Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #339479 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 94 pages

Synopsis
Set during the aftermath of Middenheim, this is the second installment of a trilogy of adventures that pits the players against the dark forces of Chaos.

Customer Reviews

Spires Of Altdorf Review
Like all the books in the new Warhammer range, this one is hard backed and of very high quality. Just like Ashes Of Middenheim before it, this book is divided into two parts - part one detailing the city of Altdorf, part two detailing the adventure.

The information on Altforf isn't as detailed as that given for Middenheim in the previous installment. Part of this is purely down to the sheer size of Altdorf; it's a huge sprawling city, it would be impractical to go into the level of depth that was provided for Middenheim. Instead we are given detailed descriptions of specific places of interest in the city and a general idea of how to evoke Altdorf. All of this information is very useful and comes with plenty of ideas for encounters and adventure hooks.

After the fairly straightforward plot-line of Ashes Of Middenheim I was somewhat suprised by how convoluted the plot of Spires Of Altdorf appeared on first reading. There's three main plot lines going on at the same time, all of which have the potential to overlap and intermingle with each other. Two of these plot lines are failry easy to get your hear around - one involves a certain character's attempts at getting revenge on the characters, the other involves a shady character attempting to manipulate the PCs for his own dark ends. The third plot line (the main one really) involves a lot of investigation and has a large cast of characters which the PCs will have to deal with.

The adventure is fairly non-linear (far more so than Ashes Of Middenheim) and will require the GM to put some work into it before running the game. The PCs are free to do things at their own pace, in whichever order they desire ( and as PCs are wont to do, you can guarantee that they'll go down some routes that haven't been anticipated by the book which will require some inventiveness on the part of the GM).

This is a much tougher adventure to run than Ashes Of Middenheim, but then that's the price you pay for a more involved and organic story line. It's not easy to run but it is, in my opinion, another good addition to the Paths Of The Damned Campaign.

Bought one day, sold the next
I'm afraid that this is a terrible adventure, with laughable source material. The information on Altdorf, scanty as it is, could be invented by any competent GM in two minutes flat. As for the scenario, I wouldn't mind that the plot is a tired old cliche if it was well plotted and vaguely logical. Instead we get three plot lines, each of which contains holes that could sink the titanic. My favourite involved a 'small army' of beastmen from the surrounding forests, that somehow manage to infiltrate a walled city - the capital of the Empire no less - and hide out in the 'sewers and back alleys' in the days preceeding an attack. It gets worse, and I could go on, but I won't. Avoid.

Tricky NPCs
Gives an excellent feel for Altdorf, the flavour of it's citizenry and their innate pride at being part of the greatest city in the Empire, although a specific geographical map would have been most welcome.
The reason for the lack of architecturaland geographical detail given is twofold: Firstly Altdorf is just too large, (prove it?!) and secondly: the numerous colleges of magic so upset the Aethyr that the streets are constantly shifting so cannot be predicted (or properly mapped) from one hour to the next; a pretty ugly cop-out, and one which barely scrapes through as justifiable. Presumably the authors assumed that if you needed an exemplary city map you'll look to "Ashes of Middenheim" and other similar publications.

Where S.o.A. manages to partly redeem itself is with the depth of intrigue available in the adventure itself - a wealth of opportunity is given for roleplaying NPCs off against each-other, though this will not to be the tastes of players who like their heroics uncomplicated by too much dialogue, nor to GMs who prefer arbitrary die-rolling with a descriptive leaning, rather than getting their hands dirty by doing lots of NPC roleplaying.

So, the weight on the GM is significantly heavier in this, the second of the three Paths of the Damned books, particularly regarding playing such a wide range of NPCs in such a condensed and multi-threaded plot, and also to a lesser extent in creating locations which are heavily generalised for efficiency of content.
You'll need to have read through all 95 pages of it at least thrice before running it.
Tread warily.

Could have been 4 stars by squeezing out one or two NPCs and replacing them with more detailed locations.
Could have been 5 stars by implementing the above and by further including detailed maps of Altdorf and the farmland surrounding it.