d20 Skirmisher Game Development Group City Builder Volume 08 Scholarly Places.pdf

City Builder V

City Builder Volume 8:

olume 8:

City Builder V

City Builder Volume 8:

City Builder V olume 8:

olume 8:

City Builder V

olume 8:

S CHOLARL

P P

S CHOLARL

P P

Y P

ACES

CHOLARL

A CES

ACES

CES

CHOLARL

CES

By Michael J. V

By Michael J. Varhola, Jim Clunie,

By Michael J. V arhola, Jim Clunie,

arhola, Jim Clunie,

and the Skirmisher Game Development Group

By Michael J. Varhola, Jim Clunie,

By Michael J. V

arhola, Jim Clunie,

and the Skirmisher Game Development Group

City Builder V

City Builder Volume 8:

olume 8:

S CHOLARL

P P

Y P

A CES

CHOLARL

CES

arhola, Jim Clunie,

and the Skirmisher Game Development Group

By Michael J. V

By Michael J. Varhola, Jim Clunie,

arhola, Jim Clunie,

and the Skirmisher Game Development Group

City Builder V

City Builder Volume 8:

olume 8:

S CHOLARL

P P

Y P

A CES

CHOLARL

CES

Skirmisher Publishing LLC

P.O. Box 150006

Alexandria, VA 22315

ebsite: http://www.skirmisher.com

Game Stor

W ebsite:

ebsite:

Game Stor e:

e: http://skirmisher.cerizmo.com

Email:

Game Stor

Email: d20@skirmisher.com

Email:

Authors:

Authors: Michael J. Varhola, Jim Clunie, and the Skirmisher Game Development Group

Authors:

Publishers: Robert “Mac” McLaughlin, Michael J. Varhola, and Geoff Weber

Publishers:

Editor -in-Chief/Layout and Design:

-in-Chief/Layout and Design: Michael J. Varhola

Editor

-in-Chief/Layout and Design:

Images in this book are variously from Skirmisher Pub-

lishing LLC’s Vintage Clipart series (pages 10, 22, 23),

the Dover Pictorial Archive Series (pages 1, 2, 7, 13,

16, 17, 26) and used by permission of Dover Publica-

tions Inc., the property of Skirmisher Publishing LLC

(pages 24, 25), from ClickArt 1,200,000 and used by per-

mission of Broderbund (page 19), or in the public domain.

All contents of this book, regardless of other desig-

rights reserved. Reproduction of material contained in

this work by any means without written permission

from the publisher is expressly forbidden except for

purposes of review.

This book is protected under international treaties

and the copyright laws of the United States of America.

Mention or reference to any company, product, or oth-

er copyrighted or trademarked material in no way con-

stitutes a challenge to the respective copyright or trade-

mark concerned. This book is a work of fiction and any

resemblance of its contents to actual people, organiza-

tions, places, or events is purely coincidental.

First publication:

First publication: September 2008; SKP E 0823.

Cover Images:

First publication:

Cover Images: Front, The Old Scientist, or The Al-

chemist, by Jean-Paul Laurens (1889). Back, The Mag-

ic Circle, by John William Waterhouse (1886).

Cover Images:

Viewing This Book

iewing This Book

This book has been designed to be as

user-friendly as possible from both the

perspectives of printing out for use in

hard copy and viewing on a comput-

er screen. It has been laid out like a

traditional print book with the idea

that each even-numbered page com-

plements the odd-numbered page that

it should face (e.g., the illustration of

the teacher and students on page 7 is

intended to face and illustrate the

Academy entry on page 6).

iewing This Book

With the above in mind, the optimal

way to view and enjoy this book would

be to print it out and organize it in a

binder so that the pages are arranged

as described above. This is by no

means necessary, however, for using

and fully benefiting from City Builder

Volume 8: Scholarly Places and its con-

tents.

