Review & Commentary OnThe Free OSR resource ' From the Vats' From Necrotic Gnome Productions For Your Old School Campaigns

There are books that players are going to hate to see the DM having and know that the PC's are going to be in for a hell of a weirdly strange trip and well get ready for that with this free rpg resource!
 From The Vats was just birthed! The vivimancer.was first introduced in 'Pay What You Want' title

Theorems & Thaumaturgy which your going to need in order to properly use 'From The Vats'. I consider it one of the essential books for Labyrinth Lord or any retroclone game. 

Grab It Right Over HERE

Each year free RPG day gives birth to some wonderfully twisted strange creation that sort of defies convention. There are really wonderfully strange OSR books that come out from time to time and then there are books that you have to have if your a certain kind of DM. Those books that leap right into your lap. Deformed, mewing and sort of like the baby thing from Eraser Head. Wailing this thing wants, no needs you to use it. Well, 'From The Vats' is that thing with genetically engineered bells on.  I have over the years spent way,way too much time with Necotic Gnome Production's creations over the years and this one is no exception.  This book is an eighty four page tour de force about the abominations, creations, and high weirdness of the vivimancer class, a magic-user sub-class specializing in flesh-warping, genetic meddling, neural manipulation, and vat growth. These guys give mad scientists nightmares or genetic drift envy. There are two adventures here. The Submerged Spire of Sarpedon the Shaper, by Ben Laurence is a look into stomach churning journey into the world of a particularly nasty vivimancer. The maps are very nice, the ideas, setting material, monsters, and goals are very nicely laid out. The two one-page adventures by Alex Schröder and Anders Hedenbjörk Lager take the themes of the book and expand them further and twist the material into other directions. The three adventures within the book are  plug and play allowing them to be dropped anywhere into the background of your campaign. In point of fact these creations have a strange sort of universal appeal about them many of the things in From the Vats would fit a wide variety of campaigns from pulp, science fiction,sword and sorcery, fantasy, science fantasy, and even post apocalyptic material. In point of fact this whole book could be dropped right into your favorite Advanced Mutants & Mazes campaign for Mutant Future and not one person would be the wiser.

Holy crap the monsters are meant for Labyrinth Lord but with a little tweaking would give an OSRIC or AD&D party a hard time and these things are straight up adventurer nightmare fuel. Seriously these things are horrors from beyond the vats of nightmare. These things could be used in a science fantasy game and not one person would bat an eye at their use. This is one of the strengths of these creatures. They would also fit right into the background of a sword and sorcery campaign or a pulp campaign this is again one of the basis of evil that is From The Vats.
Look if you already haven't stopped reading and grabbed this book let me go on. The seven magic items are perfectly suited for this book and these things are perfect for wrecking the lives of PC's and making the vivimancer spasm with glee. A bit of warning, use these things sparingly as many of the magic items are life altering things that one might find within the lab of some of the most dangerous members of this class.
The six new magic spells are especially tasty and give the DM even more sauce to get the maxium flavor for the meal of From The Vat. These are very well done and can be vary dangerous to the well being of PC's and are of great use to the vivimancer. The magic here is bold, dangerous, and borders on things man wasn't meant to know.
Many of the things within the 'From the Vat' dove tale into the vivimancer PC  book The Complete Vivimancer 

Much of that material supports and expands many of the elements, themes, setting material presented in 'From The Vats'. The Complete Vivimancer goes into far greater detail into the back setting of the PC class. Filling in many of the gaps and what have you presented in Theorems & Thaumaturgy.

All in all this is one of the best books that I've seen released for the Free RPG day weekend. And its amazing that this book has been released into the wild for free. This is easily a five out of five book for From The Vats. Grab this one right now and don't wait.