Civilian Authority of Brinston aka All About City Guards and Police by John Josten is a generic role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. This is part of the Small Bites series and is the “World Walker” edition; the full edition is about twice the length and is only available to Patreon supporters.
This is a 24 page PDF that is available for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover.
The Introduction explains what the supplement is about and that it was moved up the queue in the request of patrons. There is also a short Table of Contents before moving onto the Fletnern Wiki extracts. This explains that the extracts are those related to Civilian Authority and Brinston and includes some of those that were included in Universities of Magic aka All About Mages and The Palace of the Prince Governor of Brinston aka All About Courtiers and Wealth. These primarily cover military units which in this case are Brinston’s police forces.
The Sounding Board is a collection of blog posts and starts with Crime in the Poor Part of Town which references The Killer Crime Families of Garnock, and states that the poorest neighbourhoods of Garnock are safer than the poorest of Brinston, due to crime having rules, and that those areas with nothing to steal are not as violent.
Taxes in FRPG covers the subject of taxation in a realistic manner.
How Much is Safety Worth? is essentially on making PCs afraid of the police, otherwise they will do what they want in town.
The Best Defense is to Actually Have a Defense an references Legend Quest, in which shields were designed to actually be useful.
Urban Adventures – Equipment is on what equipment a character might tote around town. This also explains that much of it was covered in Forsbury After Hours.
Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane starts off by covering hotels which, in Brinston, are the main bases for the Civilian Authorities, or the different police forces. It also covers the police and sports, as the forces usually have sporting competitions. The city wall is the final part, and this is not the most effective wall around.
News of Fletnern has the results of the most recent census of Brinston, which revealed a population of over a million – truly enormous by period standards.
The Good Life starts with The Social Structure of Fish. Fish is a common food in Brinston, but different types have different levels of status. Horses and Wagons is on horse usage in the city and The Culture of Policing is how the police are regarded in different cities.
Slang and Superstition has local terms.
What’s Missing? explains what is in the full version and then it wraps up with various links. The final page has a map of the areas of Brinston with a list of the police forces and their symbols, dress, weapons and behaviour.
Civilian Authority of Brinston aka All About City Guards and Police in Review
The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents is less thorough but is hyperlinked. There are also some external links to relevant resources. Navigation is extremely good. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. There are a number of stock and public domain black and white illustrations. Presentation is okay.
As always with these supplements, this is a collection of articles and content that is generally on the same theme, but it is a collection of disparate articles rather than a coherent whole. The full version may hang together slightly better. As is typical, the author covers matters in more detail than many would, as creating a world that fits together and makes sense is often not considered. The level of detail considered is interesting, but some may not consider it to be that relevant. So, this is a collection of articles and extracts that are generally on the collective theme of police and how they work, in particular within one city. City guards are often not considered in any great depth, and this does rectify that. Whether or not this will be of use will depend on the individual GM but there’s enough that some material can probably be used. Civilian Authority of Brinston aka All About City Guards and Police is an interesting collection of articles and it can be found by clicking here.
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