First Impressions - Baklin: Jewel of the Seas - city supplement [OSR]

Welcome to Baklin...

I was away on business this week so I slipped another of the EMDT zines into my bag to read in the hotel. This time it was Baklin: Jewel of the Seas which is a medium sized city supplement with statistics for most OSR games. It's 70 pages long with the inner coversheets being used for maps. As you can probably see from the picture above, there are two A3 maps provided. One is a player facing city map, while the second gives the same map with details for the GM and further maps of the three levels of the undercity. It comes with the PDF, fulfilled via DriveThruRPG.

Baklin is set on the island of Erillion, and is a seat of merchant power. Erillion is has been explored in EMDT's Echoes from Fomalhaut zine, especially over the first five issues. However, I haven't read those (although I intend to remedy that) and I picked this up because I'm a sucker for a city supplement. The introduction by the author states that Baklin has two objectives; to serve as a base for an adventuring party to work from and to act as an adventure site on its own. I think that the book nails this. 

The layout is clear and illustrations - all black and white - which are evocative. The text is better than that produced by some native English-speaking publishers (EMDT are Hungarian). It's clear for the GM to review but perhaps not as sharp and bullet-pointed as you'd see for an OSE book.

The city is built around a safe harbour in the limestone hillside; it is the dominant town in Erillion after the old capital fell. It sits at the midpoint of trade between the Coastlands of Kassadia and the Twelve Kingdoms to the northwest. The city is ruled by Prince Lodovic and his beautiful wife Arkella, but governed by the city bureaucracy, an arrangement agreed to some seventy years ago when the family became the rulers. Sadly, the Prince and Princess have not produced an heir and there is likely to be a succession crisis some time in the near-term future.

The city is has two rule codes; the Sea Laws (harsh, brutal and fast, governed by the Captain's Council) and the Old Ways (the common law of Erillion, less brutal and based on precedent, adjudicated by the Prince). In most areas except the Hightowne, the Sea Law holds sway. This is corrupt; there are arrangements with the Thieves Guild and an appropriate (but swift) payment to the Maritime Fund can result in a miscreant's discharge from the law without consequence. However, those that fall foul may find themselves sent to the Sack, hung in a leather man-sized sack and beaten to death. 

The Council provides security with the City Watch, and the Prince has his own guards, the High Watch. They include a unit which carries out espionage and acts on matters of state interest; you don't want to fall foul to this unit as you may come to a nasty or unknown end. The Knights of Yolanthus Kar, historically significant in the fall of the Wrath Queen Arxenia, are also based in the city, but they mainly serve to deal with the dead to prevent an outbreak of undeath. They have far less respect in Baklin, because Baklin is interested in the maritime trade routes and not the interior roads that the Knights keep safe.

The Thieves of Baklin are preeminent in the city, but increasingly under pressure from the assassins of Gont, mainly as the present Guildmaster Hyacintho Eskumar (referred to as 'the Popinjay' disrespectfully) is more interesting in living the high life than keeping his house in order. As a result, foreign thieves are more common in the city, whereas in the past they'd have been driven off, killed or sent to the Sack. The Gontsmen are increasingly becoming active in the city. 

Access to magic beyond third level spells requires a candidate to visit the mage tower to undertake a Trial. This can be done once; if you fail, although you will get the spell slots, you won't get the higher level spells. Likewise, Clerics must undertake a holy quest to access higher level powers. However, Baklin does not encourage religion, so Cleric characters may have to keep a low profile or at least avoid making enemies. 

Naturally, a random table is presented for encounters in the city, before the zine embarks on a tour of locations (39), all of which provide hooks and very short descriptions to build from. Any needed NPC stats are provided. Many parts of the city's cellars provide access into the undercity; you can travel across town without going on the surface if you know the way. However, it is dangerous; underground is out of sight and most of the dark and dangerous things that happen in the city are down there. However, there are several fine pubs too which can provide access. The undercity is extensive with 112 locations. There's a random encounter table. It feels like the kind of place that you'd enter with a good reason, or perhaps by accident when escaping trouble.

Overall, this is a great supplement. There's enough there to build a campaign from, or just use as an occasional place to rest and recuperate. It doesn't have as immediate hooks as The Well of Frogs or In the Shadow of the City-God, but they're designed as adventure modules ready to run. This is a setting that will become unique to each party that explores it. Although it is written in the lingua-franca of the OSR, you could easily use this for other roleplaying games.

Recommended.

29 July 2023