First bundle of the year - Midderlands

[ffutures]

This is a "grim, green, grime-smeared old-school campaign setting from MonkeyBlood Design," set in a parody fantasy world based very loosely on the British Midlands, and drawing on sources that might possibly include Monty Python, Fungus the Bogeyman, etc.:

Midderlands

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Midderlands

This all-new Midderlands Bundle presents The Midderlands, the grim, green, grime-smeared old-school campaign setting from MonkeyBlood Design. Designed by ENnie-winning writer-artist-cartographer Glynn Seal, the Midderlands setting is a green-hued, dark-fantasy, late-Middle Ages, early-Renaissance land based on Glynn's home in the United Kingdom, the Midlands. Many Midderlands locations are grounded in reality, others pure fantasy from the designer's fevered imagination. This atmospheric (not to say fetid) sandbox setting adapts easily to any Old School Revival rules set such as Old-School Essentials, Swords & Wizardry, and many other Dungeons & Dragons retroclones, or you can add any of the horrific Midderlands monsters, weird locations, and beautiful maps to your own campaign. (The sewers. We recommend the sewers.)

In central Havenland an area known as the Midderlands is tainted by a green-hued menace that affects nature and order. It rises from the mysterious subterranean realm known as Middergloom, a hell bathed in green fire and flames. Green-tinged slime, noxious vapors, and miasmas of "Gloomium" creep to the surface, bringing viridian-colored demons, lime-green tentacles, and other malachite horrors to wreak havoc. Among the towns and hamlets, the woods and hills, the lakes and rivers are stranger locales: circles of stones, strange towers, castles, burial grounds. Here there are many intriguing things to lure inquisitive treasure seekers, and many dangerous things that intend to keep the treasures where they are.

The Midderlands setting represents a shining (well, dimly luminous) example in RPGs of authentic regionalism. Glynn Seal called it "an area I know well. In terms of campaign area, it is small – approximately 45 miles by 35 miles – which allows for a feeling of close ties and for the actions of the player characters to have tangible influence. I have been to Haven's End, Ill Faircombe, Blymouth, Great Lunden, Windsour, Caer Oldenwale, Bellthorp – the list goes on." The realistic treatment of Midderlands locations (each town has a particular industry or trade, which informs conflicts across the region) – the believable ecosystem of monsters (trolls live peacefully under bridges and avoid trouble unless attacked) – the plethora of local detail (legends, rivalries, delicacies) – all this gives the Midderlands a grounded feeling unusual in RPG settings. Matt Finch, designer of Swords & Wizardry, said, "[The Midderlands] as a small-area campaign supplement is the best I've ever seen, displacing Dave Arneson's Blackmoor First Fantasy Campaign area, which up until now – and that's decades – has been my favorite."

In an in-depth Fantasy-Faction review of The Midderlands and The Midderlands Expanded (Oct 2018), Richard Marpole – who later contributed several supplements to the line – thought the setting will feel familiar to UK natives: "The Midderlands books are written in a casual and occasionally sweary style that does sometimes wax poetic, particularly when talking about lime-green tentacles, viridian demons and the like. This style suits the oddball weirdness of the setting pretty well. [...] There's a wry, downbeat, off-kilter humor on display that is as quintessentially English as the landscapes it draws on.

"For true Brits the experience of reading these books is like a guessing game: You decode names, spot references to towns, tales and customs you've heard of or visited, and wonder if others were just invented by the author. [...] The Midderlands books will be a very different experience for readers who haven't lived in the British Isles, England in particular. (No amount of British TV will prepare you for the Midderlands experience.) I imagine it will seem a lot stranger and more exotic, with some customs and tales seeming quite random and inexplicable – all the better for a lover of fantasy."

This all-new offer presents almost the entire Midderlands line for an unbeatable bargain price. We provide each title complete in .PDF. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) of this Midderlands offer is split between the two United Kingdom charities designated by Midderlands designer Glynn Seal, the British Heart Foundation and Macmillan Cancer Support.

The total retail value of the titles in this Midderlands Bundle is US$130. Customers who pay just US$14.95 get all three titles (retail price $20 each) in our Starter Collection (retail value $60) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Midderlands OSR Setting, Midderlands Expanded, and City of Great Lunden.

Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $29.95 to start, also get our entire Bonus Collection with seven more supplements and adventures worth an additional $70, including Adventures in Great Lunden (retail price $15), Fighting Folk of the Haven Isles (retail $19), Folk Magic of the Haven Isles (retail price $8), Bats of Saint Abbans (retail $11), Chewer of Fingers (retail $8), Behind the Walls (retail $6), and Rivers and Lakes (retail $3).

This probably isn't something I want to run, given my general dislike of fantasy settings and the "Old School Revival" tropes in particular. If that isn't a problem for you it could be fun if you can manage the weird regional accents and general air of gloom and despair. Presentation is very good, and for once the art-work of the main rulebook avoids depicting characters completely - only one human is shown (dying horribly) in more than 200 pages. The source book for Lunden shows more, a gallery of grotesques where even the Queen appears to be distorted (although nobody dares mention it), and a lot of fantasy tropes and authors are parodied. The pricing seems reasonable, and if you like this sort of thing it's probably worth taking a look.