I heard a lot of talk about this module on Discord and what I heard really peaked my interest so I knew I had to at least give it a read. It also just came from a successful kickstarter. I have to say reading through this adventure was an experience in itself. I was almost immediately drawn in the fluff of the adventure and as I read more there was some instances where it legitimately creeped me out at various points. I mean this in the best way possible - like in a really good horror movie get under your skin type of way and not in the trigger warning being edgy to just be edgy type of way.
As a disclaimer, I was given a PDF of this adventure for review and demo purposes. This is my first review I have done of an module and I am going to try to give a solid overview without giving any spoilers away.
System: A wizard is designed as a system agnostic fantasy/horror/OSR module. It assumes the use of hit points, armor class, saves, etc. With minor adjusts it can be used it just about any iteration of d20 system. It can also be used with non d20 games but it would take more effort to transfer over mechanical aspects of the adventure.
Premise: The party arrives at the town of Canny and during their time there they here about a wizard and they will come across a wanted poster that has the wizards face on it and a reward of 40 gold. As the characters investigate further they learn more about this wizard and will eventually get directed to the tower on the hill.
Setup: The stage of the module is a wizards tower on a hill. The tower consists of six floors and each floor has anywhere from three to six rooms. Each floor is has interesting encounters and traps and sometimes there is more then one way to get to the other floors.
There are also chances where the characters can end up in the Abyss - yep you heard that right. The Abyss! Each time the characters stumble into the abyss they have a different experience.
Flavor: This whole thing starts out as a normal town with a wizard problem and a tower on the hill. As soon as the characters enter the tower they quickly realize that something is not right. As the characters progress deeper into the adventure the more horrific it gets and the more not right it gets. It does not take anyone long to realize they are not in Kansas anymore. This adventure quickly goes from Terry Pratchett to Clive Barker. As I stated in my introduction paragraph, the horror aspects are really well done with just the right amount of make your skin crawl or the classic look away from a scene in the movie move to really give it a unique and unforgettable flavor.
I have to say the Abyss is horrific in a different way. It is scary in an alien way like if you went diving in the deep so where no light touches.
Final Thoughts: I said it once and I am going to say it again, this is the only roleplaying medium that I have read that honestly gave me the creeps (but in a good way). I will warn you with the official warning of the module itself:
"This module is gruesome. There is gore, body horror, and other disturbing content. Set boundaries with the players and allow them to set boundaries with you."
The warning is right. There is also moral decision situations that this module puts the characters in that I think is pure gold. I really wish more modules would use these morally grey situations in their rating because I think it gives the game a more realistic feel and increases immersion.
Another thing that I think is important to mention about a wizard is that it is very deadly. This is spelled out as another warning in the module and it comes with prepackaged advice on how to curve the deadliness of it:
"...there are several traps and effects that can kill instantly if the characters aren't careful. If you would like to reduce the difficulty of this module, allow players to make more saves against deadly effects and deal one damage step lower then whats listed."
I would highly suggest using these written options and I would not use this module on level 1 or level 2 characters. There is also some talk about making sure the characters level up during the module as well. I ran this using the written suggestions as a one shot and there was some deaths and the characters were being pretty cautious.
I have three favorite things about this module that I think is just genius. The first one being is it can I will surprise players because there are things that they cannot really expect. The second thing is that this module can be dropped in the middle of any campaign with minimal effort. The third thing is that the characters have a chance to end up in the Abyss (there are multiples way to end up there. Some of them will surprise you). There is table to which "encounter" the players will experience in the Abyss and if you roll the same one then roll again. This Abyss can be used in other situations and outside of the tower as well. I think it just adds so much flavor and really ups the creep factor.
I would highly recommend this if you have a group that is up for it.
You can find this horrific module here:
The wizard is just that. He wears a pointed hat. Never refer to him as anything else, through description, NPC dialog, etc. The characters find themselves unable to. He is the truth.
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