Rackham Vale is a truly delightful microsetting for old school gaming enthusiasts. Inspired by the fanciful, fairy-like and quasi-dream-like art of Arthur Rackham, the developers have created a setting with many weird and interesting creatures, places and mini-factions for a party to encounter. Creatures and locations are well designed. Useful and thematically consistent random tables are provided to help the Referee create a breathing instantiation of the Rackham Vale. Monsters are designed less as a typical bag-o-hitPoints, and more as encounters in the truest sense: they exist, have peculiar aspects, have motivations, etc. I've run my players through Rackham Vale for several sessions to great effect. My only large complaint is that this microsetting is a well fleshed-out framework for a setting and that the Referee must do additional work to bring it to life. While this is acceptable, accomplishing this task would have been much easier if the setting map were presented with a grid and keys to facilitate the population of the the Vale. While I really love the fanciful nature of the map, it is a bit of an abstraction and a more concretized map would be useful, if not necessary. I ended up spending too much time overlaying a hex grid on the map and adding details: something I would have much preferred to have been done for me.

My score: 90/100

Ran this setting for some friends at a bachelorette party and we all had a blast. It's easily one of my favorite products I own and dovetails nicely with either a Dolemwood or Midderlands campaign.

I got the hardcover of this book from exalted funeral. A very beautiful and well crafted book. the art is spetacular (obvious, Rackham was a master) all in color, and it has a lot of interesting interpretations of the monsters and locations in it. For a fairy rich campaign, it is a great resource. The stats are for OSE, great B/X system. The PDF is very well made, it's hyperlinked and the pdf works well on PC.

Rackham Vale is a mini-sandbox setting for Old School Essentials RPG inspired by fairy tale illustrations of the victorian artist Arthur Rackham. It is chokfull of informations about the titular valley as well as its denizens and creatures. There are new monsters with some fun abilities as well as plenty of random tables that will help spice up your game. I loved the art style and a whimsical yet occasionally dark tone. But what I enjoyed even more as a Game Master is the way most of the elements within this setting tie together. Some monsters and groups work together, while others hate each othert. No matter what your adventurers decide to do, they will inevitably stir up trouble, creating fun and adventure in the process.

My only complain about Rackham Vale is the lack of a printer-friendly version. Since the pages have background colors (mostly grays), printing them out is a bit more expensive. Which is a shame, because I would have loved to print the PDF for my own use as a A5 booklet.

This is a lovely setting. The artwork and design are superb. A great feeling of English folklore spun into something new. Interesting places and encounters. Very little extraneous information that isn't usable at the game table.

This was a zine quest kickstarter, but it is no zine. It is a 154 pages of Old-School Essentials awesome. If you're looking for a location that has an old-English feel to it, then this should work quite well for you. Alternatively, you can easily mine it for useful bits, such as the rules for mercury poisoning, or the interesting monsters.

I have the physical copy from the kickstarter (which is a hefty "zine") and it is a bit monochromatic, but I'm sure it was done to manage the cost. Fortunately the PDF maintains the original artwork colors. Though, I did have to knock it one star because the PDF has only two bookmarks (one for the title page, and one for the back cover). If the author updates it at some point with useful bookmarks, then I'd be happy to update my rating.

UPDATE: The V2 version of the PDF includes usable bookmarks. There is a bit of funkiness with the bookmarks under the bestiary, but everything appears to be listed and it is deserving of all five stars. Great work by the team involved.