Herbalist’s Primer Unboxing & First Impressions

Chris actually backed this when it first launched on Kickstarter as a Valentine’s day gift for me, so I’m super excited that the book and backer rewards finally arrived. I decided to write up a first impressions blog post and share a few pictures.

Herbalist Primer Unboxing Video

If you’re in a hurry you can watch the 4-minute YouTube unboxing video, because we know we all live busy lives.

WATCH: UNBOXING HERBALIST’S PRIMER KICKSTARTER REWARDS

Herbalist’s Primer First Impressions

Herbalist's Primer by Anna Urbanek hardcover book with floral cover

For anyone who may just now be hearing about the Herbalist’s Primer, it is an illustrated guide to real-world magical plants for magicians, worldbuilders, alchemists, and game masters. This is definitely a book that can be used for a variety of things, from TTRPGs to foraging.

If you watch the unboxing video it will focus more on the primer’s uses in TTRPGS and gaming. The cover artwork on every single item is exceptionally beautiful. Each entry into the Herbalist’s Primer takes up two pages, the first being an illustration, again amazingly done, and the second being information about each plant.

Herbalist's Primer Chamomile page image and text

So if we look at an entry like chamomile, we get the scientific name as well as other names it goes by such as mother’s daisy. There’s also a little quick description of each plant, that describes it and lists some symbolic things associated with it.

Then you get into the really cool stuff, where it goes into where you can commonly find each plant in the wild. As well as what type of conditions they grow and wither in.

Then for anyone interested in foraging, you have a section about how properly prepare the plant to create things like teas, infused oils, and other products. There’s actually a color-coded guide that shows what has medicinal, protective, edible, psychoactive, and poisonous properties.

Herbalist’s Notebook

In addition to the book, we also have the Herbalist’s Notebook. This is really cool because you can use it to create your own Herbarium or adventure notebook.

There are pages where you can place preserved plants, you’ve found as well as their properties and uses. I think this would be really cool for a Druid-type character to use, to keep track of plants that might be in a fantasy world to add to the immersion of a campaign.

There are also some dotted pages, with cute plant illustrations toward the end which again is a nice touch for journaling.

Song of the Hedge

One of the bonus backer rewards we got was also a one-shot adventure, where the party wakes up as mice, Song of the Hedge.

There’s everything you would pretty much need to run a one-shot with any TTRPG system.

Which is something I like, and hope we’ll get a chance to run it because not being limited to any one system with stat blocks really lets you have full control.

Herbalist’s Flash Cards

Picture of the flash cards provided with the Herbalist's Primer kickstarter rewards. Flash cards show plants like basil and all spice pictured.

Another backer reward was Herbalist’s Flashcards. I’m already in love with these cards, just after opening the box.

The artwork again it’s stunning, and I can’t say that enough about all of these items, they look really nice. The cards have the same illustrations as the Herbalist’s Primer and show the different parts of each plant.

The backs of the cards also have the same color-coded properties and uses-guide as the book. Obviously, on a playing card, the descriptions are a lot shorter to fit the space. The text can be a little hard to read, I wear glasses and really have to squint without them to see some of the text. However, if you don’t mind that the cards are still really cool.

Final Thoughts While Unboxing

herbalist's primer, herbalist's notebook, herbalist's flash cards, song of the hedge adventure.

I really love all the artwork the quality is amazing in that regard. I do think that both the Herbalist’s Primer and the flashcards can work great without the other. TTRPG players and GMs may just want the cards for the magical and other properties information.

Game devs and anyone with an interest in writing and building fantasy worlds may want to get the book because it has A LOT of information that can be used in a variety of ways. You can also just get both and have options. I personally can’t wait to really dive into every little detail in the primer and the one-shot adventure.