Something I stumbled over trawling Lulu, Anthony Huso's The Fabled City of Brass is an alternative to the fierce city of Efreet commonly portrayed, one that returns to original inspirations like the Thousand and One Nights, to weave a place "of spectral beauty and foreboding. It is a city with a lesson; filled with empty streets, great riches, automatons, illusions and death. Here is a module to hurl characters of 12th level and higher against. You will either break them or turn them into legends on par with the City of Brass."
Pitched for 'high-level first edition play' what we get is something that captures the atmosphere of a quasi-dream abandoned mythic city. Split into two books - the map key and the appendices - first impression is of the gorgeous art. The poster map for the city can be seen here on Huso's Blue Bard blog to give you a sense of it. Together with the polished presentation there is an awareness of playability at the table that is encapsulated by the appendices being a seperate document. This lets you avoid having to flip back and forth from the key to treasures or monsters and serves to illustrate the attention to detail put into this.
So what do you get? In the first book 'A Fabled City of Brass' we find:
Foreword - a page on the origins of this alternate take on the City of Brass
Approach to the city - a page on getting there
Key to the map - 75 pages of keyed locations
Small map - 1 page version of the city map to go with the key
Legends and player handout sketch - 2 pages with to whet players appetite
12 hour time-keeper w/ 1 minute intervals - 1 page with encounter checks and saves indicated
In the second book City of Brass Appendices we find:
- 2 pages of Random Encounter Tables split into 3 main areas + sub-tables
- 3 pages on Flora tables with uses, descriptions, shelf lives and values for 30 exotic plants
- 4 pages on Dead Races - the once rulers of the City the Gringling and their nemeses the Groull
- 17 pages of Bestiary - containing the many fantastic creatures found within the city
- 2 pages of Spells of the once mighty Gringlings
- 13 pages of Artifacts Great and Small detailing the magical treasures to be found
- 3 pages of City Rules & Systems to capture the pocket reality of the City of Brass
- 4 pages of Playtest Characters chronicling a party who chanced the journey
- 5 pages of Index identifying both where in the Appendix and on the keyed map certain things are
What you get is a keyed map, a couple of pieces of systems and set-up and the treasures to be found. This is a city designed for high level adventure and we are told explicitly that it is designed for every direction to be worthwhile, every direction to yield rich rewards and deadly hazards to make them well earned. This is crucial because getting to the city at all is costly - a time dilation effect shrouding the city causes 5 years to pass for every visit. While in the city, every 6 hours the Blissful Haze that fills the streets triggers a saving throw and to fail is to fall into unwakeable slumber - until your friends haul you back out of the city. There are riches beyond compare but you are on a tight clock to seize what you can and flee.
The interior of the main book is beautiful, the key to the map having snips of the main map mixed in to ease orientation along with art to capture the mood. Wandering through the city the players may stumble upon something ruined, a beautiful treasure house ripe for the taking, old guardians still bound to defend the city or inhabitants that currently roam. The descriptions are fantastic and the hazards are dangerous - particularly to lower level creatures. Many of the old defenses remain live and making your way into the city at all is a challenge.
I loved how the glory of this place is deadly - one room so opulent that to enter is to risk being struck dead for low level characters. Even high level characters may become stunned by the beauty and lose time in wonder - time that is extremely precious as we have mentioned. Treasures are liberally distributed but sometimes awkward to carry away - great golden doors, artworks, statues - lots of things of incredible value that are non-trivial to move.
I greatly enjoyed just reading through the room descriptions for the wealth within and the Artefacts section of the appendix is inspirational. There are truly memorable treasures described, things worth incredible values that I can well imagine a partystruggling to part with because they are such delights to have. Reading all these treasures is a joy, even if you never manage to get your players to visit, read about them and when next they stop in a tavern you can have a bard spin the tale of these wonders.
I think this is a great example of how a high-level dungeon should be - some elements are just open, you can wander in and through the open spaces - others are dangerous because things have moved in that should not be there, or ancient guardians still inhabit the places, or best of all because these are hazards that did not affect the original inhabitants. The Bestiary is filled with interesting things for a party to find, decorative, strange and dangerous. The open air sections of the city have the added hazard that careless passage or loudly engaging something will draw in things that lurk nearby. Poor handling of a manageable situation will lead to things going rapidly downhill in the best old-school fashion. Cunning and a keen sense of when to push on and when to pocket the plunder and flee will be critical for a trip to the Fabled City of Brass.
Overall we have a glorious dream - one of the best expressions of the wonder and majesty of the planes I have found. Here is an abandoned city stuffed with treasures - reminiscent of Roadside Picnic these trinkets left behind are valuables past compare. Rich and deadly this truly is worthy of high level adventurers and challenging for them. Even the mightiest of heroes will have to guard themselves vigilantly against the city but the wonders here make it worth the risk.
The Fabled City of Brass can be found on Lulu here and the compiled appendices and encounter tables here.
You can find other reviews by Grodog or Olde School Wizardry or this twitter review thread by Skull in the Stars.
Finally - you can see a timelapse of the City of Brass map.
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