I've always had the prejudice that Judges Guild was never really matched in the soaring ambition of their Citystate/Wilderlands setting materials, but after finally completing my collection of original 2E materials for the interconnected setting of Waterdeep, Undermountain and Skullport I think you have to give it the nod as the most fully and lavishly realized mega-city/megadungeon setting ever put to paper. I suppose I should have realized it 30 years ago, but I never previously owned the City System (a weirdly named collection of house-by-house maps for Waterdeep), and without that it was hard to see the setting as coming together in quite the same way that the City state does. But if you've ever had the full set of original materials together in one place, it is kind of shocking. You could literally cover the entire floor of a good sized room with the surface maps, all rendered in full color down to fine scales in heavy paper, and then you could cover most of the floor of another room in the similarly gorgeous maps of Undermountain and Skullport, and the accompanying books provide just the right level of detail on 'stocking' the whole thing without being overwhelming. It is all just terribly impressive.
Thoughts from old Waterdeep grognards?
Thoughts from old Waterdeep grognards?
