Heartless Princess is a box of zines. The very sturdy box looks like it maybe is meant to be for handmade candies, perhaps, or maybe bath products. That it is decorated with a stamp, the title hand written with silver marker and the box lined with rolling matrices pasted in, is absolutely delightful. The ten zines inside are wrapped in covers bearing collage art that adds the DIY feel of the box while also establishing a patchwork quality to the world they detail.

That world is the Icy City, which thematically rhymes with the Rainy City. The Icy City is the abode of the Heartless Princess, who, when the universe ended, used her power to save what she could, which she stitched together into a patchwork world. The remains of what she did not save, or rejected, form the surrounding galaxy. So you have a strange city, a strange world and a strange cosmos, the last of which explicitly evokes the charms of Spelljammer.

This universe is primarily sketched out through adventures, though a few of the zines are dedicated to toolkits to modify or add to existing D&D 5E rules. The adventures assume you’re using D&D 5E as well – though conceptually advanced, the material is meant for beginning players. Which is great! Usually introductory material is painfully generic. It is heartening to see beginning material that fuses truly weird ideas from Spelljammer and Planescape for newcomers – it really changes the parameters for what new folks see as being possible in RPGs. Easily the most interesting 5E material I’ve come across to date.

Its so casually weird! The princess doesn’t have a heart because she had to take it out to sort of act as the lodestone for the rest of the world and it is right there, acting as a viaduct for the Icy City’s water supply and, because her essence lingers in the water, the population of the city is more disposed towards her rule than they otherwise might be. Literal brain washing. And, of course, there is an adventure set in the heart. It is great.