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Wizards RPG Team: Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (Hardcover, 2022, Wizards of the Coast)

An anthology of thirteen stand-alone adventures set in wondrous lands for the world's greatest roleplaying …

A good idea, but with not enough focus

I really do appreciate that the authors were trying to explore settings with a different perspective than the pseudo-European/North American cultural base used for most #DnD settings.

But since this 224 page book is split up between 13 adventures and 15 cultures, the glimpses we get of each culture is so frustratingly brief. As someone who wants their settings to come with lots of details, this would make it difficult for me to bring the cultures in question truly come alive. In lieu of further detail, it might have helped if they had spelled out which culture each setting is based on - in some cases it was fairly easy for me to guess, but in others I was unsure.

I also have to admit, I prefer running campaigns where the PCs largely stay in one particular region rather than traveling around - and when they do travel around, there …

Keith Baker: Chronicles of Eberron (2022, Keith Baker Presents)

Useful for the hardcore Eberron fan

This book by @hellcowkeith@dice.camp is not a book that focuses on a specific topic and covers that topic in detail, like the assorted 3.5 books for Eberron did. It is best to see it as a collection of essays on a variety of niche topics - some of which are very niche, such two minor gnome subcultures.

Some of the chapters are broader in scope, and personally I found the chapter on the Overlords, The Dark Six, and the lore and folk-lore about undead the most useful. As an amateur folklorist, I especially appreciated the last one - to run good adventures about monsters, you should not only contemplate their stats, but also what the people within the world know about them, and what kinds of stories they tell.

Fans of Keith Baker's previous work will find plenty to like here, but I see this work to be more for …

James Maffie: Aztec philosophy (2015, University Press of Colorado)

In Aztec Philosophy, James Maffie shows the Aztecs advanced a highly sophisticated and internally …

Not the easiest book to read, but very much worth it!

It was probably a bit ambitious to read "Aztec Philosophy" as my very first book on philosophy, and thus it took me a long time to finish it. But it was very much worth it, since it allowed me to examine my own Eurocentric perceptions and assumptions on philosophy, metaphysics, cosmology, and so forth. And thus I recommend this book to anyone else who wants to gain a wider perspective on these matters.

Consciously or not (and mostly the latter), most people with an Eurocentric background (including those descended from European settlers) have internalized narratives about the world that are heavily based on both Greek philosophy and Christian theology - and this remains true even for those who have decided to reject Christianity. Aztecs - and other indigenous American people - have long lived in isolation from Europe, and have thus built up their own philosophies and metaphysics which has …

Dave Allen, Jude Hornborg, Padraig Murphy, Alfred Nuñez, Clive Oldfied, Magnus Seter, Simon Wileman: Altdorf - Crown of the Empire (2021, Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd)

Altdorf is the capital city of the Empire and the birthplace of Sigmar Heldenhammer. It …

A good city book, but not a great one

I love detailed #ttrpg city books, and at 220 pages in length, Altdorf: Crown of the Empire for #WFRP certainly qualifies. As the capital city of the Empire, Altdorf is full of factions, power groups, NPCs with secrets, and lots of tiny neighborhoods - each with their own character, yet all feel plausible and believable for the setting of the Old World (well, maybe with a few exceptions - the "Popular League Against Nobility and Taxation (PLANT)" revolutionary group reads too much like something from the 20th century rather than the "German Renaissance" atmosphere the setting generally goes for).

So, why didn't I give this book full marks? It isn't for the bad puns in the German-sounding names - as a German WFRP player, I've learned to tolerate these. No, my problem is that this book doesn't really do enough to make its individual parts interconnected.

The setting of Ptolus …