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Frequently Asked Questions0Now that we've released Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire, here are some answers to questions you may have about the book. First
off, how do you pronounce the name? Ptolus is "TAW-luss," although "TOL-us" seems to be a popular alternate. What is
Ptolus? It's a huge package from Malhavoc Press. It's also the first and longest-running Third Edition campaign setting ever created, where game professionals of all kinds have found both victory and defeat. Ptolus is a city designed to be an entire campaign with an amazing level of detail. This is Monte's home campaign, and the place where many Third Edition rules saw their genesis (or met with their demise). Included in the campaign over the years are such industry celebs as Michele Carter, Andy Collins, Sue Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, Jesse Decker, Erik Mona, Christopher Perkins, Sean K. Reynolds, Keith Strohm, Steven "Stan!" Brown, and Jeff Quick -- editors of Dragon® and Dungeon® magazines, designers and editors of Wizards of the Coast game products, and even the onetime D&D business manager. Ptolus is the most deluxe RPG package ever designed. It contains more than 130 pages of color artwork and maps and is a work of unsurpassed usability. It features extensive indexing and cross-referencing throughout, designed and tested by the author of the Dungeon Master's Guide and the "Dungeoncraft" column in Dungeon to make play even easier and more fun. See the Ptolus product page for more details. What do
you mean by "package?" Ptolus is far more
than just a book. The Ptolus package contains: 1. A 672-page hardcover, full-color book that includes:
2. A double sided, full-color
poster map of the city and the Spire by Ed Bourelle. 4. A CD-ROM inserted in
a glued-in envelope at the back of the book along with the poster and handouts.
The CD includes the following:
Is there a print version
of that Player's Guide from the CD-Rom? Yes. You can buy it from your local game store or from us. A single copy is only $2.99 and a five-pack is $14.95, for those DMs who want to provide one to every player around the table. (You also may download PDF copies of A Player's Guide to Ptolus free from DriveThruRPG.com.) What's the price of Ptolus? The price for the whole
package is $119.99 (print edition) or $60 (PDF edition). Our goal with this package was to allow you to buy what
is essentially an entire product line all in one volume, with no waiting for
vital accessories or expansions to be released months later. Once you buy Ptolus,
you have everything you really need to run your campaign, from 1st to 20th level. Is this a special edition with another version coming later? No, that's not the plan.
Other than the PDF releases, we won't be doing other versions of the product.
PDF releases? What's going on with those? The full
book is available in PDF format from www.DriveThruRPG.com.
You can also buy nine separate thematic PDFs that together
comprise the entirety of the Ptolus book. These are designed for people who don't want the whole book but just certain sections (parts of town, undercity Dungeons, etc.) to insert into their own settings. I already have a campaign setting of my own. Why should I care about Ptolus? It became clear to us when we started working on this product that there were already a lot of campaign settings out there -- how many can you really use at once, right? Well, the nice thing about Ptolus is that, while it is an entire setting, it is also just a single city and its environs. Because Ptolus epitomizes all the standard assumptions of the d20 System, it's a city you can insert easily into most d20 campaigns. With this much space,
are you going to detail every building and person in the city? No. Even if it were possible,
it's not desirable. To run an urban fantasy campaign, you've absolutely got
to have the freedom to create new locations and NPCs as needed. So what this
book does is present locations in differing levels of detail: Plus, the book has plenty
of areas waiting for DMs to fill them in with their own creations. There
are lots of big RPG books out there -- anything new or different in this one? Yes! We've been working on this a long, long time. Much of that time was spent investigating ways to make a book easier to reference as well as simply more useful. We modeled much of it not on existing roleplaying sourcebooks, but on travel guidebooks to create a book that is, in many ways, very different from anything anyone has seen before in the RPG hobby. Ptolus is designed entirely from a DM's perspective (although the aforementioned Player's Guide is all from a player's perspective). As a longtime DM and DM advocate, Monte has focused extra energy to make this book not only easy, but actually a joy to use. This includes, but isn't limited to, the following elements:
That's nice functionality,
but how have you designed the book's game content? Monte's on his fourth campaign set in this world, and his third set exclusively in the city of Ptolus. He's used those years of experience to anticipate both player and DM needs. Just some of the game design features include:
