Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, Ruins of Myth Drannor was written by Ed Greenwood in three weeks and it shows. It isn’t that it is bad, but it is definitely thin. Most of the material covers the city’s history. The majority of the region is broadly drawn, a sort of campaign sandbox, with details amounting to a collection of monster lairs. There’s also a lot (too much) detail on the mythals, a Forgotten Realms specific magic quirk that changes regional magic use. Mythals are introduced here, but soon after every damn place in the Realms has one. I hate mythals.

The phaerim also get a lot of attention. These monsters are bonkers, weird flying lampreys with human arms (though meant to be scary, they rather remind me of the weird green dude from the American covers of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy paperbacks). They’re in an awful lot of the art and, honestly, the art is my favorite part – what the hell is going on there? Everything is flying, reality seems to constantly be warping. It looks like a wild time in Myth Drannor going by the art and the text struggles to keep up.

It IS weird though, in a fun and interesting way that a lot of Forgotten Realms material isn’t. I just wish there was more, especially considering the thickness of the box.

Fun fact: the release of this box coincided with the release of the SSI videogame Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor, my favorite of the series.

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