The Gardens of Kamâl by Cliff Dunn is a role playing game supplement published by ZealZaddy for use with the Cypher System.
The supplement is available as a 48-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $5.79 but was received for free thanks to a special offer. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one the front matter and one the Contents. A zip file contains 48 pngs, tokens for 16 different creatures and NPCs in three different sizes.
Welcome to the Free City of Vadashar gives some details on the city, its history from before the Giant Kings onwards and its present and future.
The Gardens of Kamâl has a description of the Gardens, their history and design, and the water features in them. Sidebars cover using the Gardens in both Vadashar and your own campaigns.
The Sky Gondola: A Marvel of Ancient Engineering covers the gondolas used to transport people from the foot of the Gardens to a station on the summit. The gondola was constructed using the technology of the Giant Kings and an order was established to maintain the Gardens and the gondolas.
Vadashar’s Most Exclusive Shops and Boutiques covers the high-end places that are located in the Gardens. Each is given a brief description and some have additional details, such as NPCs stats, services and rumours.
Brodier Rolin: The Couturier of Vadashar covers one of the NPCs from the boutiques in more detail, including an adventure hook.
Zastro: The Jeweler of Deceit covers another NPC in more detail.
The Jakim Family covers a noble family now in a state of decay.
The Pool of Sophanisba covers a healing pool located in the gardens.
Adventure: The Demonical Gardens is an adventure using the two members of the Jakim family and their estate.
The Gardens of Kamâl in Review
The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is good. The text is either single column with sidebar, two columns or two columns with sidebar and appeared to be free of errors; the sidebars are used for GM intrusions, cyphers, stats and other references. There are a variety of colour and black and white illustrations, up to full page in size. Presentation is good.
This covers a different kind of location in a fair bit of detail, and there is definitely content that could be taken from the supplement and repurposed elsewhere; shops, for one thing, are often useful to help flesh out a fantasy town or city. There are a variety of stats for NPCs, cyphers and artefacts, which could be converted to other systems. Some elements would require more work than others to use elsewhere, but on the whole, there is a fair bit of material that could be reused outside of Vadashar. The Gardens of Kamâl can be found by clicking here.
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