Library Lore presents 12 generic libraries than can be used in almost any fantasy game. Even if you aren’t using d20, you can just borrow the backgrounds and ideas and tweak it to suit your game. The goal of this product is to make libraries an actual focal point for PCs. There are dozens of NPCs, many of which you can use just for random encounters if you need a quick NPC. Each library also includes story seeds and short adventures. Many of the adventures tie into a bigger overarching quest to find the Astral Fortress, a library on the Astral Plane.
The product is 42 pages long, but easy to navigate. The table of contents links to each library and each separate mini adventure. The bookmarks link to not only the libraries and adventures, but also to the random spells, feats, and items that pepper the product. The product opens with a general introduction about the Adventure Havens series, and what format the presentation will take. Each library is well presented and easily dropped into pretty much any fantasy world. Information for each library includes a “Stat” block (how many stories, how many books, major topics, owner, etc), a brief history, information on important NPCs and general makeup of patrons, type of books found, story seeds, and then one or more adventures. Most of the adventures are presented as side quests. They are things to do when the party is not working on your main quest in your campaign. They add a bit of flavor to a game and let your players more fully interact with the world. Many of the adventures require skills other than the typical hack-slash-kill. Diplomacy, knowledge skills, and other social abilities play a big part in completing a lot of the quests.
NPC challenge ratings run from level one commoners to 30th level wizards. There are even some dragon NPCs for the players to interact with. The actual adventures themselves, however, run toward designed for level 4-8th players. But these can be scaled easily enough for higher or lower level groups. Following the multi-library quest gets a little cumbersome at times if you are trying to sort out all the clues. Fortunately, there is an appendix in the product that spells out the clues and where to find them.
The general layout of the product is plain, but functional. The artwork is very good. Each piece is a bright, full-color, almost cartoonish rendition of different NPCs or just scenes in and around the libraries (there is a printer-friendly version included with the product so you don’t kill your printer).
Review Summary