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There are those who say that Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer have nothing in common. That one by default is a more grim and gritty game style and it’s not about the dungeons or the hacking.
To them I say, read Karak Azgal.
A 96 black and white page book in hardcover format, Karak Azgal is broken up into seven chapters and includes not only dungeons and ruins for the party to navigate through, but a dwarven community and an outcast community to sell and barter the loot that they find.
Major levels are broken up by type and each of the major elements are here. Unfortunatly that means that the ‘hidden’ Skaven who’ve made an appeance in almost every adventure, make another one here. In addition to Skaven, we have the undead, orcs, goblins and beasts of chaos. All in all it’s a typical romp through the Warhammer Bestiary hitting all the major elements.
The good thing about Karak Azgal, is that like the better dungeon crawls out there, it’s not simply about going into a dungeon and killing things. First off, we’ve got the dwarves to deal with. This is an old fortress home of theirs and while they are making money and recovering artifacts off of letting adventurers enter the ruins and checking them when they come out, some aren’t happy with it.
This automatically leads to two scenarios happening. The first is where players decide that they’ve put their blood and sweat into acquiring items and killing the monsters and try to bypass the dwarves on the way out in keeping certain found items. Always a fun game of cat and mouse on the surface.
The second is that the players come under attack by those dwarves who don’t want adventurers in their ancestral homes at all. So you get permission by the dwarves, you pay your money, and right in the middle of some investigative work, you come under attack by other dwarves! Ah, the lure of the easy kill in the Warhammer setting.
The city of Karak Azgal has enough descriptions that the GM should be able to use it several times before running out of ideas. It includes information on how much characters have to pay to enter the city, as well as what the simple laws are and who some of the main characters in the city are. One of the worst parts about the city for an adventurer, is going to be the wide array of taxes that they must face.
Skalf’s Hold is where the dwarves live. It includes things that may be of interest to characters in need of healing. Characters may rest and ready themselves before moving into the actual dungeon itself. It includes an overview map with over thirty areas mapped out. The Hold is broken into different quarters including the foreign quarter, temple quarter, and gold quarter.
Of course some characters aren’t going to want to pay for such refinements. For them, they would say at Deadgate “a ramshaclked collection of wooden buildings clustered at the foot of Skalf’s Hold.” It’s an unwalled and unprotected town but it’s one that has it’s own share of dangers from the inhabitants. Characters can take their chance at gladiator pit fighting games or stock up at Tobaro’s Supply Shop.
Karak Azgal is typical in terms of formatting, art, and white space use. This makes it not expensive, as many companies’ product 96 page books for $19.99 and some would justify that hardcover as worth another $5 but it certainly doesn’t make the book inexpensive. The art by Alex Boyd, Tony Parker and Adrian Smith, fits the mood of the book and Adrian Smith is known in many circles for his works.
Karak Azgal could’ve just been a typical dungeon but by making Skalf’s Hold and Deadgate a place for players to explore and adventure when not exploring the ruins, the authors have given Warhammer a miniature version of Undermountain or Myth Drannor that can be used again and again.
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