The Game Master's Book of Instant Towns and Cities by Jeff Ashworth

The Game Master's Book of Instant Towns and Villages provides GMs with all of the inspiration they need to conjure up unique, vivid urban environments at a moment's notice, or when trying to come up with ideas for new places to be explored. This game-saving collection brings together nearly 170 fully-realized places organized by environment and divided up into villages, towns, cities and capitals, so that when players are trudging through a dangerous swamp, unrelenting desert or stormy coastline and need to find shelter, they can stumble upon a fully realised settlement, elven enclave or dwarven mining camp, without requiring any development in advance on the part of the game master. At its core, this book works a bit like the bestselling Game Master's Book of Non-Player Characters, but instead of providing information about the people one might meet, Instant Towns and Cities provides sketches of urban centers which can act as on-demand solutions to unexpected needs (ex. the characters need to find a physician right away and head for the nearest town, which until now, the GM had not developed) or as concepts that inspire entire adventure story arcs, depending on the party’s (or the GM's) wants or needs. Each location is packed with interesting people to meet, locations to explore and story hooks to investigate (or avoid!). It's a problem-solving tool unlike any other, certain to take the pressure off game masters who find themselves in need of a creative solution for urban areas at any time in any location.