*OP Ravenloft Gazetteer 1 (Sword & Sorcery) [Paperback]

Andrew Cermak (Author), John W. Mangrum (Author), Chris Nichols (Author), Andrew Wyatt (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Arthaus (September 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588460800
• ISBN-13: 978-1588460806
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,135,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Lowder has worked extensively on both sides of the editorial blotter. His credits include the bestselling novels Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose, short fiction for such anthologies as Truth Until Paradox and Shadows Over Baker Street, and comic book scripts for DC, Devil's Due, Moonstone, and the city of Boston's First Night celebration. His work has been translated into more than ten languages, including Hungarian, Yiddish, and Russian. He's written hundreds of feature articles and book, film, and game reviews for such diverse publications as Dragon, Amazing Stories, Sci-Fi Universe, Milwaukee Magazine, and The New England Journal of History, and published role-playing game material for Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Super Heroes, and various other systems. As an editor, he's directed book lines or series for TSR, Green Knight, and CDS Books, and has helmed a dozen critically acclaimed anthologies, including The Book of All Flesh, Hobby Games: The 100 Best, and Worlds of Their Own. He's been a finalist for the International Horror Guild Award and the Stoker Award, and has won five Origins Awards and a silver ENnie Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Old-school Ravenloft... Exactly what is needed!, October 16, 2002

By 

"dykstrav" (Durham, North Carolina United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: *OP Ravenloft Gazetteer 1 (Sword & Sorcery) (Paperback)

I love Ravenloft, ever since it first came out as a module.It's brooding, dark atmosphere and mixture of tension and dread makes it one of the most unique and engaging settings ever concieved in the entire gaming industry. I was receptive to Ravenloft 3E, but wasn't very impressed. Until now.

The Ravenloft gazetteer combines alot of esoteric trivia from countless supplements and adventures and compiles them into a single sourcebook. I've just only gotten a chance to skim through the Barovia chapter, and it's packed with material from the old boxed sets, the adventures House of Strahd and Roots of Evil, and the Monstrous Compendium appendices. It's terrific! For the old-school DM like me who just wants 3E stats of the older material, it's exactly what I needed. I run an I6 game every year, and this year I'll finally be able to do it in 3E without having to dedicate a week or two to converting the module. Great job, Sword & Sorcery Studios!

So why only 4 stars? Two major reasons. The artwork isn't exactly the most gothic in the world, I miss the older illustrations with alot of blackness in the illustrations and alot of shadows and darkness. The new art is mostly line drawings with alot of "white space." Secondly, the book has no maps of the towns it discusses. A rather crude pencil sketch on page 37 shows the area around Castle Ravenloft itself, but maps of the towns really should have been included. SSS makes great maps, as anyone who has seens the Scarred Lands Campaign Setting: Ghelspad hardcover can attest to. If such maps of the towns had been included, the book would be a straight 5.

But it's still a great buy, even essential I would say, to run canon adventures in Barovia.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential Ravenloft Book!, August 14, 2004

By 

J. Moulton "jcmoulton2000" (Lakewood, Co United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ravenloft Gazetteer, vol IV (d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Ravenloft Setting) (Paperback)

This book is one of the Best Books you can buy for Ravenloft. In it are some cleaverly created domains full of lycanthropes (including a newly edited werepanther), banshees, undead treants, and all the other terrors of Ravenloft. This book gives incredible detail about groups of people living in the domains and also the the rulers (darklords) over these domains.

This book itself contains Alfred Timothy and Baron Urik von Kharkov and many more. The domains it primaryly focuses on are Borca, Invidia, Verbrek, Valachan, and Sithicus. While each of them are unique and full of terror I think that the forest of Verbrek make the book the most. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys Ravenloft, Werewolfs, Vampires, or Roleplaying in a heartbeat.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gave me what I wanted, June 11, 2003

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ravenloft Gazetteer, Vol. 3 (A Ravenloft Campaign Setting Supplement) (Paperback)

Some people are bashing this book. It gave me what I expected plus some nice extra tidbits. The only valid complaint is it gives an unfair amount of space to one domain while shortchanging the other two. It still does the job of giving you a lot of flavor to add to whatever you do in these domains.

Bottom line: I bought it and got what I wanted out of it. It could have been better, but so can all the other books.