Temple Hill

Forgotten Realms: The Cities, Book 2

By: Drew Karpyshyn

Narrated by: Nicole Greevy

Among the dark streets of the city move thieves and cutthroats. And they don't like independent operators like Lhasha Moonsliver. But when she hires the town drunk as a bodyguard, she gets more than she bargained for. Together they'll have to battle the thieves' guild, the Cult of the Dragon, and other, darker foes. And a fallen man will have to remember the proud warrior he once was.

©2001 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Wonderful Standalone Adventure For Your PCs

I am late in discovering The Cities series and am thoroughly enjoying my way through them.

Just finished Temple Hill today and was compelled to write a review as I enjoyed it so much. Great story that moves fairly quickly along, with compelling characters and villains and a wonderful assortment of familiar elements from our favorite game.

I'd like to emphasize the last point, as so many D&D franchise books that I've read often take artistic liberties with the game details and mechanics to serve the story the author wants to tell, and so the book becomes a little less authentic to the game it is celebrating. One of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much is that I felt that it was true to the game source: familiar character races and classes were used, as were familiar but slightly less common monsters and even the spells were true to their game dynamics (cast lightning bolt while invisible and suddenly you aren't anymore). The familiar elements are woven into the story in an appropriate manner and are not on the nose, but a wink is usually given where a word from the spell's title might be worked into the description, making it clear what it is. That authenticity made this book feel that much more fun, as it's easy to imagine your own PCs in the same situations as the characters; it's an exciting and challenging story but not so epic in its scale that it ceases to be relatable. In fact, I often found myself thinking what a fun standalone adventure this would be to run some non-legendary PCs through, and that's a high bar I think for a D&D book these days and likely what they had in mind with this The Cities series.

I have enjoyed Drew Karpyshyn's work in other franchises, and same is true here - I highly recommend this fun story. I also appreciated the versatility of Nicole Greevy's performance.

Great

Perfect Realms story. One book, good performance, short and sweet. Lots of magic and monsters, and a bit of dungeon crawl.

biased when it comes to Forgotten Realms stories

there is nothing I'd dislike about a Forgotten Realms tale. lovers of fantasy a good book is right here.

quit with 5 hours left.

I dont know if it was the story or the narrator, but i couldn't get into this book. Greevy annoys me with her character voices.