The folks from The Maniculum Podcast sent me a preview of their Kickstarter project Marginal Worlds.  No other compensation was made for my review.  If it sounds interesting, check out the Kickstarter, which should be live when this review is posted. 

Created by Medieval historians and podcasters Mac Boyle and Zoe Franznick, Marginal Worlds is a set of fifty cards, with a guide book to accompany them.  Though generally system neutral, some items do have D&D 5e stats provided in an appendix. 

If you’ve been on the internet, you’ve seen examples of the weird, sometimes surreal images that appeared in the margins of various Medieval texts.  Unusual rabbits, sinister snails, cats with upsetting faces, that sort of thing.  This set of magic item cards celebrates that weirdness and gives your players a chance to have fun with them.

I hadn’t looked at more than a few cards before I was smiling, thinking about the tomfoolery my players might get into if I dropped the Dancing Buckle or Howling Helmet on them.  Continuing through the cards, I found numerous items that would be fun little add-ons to a treasure chest or objects to quest for (or to quest in order to get rid of).  Some items are quite powerful, while others are simply weird.  One of my favorites is the Drunken Awl, which I would LOVE to put into the hands of a thief and see what kind of trouble they might find together.  All are presented with an image by Soojin Paek, in the style of Medieval marginalia, and a brief player-friendly description.  The guide book gives GM-focused advice, with suggestions of how to use it in ways that may shock and amuse players.

As mentioned, there are stats in an appendix for items where it’s appropriate.  However, in the main body of the text, they are described in a way that makes them very adaptable to whatever system you might use.  My first thought was that they’d be great fun in either Pendragon (as I write this, 6th Ed should be releasing any day) or Ars Magica (a new and improved version of the 5th Ed. is supposed to be coming soon).  Both games are already set in fantastical versions of Medieval Europe.  Officially, too.  Not just Medieval Europe as filtered through Tolkien and a bunch of Hollywood movies, with some Orcs thrown in for good measure.  Yet, there is so much potential for your more FantasyLand ™ games, like D&D’s various settings or one of my personal favorites, Dungeon Crawl Classics.  The further in I got, the more I started nodding my head.  Yes.  Many of these items will be finding their way into my future DCC games.  I may modify a thing here or there, but they’ll be waiting for the PCs.  Oh, yes.  They’ll be waiting. 

Check out the Maniculum Podcast here, where they talk about Medievalism and tabletop RPGs. 

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