Today we discuss Nulb: In the Shadow of the Temple by J.E. Knight. This is a 339 page pdf with almost no interior art, and one map of the village of Nulb. It has bookmarks, but they aren’t formatted very well, with a lot of blanks and code as the bookmarks; there’s a table of contents with what look like links, but they don’t seem to work (at least on my computer). It has a two-column format, but there are some very weird formatting issues in places.
This is a supplement for the famous Temple of Elemental Evil, expanding what was a 3 page write-up in the original with a 339 page module! I must say, with several fans all working on exhaustively detailing the area in and around the Temple, it’s really starting to turn into overkill. There are sections on the village as a whole, rumors, trade and commerce, factions, locations, characters, and no less than 4 appendices; psionics (which doesn’t have any real impact on the original, and thus feels a bit out of place here), random encounters, magic items, and a fictional interview with the author, which serves as a sort of designer’s notes section (which I really like).
There’s so much here, it seems like it would take a long time for a DM to assimilate to run a village that was, ultimately, nothing more than an appetizer. The original does say the DM should expand it out, but this seems excessive. Still, there’s bound to be some material in here that a DM can use, but it’s all a bit too much in one book. And at $19.99, the price tag is a bit hefty for something to pick and choose from. Still, I’m sure some DMs will love this level of detail.
You can buy the book here.
