A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Evocative City Sites: The Next Inn

Evocative City Sites: The Next Inn by Steve Russell is a generic role playing game supplement published by Rite Publishing.

This is an 18 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 and half a page is the front matter.

The supplement starts with a number of adventure seeds as to why the characters might come across the inn. The first page of content has black and white maps of the various floors of the inn.

Next is in-character narration about the inn, which is a place where worthy adventurers can rest, be healed and guarded against enemies by the Sisterhood of the Nexus – the true name of the place is The Nexus Inn – and their guardians, the Sons of the Silent Shield. This also makes reference to The Rogues Gallery Tavern, the first in the series. Two NPCs are described, the head of the Sisters and the head of the Sons. Each is given a secret.

The final 12 pages are black and white battlemaps of the inn.

Evocative City Sites: The Next Inn in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks; navigation is poor as a result. The text maintains a two column black and white format, and appeared to be free of errors. There is a combination of stock and custom black and white art. Presentation is adequate.

As with other supplements in the series, this is theoretically based in Questhaven, but dropping it into other locations and settings is easy enough.

This is only the second supplement in the Evocative City Sites series and it suffers by comparison with the later instalments in the series. For one thing, The Next Inn is system-neutral, unlike other entries, and as a result lacks the rather complex stat blocks seen for NPCs in other supplements from Rite. The amount of content is also significantly less. It might be wrong to judge The Next Inn by comparing it to later supplements in the series, but in contrast it feels unfinished an much worse value for money. The inn is briefly described, but there are no game effects, nor is the location covered in much detail. A GM is going to have to work harder to use this supplement. Evocative City Sites: The Next Inn is okay, but not great, and it can be found by clicking here.