Evocative City Sites: The Intimate Shape Festhall by Miranda Russell 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 with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 25 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.95 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, half a page is the front matter, one page is the Open Game License and two pages are ads.
The other half of the page that has the front matter has the location’s adventure seeds. The next two pages have black and white maps of the two floors of the festhall.
Next is some in-character prose about the festhall which is, as can probably be deduced, a house of ill repute. Albeit a rather upscale one and one that is staffed purely by shapechangers. Two NPCs are then described, the Madame and the most popular courtesan, both doppelgangers. Each has a secret given about what their true aims are. These two NPCs then have extensive stats. Next, and a bit of a surprise as it was not mentioned in the text, the Intimate Shape Festhall has stats too. As the reader probably isn’t expecting monster stats, this can take a second to grasp. The festhall is a Gigantean Mimic – it’s really big in other words.
The next eleven pages have black and white battlemaps of the location.
Evocative City Sites: The Intimate Shape Festhall in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with major sections linked. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two column black and white format and the text itself appeared to be free of errors. There are, as well as the maps, a number of stock black and white illustrations. Presentation is okay.
As with the other supplements in the Evocative City Sites series, this is nominally in the publisher’s setting of Questhaven but, as usual, it will be easy enough to locate it elsewhere.
Although the text appeared to be free of errors, there were some problems with layout, content and the maps. Putting the adventure seeds right at the beginning is an odd design choice, as they do not mean anything until after the description is read. The mimic is not mentioned at all in the descriptive text, and it really should have been. For one thing, it is perhaps the most interesting part of the festhall (shapechanging courtesans is interesting too) but there is not a word on it. Finally, the battlemaps have a number of problems. Most of them run to the edge of the page on at least one side; they really should be centrally positioned as two of them are. The last two sections of the first battlemap have a lot of overlap; one of them is simply half of what is already depicted on the other. The utility of the battlemaps has been degraded.
The festhall is an interesting idea, but the execution and presentation are not as good as they could be, what with the layout being debateable, information not imparted and the problems with the battlemaps. Evocative City Sites: The Intimate Shape Festhall is a flawed example in the series and can be found by clicking here.
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