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The vast majority of the book is dedicated to the caves that the city of Sheoloth. A very good decision the writers made was to not tie the Drow city to any particular above ground geography. It could be placed into virtually any campaign setting that would want a soup to nuts Drow society. The flavor text for each section is good and for the most part every section of the city has a distinct feel. The political and social factions in power are well documented. The important NPC’s, while not voluminous in many sections are nicely detailed in all sections.
Where Sheoloth fails in regards is the maps in the book. There is one over all map drawn three dimensionally, but it is small. A full page or a pullout would have been a nice touch, but from here it only goes down hill. For each section of the city (re chapter) there is a small map (often no bigger than an 8th of a page) of said section. Most of these maps are crude and do not seem to represent more than a bare floor with a couple of building… which for almost all sections is counterintuitive to the descriptive text. As well the key for each map is in the back of the book, which I found to be a poor choice. But combined with the lackluster detailing and the keys being nearly as bad this compounded my issues with this in Sheoloth.
There are also some problems with the Drow society as presented by the authors. Basically at every turn it is a society wracked with death and danger at every turn. Parents kill children, rich kill poor, etc. There are entire annual festivals where Drow dies by the hundreds if not thousands. It is reiterated over and over that Drow reproduce slowly and with great difficultly. The math behind this presentation of a dangerous and deadly society does not work. Frankly it probably overplays the crazy evil society card.
But what does work is the utter disdain and callousness Drow treat every other race. That card too is played often and does work. But this success is at a detriment to the supplement as it pigeon holes what this supplement could be used for within the context of a campaign. Using Sheoloth as presented a non Drow party would have access to only a few areas of the city and little opportunity to do much beyond freelance outside of the city or set up shop in a foreign ward… The other option is to run an all Drow party, but unless they were of allied factions (and even then… that would be precarious) that campaign would be untenable. If I were running a campaign using Sheoloth I would keep the Drow as a xenophobic society… but not one so concerned about outsiders coming in, but its population going out. This is vaguely touched upon in the fiction that is spread throughout Sheoloth. Outsiders would still be in danger in the city as the Drow would still view anyone but them as inferior and subject to their tender mercies if they cannot defend themselves.
The production values of Sheoloth are acceptable. While I was not reading it with my editors hat on I stumbled upon many editing and layout errors that should have been picked up. Some of the art is very good and conveys the setting well, but there is also enough art in Sheoloth that is bad to the point of distracting. The page layout and design is good and Sheoloth does flows well.
Had I payed anywhere near list price the flaws within Sheoloth might have been a turn off, but Drow were never my thing. Double so when it concerns certain Drow rangers that fight with two weapons…
Overall Sheoloth is as good of a supplement for the Drow as I have read. It can be plugged into any campaign that needs it with relative ease. The writing itself (other than the population concern stated above) is good and kept my interest. However I feel the plot issues inherent in Sheoloth can be worked out and tweaked as needed, it need not be as limited to only Drow as it is initially presented. More time should have been taken with the maps, art and editing.
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