Evocative City Sites: Eiffelmacher Estates by Rob Manning is a role playing game supplement published by Rite Publishing for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 39 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $29.5 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Open Game License and two pages are ads.
This starts with a map of the run down estate and then some in-character narration about exploring the estate, which sounds to be of the haunted house variety. Although the former owner is dead, the place has been taken over by a gang who use it as a smuggling base. There are large maps of the 1st (ground) and 2nd (1st) floors of the main building, descriptions of the typical gang members and some adventure seeds.
Next there are stats for the gang’s leader and a typical lieutenant; the other members are given approximate details but no stat blocks where they are described. A page in this section has maps of the two floors of the barn, inside and the roof of the greenhouse and of the basement amphitheatre.
Finally there are the haunts of the estate. These occur in a few places but the primary ones are in the basement amphitheatre – the dead owner was not as nice as people thought – with three linked haunts in that area.
The final 24 pages have black and white maps suitable for use with miniatures that cover the main house, the basement and the barn – but oddly not the greenhouse.
Evocative City Sites: Eiffelmacher Estates in Review
The PDF is reasonably bookmarked with the major sections linked, although it could be in a bit more depth. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two column colour format and a few errors were noticed. Other than the maps, there are a few colour stock images used. Presentation is okay.
As always, this site is theoretically in the publisher’s setting of Questhaven but, as usual, there should be no problems dropping it into another setting. It might look, to begin with, like a standard haunted house, but the addition of an up and coming criminal gang that makes its home in the place as well adds an extra, and inconvenient to characters, element – the gang is able to safely stay thanks to a deity.
It’s a shame that the battlemaps are not in colour, given that there are colour versions of the maps in the supplement, and it’s also strange that the greenhouse has been left out when the other buildings are included. Still, this is a bit of a twist on the haunted house setting, adding mundane threats to the haunts. Evocative City Sites: Eiffelmacher Estates is an interesting location and it can be found by clicking here.
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