So it's all a city? Well, Ptolus is far, far more than just a city. Below the city lies ancient Dwarvenhearth, a sealed dwarven mine-city; natural caverns filled with subterranean dangers; an ancient labyrinthine network of passages and chambers crafted by the dark lords who once inhabited the region; the infamous Banewarrens; Dreta Phantas, the heart of dreams stolen by the dark elves; and more. There's as much going on below the city as there is in it! Ptolus also includes the two fortresses on the Spire—Goth Gulgamel and Jabel Shammar—and the Jewels of Parnaith: ethereal islands that orbit the Spire invisible to the mundane eye. If that's not enough, there's still the nearby Necropolis with the forbidden Dark Reliquary at its heart, rumored to be the home of undead, earthbound demons, and perhaps even worse. What about adventures? Adventures lie at the very heart of the Ptolus project. The book contains a chapter devoted entirely to adventures, designed to introduce Ptolus in a new campaign and take players to about 4th level. Then, The Night of Dissolution adventure provided with the book takes characters to levels 9 or 10, at which point it's time for the PCs to explore some of the extremely dangerous areas in Ptolus, like the Dark Reliquary, Goth Gulgamel, and Jabel Shammar at the top of the Spire. More than enough to fill an entire campaign-but there's much more than just that! Ptolus also presents a number of fully detailed locations ready to insert into an adventure, from the temple of the Cult of the Ebon Hand to the headquarters of the Thieves' Guild, to a lair of ratmen in the sewers, to the gates of Dwarvenhearth itself. These locations are full of adventure possibilities and await the DM's careful hand to insert them into the campaign as desired. Lastly, Ptolus teems with described adventure hooks attached to various locations, groups, and individuals. Everything in the book can lead to an adventure. So, no matter if you're the kind of DM who just wants a few adventure ideas to get started (or to help when you get stuck), a DM who wants all the locations but wants to develop the plots himself, or someone who wants all the work done for him, Ptolus has enough material for you to create an entire campaign. (And if you want even more, look for Monte's "Queen of Lies" Ptolus adventure published by Fiery Dragon Productions.) What does the book look
like? At the risk of sounding arrogant, it looks amazing. We can't contain our excitement about how it has turned out. Here's the
cover. For more fabulous artwork
and excerpts, visit our previews
page. Will the binding on a book this big really hold together? In order to make the binding as durable as possible, we used a process called cambric reinforcement on the first and last signatures of the book. Cambric reinforcement is a process and material similar to medical gauze. Actual gauze is wrapped around the page signatures and is adhered to the case. Normally in casemaking, the binder only wraps craft paper partially around the signatures. This reinforcement is a basic requirement in the library industry, and our printer tells us it's part of the National School Textbook Association's parameters for text book binding. It will make Ptolus' binding more durable and able to withstand more abuse. If I buy Ptolus, do I get the Night of Dissolution adventure for free? Yes. The 96-page Night of Dissolution adventure, like the 32-page Player's Guide to Ptolus, appears in PDF form on the CD-Rom in the back of the Ptolus book. You also get it free when you buy the full Ptolus eBook. If you're interested in a print copy, they are available at your local game store or from this site for $19.99 while supplies last. What else is available
that's related to Ptolus? You can get the 32-page Player's Guide to Ptolus for $2.99 in print or free in PDF. This book is directed at players in a Ptolus Campaign and presents the information needed to create and run a PC in Ptolus. Also, ask your local comics retailer for the Ptolus comic book series. This six-issue monthly series is published by Marvel DB Pro and written by Monte. Paizo Publishing presents official miniatures in blister packs. SkeletonKey Games offers maps from the book in various editions, including battle mat size for easy use with miniatures or counters. Fiery Dragon Productions has released a special Ptolus Counter Collection that includes members of organizations (the Sisters of Silence, Vai assassins, and so forth), town guards, and more, as well as specific individuals. Also, look for a Ptolus update to Monte's Queen of Lies adventure and a big vinyl version of the Ptolus map from Fiery Dragon. The Forge Studios has a lovely series of Ptolus sketchbooks in PDF format that illustrates even more of the city than what you see in the book itself. For updated information
on these and other tie-ins, check out our
tie-ins page.
To secure your copy, you can preorder Ptolus now and receive special benefits!
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