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Sharn: City of Towers continues this tradition of exceptionally high fantasy. This city book provides a wealth of information for those playing in Eberron. Whether you are using Sharn as a stop on the way to Xen’Drik or basing an entire campaign on the city, there is enough information in this book to provide a DM with many nights of gaming. While half the book is dedicated to describing various neighborhoods, there is a wealth of information on politics, law and crime, factions, and even new magical items, prestige classes and monsters. In short, Sharn: City of Towers is 192 pages of hardcore information.
Background
Possibly the most interesting fact about Sharn is its manifest zone. The explanation for this zone has to do with the city’s link with Syrania. The link could be tough to explain, but it essentially means it is a lot easier to fly in Sharn. In fact, the title of the book (City of Towers) refers to the fact that the city is built up, not out, and composed of several tiers of extraordinarily tall towers. Airborne carriages, magical lifts and soarsleds carry the residents of this over-the-top fantastical city from the sea-level docks to the mile-high pinnacles high above the city.
However, the height of the city is not its only interesting factor. The city houses Morgrave University, an archeologically minded school that spends nearly as much time teaching as it does gathering ancient artifacts. There are enough criminal organizations to start a full-scale gang war. Ruins deep beneath the city house the kinds of monsters that give adventurers nightmares. Monstrous races have their own bars, and whole districts may be populated by goblins or warforged. Nearly ever description of a location provides enough hints to allow a DM to create an adventure.
Chapter One: A Visitor’s Guide
The first section of the book describes, in general terms, various services and amenities provided by the residents of Sharn. This chapter allows a DM to understand quickly how a character might arrange lodging, sell loot, send a message, or find companionship for the night. Subsections on banking, dining, education, news, and weather (to name a very few) present vital thumbnails of information. If you only read this section of the book, you will still have a good understanding of the way the city works. You won’t be able to tell Upper Dura from the Cogs, but you will still be able to figure out where to worship your deity of choice.
This chapter also presents my favorite part of the book – the history. Sharn is a cool city, and it is ancient. Goblins ran the place for years, before they all got killed. Then some humans took it over, walling off many of the goblin warrens, until they got killed, too. The War of the Mark ruined the city so badly that people didn’t come back for five hundred years. Eventually, people did return and rebuild, then they built a lot more, making the towering city of spires. This was the most interesting part of the book, as it came the closest to actually telling a story.
The chapter finishes with several pages of festivals and events. There are sky races on griffons and giant eagles, sporting events, massive parties and holy days. Any DM worth his or her salt can find a great backdrop to an adventure, if not weeks of play, from just this section.
Chapter Two: Life in Sharn
This section seems to be slightly misnamed. This is the chapter where we actually find out about the individual areas of the city, presented in a format similar to a Triple A travel guide. While there is an absolute cornucopia of information here, it is unfortunately dry. The DM can extrapolate great adventures, but he will have to wade through the academic entries to do it. This dry writing makes for slow reading, but it does provide an excellent background to the locations in the city while dropping hints to adventures and subplots.
Chapter Two is the largest section of the book, taking up nearly half of the page count. Every quarter, ward and district is detailed here. For an equivalent, imagine a book that details every large neighborhood in London and the surrounding area. Not block-by-block, of course, since that would take hundreds of pages, but every reasonably large segment of the city is examined in some detail. Seventy pages of parks, banking districts, museums, citadels and other locales provide for a very informative read.
The descriptions are punctuated throughout with stats for important NPCs. In fact, this practices continues throughout the book, and can be quite distracting – in a good way. It is fun to skip from the description of a bardic haven to read about a prominent playwright. The section also contains a good number of maps, including one for Morgrave University, whose hallowed halls might launch any number of Indiana-Jones-style treasure hunts.
Incidentally, the only large city maps are in Chapter Two as well. A city as large and diverse as Sharn deserves to have pull-out maps, and I was disappointed to have to flip around between pages to figure out where Upper Menthis is in relation to Precarious. A large pull-out map would have been a great addition.
Chapter Three: Power and Politics
No huge city is complete without a squabbling city council, and Sharn provides all the corrupt government a group of adventurers needs. In fact, it probably provides quite a bit more corruption than they might want. Sharn is a city of dirty deals and backroom politics. Players desiring a cloak-and-dagger game of intrigue and deception will not be disappointed. The City Council may be the top of the governmental food chain, but the dragonmarked houses, family organizations and foreign powers battle for their place in the quagmire of bureaucracy and backstabbing.
This chapter is quite focused in its presentation. It first presents the council members, whose utility could function from adventure sponsors to antagonists. The dragonmarked houses of Cannith, Denneith, Kundarak, and Sivis receive brief but thorough examinations, as do the embassies of foreign powers within the city. Several additional NPCs grace these pages, providing even more possibility for interaction.
Chapter Four: Law and Order
I almost want to thank Wizards for not calling this chapter ‘Crime and Punishment.’ The name might have been completely accurate, but the cliché would have been nearly unforgivable. These pages describe the laws of the land and those who enforce them. A city as corrupt as Sharn has many laws, but not many public servants ready to die for those laws. The city is certainly not lawless by any stretch, but it does provide enough graft, greed and general corruption to make life difficult for the most virtuous adventurers.
I quite enjoyed this chapter. It was refreshing to see a section about the law that did not read like legal text. The laws are outlined, but so are guidelines for using them. This portion of the book was interesting and thought provoking. It seems that nearly every city ever published for D&D has inept city guards, but this is the most engaging and believable description of law and crime that I can recall reading in a city book.
