Iron Kingdoms: Urban Adventure Review

I'm a bit slow on this one, as the book was released just before Christmas, however the for-mentioned holiday delayed me giving the book a good read. That has now been rectified, so on with the review.

No Quarter Presents: Iron Kingdoms Urban Adventure is the first source book in the Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game and aims to claim the title of the longest source book title ever released. Weighing in at 94 pages, it won't win any prizes for the largest book in the world, but in full colour it certainly wins on quality.

Urban Adventure is providing rules and information for both GMs and players who want more information on adventuring in an urban environment.

First up are 6 new careers, one for each of the non human races that serve to help bolster there character options. Some, like the Seeker and Labour Korune are very much linked to their racial fluff but I'm sure Pugilist could be adapted for a human. They look good, and combined with the existing careers will lead to some interesting characters. Certainly it will help mesh some of the races into an Urban Campaign

8 pages of new equipment follow, from weaponry to new alchemical potions. Nothing outstanding, but some useful additions.

Perhaps one of the more interesting sections, is a section on Urban Combat. This section introduces some new combat techniques that any character can use to make combat encounters more interesting and varied. They all need a reasonable skill prerequisite (usually 2 in the relevant skill) and the expenditure of a feat point to attempt. For those that are familiar with the wargame, think power attacks! I look forward to seeing more options in future source books.

Next we get 6 pages devoted to labour jacks, including new chassis and upgrades to existing ones. Describing the types of jacks you would see working in an urban environment, they are also solid starts for adventuring companies to adapt into combat jacks.

The largest section of the book, clocking it at 20 pages, is an concise outline of the city of Five Fingers. As stated in the contents, this material is not new but instead has been taking from a previous Iron Kingdoms product. Even owning the original book, I don't feel cheated as the concise guide is well done and gives a nice outline and chance at game ideas without the need to wade through an entire book. For those that want to run a game set in Five Fingers, I would strongly advise picking up Five Fingers: Port of Deceit if you can. If you don't, then the section is full of flavour, and I'm sure you'll find something to inspire you.

The Urban Encounters section provides 4 encounters that can easily be adapted and fitted into an existing campaign. These can serve as jumping in points, or simply a break from your over arcing plot. I'm certainly looking at using a couple for my next game.

For those attracted by the dark side, the Sevants of Thamar section gives you a wealth of information for both playing, and running characters who worship Thamar. Included is a new career (Thamar Advocate), as well as specific abilites and spells to the career. As well as more about being a Thamar worshipper, we get information on Necromancy, and new rules on creating your own Thralls. This section is excellent for GMs wishing to either strongly feature Thamar worshippers, or Undead. The career is usable as a PC career, but it may be difficult to make best use of all there abilities in an average adventuring party. Still, always fun for someone.

In an interesting combination of fluff and crunch, there are 2 pages on criminal adventuring companies PCs can be part of. As well as providing bonuses for characters who meet their pre-requisites, these make interesting foils for more law-abiding adventuring groups. Usefully, there is also a table giving you an idea of the severity of crimes in each country. Not surprisingly, wracking features strongly in the Menoth list of punishments.

Finally is a detailed adventure for characters with 10 - 15xp. This is a 3 act adventure, and would do well as a one-shot, or working into a longer running campaign. While it would be difficult to move out of the Five Fingers setting, there are suggestions of how to get groups involved. As well as NPC stats, there are decent maps and combat tactics. The maps are also available online as a high quality PDF that can be printed out and put together to provide the full size map for each encounter. The adventure itself looks solid, with a nice mixture of combat and investigation.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this product. While not as in-depth as some source books, it certainly wins on quality over quantity. While GMs will obviously get the most out of this book, players in a campaign set in Five Fingers will find this invaluable as a source of setting information.

I look forward to more Iron Kingdoms books, as well as the Games Masters Toolkit.