A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Kos City

Kos City is a role playing game supplement published by Skirmisher Publishing. This is a generic supplement and the first in a series describing the Swords of Kos Fantasy Setting.

The supplement is available as a PDF from RPGNow for $6.99 but was purchased at the vastly reduced price of $0.01 as part of a special bundle. There are two PDFs to the supplement. The main PDF has 79 pages, with two being the front and rear covers, two being the front matter, two the Table of Contents and one being an ad for other supplements. Two pages are a map of the city, which is reproduced in the second, two page PDF, with some areas marked in colour, these being different quarters and the various detailed locations marked.

The Introduction starts by describing how the setting came about. In 2002, when Skirmisher Publishing was formed, Kos was the official playtest setting for game materials developed by the group. Following the release of the fiction novel Swords of Kos: Necropolis, a shared world fiction project ensued. In order to ensure that all the fiction was compatible and didn’t contradict any existing material, documents were created detailing elements of Kos and the surrounding world. This supplement was essentially created as the project’s “bible” and then released as a fantasy setting.

The setting is system-neutral but the game systems that were used in the playtest setting are OGL/d20, Pathfinder, Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Labyrinth Lord. It is a Mediterranean setting, one in which the Minoan civilisation survived for 2,000 years longer than in the real world and came to dominate the nearby region, before being destroyed when the volcanic island of Thera on which their capital was built exploded. The setting is based a hundred years after that; the date isn’t precisely given but it would probably correspond to about the 5th century AD. The Minoans, from comments in the text, would appear to have been very advanced, as it seems they had airships, a now lost technology. The explosion of Thera also awakened many previously legendary creatures and races.

There are also a number of what are described as Companion Volumes, which were created in the Kos setting. These are Nation Builder from Troll Lord Games and the unpublished Essential Places, which became City Builder, Castle Builder, Experts, Warriors and Tests of Skill. d-Infinity is the publication which provides support for the setting.

The City of Kos gives an overview of the city, how it is laid out and built and some details on the chariot-racing factions, specifically the Blue and Green who cause quite a bit of trouble, but there are also Red and White who are so innocuous many don’t even know they exist.

Specific Places in Kos City is the majority of the supplement and covers 50 specific locales. Some locales are unique – there will only ever be one guild house for a guild for example – whilst others, such as taverns, are simply noteworthy examples of their type.

Each location’s name is given, followed by its type and one or more adventure hooks. Some of the locations and hooks stand out as having double meanings. For example, there is Moira’s, an underground dwarven restaurant with a hook that is expanded into Into the Mines of Moira – which of course can look like Moria at first glance – and there is a bank from what sounds like the Swiss region run by Gnomes (as in the Gnomes of Zurich).

These are in alphabetical order, rather than being numbered, although the locations on the map are numbered.

Kos City in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with the major sections and the specific locations in the city linked. The bookmarks could have covered the subsections as well, but don’t. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of detail and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is generally good but could be a bit better. The text maintains a two column format and appears to be free of errors. There are a variety of both colour and black and white illustrations, but the majority of these appear to be public domain or stock images.

The locations described are in alphabetical order in both the main book and on the map. However, on the map the various locations are identified by numbers. This means that the different numbers are scattered all over the map so, for example, the nearest numbers to “39” are “18” and “6” which is a bit of a comfort detriment; it’s necessary to search the map for a number rather than them being placed in a logical manner.

The aim of the setting is to have one that is both familiar and different; it’s based generally on Classical Greece, but the myths and legends are true and there’s also an influence from European mythology. Kos City is the heart of the setting, and is a reasonably powerful city-state, but not a hugely dominant one, a trade entrepôt but not an expansionistic military power. With it being based on a real island, it is also in a known region. This first book provides enough detail on Kos City to use it – and it could probably be dropped into other appropriate settings too, with minor tweaks. A GameMaster – called a “Storyteller” in the supplement – will need to flesh out the location with stats but in many cases stock NPCs could probably be used. There are hints about the greater setting, such as the airships and the Tetrarchy of Anatolia – but these are not gone into in any great detail. Kos City is a decent base city for a campaign and it can be found by clicking here.