Creating the sort of complex adventures that work best in the underbelly of places like Wellstone City isn't easy, and even the most creative of GMs sometimes needs a bit of a hand, a few ideas to spark creative juices... and this product is designed to aid the process. It doesn't generate complete adventures for you, it provides some randomised 'plot highlights' for you to weave into a story that is still YOUR story and yet quintessentially one set in Wellstone City too.

Here's how it works. Grab a deck of playing cards and give it a good shuffle. Your first round of draws determines the 'inciting incident' - the event that sparks off the whole adventure to follow. It takes five cards in all, building various aspects of that incident: history and borough, perpetrators, what happened, to whom, and finally the time and location.

Once this has all been established, further draws can be made to determine the reason for the inciting incident (which may of course turn out to be more significant than the incident itself), a secondary reason, various complications and, of course, what is the reward for completing the adventure successfully. You may find that as soon as the first few cards are drawn, a whole plotline springs into life - well, run with it. Or later draws may give you ideas that do not mesh with the initial results. So what? You are not bound to the results of the draw, this is merely a tool to aid in adventure planning.

As such a tool, this is a good one dealing well with the style of adventure that fits this setting. Options open out as you read through, never mind once you get the cards out. Yes, there is still some work to be done before the adventure is ready for play, but you'll have a solid framework on which to build. A neat addition to the GM's library, whether you play the original Æther game or run it under the Savage Worlds ruleset.