Review - The Shifting City
Immersion. Emergence. Subterranean delving. As far as I can tell, these are qualities held to be cornerstones of tabletop roleplaying. My dip into this world is admittedly recent, therefore I see so many of the products that espouse these landmark ideas as shiny, impressive, wonderful! And this week, thanks to the kind generosity of Lex Mandrake, I am able to experience again something entirely new. The Shifting City presented by Dank Dungeons (comprised of Lex Mandrake & Chris Boudreau) is an aesthetically elegant city/heist module accompanied by its own soundtrack. Another confession: this will be the first official rpg album I have ever listened to. The term Dungeon Synth was introduced to me about four weeks ago; however, I am no stranger to music, so there is some valid experience to call on.
End enthusiastic “disclaimer paragraph”: – let us move on.
First, I ported the music over and gave it a listen. My anticipation was hedged by anxiety and uncertainty ( I mean, music for games, really? Thinking of bit music from long ago, or overly scripted sound, I am rather ignorant in the matter). Again, something new, creative! The first forty seconds are the perfect soundscape to any number of gritty 70s – 80s thriller films and I like it! Wow, just sucked in by this first composition, “Out of the Mists.” The next track, “The Pandimensional Bazaar” opens with some bouncy synth-Renaissance-esqu notes, then pulses. It’s uplifting without being corny/epic. Yea, ok, this is cool – head bobbing, it is time to open the document.
Well, I love the cover of this module – Logan Stahl’s more traditional line illustration of a bustling city alley: strange creatures, a distant dragon, figures in shadow – a balanced blend of line and white negative space. Elegance that sets the tone for the coming material.
On the contents page, we learn that the music is actually paired up to each “chapter.” The book opens with a piece of short fiction that informs the setting with a curious shepherd who stumbles onto the mysterious city, is enthralled, and chooses not to leave, in spite of being robbed.
Track/Chapter 2 expands the theater with another short fictional piece. We then encounter the first table: What is the talk of the market and What deals are to be had.
Chapter 5 is a great thieves guild generator. I really like these tables. They are small, but flavorful and plenty to create your own guild to run, or run afoul of, in a city game. Moreover, a few pages later, there is an extensive two pages for creating your thieves’ hideout. This is great – generate context, features, construction, weaknesses! The presentation of these pages is nice, clean, and attractive. And this has to be said for the whole publication. It has great design. Black and white, minimal, clean layout, stark, accompanied by excellent line drawings. Fonts and their positions are played with but it’s not art-house or punk, more The Seventh Seal than The Holy Mountain. From a print at home perspective, it is probably not terrific with all the full black pages, but if I were to sit down in a great reading spot with a nicely printed copy, rev up the musical score with small notebook and pen in hand, this would easily consume some comfortable hours. Because there’s more! Yes, you can also create a nemesis for your thieves’ guild (besides the other thieving connivers that is).
The counter-balance in the system is the Panjandrum – the capitalist trading authority figures. Now the black & white theme resonates well: good – evil; poor – rich; authority – criminal; whichever side one may come down on – or most likely, much mixing turns everything a misty grey.
These tables are also excellent. You get some flavorful Who, What, How type results. And much like the Hideout mentioned above; There are two pages for generating the Panjandrum Villa. This is good stuff…
[checking back in with the soundtrack….Track 8: Across the Rooftops] – ominous, sometimes menacing, and yet calming too: I am surprised here. Mandrake hits a nice balance between thematic story music to back the narrative in one’s mind and a genuinely composed nice piece of music in its own right. My initial apprehension has dissipated. He ties in mysterious shadows mentioned earlier, but also clearly references Middle Eastern themes. It feels graceful and appreciative as opposed to shallow cultural appropriation. There’s softness in this music. The synths are made to sound lush in places, subtle, reverent. I’m transported with curiosity. In short, I really didn’t know what to expect from the music part of this publication, but later on, this was the soundtrack to a drawing session, and it was excellent.
The publication concludes with The Dream Reliquary, a six-page adventure with five keyed maps, drawn by Daniel Walthall. The party is hired by a guild to steal the reliquary from a Panjandrum’s villa. There is a timing mechanic which offers automatic ways for NPCs and other thieves to move around, adding an easy to track tension. Additionally, a simple “Flashback” device can be utilized, allowing PCs to use narrative flashback points to help them in the adventure, which can be tested or ratcheted up or down for effectiveness by the GM. The isometric maps are clearly drawn and cleanly placed on each page and have numerous text boxes to convey information, all without being cluttered. One of the features that is quite good is a secret room – this material is highlighted in grey (fog) to convey this elusivenesss – it’s a nice visual touch in the adventure design.
All in all, I must say this strikes me as good material to implement in numerous systems. The Shifting City is system agnostic and though most likely to find a home in fantasy games, it could appear in many variations of fantasy. The tables can be taken to any size session if a guild or base is needed for your on-the-run adventurers. However, in a larger game, rolling up numerous thieving bands and authorities could implode around the characters much like the failed military device concocted during the middle of the last century, also known as a Panjandrum. Such explosive potential in such an elegant book. Nonsense and nonsense and sense collide….
This is a generous project. There is quite a bit of depth here at its relatively low cost (foregoing the music) that can offer a solid play session with reusable material. With the complete package, The Shifting City can open a neat world for your players to participate in. I enjoyed the experience of reading and listening to The Shifting City and again thank Dank Dungeons for making it available for my consideration. As regards the music, it appears another level for exploration has been revealed.
*this is not a play review but a first impression look at the book
The pdf of this can be purchased at:
https://dank-dungeons.itch.io/the-shifting-city
The pdf along with the digital music files can be purchased at: