This is different.  Stephan Surratt’s Elfland: Beyond the Fields We Know is a combination solo journaling guide and a toolbox for a Dungeon Crawl Classics judge to take characters into the realm of the Fey.  As I’ve been experimenting with solo games lately, I was glad to find the former aspect built into this little booklet.

It begins with a two page spread of questions and follow-ups that direct you to various parts of the book, so you can explore various prompts for your journaling.  As I did a quick spin through these questions, I was struck by how this might be a cool way of creating a character.  Perhaps, if you were looking to add a higher level character to your DCC game, you could pass this to a player and see how they come out on the other side.

It uses maps by Dyson Logos, which apparently there’s some online backlash about, but I have no problem with.  His maps are clear and well crafted, and the fact that so many are available to use, free of charge, is marvelous for indie creators.  Sure, I suppose, if you buy every indie module and zine out there and you start to see some of them used again and again, I can imagine the repetition might be a problem.  But I don’t buy enough, much less run or play enough, for it to make a bit of difference.  The art is a mixed bag of black & white line work, but generally it’s good.  Some of it is very evocative, which I think is what you want from the art in an RPG book.  

Though my initial inclination does not take me in the direction of running a Fey centered game, much less one that transports the group to Elfland, I can also see how it would be fun.  And I now have several other books, some for DCC, some not, that would compliment this.  So, it’s a welcome addition to my toolbox.  It also has some creatures and items that could easily be useful, even if you didn’t use the rest of the book.  I’m already contemplating having the Blade of Grass show up in my next session. 

This is what you want in a DCC supplement.  It’s a lot of gameable material in a small package.  Certainly, if Elfland and the Fey are something you’re likely to put in your game, you should pick this up.  And if you want to do a bit of solo journaling, this has you covered.  I’m not sure that it would make for a very long solo journaling game, but it would probably have some replay value.

You can see my unboxing video here.

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