Through Monday, October 13 we present the all-new Shadow of the Weird Wizard Bundle featuring Shadow of the Weird Wizard, the FRPG from Robert J. Schwalb of Schwalb Entertainment based on his bestselling Shadow of the Demon Lord. The Weird Wizard once held sway over the Old Country, twisting the realm with eldritch magic. Now he has vanished, perhaps forever, and chaos reigns. Before his disappearance, the Weird Wizard released monsters to roam the countryside – cruel faeries to haunt the shadows – hybrid beasts, multilegged hulking collectors, and floating eyes that hang in the air trailing their nerve endings. Undead drag themselves from their tombs, and ancient evils stir.
A mad sorcerer who commanded eldritch powers of staggering might, the dread mage ruled over all he surveyed. As proof, one only has to look beyond the new lands to the walls of the Forbidden City, where clockwork peoples dwell in seeming servitude. But the Weird Wizard is gone, and no one knows where. His absence has precipitated a bloody civil war that tears the Great Kingdom apart. