Recaps & Roundups part 42: JG10 Guide to the City State

Dropping late in 1976, JG10 Guide to the City State was the follow-up to Booklet I. But whereas that first booklet contained info on the buildings and residents for a handful of streets in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, JG10 crams its 64 pages with entries for pretty much every important building on the City-State map. Unfortunately it doesn't replicate what was in Booklet I, so a bit of book juggling will still be required to use the full city, but it's so chock-full of content I'm not sure where that stuff would have fit anyway.

I should note at this point that I'm writing this up quite a number of weeks after I finished reading JG10, so my memories of it all are a little hazy. I took some notes, but it's likely I might make mistakes or misremember some things. It's one of the perils of taking a blog hiatus, I suppose.

In addition to detailing the city, this book gives us our first details about the Judges Guild setting, beginning with a couple of maps which I'll reproduce below.

This map's at the end of my PDF of JG10, but I'm not
100% sure it was in the original booklet.

The City-State was apparently founded 1,358 years ago (in the year 3075 BCCC) by a unification of nomad tribes, and has grown so powerful that it only pays tribute to one nation located far in the west (possibly the City-State of the Emperor marked on the map). The barbarian Altanians, who share an ancestry with the people of the City-State, dwell to the south. Thunderhold lies to the north, ruled by Nordre Ironhelm, king of the dwarves.

It's said that over 300 religions are practiced in the City-State. The Overlord allows them all to operate, taxing them all. As in Booklet I, there are actual gods dwelling in the city as well, among them a toad god in the swamp and Balder himself in a wine shop.

The city now runs on an embryonic feudal system, which came into place 456 after the Revolt of Craftsmen, when the craftsmen wrested a measure of freedom from the warrior-dominated ruling faction.

The calendar mentioned above (BCCC) is Balozkinar's Corrected Common Calendar, and was instituted 453 years ago. Balozkinar was a warrior-king, after the discovery and interpretation of an ancient calendar obelisk (I think, the wording is a little vague). The calendar year is split into 18 months of 20 days, with a five or six day celebration at the end of each year.

The obelisk mentioned above, called the Chronology of the Dragon Kings, is shown below:

Given the founding of the city state in 3075 BCCC, these kings all ruled well before its existence. It's mentioned that the founding happened precisely 5,466 years after something called the Uttermost War, and supposedly 11,683 years after "the creation" (according to Ralibarn the Wise, a Patriarch of Odin). It's also mentioned that there's a gap of about 2,500 years in the City-State's history, due to the destruction of records on a nation-wide scale, but I'm not sure how that can be, as it was only founded 1,358 years ago. Perhaps that gap refers to the history of the region as a whole, rather than the city-state itself.

With the history stuff out of the way, the book then gets into detailing the streets and buildings, in exactly the same fashion that it did in Booklet I. As before, it's dense and pretty rough going as a read. It's only 65 pages, but it took me a few weeks to get through. The buildings are grouped by street, with each one giving the stats and personalities of major residents, as well as wares offered and treasures held. There's a lot packed in, and just about every building has some sort of a springboard that could be used to generate an adventure.

Of the various city supplements I've read over the years, this might be one of the most practical and usable. My only real gripe is that buildings are often grouped with those on a street that they are a fair distance away from. For the most part they can be found quickly, but there's the odd one here and there that would be very difficult to find without a lot of flipping through the booklet.

The book finishes up with some more charts, with things such as random boons and duties that the Overlord might ask of a noble, lots of charts for determining the looks and disposition of any women encountered (with the possibilities including ones with golden fur and tail, feathers and wings, and scaly half-mermaids), and rules about law and justice in the city-state (including wills, oath-breaking, and proclamations that might be posted in the plazas and at the gates).

The booklet ends with the following calendar, which has 12 months in contradiction to the 18-month calendar mentioned earlier in the book. It's possible that the one below is used by the common folk, with the other being favored by nobles and officials.

From this we can learn the general temperature at different times of the year (in Fahrenheit, seemingly), as well as the names of several of the gods worshipped in the city-state: Modron, goddess of rivers; Mabon, god of the sun; Harmakis, god of destruction; Teutates, god of war. These deities seem to exist alongside pretty much everything from Supplement IV: Gods, Demigods & Heroes. It's also mentioned that month 5 (the Yellow Moon-Dog) is "pardon month", when the Overlord can be petitioned to pardon any crime. Any petitioner not pardoned is often exiled beyond the city gates.

Recaps & Roundups part 39: JG3 Initial Guidelines Booklet, JG4 City State Player's Map & JG8 Dungeon Level Maps

In addition to the Dungeon Tac Cards and Ready Ref Charts, the initial Judges Guild installment also came with three more items. All three of these provided more information for the City State Map they had sold at Gen Con: JG1 Initial Guidelines Booklet gives details about the City State itself, right down to specific streets, buildings and inhabitants; JG4 City State Players Map is a smaller scale map of the city with some of the details removed; and JG8 Dungeon Level Maps I provides maps for the first five levels of a dungeon beneath the city. I'll tackle them each in turn.

JG5 Initial Guidelines Booklet

This booklet is only 16 pages, but it is dense. That's the actual cover above, and you can see that there's absolutely no space wasted. You certainly can't accuse Judges Guild of not giving its customers their money's worth.

The book begins with tables that are used to determine the types of characters encountered, along with their social standing and what they want. There are some wild potential results here. Most of the encounters will be with humans, but you could also find yourself being sexually propositioned by a Blink Dog or a Wight.

