Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: Cities & Towns

Cities & Towns by N. Robin Crossby, Tom Dalgliesh and Edwin King is a free role playing game supplement published by Columbia Games for use with HârnMaster.

This is an eight-page PDF that is available for free from DriveThruRPG.

The first few paragraphs give an overview of urban areas in the Hârn setting and how Hârn has only seven settlements – walled towns – classed as such. A sidebar, The City Index, gives an overview of how shops are laid out. Finally, in this section is a map of Hârn with the seven cities labelled.

Each of the seven cities (Aleath, Cherafir, Coranan, Golotha, Shiran, Tashal and Thay) is then given an overview. This gives their name, location, population, market size, status, government and military, with an overview of the city itself. These are just brief overviews; each of the cities has its own supplement. The coat of arms of each city is given in the sidebar.

Government of Towns explains there are two types of towns in Hârn; freetowns and feudal, or sovereign, towns. This section includes town charters, various governmental positions and law, although this refers to the Law supplement.

Urban Geography gives overviews of how towns are laid out and construction, as well as neighbourhoods, land use, markets, shops and common lands.

Townsmen is on town life, including guilds, which also refers to the Guilds supplement, and unguilded occupations.

Finally, Taxes and Tolls gives an overview of some of these.

Cities & Towns in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, despite its length, there are enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a few colour illustrations, as well as the coats of arms and map; presentation is good given the supplement’s length.

This is not a true standalone supplement, instead giving some generalities as to how towns and cities function. These are undoubtedly covered in more detail for any location that has its own supplement, but this could be useful for where details are lacking. It is also effectively system neutral and, apart from the pages on specific cities, could also be adapted for use with other settings. Cities & Towns is a nice little supplement and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.