Looking back at the early days of the RPG hobby, it’s a bit surprising how few Dungeons & Dragons adventures took place in large cities. Sure, there were little towns and villages like Hommlet or the Keep on the Borderlands. But they were primarily intended for rumors (adventure seeds), loot selling, and gearing-up the party.

Large urban sprawls as campaign-spanning adventuring locales – with as many locations as a megadungeon – occupied only a small corner of the hobby. TSR itself would not publish such a large city setting until The City of Greyhawk in 1989

Judges Guild filled in the gap early on with the City State of the World Emperor (CSWE) and its predecessor, City State of the Invincible Overlord (CSIO). Today, we’ll take a look at the city of Viridistan, featured in the enormous (for its time) CSWE set.

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City State of the World Emperor