Saturday, May 16, 2020

Oblivium Review


You had me at Twelve Demon Satchel...

Inspired by such old school gems as Carcosa, Yoon-Suin, and my own Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence, Oblivium is a campaign setting on a weird island that's meant to fuck shit up while taking no prisoners.

The author, Thomas Alexander, has created a world of insanely specific detail.  The book is 135 pages and it feels dense.  There are plenty of black and white illustrations, but I think this could have been 200 pages if laid out differently.  Personally, I like a lot of paragraph breaks, but that's a minor criticism.

Oblivium is like a gonzo inter-dimensional Ravenloft, its mist transporting individuals to a strange world where the kitchen sink is your sandbox.  Oblivium absorbs anything and everything, that's why you get magic, technology, bizarre new races (the hollow being one of my favorites), exotic locations, creatures, random tables, and new magic items.

Basically, this is like Purple Islands if Prince of Nothing flamboyantly re-wrote it with Endzeitgeist's eye for mechanical coherence. In other words, something special, but not exactly what I, myself, would create.

Below, I'm going to give you an example of the writing...

For eons, purple rain has fallen on the petrified corpse of Lalene, Demon Prince of Lava. What was once a cone of volcanic rock has been eroded into a haunted city. Tortuous streets wind between edifices of cruel opulence. 

So, yeah... download this!  Use it with your other OSR, 5e, or whatever you already have, mine it for awesome ideas, combine it with similar campaign settings, or just all on its own.

VS

p.s. Speaking of gonzo science-fantasy, I'm down to about 150 luxurious hardcover Cha'alt books.  If you want to snag one or more before they're gone, check this out!

3 comments:

  1. Cool, I didn't know about this one. Thanks!

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  2. Just picked this up! I like it. I can see the hat tip to Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence. Good stuff!

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    1. Yeah, I'm happy Purple Islands influenced Oblivium! ;)

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