City of Thieves by Eric Cagle is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. The supplement is in the Lands in Shadow series that explore parts of the official Urth setting.
This is a ten page PDF that is available from RPGNow for $1.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1.37 during a sale. About half the first page is an illustration and a quarter the Credits; the rest of the supplement is content.
It starts by giving a brief overview of the supplement; Pruul, the City of Thieves, is in the Confederacy of Nine Cities. Once a wealthy city, it has now deteriorated a lot.
Wealth for a Thousand Years starts the history of the city and its founding by the Witch-King as a port guarding the southern tip of Crescent Bay, paired with Azūl to the north, and how its wealth and size grew with the discovery of mines and the import of slaves from Dis until, finally, it was conquered by the Kalasans.
From War, Prosperity has the history after the defeat of the Witch-King’s forces and the removal of his constructions apart from twelve Black Obelisks that proved impossible to destroy.
The Sins of Envy and Greed explains how the desire for more wealth started the city on a downward slope. Despite Pruul’s wealth, it still did not match that of Kem, the City of Gold.
T
he Dread Discovery has an autarch entering the Black Obelisks in the hope of gaining great wealth. Afterwards, the city continued deteriorating and all autarchs died horribly.
The Fires of Revolt has the ordinary citizens of Pruul, whose lives had continued to get worse, revolt against the upper classes and the city descending into anarchy.
The First Thieves Guild is how, after a decade of turmoil during which thieves and gangs would attack anyone and anything, including visiting ships, one individual seized control of all the gangs and unified them.
Pruul Today is how the city currently exists, a shell of its former self still bearing the signs of the revolt, but one that is in better state than the anarchy into which it descended. The Council of Thieves rules the city and the current autarch, Lady Cat, whose stats are provided, is also the head of the guild.
Rule by Guild and Gang effectively explains how the city is governed by the various gangs today, unified under the guild, and how greed has constantly dominated the city.
Inside the City has a map of Pruul and covers the various areas as well as briefly describing the mines and estates outside the city.
Adventure Ideas has some adventure hooks and finally Character Backgrounds has a new background table for Pruul characters.
City of Thieves in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although not essential, they would have been appreciated. Navigation is fairly poor. The text maintains a full colour two column format and no errors were noticed. As well as the map, there are a couple of custom colour illustrations. Presentation is very good.
As with all of the entries in the Lands in Shadow series covering the Confederacy, this provides a base for a city but one that will need fleshing out more by the GM. Only one important NPC is described; no others are mentioned. The different parts of the city are also given a brief overview. There is enough to get a GM started with the city but not much more than that. This is also one of the few cities that gives a reasonable description as to where it is located on the continent; most do not. City of Thieves can be found by clicking here.
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