The fact this product is free blows my mind. Easily worth the suggested $14.99, probably more. I spent the last few days reading this bit by bit and I enjoyed every moment. Fantastic work from an incredible author. If you haven't checked out Anne's other work over on DM's Guild you should. The Apocalypse Book in particular is amazing.

Something Anne does beautifully in various works is immediatly pull you into the world she has created, and Velea is no exception. With powerful strains drawn from old faeries stories, surrealism, art noveau, Shakespeare, and with a splash of old rotoscope films from Ralph Bakshi, Aaralyn's Stolen Notes from Velea punts you into a beautiful and fully realized world.

First, we open with the worldbook portion of this amazing treatise, fully investing you in the storybook-like quality of Velea, but also roots you in the integral planar and political struggles of the archipelago. Then we carry into the new lore for races within Velea, and onto new class options. Here, for me, the Path of the War Singer shines - you get to be a barbarian and roar and sing and shout epic tales and valorous encouragement to your companions, and the amazing variety of war songs makes you now much more diverse and useful as a barbarian.

Then we get into new background options - and then my favorite section: the Worlds Beyond. Any setting that works in alternate dimensions, an overflowing cosmology, and interesting planar system is immediatly getting my stamp of approval as it adds so many more layers to a setting, and with the diverse one that Anne has created in Velea, the Worlds Beyond chapter is more frosting on this delectible cake.

Overall, this setting book does so much in 133 pages that other books fail to do in 300 or 400. I will meet you all in Velea, probably strolling the streets of Amberton.

Comics, Clerics, & Controllers d20 Roll: Nat 20

I initially downloaded this just to take a look at the additional races/classes, to see if they would fix my homebrew setting that I've only just recently started working on. I had my adventure set in an archipelago, and was going to start on a ship heading there, from a continent which I hadn't decided on. I also hadn't thought much about anything of the rest of the world.

After reading only 13 pages of this document, I have reworked my ideas to fit into your world, as I love it. (I have now readaboutathirdThe story behind the four continents. The brief history section is absolutely fantastic. Extremely interesting backstory to the world, but not so extensive that it restricts me, and gives me too much to remember. I can fill in the gaps on my own, making it my own version of your world. I'm absolutely entranced so far. Not only the story, but the naming conventions. I particularly struggle with thinking up names for locations, and all the of your names are wonderful - the continents, countries, and cities are what I have seen so far, and they seem easy enough for me to pronounce, but wonderous enough to be from a fantasy realm.

I'm still going to have the campaign starting in my own set of islands, but now they're going to be in the middle of a trade route between Velea and Uawei, essentially used for pit stops. (Going to have a smuggling of slaves from Velea to Uawei plot going on, probably involving a vampire and your dhampir race. You've given me so much inspiration!) then I'll be excited to get my players exploring Velea, once I have a good understanding of it.

One piece of constructive feedback I do have is a slight naming mistake I noticed on page 94. At the top right, under "Cardinal Origin Features" for the Sorcerer, it says 1st level freatures are Dark Ideals, Bonus Cantrips; then 6h Level Corrupt Embodiment. The actual descriptions of Corrupt Embodient and Dark Ideals have the levels reverse though. Now a huge issue, but would be nice if it were fixed for my slightly pedantic side.

Keep up the writing and your amazing storytelling.

Edit: Slight update as I have read more and managed to make a payment for it. You definitely deserve more than I could pay.

Downloaded for free, read a third of it and decided too much work went into this to not pay for it. This is fantastically put together and even if you don't run this setting, most of the player options should work in any campaign! Solid material right here and the production values are stellar.

The cover art piqued my interest, but I wasn't sure about it, so I grabbed this for zero dollars to check it out. I quickly discovered that this book deserves the recommended amount and then some. What you get here is a full-on professional-level setting book full of everything you might want from a new WotC supplement, plus some stuff even WotC hasn't tried yet: a richly drawn campaign setting with a calendar and a history and a reason to adventure, new equipment (grappling hook arrows!), new magic items, new feats, new subclasses, new planes... And ALL of it is laid out just like an official 5e book, including the subtle characterful touches like notes from in-fiction characters!

The setting itself is really cool, with a nice Renaissance vibe and an admirable commitment to cosmopolitanism. It's idiosyncratic and smartly designed, and admirably geared toward use at the table. The new backgrounds and items and such hook into the setting nicely; everything here is solid and considered. Even the public domain artwork is skillfully deployed. I would never have guessed that this was primarily the work of a single DM if I hadn't read the credits. Really impressive work - if I were WotC, I'd be on the phone with this person offering her a job tomorrow.

Finances are tight for me right now, so I only paid $5, but the book is absolutely worth ten bucks. Buy it!