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Author Topic: GameDaddy Reviews: Tarantis - By Judges Guild  (Read 1727 times)

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GameDaddy Reviews: Tarantis - By Judges Guild
« on: June 02, 2017, 11:36:14 PM »
Judges Guild,  City-State of Tarantis, 1983

Review (a couple of minor player spoilers included in this review, but only at the end.

I recently picked up a copy of the City-State of Tarantis on E-bay for Thirty-Seven Dollars ($37). When it arrived in the mail from Atlas Games (Yes, John Nephew and Michelle Nephew still run this game company, along with Jeff Tidwell, as well as Cam & Jessica Banks. I purchased this mint copy (it was still still in the original shrinkwrap) from their warehouse manager Travis Winter during an E-bay sale in late May. Surprisingly, no one bid against me on this even though other copies are currently being listed for about $100.

Originally published in 1983 by Bob Bledsaw & the Judges Guild crew, this is one of the last major publications produced by Judges Guild before they closed down in 1985, and this featured the City State of Tarantis as a Universal Fantasy supplement using the Judges Guild Universal Combat System. Even though they could no longer state it on the packaging, It was 100% completely compatible with Original Dungeons & Dragons, and Bob had added a bunch more cool stuff like Social Level, and new and improved armor types and weapons, as well as containing useful indexes and abbreviation tables in the Universal Combat and Universal RPG format that Judges Guild used after they lost their D&D license in 1982.

I’m posting this here with links to both Imgur and Google Photos archives so that collectors and RPG historians will know what a full copy of Tarantis contains. This originally retailed for $14.98, plus shipping, and was one of the most expensive supplements that Judges Guild produced. This city was designed specifically as a campaign starter location for player characters of the 2nd-6th level.


What Tarantis contained in shrink:

Full Color 8-1/2”x11” Flypage Cover
Tarantis Book 1 – Encounters (96 pages) – Black & White
Tarantis Book 2 – Shops (96 pages) – Black & White
Three double sided 22”x34” map pages containing the following maps:

Map 1) The City-State of Tarantis Fortifications & Street plans.

About ¾ of the buildings are numbered and labeled and make up consists of government, religious & military buildings as well as three hundred and twenty-six shops and merchant stands (326), all of which are detailed in the latter half of book one, as well as in book two.

Map 2) Tarantis Campaign Map
This was an oversized 22”x 34” copy of the Wilderlands Campaign Map four. There is also a Street Index, which describes in detail which city streets are consider part of the various ‘quarters’ of  Tarantis, and there is also a detailed Castles and Citadel listing describing the names and locations of various fortifications on the over-sized Wilderlands Campaign Map.

Map 3) The Entire Wilderlands Campaign Setting Hex Map
Also 22”x34”. This contained all 18 of the Wilderlands Campaign Setting maps in a much reduced format where three hexes took up approximately 1 centimeter of the map. Maybe the scale for these full campaign maps is actually ten hexes to an inch. Labeled including cities, towns, Campaign Map names.

Map 4) The Entire Wilderlands Campaign Setting Plain Map
This is printed the back side of 3) and is exactly the same map, except without a hex-grid overlay.
Map 5) The Entire Wilderlands Campaign Setting Hex Map – labeled
22”x34” identical to map number 3)

Map 6) Blank Mini-Hex Map
22”x34”, the back side of number 5). Contains only a hex-grid overlay which covers an area equivalent to the Entire original Wilderlands Campaign setting.

Book One
Book One starts with detailed City-State encounter charts organized by quarter (thieves, shopkeepers, trademsen, sea front, sages, temples, merchants, and nobles), with three additional encounter tables, a “special encounter” table, a “strange” encounter table, and a “perilous” encounter table which includes such novelties as an alchemists explosion, sewer gas explosion, walls crumbling and collapsing, ...that sort of thing… Finally, encounters with individuals are rolled on social level tables with a d6 representing social class (Noble, General, Military, Guildsmen, Merchant, and General) and the twenty-sided die representing the approximate “level” of who is encountered, these tables include random guard patrols, encounters with women, deputized patrols, etc.

Next is a comprehensive history of the City-State of Tarantis currently ruled by Atar the Lion as well as the two provinces Jarmeer and Ganzir-Galad, each ruled by a Sultan. This includes details on the various tribes that make up the City-State. There is a detailed list of Palace officials, as well as an encounter table, and its clear this was designed so that the players could visit the Palace, to look for work, boons, favors, and/or to offer their services to the King, or even Ministers or lesser government or religious officials.

There is a Tarantis military unit list, that begins with the Palace Guard beginning with the Nobles, captains, and Guard Commanders, what kind of weapons, armor and magic they have. Unit details include all of the Heavy and Light Infantry units as well as Cavalry, Crossbowmen, Naval Officers and Marines, and these table of organization and equipment lists continue working their way right down to the militia, and conscript units. This includes full detail on all of the unit commanders, as well as any interesting or important soldiers, sailors, or marines and full breakdowns of all the soldiers and commanders at the various citadels and castles that make up Tarantis (there are three), The Bard Citadel, the Fighter’s Citadel, and Ho Chi’s castle..

