About the book:
Explore a sprawling fantasy city, presented in amazing detail and steeped in lore and atmosphere. Delve into the extensive dungeons beneath its streets. And maybe, when you’re ready, ascend the Spire that looms overhead, the heart of an ancient and restless evil.
In Ptolus, the supernatural is expected and treachery lies around every corner—or is it that the supernatural lies around every corner and treachery is expected? Either way, the city of Ptolus abounds with danger, magic, intrigue, and above all, adventure.
The original version of Ptolus was released in 2006 for Third Edition and the d20 System. It was met with critical acclaim and intense praise for its depth of detail, breadth and volume of material, ease of use, staggeringly imaginative content, and groundbreaking production values. It sold out immediately, and physical copie remain a highly sought-after collector’s item. At the time, Ptolus was the most ambitious single-author RPG project ever—and that’s still the case.
A single author means a singular vision. Ptolus: Monte Cook’s City by the Spire was derived from Monte’s personal campaign, which ran for nearly a decade and through the development and early days of Third Edition. The players (two groups, playing simultaneously on different nights of the week) were all coworkers of Monte’s—the designers, developers, editors, and marketers of 3e Dungeons & Dragons. With Monte at the helm, and so many inventive players driving the events of his game, the campaign showcased the most exciting and creative ways the game could be used to build a vivid, exciting, and unique fantasy world.
Ptolus: Monte Cook’s City by the Spire is 672 pages—in addition to the handouts, maps, and props, and roughly 300 pages of additional bonus content. The art, maps, and production values are astounding in their breadth and consistent in their top-notch quality.
But that’s not all. That amount of content, in a conventional book, would be a challenge to manage. So Ptolus is carefully organized, and has dozens of thoughtful features, to make it easier to use than even a typically-sized game book. Multiple indices and glossaries help you manage all the content. The margins contain page references linking to more information about what you’re reading, or the map for the location being described. Quick-to-use tables and summaries indicate what’s in each district, who lives there, and even the mood of the place—you’ll never be caught flat-footed when the PCs stop a random person on the street for a quick chat.
Throughout, careful design and thoughtful layout make everything easy to digest, manage, and access. And the unique presentation doesn’t just make it easy to use, it also imparts flavor to virtually every page—and every district, location, NPC, faction, and mystery.
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