Before anyone starts throwing vegetables or fruit or eggs, let me say I love cities and urban adventuring. So, when the City of Sharn for Eberron came out, it was the first Eberron product I actually considered buying. I did not, however, buy it. After looking it over in my FLGS, I passed.
You can only get so much out of a once over in the game store, however.
I am wondering has anyone purchased this product with an eye to placing Sharn in Greyhawk?
Is this book any good? Is it any good in Greyhawk? Where do you think it would fit if you thought it both a good book and a good fit for Greyhawk?
Any insights are appreciated. _________________ GVD
I gave that sourcebook a pretty thorough "once over" in my local gameshop as well, and I have to say that I was impressed by the city, and I also tried thinking of ways of incorporating it into Greyhawk. The problem is, the city is just too damned big for anything but the largest of Greyhawk's cities... and the most of the ones that are of comparable size that are on a coast (Sharn is a port city built into a sort of cliffsided bay) have already been described and mapped out.
If Sharn was scaled down a bit, perhaps Dekspoint, the independent city in the Loftwood (too small though)
or even better...
Ountsy of the Solnor Compact (quoted as having a population of 29000+ in LGG). Or maybe Pontylver before it was ruined?
Sharn is a pretty fantastical city, not just a port, it has whole sections that like float in the air I think. Its built up like a huge tower city and then extends deep underground where the ruins of some old humanoid city once existed. Good luck matching that up :P
After perusing the book, and considering how fantastical and magic rich the city is, I considered enhancing it a bit more and placing it in the plane of air. The populace would change accordingly, but some of the features would remain. I liked enough of the book's ideas to even begin to think about what I could do with it. There are some interesting ideas in the book, but I would only consider using Sharn as a city in the west for djinn or janni, with many mortal inhabitants as well. This city would also be on the cusp of the plane of air(and perhaps the quasi/demi-planes bordering the plane of air) and maybe even partially residing within it just so that I could hide most of the city's immense size on another plane. I like the idea of corssing between planes this way seemingly without notice anyways. This would change the overall mood of the city by quite a bit, but there it is. Half the work would be done already though.
While the "eight-pointed star" outside of Maure Castle is partially operational in my campaign, planar adventures are not an emphasis right now and no near future adventures will be taking the players out west, so I passed on the book. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
You could always ruin the city and make it the fabled "Forgotten City" of the Suel in the Sea of Dust.
The more fantastic elements of the city would be less out of place in a ruin from the Arcane Age of the Suel and Baklunish.
In general though, I avoid Eberron material for GH conversion because of the substantial difference in the "feel" of the settings. Eberron feels too steampunkish to me. Similarly, Dragonlance, Darksun and especially Spelljammer always felt too alien to me to get much use out of. Forgotten Realms, Mystara and even Birthright are much better matches. _________________ What would Raxivort do?<br />
In my campaign Sharn has become the "Rhennee Palace". I've wanted it to be a place distinctly different from Greyhawk, and I think it might fit the bill if it is still on Rhop (ebberron). My player Rhenn-folk have been searching for the palace for about 9 game years with varying degrees of success.
Is this book any good? Is it any good in Greyhawk? Where do you think it would fit if you thought it both a good book and a good fit for Greyhawk?
I have Sharn: City of Towers (and every other Eberron product). Is this book any good? Yes, it's pretty awesome. It is a dense, comprehensive book, even if only 192 pages. Wyatt and Baker did a great job defining many aspects of the city - law, government, crime, organizations, religion, commerce, transportation, the Dragonmarked houses, the good, the bad- the whole gamit. The writing is well done and the best part of the book is Chapter 2: Life in Sharn, where the city's multitude of plateaus, districts and wards are described in detail. And this is the bulk of the book, and where one must decide whether or not it will work in his or her Greyhawk.
Is it any good in Greyhawk? I don't think so. While I really like Sharn: City of Towers and Eberron in general, it just is not Greyhawk. Sharn: City of Towers is best served in an Eberron campaign, where its players and judges can take full advantage of the elements that make Eberron distinctive. The biggest issue is the sheer size of Sharn - 200,000 plus citizens of almost every race (for example, goblins and hobgoblins have their own ward in the city called Malleon's Gate). Then there are the Dragonmarked houses and their history, influence and services. Couple that with the human nationalities of Khorvaire - Brelandish (Sharn's host nation), Cyrans (refugees from a nation lost to war), Aundarians, Karnathians, etc.
Having said the above, it can be done. If a GM wants to take the time to adapt the unique and myriad elements of Sharn to Greyhawk, it can certainly be done. Another approach is to adapt small pieces of the city, a handful at a time. For example, use the Cogs as your expanded undercity for Niole Dra, Rauxes or even Greyhawk City. The latter approach might be better for a GM with time constraints.
Where do you think it would fit? Nowhere, really. Unless you are running a campaign in some far off place on Oerth, I cannot conceive of a place in the Flanaess where Sharn can be dropped in. Again, the best way to adapt Sharn to Greyhawk is to take bits and peices at individual discretion. Since Sharn: City of Towers is such a good product, I think you can certainly poach snippets for your Greyhawk campaign. But the sourcebook is too Eberron (for a reason) to be dropped wholesale in the Flanaess. Even City of the Gods is a stretch given the commercial concerns of the city and (again) the Dragonmarked houses.
Anyway, back to my regularly scheduled lurking. Good thread. _________________ Don (Greyson)
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