There is an updated Geographic Gazetteer for the entire Wilderlands Campaign Setting that takes up four pages that provides a very brief description of the mountain ranges, rivers, streams, large woods, mountain passes, canyons, dales, jungles, marshes, swamps, valleys, peaks and hills which includes the range of hexes these features cover on the map. After that is four pages of rumors, to start off adventurers if they spend time any time at all gathering information.

Then the listings for the Bazaar and Shops starts on page 29 and goes to page 70. I won’t go into a whole lot of detail here on this, but will list one shop as an example;

Cartographer (90) Paladiner Street
Name: Pic Friender, FTR, Lvl 072 (7th D&D), Htk 35, ACL: 10 (AC 10 – Layered Cloth)  Arm:003 (Armor Type – Very Light) PSL: 043 (Personal Social Level – The first two digiuts are SL, the last digit is noteriety (Or Fame). Str: 11 +1 Int: 16 +3  Wis: 14 +2 Con:  17 +2 Dex: 17 +5 Cha: 16 +3
WPN: +1 Shortsword

A very uncouth and unkempt person, Pics customers usually stand at least 20’ away from him, if at all possible to avoid the smeel. Blessed with aphotographic memory, Pic can easily redraw any map he has seen. Small Maps 13 Gp. Medium Sized Maps 20 Gp, Large Walll Maps 45 Gp plus Parchment costs. Pic sometimes sells “treasure “ maps (2d6x100Gp less CHA of purchaser) which leads to ambushes setup by his Orcish friends. Cashbox 21 Gp. Hidden in Bear’s Head mounted on the wall are 215 Gp, 12 Pp, 3 Ap, and a real treasure map leading to 12,000 Gp guarded by a Minotaur.

Book Two

Finishes the shop and merchant quarter listings (there are 326). Then there are some keen sighting tables included for wilderness adventures which includes all of the Triumphant Grand Tactical tables so the GM could map out and describe in detail five-mile hexes for the players on the fly. This includes wilderness encounter tables, ruins, prospecting, flora & fauna, Civilization descriptions and Tech Levels.

Next section contains detailed  multi-level floorplans of the Tarantine Palace, as well as the Citadels described earlier and Ho-Chi’s castle, including room-by-room encounters and a super detailed Palace Encounter stats for anyone that would be encountered in the Palace.

There are some write ups for the Meriem Catwolf Folk which are like the large intelligent Warcats, Azurerian Pirates (Tarantis is a very strong Naval power, and nearby encounters are detailed. Azurerian Pirates were originally included in the City-State Installment as part of Pegasus Magazine issue number six, and this writeup details the stronghold of Birenzia where the Pirates who work hand-in-glove with the government of Tarantis are located.

There are some random village shop charts. Some government works charts, and page ninety-two of the second book includes a numbered blank hex map. Permission is given to photocopy anything in the book for personal use. The last section of the last book contains the indexes and details for the Universal Format and the Universal Combat Format.

Final Comments: A truly great detailed & comprehensive starter campaign fully compatible with D&D published by Judges Guild shortly before they closed up shop with a truly awesome history and backstory.

Tarantis was made famous in one of Bob Bledsaws’ early campaigns. In that game Bob played the Viridian Emperor from the City State of the World Emperor in Viridistan, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were also playing in that game as various factions in and around the City-State of Tarantis, and this was back when the Tarantis map area area was known as the ancient kingdom of Kelnore. Bob sent two Viridian Vasthosts (about 240,000 troops complete with wizards and demons and stuff) to the East from the CSWE to capture some piddling little town that eventually became the City-State of the Imperial Overlord CSIO. Now the Vasthosts continued east as they embarked and sailed across the Winedark Sea, where they invaded Kelnore, and most of it captured by the Viridians. Everything along the coast all the way out to the Glow Worm Steppes became Viridian, except for Tarantis which was besieged. In an epic battle Dave managed to successfully defend Tarantis from both Gary’s army (which attacked first), and then the Vasthosts of the Green Emperor, and after an extended siege followed by a stalemate that lasted more than a year in game time, Bob’s Viridian Vasthosts withdrew and sailed back home. Tarantis was famous in the early days of D&D as being a City-State that had never been captured. This was a story that Bob shared with me, about Tarantis, when I was helping him for the weekend at Pentacon in 2004, as the dealer coordinator at that game show.


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Imgur Reference Photo Archive of Tarantis

http://imgur.com/gallery/UduB0

Google Reference Photos Archive of Tarantis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/112347944032737101258/albums/6427205674140690625?authkey=COqKsIuPx7qncA&cfem=1
Blackmoor grew from a single Castle to include, first, several adjacent Castles (with the forces of Evil lying just off the edge of the world to an entire Northern Province of the Castle and Crusade Society's Great Kingdom.

~ Dave Arneson

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GameDaddy Reviews: Tarantis - By Judges Guild
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2017, 04:04:51 AM »
Looks like a pretty sweet collector's item. Didn't know that JG did these kind of "deluxe" products.
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