Shelzar: City of Sins by Dave Brohman and James Maliszewski is a role playing game supplement published by Onyx Path Publishing for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This is a setting book for Ghelspad in the Scarred Lands.
The supplement is available as a 126-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $8.99 and is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one the front matter, one the Table of Contents and one the Open Game License.
The Introduction is a single page from the developer about how this supplement is intended to bring some of White Wolf‘s sensibilities into the d20 game.
Chapter One: The City of Sin gives an overview of the different parts of the city and a sidebar describes the walls. Another explains that most trade and fishing is conducted using the Shelzari dhow and that travel within the city is via foot or the sedan chair. The Underground is covered briefly in a sidebar. Shelzar accepts coins from all lands, though not at face value, and there are details on the Shelzari coins minted. The area around Shelzar itself is covered in brief detail, with a map of the region, and a sidebar covers the dangerous firestorms. Different areas of the region are covered, with those areas within them as well, and this includes the seas.
Life in Shelzar is gone into, with the different social classes, the presence and influences of other species and the culture and entertainment that’s available, with a sidebar looking at the underground entertainments. This also includes the Shelzari treatment of the gods. It looks at the city’s government, which is based on those with sufficient property voting. Trade conducted with and via the city is looked at, with a specific unusual coin in a sidebar, as well as crime and punishment. A sidebar has stats for a sample guard patrol and the city’s military is covered. Finally, the different factions in the city are looked at.
Chapter Two: The History of Shelzar starts before the city was even founded, after the fall of the Asaatthi Empire and the rise of a new empire in the region known now only as the Empire of Flame. It covers what little is known about the empire, until the rise of the Slarecian Empire and what is known of that. The Hazari are the original founders of Shelzar, a religious reform movement that rejected both gods and titans, and they settled in the land where the city now is. It covers the city’s incorporation into the Empire of Lede, and the incorporation of the surrounding region as well. The Hazari fell out of power and were virtually eliminated after they tried to take it back. Following a decline, a woman believed by some to be an avatar of Enkili mysteriously arrived and departed, transforming the city. The city rose in power again, and with the end of Ledean rule, became part of a new empire, which fell when the charduni invaded. The city survived the Titanswar without falling and was one of two remaining cities of the Seven Cities of the region at the end. The Calastians moved into the area, though they haven’t attacked Shelzar. The most recent events and the potential of the future is the last part of the chapter.
Chapter Three: The City starts by explaining that the chapter describes the city, concentrating on the individual buildings and places that make it interesting. A sidebar mentions a couple of classes, one covered in Chapter 4, the other in Players Guide to Wizards, Bards and Sorcerers, and says the latter can be ignored if that book isn’t owned. There are two, not terribly readable thanks to being based on scans, maps of Shelzar, one dividing the city into the different districts, the other with the places covered in the text marked. The rest of the chapter covers the city a district at a time. Each district has an overview, then the points of interest are divided into groups and each covered individually. There are also a few sidebars covering other things of interest.
Chapter Four: People of Shelzar is mostly taken up by descriptions and stat blocks for a number of important or otherwise notable NPCs. Some of the material in these references Relics & Rituals, Relics & Rituals 2 and The Divine and the Damned, which makes it less standalone useful. The final part of the chapter is taken up by the prestige class, the Shelzari knife-fighter.
Chapter Five: Adventures in Shelzar starts with some paragraphs about adventures in Shelzar and the things that make the city different. There are then a number of adventure hooks, each of which has a name, some introductory text to describe the situation, some details on the setup and some on complications, with the occasional stat block when relevant. Finally, there are some more plot hooks described more briefly.
Shelzar: City of Sins in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks, probably because of its origin as a scanned document, and given its length and the number of sections, really needed them. The Table of Contents only covers the major sections. Navigation is very poor. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of black and white illustrations which are probably custom. Presentation is decent.
Shelzar: City of Sins is one of the original D&D 3rd Edition supplements for the Scarred Lands and still has use. The majority of the supplement is information on the city; though there are stat blocks of one kind or another in various places, especially in Chapter Four, these could be adapted to Pathfinder for instance with a little work or altered to another system with more work. Shelzar itself is a self-contained city-state and could also be dropped into other settings. This would also require work, as references to gods and history would need changing, but the city itself could still be used. The city is notable for its level of debauchery and related matters, so it would certainly not be a generic city. Shelzar: City of Sins can be found by clicking here.
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