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I love detailed #ttrpg city books, and at 220 pages in length, Altdorf: Crown of the Empire for #WFRP certainly qualifies. As the capital city of the Empire, Altdorf is full of factions, power groups, NPCs with secrets, and lots of tiny neighborhoods - each with their own character, yet all feel plausible and believable for the setting of the Old World (well, maybe with a few exceptions - the "Popular League Against Nobility and Taxation (PLANT)" revolutionary group reads too much like something from the 20th century rather than the "German Renaissance" atmosphere the setting generally goes for).

So, why didn't I give this book full marks? It isn't for the bad puns in the German-sounding names - as a German WFRP player, I've learned to tolerate these. No, my problem is that this book doesn't really do enough to make its individual parts interconnected.

The setting of Ptolus, as usual, shows how to do this right: Each time a character, a place, an organization or something else has a connection to something done elsewhere, there's a page reference to where you fan find more. As a result, you get the feeling that the city - despite its fantastic nature - is an interconnected, organic whole. In contrast, while Altdorf has a long list of fascinating, atmospheric neighborhoods, they all too often feel as if they exist on their own, with connections to the rest of the city only being hinted at.

Nethertheless, a GM interested in running adventures or even entire campaigns in Altdorf will find plenty of useful material in this book. But they should put in some added effort to make this city feel alive.

As a student of German folk tales, I am always trying to broaden my understanding of German culture and society in past centuries. "The German Underworld - Deviants and Outcasts in German History" was thus a good opportunity for further research

The book is a collection of essays discussing "criminality" in various forms in German history, starting with the late Middle Ages and ending in the immediate post-WWII era. Some of the highlights were:

• Details on the "Mordbrenner" ("Murder Arsonist") panics of the 16th century, where both Protestant and Catholic rulers and their subjects believed that "the other side" was hiring vagrants to set their cities ablaze. I had heard of the term as such, but I did not know its history.

• Infanticide trials in 18th century Germany, which included discussion on the differences how various regions in Germany treated unwed mothers.

• Poaching in Bavaria in the wake of the 1848 revolution, where the rural population believed they had finally attained the right to hunt, while the authorities were trying to suppress it.

• How the Third Reich dealt with vagrants during its reign. This is highly relevant due to the increasingly harsh anti-homeless measures (and panics) in various countries - I fear that history may repeat itself.

• The social disintegration of Germany and German law in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Well worth studying for anyone who is interested in how social cohesion breaks down after wars!

To sum it up, this book is highly recommended to anyone who is either interested in German history or how society deals with its outcasts in general.

I remember the first Bestiary for the first edition of Pathfinder, which largely covered the same monsters as the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual. The first Bestiary for the second edition, however, boldly declares its independence from its Dungeons & Dragons roots. The mechanics are completely different, of course - but so is the monster lineup, which delves into the lore of Pathfinder's Inner Sea setting (including some small sidebars expanding the lore further).

From the various alghollthu species (kin of the aboleth) to the aeons, the cosmic enforcers of Order; from psychopomps to sinspawn - most of these will be familiar to veteran Pathfinder players, but not to those who are only familiar with the various incarnations of D&D. Nevertheless, old and familiar faces are present aplenty, whether the many-hued types of dragons, classical types of demons, devils, and giants, and so forth (although you can expect some changes among these as well).

On the mechanics side, the creatures make good use of Pathfinder 2E's three action economy, and most have plenty of interesting and flavorful combat options. That even includes "ordinary" animals, which will now feel much more distinct than in previous options. There are also quite a few useful suggestions on how to transform ordinary people and creatures into supernatural creatures (whether zombies or werewolves), although they should be seen as guidelines rather than fixed "suggestions".

I have only two real quibbles with this book, one minor and one major. First, a lot of stat blocks featuring variants of the same creature type refer to earlier stat blocks. For example, the "Azure Worm" stat block has the following:

"Thrash [two-actions] As purple worm."

I prefer stat blocks to be complete in themselves, without having to refer to other pages during play.

Which brings me to my second problem: Creatures that are able to cast spells. Here, too, you only get the name of the spell, but to understand what the spell actually does, you have to look it up in an entirely different book.

Apart from these, this book does what it sets out to do, and does it well - and thus it is an invaluable addition for any Pathfinder 2E game master.

Drawing and painting is one of those things I'd like to get better at, if only I could find the time for it next to my other hobby projects.

Nevertheless, I enjoy good how-to books on art, and this is one of the most inspiring. It is written from the perspective of people who have to develop concept art for architecture, and in that field, it is not only important to draw well, but to draw fast. Hence, "Drawing Shortcuts" - and the book delivers.

The book describes all sorts of speedy ways of painting architecture and how to enliven them with scenery. While the focus is on real world architecture designs, many of these approaches should also work for fantastic and science fiction buildings. From using photos as reference images to draw over up to using simple 3D models, these suggestions make it fairly easy to get architecture and perspective right.

The technology discussed in this book is often rather outdated (which is not surprising, given that the last edition was published in 2010), but anyone with a basic understanding of modern graphics software should find the techniques easy to adapt.

Highly recommended!