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Menzoberranzan is a module for the Forgotten Realms setting for AD&D.It details a Dark Elven(Drow) city popularised by Robert A. Salvatore's series of books (Homeland ect. ect.).I was was never Salvatore's greatest fan, but they Homeland trilogy(?) was certainly superior to his Icewind Dale series and brought one of the largest (population-wise) cultures in the Realms to life, but I digress, onto the module itself.

The module consists of three books(The City, The Houses, and The Adventure), four maps of the city, a map of the Baenre family compound, a poster showing rivalries/alliances, a box art poster, serveral sheets of card with stats of PCs/NPCs, portraits and mini-maps/diagrams on them(for The Adventure), and a slightly odd pamphlet "The House Do'Urden Retrospective".

"The City", the main book detailing the city itself, is of excellent quality, being written by Ed Greenwood himself(rather than some lackey) and tells one a huge amount about Menzoberranzan, from it's history to the current culture and recent events, to festivals, to religion and so on. It contains advice(albeit very short) on how to convert the city into a number of other Drow cities, numerous adventure hooks, details on new Priest and Wizard spells, various monsters, traps, magic items and even the likely future of Menzoberranzan.It does not bore nor spend overlong berating the Drow for their "Evil" nature(a failing of virtually all TSR/RPGA products, especially those written by comitee(sp?)), and does create a vivid and, by TSR standards, very real society, as well as being actually useful and empowering to the DM(unlike Waterdeep: City of Splendors which mainly frustrated by giving too much unimportant detail, like the locations of virtually every shop in the city, and every single noble families intrests and so on, thus restricting DM creativity somewhat and failing to hold the reader intrest).

"The Houses" discusses the various noble houses of Menzoberranzan and is certainly very useful for campaigns set in the city and for creating adventures around it, and offers some futher insight into Drow society.It is not quite as interesting as "The City" and not quite as useful as it might be, but "The Houses" certainly isn't useless either(and is probably of intrest to Salvatore fans as he wrote part of it).

"The Adventure" is a well written though hardly mind-blowing introductory adventure to Menzoberranzan which allows players to be either Drow or surface-dwellers(and provides PCs for each).It allows for surface dwellers to visit Menzoberranzan without being slaughtered and could be used to introduce them to an Underdark campaign, or more interestingly, allows the players to be members of a minor Drow house and start a dynamic and original urban campaign from there.Either way, it certainly provides a welcome relief from the small and often dull surface cities of the Realms.

The rest.The maps of the city are enormous and of great detail and quality, but leave most buildings blank for the DM to play with.The map of the Baenre compound is slightly surplus to requirements, but more for your money has to be good and it is pretty and helps to give a sense of atmosphere and scale, so I like it.The card sheets are pointless(and ones the players are going to use will need character sheets sooner or later anyway), but vaguely amusing and could be used to get play started quickly.The alligence web poster is handy though a card sheet would have done as well.The box art poster is fine if you like Jeff Easley's work, but I hate it so it's not going on my wall. Finally we have "The House Do'Urden Retrospective", "Containing the Collected Works of Drizzt Do'Urden"(oh great!) which is intresting and also useful to those wishing to set a campaign during Salavtore's books, but Drizzt's collected works is so-so. It is useful in that it gives further depth to drow society, but so biased and at times pretentious and cliched (like some of Salvatore's other books-naming no names) as to annoy rather than interest.

The one real flaw of the set however is that it does not include any info which is in FOR2 The Drow of the Underdark(which is also excellent), and this book is basically vital to any long-term campaign involving Drow.this was not a problem for me, as I have long owned FOR2, but both it and Menzoberranzan are quite old and likely out of print(1991 and 1992 respectively, though I imagine they may have been reprinted and my copy of Menzoberranzan was certainly shiny and new-looking.

