Pyramid Review
Cry-Star: First of the Free
Published by XID Creative
Written by Danny Budge
$19.95
Cry-Star: First of the Free is a campaign setting and sourcebook for the Providence roleplaying game. Cry-Star is the capital of Providence, and the subject of the first of what is promised to be many sourcebooks describing the game world in great detail. And if it's detail you want, Cry-Star is the book for it, leaving almost no stone unturned."Welcome to Cry-Star, home of the rich and the wretched!" goes the traditional greeting, and it is apt. The most powerful and wealthy citizens of the realm live here, almost literally on the backs of the Fallen, the outcasts of society whose forms do not allow them to fly. The caste conflicts and multi-sided intrigues of Cry-Star are a microcosm of what's going on in the entire game world, and it gives players a solid grounding in what's really going on. It ain't pretty.
Providence definitely falls in the category of "Dark Fantasy," and Cry-Star does nothing to dispel that notion. Even the graphic look of the book reinforces the feel nicely -- it's "dark" without being gray and hard to read. The digest-sized, 166-page book is well-designed, with useful sidebars and fictional pieces in just the right places. The interior art has some wide variations in quality (like a lot of game books), but the best pieces are truly outstanding, particularly Clifford VanMeter's. This is a good-looking book.
The contents are also impressive. After the . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: February 19, 1999
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