There are six levels of hierarchy in the City State, with various Social Levels within each. As I understand it, Social Level is more important than hierarchy; a sheriff (top of the General hierarchy) is of higher rank than a page, high born or thane (bottom three of the Noble hierarchy). Of course, you can rise higher in some hierarchies than others and anyone at the top of their hierarchy can move into the Noble hierarchy by spending loads of money on a festival.

The most unfortunate thing here is that women are seemingly very low on the totem pole. Most seem to be slaves, "houris", concubines, amazons (not so bad by comparison), daughters, and barmaids. Some that show up will be ladies or dames, and the odd goddess (more on that later). But overall, the City State seems to be a very male-dominated place, at least based on the charts.

The City State is ruled by a hereditary monarch (the Invincible Overlord), as well as a senate. Pretty much everyone on the senate is a top level character class (Lord, Patriarch, etc.), and they seem to be divided by alignment. The overlord himself is said to be Lawful Evil, leaning towards Good. I guess that means he's evil but not, like, all the way evil? He apparently remains above alignment disputes, and uses characters of all alignments to serve him. His secret police, called the Black Lotus, pervade all levels of society. He also has a pretty sizable treasure hoard, which is said to be guarded by the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o, which gives me a location for one of the artifacts from Supplement III.

Within the city is a secret society called FEAR (the Fraternity for Eradication of Armored Riff-Raff), which is dedicated to pressuring lower-level characters into not wearing platemail. I wonder if this is a class snobbery thing? It's said to be coming from the Knights of the Inner Circle (citadel guards) so it could just be to make law-enforcement easier.

The Barbarians of Altanis live to the south-east, and have a voice in the senate. To the south-east are the Orcs of the Purple Claw, and their Amazon Queen-Priestess. Goblins live in a reservation outside the walls, and a network of tunnels beneath. They are permitted to work in the city, but must leave by sundown, and aren't allowed to buy alcohol.

The significant streets and buildings are then described, in incredibly terse fashion. It doesn't cover the entire city, just a section in the lower east corner. Even as condensed as it is, it would be nigh-impossible to detail everything on the map in 16 pages. I found this section fairly hard going, to be honest. Here's a sample of what it's like to read:

WILD BOAR TAVERN
GARRICK ONE-EYE; CLASS FTR; ALIGN LE; LVL 4; HTK 14; AC 7; SL 6; S 14; I 8; W 7; CON 12; DEX 4; CHAR 5; WPN Dagger
Ten barmaid slaves FTR, N & LE, 1 HD, 2-5-1-2-4-3-3-1-2-5 HTK, AC 9, daggers. 4 sculliary slaves FTR, N, 1 HD, 4-5-4-2, short swords, 2 cooks, FTR, N, 2 HD, 6-5 HTK, AC 7, swords, two-handed sword hidden under counter, 20 SP & 15 CP on person, 110 GP hidden in boars head above bar, will relate Legend of the Druid Stone . . pilgrim place of druids . . large meteorite for 2-12 GP, patrons include barbarians, bandits, & berserkers NA 1-6 @, pig roast 1 GP, ale 1 SP, entertainment Bullfrog Bertha FEM Orc, 2 HD, 10 HTK, AC 5, and her two bellydancers FEM slaves N, 1 HD, 1-3 HTK, daggers, gormets roll for Cholera PROB 2%/Meal. HO 25%

As you can see there's a lot there, even if it can get a little hard to parse. There are various legends and rumours that players can learn, and those are always written in a cursive font. I have no clue what "HO 25%" at the ends means.

There's too much for me to go through in detail, but some of the more interesting locations include Hell-Bridge Temple (where the Assassins' Guild members got to worship), the Thieves Guild, and even the local butcher, who likes to hook people from his roof and reel them in to become tomorrow's cutlets. Pretty much every location described has an adventure hook of some sort.

I'm struck by two things that I haven;t seen a lot of in D&D cities. The first is that monster races are all over the place. Orcs, goblins, trolls, gnolls, wererats, you name it and they're living in the City State. The second is the presence of the gods. The city is filled with temples to the gods from Supplement IV, even ones drawn from the Elric mythos. The gods are very real in the City State, and can be met in temples, bars, or just on the street as random encounters. It's pretty wild and very pulpy, and I like the tone it suggests a lot.

The booklet ends with a three page description of the legal system, which takes into account all sorts of things: the Social Level of all involved, the crime, the circumstances, how the magistrate is feeling, bribes, and even the weather on the day of the trial. You're more likely to get off on a sunny day than a rainy one, which makes a weird sort of sense. Results range from the judge ruling in your favour to being drawn and quartered. At a cursory glance, it looks like a workable system, albeit a rudimentary one. I'm not sure I'd want to implement anything more complex than this, to be honest.

JG4 City State Player's Map

I haven't got much to say about this one. It was printed as four 8.5" x 11" sheets of paper, making it (I think) a quarter of the size of the original City State Map. It has the names of the streets and the geographical features, but the buildings are unnamed, and their interiors have no detail. It looks like a good way to get the players to explore the city without revealing anything they shouldn't know.

JG8 Dungeon Level Maps I

These five dungeon level maps are accessible from beneath two taverns (the Wild Boar Tavern and the Cut-Throat Inn). They're freely available at the Acaeum, so I'll show them all here. They aren't stocked, but there are some nice details on the map, such as sounds and navigation hazards.