Continuing the city theme, this week I am looking at Flying Buffalo’s Citybook series. Launched in 1982 as part of the Catalyst series of toolkit style, system- and setting-agnostic supplements, there are seven or so Citybooks.
The idea here is to, well, give you ideas. And not for making big, bustling cities feel vibrant, but for breathing life into specific locations. At most, in 1982, a fictional business in a fictional city would get a couple paragraphs of details — and that would feel generous! Citybook entries, on the other hand, dedicated several pages to each establishment, its owners, its patrons and its dark and secret history, because there is almost always an adventure hook, even at the fishmonger’s stand (maybe especially there, because PUNS). Some of these places and people are good for a single serving of story, but others are potentially places your players will frequent, their proprietor future friends and allies. It’s nice to have a pub to frequent!
Citybook I, appropriately subtitled “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker,” is a potpourri. It has a little bit of everything, mostly focus on trade and shops, but there’s a jail, a barracks, a cemetery, a mortuary, a news bureau of sorts and a spooky clock tower as well. Plenty of the sort of establishments that A. Make a city feel more lived in and B. A city sourcebook like Lankhmar or City of Splendors just doesn’t have the room to detail — space is at a premium for the buildings that define a city. These could be in any city. And that’s their beauty!
Liz Danforth and Steven Crompton on illustration duties, both acquit themselves well. The cartography is quite nice too. Interestingly, Larry DiTillio (He-Man, Masks of Nyarlathotep) edited the book.
