[Parsantium City At The Crossroads Pdf Free
Betty Neyhart
Crossposted from parsantium.wordpress.com/blog
The Juma Associates, the PCs in my own Parsantium campaign, have headed to the jungles of Sampur which meant coming up with a map. I've taken Symatt's world map and expanded it to include Sampur and the rest of the Caliphate of Aqhran. It's pretty rough but thought it might be of interest so have posted it here. The PCs have arrived in the port city of Surivata via teleportation circle and will be travelling up the Charapuzha River to visit the vanara city of Kishkindha where they hope to find the Arrows of Hanuman.
Crossposted from
Jonathan Roberts, Parsantium's ENnie award winning cartographer, has posted a low res version of his gorgeous colour map as well as some close-ups on some of the amazing detail he's included on his blog.
The other exciting news is that hopefully there will an opportunity for some of you in the UK to play in a Parsantium game at Dragonmeet on 7th December. The schedule is still to be confirmed but I am planning to run a Pathfinder game in the morning while Steve Dempsey will run the same adventure under the excellent 13th Age system in the afternoon. More information as soon as things are firmed up.
Crossposted from
I love well-drawn maps and, although I like drawing my own, I knew I needed to get the Parsantium city map drawn professionally. I am very excited to announce that Jonathan Roberts will be redrawing my original map shown below in full colour for Parsantium: City at the Crossroads. Jonathan has done work for Kobold Press, Rite Publishing and others, and recently drew maps of George R R Martin's Westeros for The Lands of Ice and Fire. You can check out his stuff at his website, Fantastic Maps.
Very well structured, fairly detailed without being too riding, this is an excellent setting for use by GMs who want something strange without going gonzo- the city is laid out with good details, as well as connections to history and the world about- while intended for 13th age, it can be made to fit most any campaign or FRPG I know of without great effort.This may well be my next 5e campaign. Highly recommended
This adventure is set in an amazing city called Parsantium. Although there's sufficient material within its pages for you to run it, for best effect go and grab a copy of Parsantium: City at the Crossroads - if you like intricate cities you won't regret it.
The first section, Running the Adventure, explains the background to the adventure which involves an ancient evil reaching forth once more and provides a brief introduction to Parsantium and an adventure summary. There's a detailed run-down of the ancient evil in question, and some hooks to help get the party involved in the adventure. There's a major festival soon, and quite understandibly folks would like it to be free of ancient evils.
Then the adventure proper begins, for once not in a tavern... it just leads to one later on. Not straightaway, however, the action begins with someone running amok on the docks. As events unfold, the party discovers that this is but the latest incident in a series of bewildering brawls that have involved people not normally known for being violent. Neatly, if the party isn't moved to investigate on its own, they'll be asked to find out what is going on and put a stop to it. Along the way there's an exciting and cinematic chase across a floating village and plenty of interesting people to talk to before they get to that tavern, and there are also opportunities for research as well as for action.
The tavern itself is well-described and there's a neat way in which some characters might pick up on there being something wrong even before they start delving below through the tavern cellar to the terrors that lurk in the sewars beneath. Never mind any ancient evils, the smells and sights of the sewars are bad enough - enjoy the atmospheric descriptions as the party explores...
The finale is suitably climactic, and there are notes to help you deal with the party's success or failure as appropriate. Overall it makes a stirring adventure which gives the party a chance to make a name for themselves at least in this corner of town. It's full of neat tricks to build up atmosphere and add to the realism of the town as well as to provide a suitably creepy feel that grows along with the body count!
As a long-time fan of the Parsantium setting and a 13th Age GM, this adventure has a lot going for it. First, kudos to the author for including a half page detailing the Parsantium icons that are likely to be involved with this adventure and how they'd fit in. In 13th Age, icons are impartant for both building stories and for the mechanical benefits derived from PC relationships with icons, and this goes a long way to making the adventure easier to run with 13th Age, even though the stats are for 5e.
