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Can you tell that I like it, yet? There is probably enough gaming material here to keep a once-a-week Dying Earth game going for well over a year. This is not just the most directly usable, useful TDE supplement I have yet read; it’s probably the most directly usable, useful RPG supplement I have ever read, for the pagecount. Which, incidentally, is 176 pages. Don’t be fooled, though; this book has more useful content than some RPG books twice its size. That, despite the fact that it includes something so frivolous as two or three recipes to break up the text! Not that I disapprove; they look very tasty, and indeed I experimented with a variant on their Chokeapple Sauce, which proved rather delightful with some pan-fried Alaskan pollock and steamed broccoli. Perhaps not so frivolous after all. This supplement, like a fine Vance novel, is best enjoyed shortly after dining scrumptiously on robust yet sophisticated viands, while relaxing with a glass of vintage port or single malt whisky and a good cheroot. Thanks, then, to Messrs Macallan and Winterman for their inspiration as I was writing this review.
So; in detail, what do you get for your $29.95/£19.95?
The cover art is by Greg Staples. Mr Staples, somewhat like the esteemed Mr Horsley whose work graces so many other TDE covers, is an artist whose work for Pelgrane Press is marked by understated deviance, glorious ruin, fin-de-monde decadence, the evocation of eccentricity, and studious attention to every last detail, however freakish and corrupt said details may prove to be upon close examination. In short, an artist who knows exactly what he is doing with the world of the Dying Earth.
The scene depicted is a typical one for the Scaum Valley region. A group of three roguish fellows, two of them outrageously garbed mountebanks and the third a hunchbacked midget in more utilitarian apparel, examine a mound of somewhat pedestrian loot that has presumably been removed from the crumbling archway nearby. The slopes to either side are filled with further ruinous doorways, suggesting ancient tombs in vast number. The valley between them holds a dock and a ship, with a river being presumably just beyond the flood barrier between the dock and vessel. The hint of a castle or citadel broods blackly from the right-hand background. The whole scene is lit but dimly by a lethargic sun lurching precariously across the sky. To the left another shadowy mass looms, a dark form that might at first glance be presumed to be an odd formation of stone, but which is clearly revealed on further scrutiny to be a deodand or other half-man, stalking the three adventurers with cruel intent and casting a most sinister air on the entire picture. From the most cursory reading of the Scaum Valley Gazetteer, the perspicacious art aficionado will recognise this scene as the Valley of Graven Tombs, close to Taun Tassel.
The Table of Contents is extensive, almost fulsome, running to three pages in itself. Scholars excited by such dedicated classification will be overjoyed at the sevenfold Indices of Variable Utility which round out the book and take up a full six pages. These Indices and Contents are more than a mere aesthetic delight for the bookish, having the practical value of rendering trivial the attempt of any explorer of the Scaum Valley to ascertain information about the contents of said Valley; an important consideration when one considers that one’s need for said information may become pressingly urgent due to the large erb pursuing one through the forest.
The tome proper commences with an Introduction, as might be expected in a non-fictional work of some academic repute. Thankfully this Introduction is brief and to the point, avoiding the smugness, semiological exposition, and pontificating pettifoggery that so frequently mar such grimoires. This further sets the tone for the entire book, hinting at the whimsical diversions and uproarious side-tracks that enhance the text throughout. Any truly great work of fact must perforce include some such picaresque anecdotes for fear of becoming desiccated and stultified, and the Scaum Valley Gazetteer has wild goose chases aplenty. Such tangents aside, the Introduction contains a map of the entire Scaum Valley, further enhancing the book’s utility for the casual reader; one might pick a region almost at random, scan the relevant chapter, and plunge one’s player group into the setting willy-nilly, trusting to their contrary natures to get them into suitably fascinating trouble within a few scant minutes.
The body of the book is divided into nine chapters, each covering a distinct geographical region within the Valley. These regions are sensibly chosen, so that most of them cover locations that might be entered or skirted around when travelling on some specific route. One might follow the Scaum’s meanderings from Kaiin to Osier or vice versa, via Azenomei, Taun Tassel, and many other places of interest; or one might wander further afield, as far north as the odd town of Cuirnif or as far south as the well-aspected port of Val Ombrio. Given the doubtless roguish nature of many of the Scaum Valley’s explorers, it is of especial import that such a breadth of geography is covered; often such nefarious characters will find it necessary to leave town in some hurry, and perhaps to a destination or destinations unknown. Each section also has one or more maps of a more detailed nature than that of the Introduction.
