Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io…Return of the White Wizard

A dungeon by Matthew T. Austin, levels 4-6
Written for Shadowdark
  Caveats here, the author, Lord Matteus, is a friend on my Twitter. I also enjoy listening to his YouTube interviews. So, positive feelings towards the maker here. I’ve also been told he’s going to be rewriting his old adventures, so this 2024 version might be improved later. It’s what I scooped for free on itch.io, though, so on we trudge.
  Oh, yo, it’s another one of those “Weird Tales” jam adventures. Those have been a cut above aesthetically, inspired with more direction than is typical for the usual Crapshoot victims. Eight ‘zine pages, in this case with thirteen-ish keyed areas, plus a little before and after stuff and talk about the magazines that inspired the adventure…it’s a solid format. This particular adventure is white-on-black, which is controversial, populated by AI-art, which is even controversiallier, and makes a font choice on its maps which confuses “A” and “X”, which is controversial to nobody but me. My eye also twitches when I see a double-column norm violated with single-column footers and tables at times, but that might be a me problem. These nits aside, it’s well-formatted with things like new monsters included in text, nice spacing, maps inline, etc. Approve of that.
  What about the story of the thing, though? Well, it’s built to place on a hexmap. The titular White Wizard had himself a tower, got defeated, returns after decades, now his mutant servants are stealing things again and the local lord is hiring adventurers to help. There’s some extremely mild Lamentations of the Flame Princess stuff with the mutations, about .02 Raggis, but by and large we’re just in fun simple “hack through the wizard’s lair” stuff.
  Which leads to what I liked the most, the White Wizard’s Robe. Both a very powerful magic item (+3 to saves, AC, and spellcasting) and a horrible curse that transforms the user into the White Wizard himself over type…that’s great. There’s also a secret room in the back with the wizard’s brain in a jar, has to be destroyed to kill him for good, very solid. Spellbook has new high-level spells and also boosts transmutation spellcasting, but mutates on a failure, great design. I like the fact that the writer actually plays the game, as if shown in the treasures available and the practical push-your-luck stuff with tower-ruin-digging. There’s a nice nasty mutation table that’s pure suck, but that’s fine because the vats of mutation goop are pure hazard. There are a couple of decent interactable NPCs too, including a stated rival adventuring pair. This is built to be a satisfying single session, good adventure site concept.
  …but what can be improved first and foremost is “make it a little less grindy”. I think the random encounter table plus keys will make it a little overstuffed with combat for its scale. There’s my own personal bugaboo of a scene you walk into in media res, it’s a set-piece that’s apparently been waiting for the audience, bad mannar paly. I don’t find goopy mutant enemies to be particularly compelling, but I guess that’s my shoggoth to bear. More substantially, I’m not impressed with the maps, not a lot of exploratory potential there despite them having the appearance of loops. Forgivable with just thirteen rooms, but better mapping is always better.
  You’ll be happy to know that the best use case here is to use it. Sweet, it’s a workable adventure site. The White Wizard, his spellbook, the items, and the mutation table are all usable out of context as well. Worth checking out.
  Final Rating? ***/***** and that’s perfectly fine. My gripes still exist and aren’t easy to patch but it’s also useful, clear, and very fast to comprehend. Feel free to dismiss my positivity because I like the guy but it’s clearly made by a worker who understands his craft. 

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