Arcana Realms, Shithmoora by Robert Hemminger and published by the Avalon Game Company is a role playing game supplement for Avalon’s generic setting, Arcana. Regular releases of new supplements are made for various locations and parts of the setting. This one covers the realm of Shithmoora, which was mentioned in the Arcana Western Reaches Source Book and Arcana Journal #18.
The supplement is available as a 42 page PDF from DriveThruRPG. The regular price of the book is $2.99, but it was purchased at the reduced price of $1. Of the supplement, one page is the colour front cover, one page the Contents and one page an advert for other Avalon products.
There are a number of maps, each taking up a full page. There is a labelled colour map of the realm, a labelled region map of the realm, a labelled colour map of the city of Gimmloth, two unlabelled realm maps, one colour and one greyscale and two unlabelled maps of the city of Gimmloth, one colour and one greyscale. These latter four would be suitable for players. There is also a full page taken up with heraldic symbols.
Shithmoora History is a most of a single page history of the realm, without a timeline. The next section starts on the same page. It is preceded by the labelled map of the realm.
Noble Lines of the Realms has the various noble houses detailed, along with their holdings, if any (some are landless), income and expenses and heraldic symbol. Each symbol is in full colour and is next to the noble details. The full page collating all the heraldic symbols together is within this section, as is the map showing the various regions of the realm. It finishes off with a full listing of troops.
Sites of Note covers some locations in a low level of detail, with basic descriptions and their garrisons. The labelled map of the city of Gimmloth is in this section.
Lords and Ladies of the Realm covers the various major non-player characters, and the locations that they reside at, together with some generic stats, equipment, and secret information that could be used for adventure seeds.
Maps is the final section, and has the final four maps, the unlabelled colour and greyscale realm and Gimmloth maps.
Arcana Realms, Shithmoora in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks, and the Contents is only very brief, so navigation is not particularly easy.
The formatting swaps from a two column to a single column layout without any apparent logic. There are few page filler illustrations in this particular supplement; most of the illustrations are the various maps (whose quality could be improved on the whole) and the heraldic symbols. The pages each have a colour background, so this isn’t the most printer-friendly of supplements.
There is some duplicated content between this supplement and the Arcana Western Reaches Source Book; this is completely duplicated, even down to errors. Arcana Realms, Shithmoora was published after Western Reaches; it looks like the material from the latter supplement was copied and then expanded upon. Consequently, there is a degree of overlap. The details on the Royal House of Shithmoora (and associated retainers) from Lords and Ladies of the Realm and the description of the realm from Shithmoora History are lifted straight from Western Reaches.
This doesn’t, like the earlier supplements, cover a hex of the world map – although Shithmoora has been partly covered in one – but instead focuses on a single realm. There are a few potential adventure seeds, but this is a description of a realm, not an adventure site. The various locations are covered in a low level of detail, which a GameMaster could flesh out more.
On the whole, there are rather less spelling and grammatical errors that the range of Arcana supplements is prone too, which makes reading it easier. The amount of actual written content isn’t huge, but it isn’t too bad. Arcana Realms, Shithmoora is a useful addition to an interesting, albeit rather flawed, generic setting that can be adapted to most fantasy role playing games, although it does seem most aimed at Dungeons & Dragons and related games.
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