City of Tomorrow is a role playing game supplement written and published by M.C. Planck. The supplement is set in the author’s World of Prime novels and is intended for use with Heroes of Prime but is also suitable for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 20-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the Open Game License, one the Contents and one an ad.
The introductory paragraph explains that this is a small, open-air dungeon for 3rd to 5th level characters in the ruins of an ancient city. Plot explains that there are a number of groups within the ruins, and that the adventure is not a linear progression but interactions with various groups; interaction does not necessarily mean fight. There is a single encounter that happens when characters reach a location, and they have a limited amount of time to change the outcome. Realm Address explains where the ruin is on the Scorpus map, Alignment has the World of Prime colour-based alignments and Archetypes that the NPCs come from Nobles of Prime.
A full page is then taken up with a simple map of the ruins; sadly, this doesn’t come in a player-friendly version.
Random Encounters has two d20 tables of encounters, one for day, one for night and Spider Plague explains how these spiders appear nearly everywhere at night.
Guardians explains that there are three stone golems that patrol the ruins, though these golems are wheeled blocks of stone. The golems, when they encounter someone committing an unlawful act, will pick them up and dump them at the receiving chamber, where miscreants are imprisoned in holding cells. Destroying the guardians is difficult and, in the local sense, not really worth it.
Various groups are then detailed. There is a tribe of lizardfolk, a vampire, a small group of ogres, a pride of lions, owlbears, a harpy and a ghost. Each has a distinct area, though they can roam outside it, and they interact with the other groups in different ways, from friendly to hostile.
The final entry is Hall of Refuge, in which the characters can learn the original purpose of part of the city, which has now fallen by the wayside.
City of Tomorrow in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough that these would have been useful. The Contents covers the main sections and is hyperlinked. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of error. There are no illustrations bar the map. Presentation could be better.
The city is intended to be located in an out of the way place and, as such, should be easy enough to drop into any campaign setting. The city itself is decently interesting, and characters do not have to go through it killing everything in sight, a strategy that has problems anyway, one of which is being arrested by the guardian golems. That being a bigger problem for the characters than the locals, who have created ways of breaking out of the holding cells. City of Tomorrow is a decent little adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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