are members or associates of the Thieves Guild. As part of my preparation, I asked around and searched the Internet for possible sources of inspiration and ideas. One suggestion was the Lankhmar series.

I haven't read any of the Fritz Leiber novels but was rather pleased to discover that TSR had published a series of roleplay modules that sounded ideal for my needs - a "city of thieves" setting with everything presented in AD&D format sounded too good to be true! I had no intention of buying the complete set - I wanted to buy a select few that might be most appropriate to my needs (I mean, I'm not made of money).

From searching online book and RPG stores, I ended up with a list of Lankhmar products but no real idea of what each book was actually about - I mean, naming the books "Wonders of Lankhmar", "Thieves of Lankhmar", etc gives nothing away - were these modules, source material or what? I tried searching for info on the Internet but was not very successful - the Wizards of the Coast webpage had some info on some of the books but was not as helpful as I wanted.

Then, as luck would have it, Spirit Games in Burton-on-Trent (UK) were selling seven Lankhmar books for just £3 each secondhand, so I bought the lot unseen as, at that price, I couldn't really complain! I hope to write a series of reviews of these Lankhmar products so that people following in my footsteps might have a better idea of what the various books in the series are and which are the best ones to buy.

Let me make a request here to all those people with old, out of print modules - write reviews of them! When browsing the eBay auctions, I find many products listed that I have no idea what they are and if they are any good. There's no point asking the seller as they're likely to tell you about a book's good points in the hope of getting higher bids. One place I turn to is here at RPGNet, but the review database is hardly encyclopaedic in its coverage, so to all those people who own books not reviewed somewhere at this site, I ask if you would please review them - they will be of interest to someone I'm sure. Even just a short list of the contents and whether you thought it was good or bad will suffice if you don't have time to write a full article. Let's try and make the review database here as definitive as possible!

Now, on with the matter in hand, a review of Wonders of Lankhmar. The reason I'm writing this review first is that, from the blurb on the back, for my purposes it sounded like the most suitable book to start with - "dozens of short adventures ... filled with possibilities ... adventure, treachery, deceit, death". Surely here I'd find inspiration and suggestions for enough material to keep my eager gaming group busy for months. Let's find out...

The book certainly contains a lot of information - 48 adventures for one thing, followed by some new spells, new monsters, new magical items and NPCs all encountered during the adventures. Finally, a map and short gazetteer of Nehwon. Most of the adventures fit onto one page with a few stretching as far as two or three pages.

Presentation wise the book was acceptable. Even though it was secondhand the binding has stood the test of time and the pages are of thick, sturdy paper. The cover art is reasonable without giving much away about the contents. The interior art was, by and large, pretty terrible black and white line drawings which didn't always match the text. But never mind all that, this book was about adventure ideas, not about fancy pictures.

Sadly, the material did not live up to the promise. The adventures are terrible, almost without exception. Admittedly, with only a page or two per adventure, they were never going to be intricate, detailed masterpieces, but they are all simple in the extreme, with far too many deus ex machina for my liking and a heavy reliance on combat encounters. Despite claiming to be set in the city of Lankhmar, several of the adventures involve travelling halfway round the world on some quest or other, with very little thought of the distances and dangers such journeys might entail.

There are a few nice touches where the author put a bit of thought in. There are a few NPCs who show up sporadically throughout the book, such as the sage Sarelk. Also, some of adventures lead on from previous ones, so the PCs might be sent to kill some assassins in one adventure and then later in the book are attacked by a revenant who looks suspiciously like one of the dead assassins.

By way of example, let me describe what may be the worst in the whole book, a so-called "adventure" titled Whazzat In Der Swamp? Basically, a merchant approaches the PCs and says that his caravans keep on being attacked as they travel through a swampy area to a city beyond and he suspects the attacks are due to crocodiles. The PCs accompany him and his caravan and, sure enough, they get attacked by crocodiles, giant ones, and there's 12 of them! Assuming the PCs and merchant survive, when they get to their destination, the merchant pays their wages and that's it, end of adventure. I'm sorry, but that's pathetic, even the Monster Manual entry contains better adventure ideas than that!

Admittedly that was probably the worst of the lot, but the rest weren't much better. Actually, no, there was an even worse one! The Pink Pools is the title of the adventure, but you never find out what they are! The PCs see three pools of some viscous, pink liquid in an alleyway, then they get randomly attacked by some wererats. And that's it. Do you see why I have a problem with this?

So, out of the whole book, I found only one idea that I felt worthy of use. This was a set of magic items known as the Fingers of Gryylph Discoon. Gryylph was a legendary thief of yesteryear and his mummified fingers give a bonus to the Rogue Skills of any character who owns them, at 2% per finger, while the thumb increases the effective level by 2. Quite a powerful item then but of course each digit can be found in separate and equally dangerous locations, so you get five adventure hooks for the price of one, asssuming that your PCs decide they want to collect the full set.

To summarise then, this book contains 48 adventure summaries of extremely poor quality and a few pages of related background info. I would have to say that, even for the measly sum of £3, I wasted my money. What a disappointment, I sincerely hope that the rest of the books are better, though they couldn't be much worse.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)