T able of Contents

able of Contents

Introduction

About This Series..............................................................................................................................................4

Using This Book................................................................................................................................................5

Academy

Alchemist’s W

Alchemist’s Workshop

orkshop

Fortune T

ortune T

ortune Teller

eller

112

Library

114

Scriptorium

116

Scrollshop

118

Wizard’s T

izard’s T

izard’s Tower

ower

220

Skirmisher Product List

224

Skirmisher Electronic Products.............................................................................................................................24

Skirmisher Analog Products..................................................................................................................................25

224

Introduction

C haracters can often improve their chances of survival and success by obtaining in advance information

about the characteristics and dangers of the little-frequented places where they are about to venture.

Similarly, during and after their quests adventurers may need help in determining the characteristics of

arcane documents, strange artifacts, or other esoteric items. For these purposes, characters often avail them-

selves of the services of scholarly places, which variously record, store, distribute, improve, and seek to diminish

errors in all branches of knowledge (including the specialized knowledge of crafts and trade sources, which are

of interest to guilds and mercantile cartels).

Scholarly places require a wide variety of specialized

artisans, tradesmen, and merchants to provide them

with the goods and services they need to support their

operations (e.g., papermakers, ink makers, printers,

vendors of exotic materials for spell components, labo-

ratory equipment and chemicals for experiments). Play-

er characters who follow scholarly careers themselves

— particularly wizards — need to deal with scholarly

suppliers for their own research, writings, and esoteric

components.

Scholarly places that fulfill these needs in various

ways include academies and colleges, libraries, alche-

mists’ workshops, booksellers, scrollshops, scriptori-

ums, and the establishments of professional wizards

and fortune-tellers, all of which are described in this

chapter. Other scholarly places that could appear in a

campaign include universities, elementary or second-

ary schools, the schools of tutors of various disciplines,

astronomers’ observatories, and curiosity shops.

Fields of knowledge that scholarly places deal with

cover every aspect of life, from religious and cosmo-

logical beliefs concerning the basic structure and de-

velopment of the world, through lore about distant coun-

tries and exotic plants and animals, to everyday pro-

cesses of crafts and trade. Some areas of knowledge

enable greater advancement in scholarship itself, such

as the study of foreign and archaic languages. People

who use such knowledge likewise include almost ev-

ery vocation and social group, from ordinary guilds-

men seeking out practical records in support of their

vocations, to nobles debating affairs of state, to philos-

ophers and wizards pondering the most esoteric ques-

tions of the nature of the world. Students and appren-

tices who are likewise associated with scholarly plac-

es often play a significant role in the culture and even

the political life of communities where they are present

(e.g., university towns).

Institutions of knowledge are important elements of

a society’s heritage — and frequently regarded as in-

vestments in the honor and future prosperity of a state

— and as such are often housed at the expense of a

national or municipal government, or by institutions

like major temples. Such places are often established

in purpose-built structures of permanent and monu-

mental character, constructed of stone and decorated

with friezes, statuary, and murals depicting famous

intellectuals associated with the place, vistas of dis-

tant and long-lost countries that the institution studies,

and other inspiring subjects.

Other scholarly places of private nature tend to be

much more modest buildings typical of the sorts de-

scribed under “Buildings” in City Builder Volume 1:

Communities. Many such places, however, are built

tall and with an emphasis on high windows, in an ef-

fort to capture natural light if the activities performed

in them require reading texts and analyzing fine details.

To many scholarly institutions, the destruction of

records is a greater concern than the perhaps unlikely

event that someone would want to steal them and their

security precautions thus generally focus on protec-

tion against fire, flood, vermin, and other disasters.

However, some societies hold certain branches of knowl-

edge as secrets that are intrinsically very powerful, and

places that deal with such knowledge might be guard-

ed just as strongly as other places of equivalent value,

such as government storehouses or even branches of

banks. And, because knowledge is the stock-in-trade

of wizards and other spellcasters and many scholarly

places are run by such characters or dedicated to their

needs, magical safeguards are often employed if they

are available and warranted.

About This Series

This is the eighth volume in a series of 11 books de-

signed not just to provide Game Masters with concrete

information about how to create places essential to their

own fantasy role-playing campaigns, but also to inspire

them to develop ones that are believable, colorful, and

exciting for their players’ characters to visit.

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: