Bundle of Holding: Hyperborea 3E

First released in 2012, North Wind Adventures’ Hyperborea is now in its third edition, and appears to be going from strength to strength. It is also the subject of the latest Bundle of Holding. This is one of their single-tier bundles which features fewer items at a single price. In this case, it’s $12.95, which gets you the following items:

• Player and Referee Manuals
• Atlas of Hyperborea
• The Late Trapper’s Lament
• Referee Screen

This edition boasts significant improvements over the previous one. There’s loads of new artwork, and better page and layout design, especially when it comes to important and informative sections like character classes. The whole thing is just more polished than we were used to from 2E.

The main items here are obviously the Player and Referee handbooks, which lay out the rules of the game. The game itself is based on the first edition of AD&D, making it compatible with other retroclones. This is cool, because not only do you have the combined 650 pages of content from these two handbooks, but a wealth of material from other titles from which you can also draw.

The Atlas of Hyperbora is what it sounds like; a book of maps of the setting (hexes for days, son!), and The Late Trapper’s Lament is a low-level adventure, giving new players and referees a place to start out. I find these small, official adventures really useful for seeing an example of tone in a given game; an idea of what the writers were really thinking in terms of the types of adventure that fit the game and setting.

There’s also a referee screen. I don’t care. I’m not a fan of GM screens being added to digital bundles. It usually feels lazy and pointless. Whatever.

All in all, a cool bundle. The price is really reasonable, representing a good saving. This isn’t a sprawling bundle with loads of content, but is a nice, self-contained wee game. Personally, I don’t think it’s for me, as I’m not really an OSR guy. If I were, this is a polished entry into that genre, and probably worth a punt.

You can click here to visit the bundle page over at Bundle of Holding.