Pavis Gateway to Adventure (HeroQuest Glorantha) Paperback – November 28, 2012

This review has two parts, the first part is for people who are not familar with the fantasy world of Glorantha, and the second part is for people who are experienced Runequest players and are wondering how much of this material is really new.If you are tired of fantasy worlds that seem to consist of monsters sitting around in rooms until the adventurers arrive, then Glorantha is for you! Glorantha is a large and very elaborate world that has been extensively documented over many decades. Unfortunately much of the material for it is scattered among many sources and is difficult to access. Glorantha was originally supported exclusively by the Runequest system and is now also supported by the Heroquest system. This supplement to the Heroquest system details the city of Pavis and the area around it. Pavis is quite possibly the best single setting for adventurers, as it allows GM's to run urban, rural, forest, riverine or dungeon adventures from a single setting. Pavis is a fully detailed city with information on neighborhoods, religions, guilds, political factions, trade routes and local law enforcement. Since the Hero Wars system doesn't require the large stat blocks that other systems need to describe NPC's, more space is available for background information.The material could be adapted to support a Pavis based campaign that uses another RPG system, or parts of it could be used to support a campaign set in another game world.I only gave "Pavis Gateway to Adventure" 4 stars because the production values are not quite state of the art. Most of the art is Black and White and for some unknown reason, much of the art is not captioned, which can be confusing at times.Now for the part of the review that will only interest experienced Runequest players. Most of the material in this book originated in earlier publications. I recognized material from Pavis, Big Rubble, Sun County, Borderlands and Cults of Prax. The 4 adventures in the book appear to be completely new and it was nice to see old friends like Griselda and Wolfhead return. The older material has been given a bit of a facelift with some subtle changes from the original publications, for example Guilds are now more prominent and important then they were before. There is very little information on the Big Rubble, only an 8 page overview is provided. The maps are a mixture of old and new but are of good quality. The artwork is also a mixture of old and new and even includes a few pages of new color art, mostly to support one of the adventures.The four adventures are an interesting assortment. The first one is really just an excuse to make a few firends and a couple of enemies in Pavis. The second one is an Indiana Jones style "The Lunars are about to uncover a powerful magic item, lets make sure they don't get it" scenario. The third one is a murder mystery. The fourth adventure is the most interesting, a true heroquest, in which the PC's are forced to participate in a Lunar ritual. The book is set in the 1618 - 1620 timeframe. If you are looking for one item to introduce players to Pavis this book will serve nicely.