As already mentioned, each chapter is packed to the brim with the very stuff of adventure; confidence tricks, bamboozlements, forced services, deviant individuals, and other fine messes. Inferior roleplaying game supplements frequently pad out their descriptions with mundanity; in the Scaum Valley Gazetteer, no-one is merely an innkeeper, or fisherman, or weaver. Everyone has an angle, or an agenda, or a problem, or a curse, or sometimes all four. There are no weak chapters, no weak sections.
Despite the strength of this book, it is human nature to discriminate. Thus I can and will note a favourite chapter: Azenomei to Taun Tassel and the Valley of Graven Tombs. It would be very difficult to deny the appeal of Azenomei, a decrepit town despite its size, yet filled with dancing girls for hire, roguish merchants in magical goods, and laughing magicians of great infamy; of the mensuration- and mathematics-obsessed village Jezantay; of the most tragically cursed outlaws in all the wild wood; of Taun Tassel, with its strictly hierarchical modes of extravagant attire and the not-so-genteel rivalries between its fashion houses; and of the haunted, yet plunder-rich Graven Tombs themselves. I shall make no attempt to do so, and declare myself captivated by the entire chapter.
Others will doubtless make their own choices, and I will reiterate that the Azenomei chapter is not necessarily better than any other. Quite simply, every chapter is a masterpiece.
No work that purports to advance human knowledge could be complete without an Appendix or two, and the Scaum Valley Gazetteer, rather fashionably, sports two: Divers Incidents and Taglines. The former are vital addenda to any Gazetteer, being a number of encounters and occurrences that can take place anywhere within the Valley; such Incidents allow one to speed up or slow down a party’s progress at will, as well as regulating the ratios of scams to capers, casual brutality to arbitrary cruelty, and foppish accoutrements to extravagant accessories, again at one’s whim. The second Appendix, Taglines, has become traditional in any Dying Earth supplement; a further assortment of taglines to provide both amusement and experience points to one’s loyal game-players. Given that, as was already mentioned, this book could well provide several years of play, such additional taglines are a much-needed boon.
In Substance, the sheer staggering practical value of this book cannot be overestimated; were it possible to grant a higher score than 5, I would have no hesitation in so doing. The Scaum Valley Gazetteer can hold its metaphorical head up in the company of the greatest roleplaying game supplements in the world. Furthermore, the content is of no small humorous value; I laughed like a moon-calf at odd moments during my perusal of it, causing my wife some alarm and occasional discomfort as I did so. I have no doubt that much of the comedy will prove still more hilarious in actual play.
In Style, the cover art alone would nudge this up to a 5 with ease, but I will always consider Style to comprise cover art, interior art, layout, editing, and linguistic style rather than any one aspect. The interior art is a mixed buffet: for the most part it is of good quality, but rarely exceptional; that said, it never falls below the level of Good, so this alone would probably be worth a 4. The layout is clean and clear, with a pleasing balance between form and function; again, a 4, verging on the 5. The editing and linguistic style are close to inseparable, since it is always difficult for the reader to discern which mellifluous turn of phrase was the editor’s polish and which the writer’s original; contrariwise, the blame for stylistic gaffes must be laid at the pens of writer and editor alike. In this case, though there is a pleasingly Vancian turn of phrase to much of the text, said text falls somewhat short of Vance’s brilliance, just as this review must; this is forgivable, given that neither writers, editors, nor this reviewer are Vance himself. Despite my heartfelt willingness to overlook such shortcomings, I cannot be so lenient with instances of grammatical error, which occur with unfortunate regularity within the text. In the interests of fairness, I will point out that such errors are no more common in the Scaum Valley Gazetteer than in most other roleplaying game supplements. Perhaps it is unfair, then, that I hold anyone who is attempting to emulate Vance to a higher standard than most, since I find that any such errors break my Vancian mood as a reader; still, this may not prove so much of a problem for those not so linguistically single-minded as myself. In any event, as a reviewer I can only judge by my own standards, not by the standards of some purely hypothetical average reader of the Gazetteer. Thus the editorial and linguistic style of the book rate no higher than a 3, for a final Style score of 4 when art and layout are also accounted for.
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