At first I was expecting some kind of weird flowery language due to the review that claimed the writing was filled with "purple prose". That's not true at all and I think the writing is perfectly appropriate. After a read-through of Castles & Crusades Aihrde Fantasy Campaign Setting, I can tell this is exactly the type of fantasy setting I like. Aside from a few OSR titles, it's almost impossible to find RPG games and settings that are not trying to dismantle the norms that make fantasy fiction and gaming so wonderful to experience in the first place. There seems to be a constant push to put a twist on the tried and true formulas. The result is usually not a twist, but more of a perversion. I detect no perversion here, nor any heresy (lol), just good wholesome fantasy. With this title, Chenault's fantasy world-building paints an epic picture of a world that is complete with creation myths, the history of many civilizations and a vast multi-species political tug-of-war across the lands of Aihrde. In short, it's super cool and I give it 5 stars!

Though full of embarassingly purple prose (with many cringe-inducing passages) as well as a troublesome number of spelling errors, After Winter's Dark is not as bad as one might imagine it to be at first glance. Most importantly, the product fills a niche that few campaign settings do in this day and age -- that of the Third-Party Vanilla Fantasy Setting. Bear with me. . .

I looked at dozens of other third-party fantasy setting products over the past three weeks and this is the ONLY one I could find that didn't attempt to introduce some new race, new magic system, or new take on demi-human races that ran contrary to the core rules of the Dungeons & Dragons. I can use this setting, as-is, with ANY edition of Dungeons & Dragons (for the record, I do not play Castles & Crusdaes, though this isn't an issue as Aihrde is refreshingly devoid of mechanics).

While the aforementioned purple prose can certainly make reading this product difficult at times, it is a good system-neutral setting that is 100% vanilla in nature. For those of us who just want basic, old school, High Fantasy without new 'twists' or otherwise intrusive details that run contrary to system assumptions made in D&D, Aihrde is a winner.