Pyramid Review
The Grande Temple of Jing (for d20)
Published by Hammerdog Games
Written by Danny O'Neill
Illustrated by Ralph Horsley
40 pages; $8.95
The year 2001 has seen a great many new publishers and titles, most invariably for the d20 system. A case could be made that there are too many of both, but the numbers keep growing… This leaves the potential buyer with a glut to wade through in search of, if not the new, certainly the good, the different, or at least the interesting. New Canadian/American publisher Hammerdog Games enters the d20 new list with something that is different -- at least in terms of format. Their first batch of releases consists of two titles: BBA #1.1 The Grande Temple of Jing Part I: A Balance of Power and BBA #2.1 Assault on Darkspyre. It is the first of these releases that is reviewed here.
The Grande Temple of Jing at first seems to be a standard A5 format book, but looks can be deceiving. Behind Ralph Horsley's excellent cover, the reader needs to turn the book from the standard portrait (vertical) format to landscape (horizontal) format to properly read it. The book is text-heavy, with just a single piece of art that is not so much thumbnail-size as little fingernail. The fact that art only appears once in the book -- and is then done too small -- is rather disappointing. The maps have been created by Danny O'Neill and his dungeon map in the centre of the book is easy to read, but perhaps a little brash and busy upon the eye. Of course, using Campaign . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: December 28, 2001
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