City of Splendors (1994) is a vastly updated and improved version of both City System and Waterdeep and the North, so long as not having forty five square feet of maps isn’t a deal breaker for you.

There is less street by street detail here, but that’s fine, because if City System didn’t exist, you’d never notice it was missing. What you have here is a thorough reckoning of the City of Waterdeep in terms that are of use for players and dungeon masters alike.

Info is split among three books and a booklet. The first, and biggest, is the campaign guide, which gives an overview of the city, its lords, new magic and all the sorts of general detail you’d expect (it boasts the cover art from Waterdeep and the North, with our good friend Xanathar, too).  The Who’s Who runs down notable people and organizations, while the Adventurer’s Guide presents details for players and the Secrets booklet is full of just that. This is a box that feels just right – it gives me both enough detail and enough questions marks for me to be able to run a campaign with it.

Valerie Valusek does the interior art and I quite like the woodcut style works well for the book, I think. She’s no Stephen Fabian, alas, but who aside of Stephen Fabian is? There are, of course, some oddball details in the box (it could hardly be a FR product without at least one), in this case, the maps, two of which are photographs of a large scale model someone built. I can’t find a clear credit for who was responsible for it, but I think I would like to shake their hand.