Without wanting to spoil too much, I'll say that I enjoy the mechanic that ratchets up the tension as a result of NPC death toll rising as the party goes through the adventure. A smart group of PCs will find non-lethal solutions or they'll face a more challenging adventure. You don't often see adventures written that encourage characters not to go "murder hobo" on most of what they encounter. It was nice to have an in-story reason why the group will want to think twice about this approach.
The inclusion of ideals, bonds, and flaws for the NPCs is helpful in easily picking up this adventure and running these NPCs without needing a lot of prep. While D&D 5e isn't my game of choice, I've run and played a fair amount of it, so it's easy enough to take the monsters and find/create 13th Age interpretations. Several of the monsters can be found in the 13th Age core book or bestiary. Others (such as a couple giant animals found in the adventure) can probably be reskinned from existing giant animals in the core book.
If Parsantium is part of your campaign, this adventure will serve as a nice starting point for a new group of characters. I would have liked to see suggestions on how to use this adventure for a range of levels, rather than just 1st level. In 5e, PCs don't stay at 1st level for long -- they're typically level 2 after just a session or two. So this adventure isn't going to be challenging enough for groups that aren't just starting out. I don't hold this against the adventure: it clearly states that it's a level 1 adventure, and the challenge seems about right, but it would have been a nice-to-have.
Richard Green's Byzantine-analogue fantasy city of Parsantium is easily one of the most unique settings I've read all year: While mostly setting-agnostic, the city's unique backdrop and flair rendered Parsantium a wonderful breath of fresh air among all too many redundant concepts. This year, I also saw a broadening of my focus, extending my reviews to covering 13th Age, among other systems, amid my portfolio.
If you've read my reviews of 13th Age core supplements, you may have noticed that I love the system and certain components of the Dragon Empire setting - but the icons are not one of the components I like. The default icons pretty much are archetypes in the traditional sense and only in recent supplements and some tidbits, the icons slowly are getting a kind of identity that transcends bland fantasy fare. If you're planning on using 13th Age properly with a given campaign setting, you'll need to determine unique icons for the setting - and this supplement does just that.
After a neat b/w-map of the surrounding country as well as foreword by none other than one of 13th Age's creators, Rob Heinsoo, we immediately introduced to the respective icon-write-ups and their level of detail is significant: The write-ups sport a sample quote, notes on the usual location where the icon can be found, detailed common knowledge as well as advice for handling adventurers and their relationship with the icon. Champions and followers, allies and adversaries, enemies, the icon's history - all covered...including "The True Danger" - so yes, everything you'd expect is here...and more.
The pdf also covers two racial write-ups for use as PCs: Gnolls and Vanara. Gnolls get +2 Con or Dex and a racial power that makes piling on foes more lethal. Vanara receive +2 Dex or Wis and get a racial power that allows them to disengage 1/battle as a free action - annoyingly called "pop free from an enemy" in the rules-language. sigh
Oh well, you're here for the icons, right? So what are they? Well, first we'd have the Archbishop, His Radiance Arcadius, head of Helion's church, a devout and pious scion of civilization who is as strong as his faith...rendering him susceptible to some nasty ploys, but also extremely powerful. The Basileus Corandias XVIII the Lionlooded would be the city's sovereign, the emperor-analogue, if you will. Of course, the underworld has a similar ruler, The Boss of All Bosses, the informal fourth tribune of the city ultimately makes for a compelling character that diverges enough from the Prince of Shadows to be interesting. There also would be the Great Caliph Faisal al-Aqil: Scholar, astronomer and conqueror of Parsantium - which, if you're not yet familiar with the city, should make one thing clear: The power-dynamics of Parsantium are much more unique, less monolithic and thus more rife for adventure than those of the default icons.
Parsantium, however, is also home to a Dragon, a bronze who, in times of need, has risen to defend the city - but for which ultimate agenda, no one knows as the dragon walks the streets well-disguised, while hunted by the agents of darkness. The Emperor of the Jade Throne further complicates the net of allegiances of the political landscape of the icons here - obviously an Eastern-inspired ruler who has significant interests in the city...and a dire feud versus the Gnoll Khan, for it is the gnolls that stand in for the nomadic, raiding hordes of the Mongols in real world history, being led by the Grand Khan of the Gnolls.
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