[REVIEW] City Backdrop: Languard

City Backdrop: Languard (2018)

by Creighton Broadhurst

Published by Raging Swan Press

City supplement

Yes, that's the cover

Languard is one in a long series of system-neutral supplements released by Raging Swan Press. The 24-page booklet contains no game statistics except NPC alignment and class and level designations, but the content is obviously meant for use with D&D and its various offshoots – the main audience seems to be 5^th edition players.

Here is a coastal city with its aristocracy, merchants, gates and wharves; realistic in tone with many shades of grey. It is right there in the middle between idealised fantasy feudalism and the grim urban hellholes where you will get mugged going out for a beer, twice. The streets are muddy and the city’s enemies are displayed on the parapets of Traitor’s Gate, but it is not a bad place to visit. The feeling is distinctly North European (most everyone has a Finnish name), with maybe a little bit of London thrown in. It is fairly lawful and organised, except for the Shambles, the run-down part where the poor live; the Fishshambles, which is the same but on the waterfront, and the Wrecks, a maze of rotting boats moored along the river, which has its own pariah group, the slightly fishy Takolen.

The guidebook first describes the city in the general, then location by location. It is potentially useful information – you learn how to get into and out of the city, who are the main power groups and religions, and there are a lot of adventure hooks, rumours and minor event tables along the way. The important locations are summed up across the map on a one-page spread, and there are text boxes throughout the supplement to help you with useful references. There are two maps, one keyed for the GM and one unlabelled for the players.

Languard does not go too deep into the fantastic, although it has its thieves, assassins and evil cults. Depending on what you value in your games, this can make it appealing or uninteresting. It gives you an internally consistent place with its own power dynamics, and the feel of an up-and-coming mercantile city. But it is mostly about the regular things, the society with its power dynamics and stock characters, not the strange edge cases. That is, you can meet your favourite “nondescript men in cloaks” on the waterfront, get in trouble with the Duke’s men, and hear rumours about a haunted building, but it is the kind of fantasy you expect to be there, not the kind that makes you jump. It would be more surprising if there was no murderous cult and Low Market wasn’t a den of thievery. The Duke, he is not the Duke of New York. Likewise, sometimes it feels too much like window dressing and not like material for adventures. Some of the random events are things like the sounds of an argument, or a weary peasant in a crowd carrying a sack over his shoulder. Part of the city experience? Absolutely. Useful for creating adventures? Only if you imbue them with your own meaning.

There are no surprises here, although all the middle-of-the-road stuff is well executed. It is not overwritten, and it serves its purpose. It is perhaps too low-key for its own good. Could Languard be the most True Neutral RPG supplement?

No playtesters have been listed for this publication.

Rating: *** / *****