Retrospective: Cities of Bone

I've mentioned before my affection for the Al-Qadim line for Second Edition AD&D. Though not without flaws, I thought it did a better job of translating its source material into Dungeons & Dragons terms than did Oriental Adventures (which I also like). One of the reasons I feel this way is that Al-Qadim leaned very heavily into the fantastical rather any attempt at historical Arabia. That was a choice I appreciated then and still do now and one I often wished Oriental Adventures had embraced to the same extent.

This approach is especially evident in the boxed supplement, Cities of Bone. Until I read a comment to last week's Retrospective, I'd almost forgotten about it. Though I owned the original Arabian Adventures book, I wasn't a devoted follower of the line and only picked a select number of its supplements. This was one of them and, though I never made use of it in play, I enjoyed reading it. I hope that's not damning Cities of Bone with faint praise, because that wasn't my intention. Certainly, the only real metric by which to judge a RPG supplement or adventure is how useful it is in play, but there are often products, like this one, that are nevertheless inspirational. 

In this case, that inspiration comes from subject matter very near and dear to my heart: ancient ruins, undead, and necromancy, subject matter that was also of great interest to Clark Ashton Smith. That's the real reason I am looking back on Cities of Bone: there are bits of it that feel like they could easily have been drawn directly from the works of the Bard of Auburn. That's not to say that they were, at least not directly, but I'm inclined to agree with last week's commenters that there's a broadly Smithian vibe to the whole thing. It's fitting, too, since Smith earliest works of fiction, written when he was an adolescent, had Arabian or Orientalist settings. 

Written by Steven Kurtz and released in 1994, during TSR’s final flourish of lavish boxed sets, Cities of Bone appeared after previous supplements had already established Al-Qadim's Zakhara setting as a land of bustling bazaars, glittering genie courts, and swashbuckling adventure. Against that backdrop, Cities of Bone stands out precisely because it turns away from the living world and toward the titular ruins of ancient kingdoms – and those who both dwell within them and would despoil their buried treasures for their own benefit.

Cities of Bone included a 64-page adventure book, a 32-page campaign guide, and an additional 8-page supplement, as well as the usual maps, handouts, and loose accessory sheets that could be found in all TSR's boxed sets of the era. I can't deny that, for all my complaints about this era, the boxed sets it produced were often beautifully presented. There's a strange joy in opening them up and goggling at all the stuff TSR managed to pack inside. That's true here as well, double so, because Al-Qadim products have these faux gilt pages and striking arabesque decorations. 

What I remember most about Cities of Bone was the way it handled the ruins it presents. Rather than being generic dungeon crawls transplanted into the desert, they're rooted in the historical, cultural, and religious context of Zakhara. Likewise, some of the undead encountered within them are tragic figures, bound by oaths, regrets, or unfinished duties rather than simple malevolence. Many scenarios hinge on moral and ethical choices, such as how to treat the dead, how to honor the past, how to balance the lure of wealth with the demands of propriety and faith. It's an unusual approach, one that's subtly at odds with uncritical tomb robbing that D&D implicitly espouses. 

I call Cities of Bone a "supplement," but it's really more of a grab-bag of locations, NPCs, and scenarios intended to be used however the Dungeon Master wants. In a sense, they support – no pun intended – sandbox play, as the characters wander about the Land of Fate and encounter these ruins to explore. Some of the scenarios are short and largely inconsequential, while others are longer. By far, "Court of the Necromancers" is the best of the bunch and clearly seems to be channeling Clark Ashton Smith's "Empire of the Necromancers" – not that that's a bad thing!

All of which is to say that Cities of Bone is far from a must-have supplement, but there’s still enough stuff in it that I was glad to have been reminded I even owned it in the first place. I like ruins; I like the undead. There’s plenty of both here, along with some nice maps and snippets of history that help to give everything an extra overlay of… something. Mood? Atmosphere, maybe? A sense that these places were once alive and important and are now only half-remembered, half-understood, waiting to be misused or disturbed by characters who don’t fully grasp what they’re poking at.

As a whole, Cities of Bone is definitely a product of its time. It's uneven and occasionally frustrating, but also oddly earnest in its ambitions. It’s not polished enough to recommend without reservation, nor is it inspired enough that I'd recommend anyone seek it out. However, referees who enjoy plundering older supplements for ideas, imagery, and the occasional spark of inspiration, would find it has its uses. I myself can easily imagine lifting things from it and then weaving them into something of my own. In that sense, Cities of Bone succeeds in the modest way many such supplements do.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Deryni Rising

As often happens, I'll discuss a book in this series that can't, by any reasonable definition, be called "pulp fantasy." Nevertheless, I discuss the book because I think it played a role in the development of the hobby, despite its being very different in style and content from most of the other books that inspired early gamers and game designers. In some case, it's precisely because these books are so different that I include them. They provide a counterweight to the vast majority of what I talk about here, a reminder that the early hobby was in fact a welter of conflicting ideas and approaches, not all of which agreed with one another.

A good case in point is Katherine Kurtz's 1970 novel, Deryni Rising. Set in the imaginary medieval realm of Gwynedd, the novel tells the story of Prince Kelson Haldane as he attempts to claim his rightful throne as king of Gwynedd after the death of his father. Complicating matters is the fact that Kelson is opposed by a powerful sorceress who wishes to claim the throne for herself and whose magical abilities all but guarantee her victory. Kelson's father, the previous king, had held off this pretender through his own magical abilities, which Kelson lacks. The prince must then unravel the mystery of his father's powers in order to succeed him and take his place as Gwynedd's ruler.

Gwynedd is one of the Eleven Kingdoms, a collection of medieval feudal realms, some of which are clear analogs of places in the real world, while others are less obviously so. There are many other analogs to real world institutions, most notably the Holy Church, an inexplicably Christian church, complete with most of the trappings of medieval Catholicism, including ecclesiastical Latin (though there does not seem to be a Pope). Just how and why this fantasy world managed to produce so close a copy of medieval Catholicism is never explained and it's something that never really sat well with me, as the world of the Eleven Kingdoms is clearly not our world or even an alternate version of it. This is made particularly clear by the inclusion of the Deryni, a race of human beings with natural psychic/magical abilities and who are often treated with suspicion, if not hatred, in many of the Eleven Kingdoms.

Deryni Rising is the first of many books set in this world, one that clearly found lots of fans in the early days of gaming. I can't say I'm among them, unfortunately. I have always found them difficult to like, but then I've never enjoyed books that borrow heavily from the real Middle Ages while at the same time changing many elements of the period without any concern for the ramifications. I'm probably in the minority on this score, given the success of George R.R. Martin, whose books seem to be spiritual descendants of Kurtz's (albeit with a great deal more sex and violence). There's little question that the Deryni novels inspired lots of gamers, who took their approach to world design as a model to emulate. These worlds run in parallel to the swords-and-sorcery-inspired worlds that I prefer, but they're no less a part of the heritage of the hobby, even they weren't especially influential on Arneson or Gygax. Still, I can't deny their place at the gaming table and think it worth reading a book or two in the series to get a taste of what they're like and why people fell in love with them.