A Quick Vornheim Review

- The layout (and especially the black borders) make me feel like I'm reading a 90s-era newsprint hardcore zine; when I'm flipping the pages I'm half expecting to see ads for Bovine Records and Capitalist Casualties seven-inches or interviews with Rorschach, Dystopia and Assuck.

- The general vibe of the material really makes me think of Fairy Tales; the surreal fucking Fairy Tales that exists in a never-was Victorian-Medieval Dreatime. As Talysman pointed out in a discussion on the Hill Cantons regarding what era D&D is set in, it can be argued that D&D takes place in the anachronistic, iconic world of Fairy Tales. For some reason I imagine the city of Vornheim as a Dreamlands analogue of Prague.

- It's an innovative product, but it shouldn't be; that not an indictment of Vornheim but of what RPG products are generally produced. Vornheim is full of flavorful, useful and inspiring proceedural D&D tools and random tables; and it's a damn shame that more books like this haven't been produced.

- There's less art than I expected.

- It's appropriate that LOTFP is publishing this, as it's definitely a sibling to Carcosa (and the whole Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Kalibrun, Arduin, Cinder, etc. tradition); notes and materials developed in a DMs campaign presented as a palatte of resources (note that to me Carcosa is a kickass campaign setting BUT ALSO an amazing DMs toolkit).

- ...D&D mohawks... *sigh* ...however that's one of the best D&D depictions of a flail I've ever seen.

- I would have likes grid-lines of some kind for the "hand tables," just for the sake of "less visual/mental processing cycles."

Overall it's something I find theoretically useful as well as entertaining and inspiring; I rate Vornheim 1 Slaughter "Strappado."

EDITs:

1 - A reference to Telecanter's Receding Rules! Awesome.
2 - I sure didn't describe what's actually inside the book; good thing the press release covers that.
3 - The Maggot Naga pretty much demands statistics.