Goddamned Volume One Curse. This is Atlas of the Young Kingdoms, Vol 1: The Northern Continents (1996), the first of a projected four volumes of sourcebooks dedicated to the Young Kingdoms. It’s the only one to hit shelves.
Admittedly, this is the sort of book in a line that I am generally least interested in, especially given that I have little prospect of running the game. It’s greatest value for me would probably be as a companion should I ever decided to re-read the Moorcock novels again. I don’t honestly recall who most of the NPCs detailed here are at the moment, but if I were reading the books, I’d like to see how the illustrators interpreted them (this is the primary appeal of Goodman Games’ Empire of the East, for example).
At least they started with the book that contains Tanelorn, the city of Balance that exists in all realities and is, cosmologically, the most important location in the Young Kingdoms. It isn’t terribly exciting, though, because, you know, Balance. Yawn. Pan Tang and the Island of Screaming Statues wouldn’t have shown up until volume four, though, so this was probably the best we were ever going to get.
Lori Deitrick does the interiors and while I don’t dislike them, I do think they are sort of muted and not quite evoking the vibes I want, which dampens my interest a bit. Dan Day’s cover Elric looks ill. Which, fair, really.
If you build formal city walls between you and then deeply useful river/bay, you are ABSOLUTELY going to have an informal city / series of dock yards to map in another ten years, once humans set up shops out of normal human ideas like convenience and distance-to-location. I know the map says ‘only major streets shown’ but this would be a whole district left blank.