Chapter Five: Guilds and Organizations
If your players want to join a club, there is certainly something here for them. Adventuring guilds, bards’ guilds, spellcasters’ circles, and even thieves’ guilds receive adequate coverage. By far the most interesting portion of this chapter, however, is the section on organized crime.
Two major criminal organizations rule Sharn, but they are not alone. The first is a well-organized, semi-honorable group of criminals. They may go by the name ‘Boromar Clan,’ but everything about them says, ‘Sopranos with Wands.’ They oversee gambling and drugs, prostitution and smuggling. They are ruthless and vicious, but with a capacity for honor that makes them fairly sympathetic.
If the Boromar Clan is the mafia, then the Daask is a malt-liquor street gang. This criminal organization is composed largely of monstrous races, and specializes in terror and intimidation. Dark forces stand behind Daask, with purposes much more insidious than profit.
House Tarkanan and the Tyrants also throw their hats into the crime ring, and plenty of info on these two organizations allows a DM to organize months of gang wars.
Chapter Six: Heroes and Magic
Finally we come to the more rules-oriented portions of the book. This chapter details new feats, equipment, drugs, services, magic items and prestige classes. The new information here really adds to the atmosphere of the city.
The feats in this chapter relate directly to the city, allowing characters to fly with ease or survive in the gutters and sewers. The new alchemical substances are particular to Sharn, as are the cool new gear items such as the potions bracer or blank notarized documents. The drugs are especially cool (well, you know, for drugs).
The three new prestige classes are also decidedly Sharn-esque. The Cannith Wand Adept is a mage particularly skilled in the use of wands. The Citadel Elite is the Sharn equivalent of the musketeer. The Sharn Skymage is possibly the coolest character – a mage who can fly almost anywhere, as long as he or she stays in Sharn. That last one is especially handy in a city where the only access to a building might be on the 73rd floor.
A list of magic and wondrous items finishes off this chapter, with such bizarre devices as the flying buttress (which actually flies), shiftweave attire (that can look like up to five different outfits), and wizard manacles (designed to hold the most dangerous captives).
Chapter Seven: Monsters and Encounters
This chapter lists a veritable army of bad guys. From simple artificers with bad intentions to mind flayers planning city domination, there are more villains than you can shake a vorpal sword at. Various organizations are studied here, such as the Cults of the Dragon Below or The Order of the Radiant Claw. The chapter provides a quick study on the various classes of opponent, from humanoid and impersonator to mastermind and vermin.
A big personal favorite is the list of new monsters. Sadly, these monsters felt very derivative. Undead rat? Seen it. Angry wraith? Seen it. Bug swarms that animate zombies? Yeah, I’ve seen those, too. There are also outcast angels and little dragons that like tall buildings, but overall, I think the writers just felt pressure to make some setting-specific critters. This is the least creative portion of this book, and the roach thrall – a giant insect that impersonates a person – actually made me laugh out loud.
Chapter Eight: A Sharn Campaign
This chapter brings it all together, and gives the DM a quick shot of high-dosage adventure ideas. A short but incredibly useful section describes the mean-streets feel of Sharn. There are some good hints for preventing rampant godlike advancement, which is my personal pet peeve about D&D. Fourteen random adventure seeds fill out the chapter. The entire book closes with a chart intended to randomize the appearance of a corpse – cool, but strange.
Assorted Comments
The art in Sharn: City of Towers is excellent. Not only do the full-color images draw the eye, they are quite evocative. I can really feel the city through the outstanding art that graces these pages. Only a few images felt gratuitous, and I enjoyed flipping through the books, gazing at the paintings, and reading the captions. A quick examination of the art can give a better feel for the game than an hour spent reading. That, in my opinion, is really good game art.
There is no setting fiction in Sharn: City of Towers. For some, that is a great boon. For others, nothing sets the tone of a setting like a story. I think a series of short stories might have allowed me more insight into the city, but it was not necessary. The book survives fine without it.
One little afterthought – the book includes a CD in the back cover. This is not a CD-ROM – it’s music, and it’s called ‘Shards of Eberron.’ These are long, unobtrusive but well-orchestrated instrumentals meant to provide background music while you game. I have always kind of liked this idea, and have even used background music when I can be bothered to turn off my Irish punk music long enough to slap in some Edvard Grieg. The music is not great, but it’s not bad, and it does its job.
Summary and Opinion
There is a huge amount of information in Sharn: City of Towers, easily enough to host years of gaming without ever leaving the city walls. Unfortunately, this information is written with all the zest of an online travel guide, and can be difficult to wade through. I can’t really lambaste the book for its boredom, because few setting books are fun to read, but I am still dismayed at the amount of truly boring material gamers have to read to enjoy their games. I cannot give highest marks to a book, no matter how well it presents its information, if I felt reading it was a chore.
In all fairness, however, the information is here. Nearly everything you could need to run a game in Sharn is presented in these pages. If you play D&D, you might not even need the Eberron setting to use this book – it’s that thorough. Of course, without the Eberron setting, you might wonder about the warforged, shifters, dragonmarks, and other setting-specific elements, but you could still use this as a springboard to a truly impressive campaign.
The presentation of the book is top-notch. The design may not be cutting-edge and ultra-hip, but it is still strikingly attractive and very readable. The durable hardcover and brilliant art make this the kind of book you might leave on your coffee table, if you don’t own a picture book of Welsh castles (for example). The CD adds a reasonable amount of value, even if the music does sound like a videogame soundtrack. At $30 US, there had better be a good amount of value, but if you plan on playing in Sharn, it is probably worth it.
Style: 4 – The book is gorgeous, but dry writing keeps it from swinging for the fences.
Substance: 4 – A cornucopia of useful information, but the almost-redundant monsters seem to be page filler, and I really would have liked a pull-out map.
