Game: Highthrone
Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 7th, August 2002
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 6
Average Score: 6.00
Highthrone is populous city that thrives on top of a mountain. The mountain is missing its peak and at the very top there’s a huge crater in which the city nestles. Think volcano and you’re there. The local mages know but the average man on the street in Highthrone has not actually clued in on the fact that his home is build in a volcano’s crater but I suppose that’s realistic enough in a world with neither schools nor the Discovery Channel. Highthrone is one of those “Cities of Fantasy” from the extensive Mongoose product line. In the search of more land Highthrone actually has three floating islands; one for growing food one, one for trading on and one for keeping prisoners locked up. Personally I think three floating islands are vastly more fantastic than some city built in an unlikely place. The concept of a prison island floating through the air, an island which has been known to malfunction, wobble and throw prisoners who were too close to the edge to their deaths below is a great idea. A flying prison island is a great setting but there’s less than half a page on it in Highthrone.
Highthrone can be added to any world with a large enough chain of mountains. Highthrone is very much dependant on a high fantasy campaign setting though. In addition to the floating islands the city has a navy of flying boats, a history that includes a war with giants and diplomatic relations with cities of elves. The latter two can easily be cut out but the floating islands and boats are closely tied to Highthrone as it’s presented in the book.
I don’t think Highthrone is quite as good as the previous two books from the setting. Skraag was a simple city with wonderfully woven interplay between the groups of power and Stormhaven had less of the plot set-up but more detail on the more complex city. Highthrone is yet more complex and detailed city than Stormhaven but the trade off in the 64-paged book is to have even less of bubbling plot potential of which I enjoyed so much in the first two. There is plot potential in Highthrone but it is locked further below the surface. There are a number of powerful families in the city which complete against one an other but the way it comes across in my eyes is that these relationships will only come into play after quite a bit of work and custom brewed adventures from the GM. I suppose it’s a matter of taste. The ratio of city detail to plot hooks probably is something that needs exploring in order to find out what the average RPG consumer wants. I encourage that, however, even though I’m a fan of description and flavour over mechanics I don’t think I’d encourage any more movement away from plot hooks too far removed from the here and now of the “City of Fantasy”.
It would be wrong to over look the successes of Highthrone. Normally when I’m half way through a supplement and have had an idea as to a cunning plot twist to throw in I’m won over the minute the book predicts the same plot twist as I had in mind. Highthrone “thought” the same way as me not once but a few times; a legend as to why one of the dwarf clans were in the city and possible problems with the Wind Gates to name two. Highthrone also does well in having a past, a present and a future that all make tempting targets for a GM. The possible future of the city is an interesting one; the floating islands may or may not provide enough farming land and living space for the people of Highthrone, if they fail to do so then the city will have to look elsewhere. There are movements a foot to see Highthrone go to war and carve out enough living space for itself and of course there are those who argue against such a drastic action. This situation is ideal for the intervention of player characters. It is the classic way to tie the fate of many into the hands of a few and with a backdrop as original as Highthrone the risk of cliché is lessened.
Highthrone is a vastly difference place from any other city. The citizens take to gliders to move around between the habitation and farming levels cut into the flank of the mountain and even between buildings inside the giant hollow at the tip of the mountain too. There’s a great picture on page 41 by Webb which shows just how many steps and stairs there are between just a few buildings and its alien enough to remind me of those optical illusion drawings where the flights of stairs lead themselves around in circles. I think the fact that climbing is often over looked by players and the danger of falling certainly is not makes for a great potential. There are a hundred and one ways in which a GM could brew a nervous cliffhanger scene for the players – in a very literal sense.
The bulk of the book is spent describing the layout of the city. The inside of book’s cover holds a colour map of the city and then much later on you’ll be able to match the numbers on the map with key locations. It is through the locations in the city that we’re given a little more information about the key families previously briefly mentioned. As the tour of the map moves around to these family’s estates and houses we told a little bit more about their ways, means and ambitions. Certain members of the family (with their names in bold text – an extremely useful formatting decision) are mentioned explicitly and stat-ed insofar as their alignment and level. The actual mover and shakers, the heads of some of the key the families, religious leaders, important smugglers and administrators are given a more detailed character sheet and set of personal ambitions in subsequent chapter. I have mixed feelings about the way some of this core information is spread so thinly out in the book but yet how it manages therefore to be the underlying connection throughout the sections of the book.
I’ve said that there’s not so much of the bubbling plot potential in Highthrone but that potential is there, just buried deeper. For example, there are two rivers that well up from the mountain, to flow through the crater (called the “valley of crowns” in the book – but I always think of it as the crater), then spill over the edge of the mountain and that the source of these rivers is some yet to be discovered spring inside the mountain. The local mage school is in the process of setting out to explore and find out more about the source of the rivers. This is clearly plot bait but there’s no clue at all from the book as to what to expect. One of the dwarf clans is in Highthrone because of a legend, I love that idea but there’s no clue at all from the book as to what the legend is. There’s a secret chamber behind the golden disc that decorates one wall of the valley but there’s no clue as to what it might be used for. There are suggestions that the captain of the Eyrie Guard might team up with the Priestess of the local wind deity to try and sort the growing corruption problem but there’s no clue as to if, when or how this might happen. All of these are just a few examples from a longer list and all could become possible plots but they’re all very much canvasses still waiting paint. This normally is a strength rather than cause for concern but I think it sits uneasily with the combination of Highthrone’s uniqueness and isolation. There’s a danger of being all dressed up but having nowhere to go.
For those of you with a game mechanic hungry mind there’s still some room left in Highthrone to please you. There are a couple of new wind-based feats and mountain-based creatures such as the Peaks Ram that substitutes the horse in this high and rocky terrain.
There’s also Windsteel. Windsteel is a new metal special to Highthrone. Fantasy metals aren’t as strange as they might sound; take mithral as the most successful. Windsteel is light and magically reactive so that it is used to not only levitate Highthrone’s lifts and floating navy (well, all navies float, Highthrone’s floats through the sky) but their islands as well. Windsteel simply is Grade A high fantasy. I think it works – just. It’ll appeal to those gamers who like the idea of crafting new weapons and armour of it and those of us who fancy wrapping it up in some dreadful plot twist. The book does offer stats for a double headed quarter staff made from the stuff but doesn’t go as far to cater to those people already thinking . o O (Ah-ah! Plate armour! Less Dex penality!).
Highthrone is strange. I’ll predict that it has something for everyone and yet leave people wanting more. One stupid question reigns un-answered; where does all the sewage go?
