Situated in the Army Quarter of the Great City (or, indeed, wherever else in your own campaign world you wish), this is a finely-detailed and palatial military headquarters building with facilities for senior commanders to plan, administrate and socialise. Marred only by rather disorganised text - a good proof-read would have helped - the layout of the building is described in detail, including little snippets about the current crop of senior officers using the place. It should prove easy to describe the various rooms as your players move around it (assuming the numerous guards posted here let them!).

The ground floor has everything you need to run an army - meeting rooms, a library, a fantastic map collection, an armoury, stores and a roomful of clerks busy on administrative tasks. There's also a lounge where the commanders can socialise. It is dominated by the open central area, in which an elaborate 'weather clock' has been constructed of temperature and moisture sensitive glass. Upstairs, a balcony circles the building giving a fine view of the ground floor with most of the rooms providing accommodation for senior officers. They are lucky enough to have an indoors privy, although from the description it sounds as if it is time some of the soldiers drew latrine duty and cleaned it up!

Next comes full descriptions of some of the resident 'characters' such as the librarian and the cartographer, and a few adventure seeds to give your players a reason to call by. The statistics for the residents and guards come separately, to allow for those who wish to substitute another game system without having to pick out flavour text from game mechanics. There's also a new feat, bibliophile, for those who like researching things in books, and a special item called shadowglass - made by dwarf specialists, it is a smoky one-way glass which has been used extensively throughout the building.

Then comes an amazing 3-D representation of the building, which allows you to display whatever you want - the floor of your choice, internal and external views and so on. You can even just sit there and stare as it builds itself up...

Overall, if there is any way in which your characters are going to interact with an army high command - or even aspire to it themselves - this is a fantastic building in which they can do so. Most armies would be quite jealous!

Return to The Headquarters page.

Reviewed: 18 September 2007