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I will review this book for one single reason: I like its title. Rooms with a View. You have to admit that it's great for a manual with encounter locations.
Contents
Rooms with a View includes twelve different locations that can be dropped in any fantasy world. The book is written for the d20 system, although I think it can be easily adapted to any other game. For example, many ideas will be great for a Warhammer FRP game session, since they are quite weird.
I will start with chapter five, The Dead Head Inn. The title is somewhat deceiving, because in this inn there isn't one dead head, but many. And they talk! Many years ago a wizard cursed the owner, and from that moment all his descendants are reanimated after death (at least over the neck), retaining their knowledge and personalities.
The book describes no less than twenty-three talking heads, each one with an adventure hook. And if you have the typical old-school module that starts with “someone told you about a treasure...” you have the perfect and surprising starting point.
The family described at The Tomb of House Ithan also have the nasty habit to transform themselves into undead. But they are rich and aristocratic, and think that running after the auntie’s ghost is completely unacceptable. So they built a big mausoleum, heavily guarded, both to avoid the undead to go out and adventurers to go in. Meanwhile inside there are many things happening, and one vampire tries to find a cure for the family's curse.
The Desert Door seems inspired by Gaiman's Sandman. The characters cross a door and they are suddenly transported in the middle of a desert. They meet a nomadic tribe, who are used the visit of this “pale wanderers”. There is no threat, just the chance to explain very good stories. After two days, they fade away and go back to where they were.
Bull-Headed Artist introduces us Veer, a minotaur. She's not only intelligent, but a very fine painter, so maybe the players will receive a strange request to find some nasty pigments... What it's nice about this chapter is that Veer is not a solitary artist, but she has some friends, including an elf agent and a halfling apprentice.
These were the four locations I liked more. So I will just give a short description of the eight others.
- The Furnace Room. A restaurant for both the very rich and the criminals, with different layers of secrets.
- Four Brother's Spellwares. A magic shop where you can buy many things, run by four brothers.
- Monkscape. A meditating monk has created a weird effect around him.
- Erond's Bridge. A strange construction with a guardian, and many secrets in the other side.
- Lake of Sorrows. An enchanted place that creates an aura of deep sadness.
- The River Guardian. A child with a secret.
- The Show Must Go On. A quite normal circus company.
- Farelorn. An elf town that disappeared millennia ago.
Style
Surprisingly for a product of this kind, the interior art (by Attila Adorjany) is really above average, and there are some very good illustrations. The cover... well, also big companies use girls, dressed in black, with impressive attributes. It's part of the game industry, I suppose. What I don't like that much is the maps, too obviously created with a computer.
Conclusions
Yes, I like the title, but also the rest of the book. There are very nice ideas that can be used in any fantasy world. The four chapters I described are my favorites, but maybe other people have different opinions.
Unfortunately it seems that the publisher is no longer active, although you can still buy this book in PDF format at the usual places.
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