Overall, then, despite any flaws, this boxed set provides a solid background resource and base of operations for any Underdark campaign and truly opens up the interesting possibility of an all Drow campaign(one in the eye for RPGA's ridiculous "no Evil PCs" guidelines, methinks) and is generally excellent, intresting and impressive.Just don't forget to get FOR2 The Drow of the Underdark if possible(that book by itself is very useful as well).Highly recommended.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Menzoberranzan
Author: Ed Greenwood, Douglas Niles, Robert A. Salvatore Category: game Company/Publisher: TSR Reviewed by Alex Watters on 07/20/97. Genre tags: none	Menzoberranzan is a module for the Forgotten Realms setting for AD&D.It details a Dark Elven(Drow) city popularised by Robert A. Salvatore's series of books (Homeland ect. ect.).I was was never Salvatore's greatest fan, but they Homeland trilogy(?) was certainly superior to his Icewind Dale series and brought one of the largest (population-wise) cultures in the Realms to life, but I digress, onto the module itself. The module consists of three books(The City, The Houses, and The Adventure), four maps of the city, a map of the Baenre family compound, a poster showing rivalries/alliances, a box art poster, serveral sheets of card with stats of PCs/NPCs, portraits and mini-maps/diagrams on them(for The Adventure), and a slightly odd pamphlet "The House Do'Urden Retrospective". "The City", the main book detailing the city itself, is of excellent quality, being written by Ed Greenwood himself(rather than some lackey) and tells one a huge amount about Menzoberranzan, from it's history to the current culture and recent events, to festivals, to religion and so on. It contains advice(albeit very short) on how to convert the city into a number of other Drow cities, numerous adventure hooks, details on new Priest and Wizard spells, various monsters, traps, magic items and even the likely future of Menzoberranzan.It does not bore nor spend overlong berating the Drow for their "Evil" nature(a failing of virtually all TSR/RPGA products, especially those written by comitee(sp?)), and does create a vivid and, by TSR standards, very real society, as well as being actually useful and empowering to the DM(unlike Waterdeep: City of Splendors which mainly frustrated by giving too much unimportant detail, like the locations of virtually every shop in the city, and every single noble families intrests and so on, thus restricting DM creativity somewhat and failing to hold the reader intrest). "The Houses" discusses the various noble houses of Menzoberranzan and is certainly very useful for campaigns set in the city and for creating adventures around it, and offers some futher insight into Drow society.It is not quite as interesting as "The City" and not quite as useful as it might be, but "The Houses" certainly isn't useless either(and is probably of intrest to Salvatore fans as he wrote part of it). "The Adventure" is a well written though hardly mind-blowing introductory adventure to Menzoberranzan which allows players to be either Drow or surface-dwellers(and provides PCs for each).It allows for surface dwellers to visit Menzoberranzan without being slaughtered and could be used to introduce them to an Underdark campaign, or more interestingly, allows the players to be members of a minor Drow house and start a dynamic and original urban campaign from there.Either way, it certainly provides a welcome relief from the small and often dull surface cities of the Realms. The rest.The maps of the city are enormous and of great detail and quality, but leave most buildings blank for the DM to play with.The map of the Baenre compound is slightly surplus to requirements, but more for your money has to be good and it is pretty and helps to give a sense of atmosphere and scale, so I like it.The card sheets are pointless(and ones the players are going to use will need character sheets sooner or later anyway), but vaguely amusing and could be used to get play started quickly.The alligence web poster is handy though a card sheet would have done as well.The box art poster is fine if you like Jeff Easley's work, but I hate it so it's not going on my wall. Finally we have "The House Do'Urden Retrospective", "Containing the Collected Works of Drizzt Do'Urden"(oh great!) which is intresting and also useful to those wishing to set a campaign during Salavtore's books, but Drizzt's collected works is so-so. It is useful in that it gives further depth to drow society, but so biased and at times pretentious and cliched (like some of Salvatore's other books-naming no names) as to annoy rather than interest. The one real flaw of the set however is that it does not include any info which is in FOR2 The Drow of the Underdark(which is also excellent), and this book is basically vital to any long-term campaign involving Drow.this was not a problem for me, as I have long owned FOR2, but both it and Menzoberranzan are quite old and likely out of print(1991 and 1992 respectively, though I imagine they may have been reprinted and my copy of Menzoberranzan was certainly shiny and new-looking. Overall, then, despite any flaws, this boxed set provides a solid background resource and base of operations for any Underdark campaign and truly opens up the interesting possibility of an all Drow campaign(one in the eye for RPGA's ridiculous "no Evil PCs" guidelines, methinks) and is generally excellent, intresting and impressive.Just don't forget to get FOR2 The Drow of the Underdark if possible(that book by itself is very useful as well).Highly recommended. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)