Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: NC5 – Denali Monarchy

NC5 – Denali Monarchy is a free role playing game supplement published by Adventures in Filbar. Although this is part of the Noteflame Coast series which is set in the Lands of Calentria, this isn’t really part of that setting. Calentria is the D&D 5E adventure setting, whereas this area is actually connected to the original Filbar campaign, which is aimed at the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and AD&D 2nd Edition games. The supplement is background historical information for a campaign.

This is an eleven page PDF which lacks bookmarks. One page is the now-standard grey cover denoting a free supplement, which has a map on the front that appears to have been made in Hexographer from Inkwell Ideas. Much of the supplement itself is maps, all of which appear to have been done in Hexographer, and illustrations. There is a full page map of the archipelago with the major islands labelled and various, unlabelled, sites on them. Three pages and a third contain eight stock images intended to illustrate parts of the islands. Larger versions of five of the islands, or island groups, from the full page map, again with unlabelled sites, take up 3 and two thirds pages.

The remaining two pages of the supplement are taken up by the history of the island, titled Denali Monarchy, after Denali, the largest islands of the group.

The text maintains the standard single column format seen in Filbar supplements, and no grammatical or spelling errors were noted in the text itself, although there were some other problems. The history seems to lack clarity to a degree; it was often necessary to reread paragraphs to determine what was actually happening to who. In addition, the archipelago is described on the front page as being west of Noteflame Coast; however, that area is actually the rest of the Lands of Calentria and the archipelago is not in it. It seems probable that the islands are actually to the east of the coast, where the ocean is.

The text is quite thorough and, despite the problems, does describe quite evocatively the history of the islands. The islands themselves, and their history, seem to resemble Polynesian culture, in particular that of Hawaii and its history.

With the island group not being located that close to any landmass, it could quite easily be dropped into the remoter ocean parts of any suitable fantasy setting. As such, NC5 – Denali Monarchy forms a good basis for the adventure series, and it’s free and can be found by clicking here.