We thank Afterlight Comics for sending us the three Tales Unbound decks, which we will talk about in this review.

You can find them on their official website at the price of £19 each in English only. Plus, if you sign up for their newsletter for the first time, you’ll receive a 15% discount on your first order.

The decks are presented as a tool to help masters who want to use monsters and legends from popular folklore from different countries to liven up their sessions. Let’s see how this is possible.

Tales Unbound Review: What Is It?

You’ve decided to set your campaign in an old-school fantasy world, drawing heavily from folk tales of times gone by. But what culture should you draw inspiration from? Sure, there are recurring creatures and monsters. Even so, however, there are differences that distinguish them from their cousins ​​from other countries.

This is where the Tales Unbound decks come in handy. Afterlight Comics has created three different sets of cards for three different popular cultures: British Folklore (blue deck), Slavic Folklore (green deck), and American Folklore (red deck). This gives us the best of local legends in the palm of our hands, differentiated depending on where we want to set our story. 50 cards for each geographic area will help us delve into their more rural beliefs. Let’s see how to make the most of them.

Using the Cards

Each different deck, as previously mentioned, contains 50 different cards, divided as follows:

• 20 Opening Action Card: they represent the setting in which the adventure will take place and the initial situation in which we find ourselves through a description.
• 20 Encounter Card: we will meet one of the monsters of that country’s tradition.
• 10 Twist Card: the turning point and possible epilogue of our story.

Before starting our campaign, we’ll draw a card from each deck to create the framework for our story. At the bottom of each card, there will be a couple of suggestions for progressing to the next stage, opening up several possibilities. We can obviously make any changes we want, though the help we get from them will be useful in setting up our new adventure.

Tales Unbound Monsters Review

Let’s look at some practical examples of creatures we might include in our stories. In North America, we’ll meet the Wendigo. Long feared by Native Americans, it’s a creature with demonic traits and the form assumed by some humans who practised cannibalism. In Slavic legends, we might encounter a Boggart. As a domestic spirit, it can be very helpful, but is often given to mischief. And how about a face-to-face encounter with a Wulver, a mostly benevolent creature from British mythology, with a wolf’s head and a human body?

On the front of the card we will find an illustration that will immediately give us an idea of ​​our encounter, while on the back we will find the powers and habits of the beings in more detail.

Conclusions

Useful for aspiring masters, writers seeking inspiration, or as a simple storytelling exercise, Tales Unbound presents itself as a well of information for all lovers of tradition and legends from various cultures. Of course, given the large number of countries and different beliefs, the project can be widely updated with new decks inspired by the most varied types of folklore.

The illustrations, edited by Perci22 and comic-style, they’re simple but impactful. The cards, measuring 6.5 cm x 9 cm, are well-made, but purists will probably want to sleeve them. Joseph Oliveira has created a useful product for those who need an extra boost in their stories.

If you enjoyed this Tales Unbound review, we recommend you keep following us for more exciting roleplaying game accessories!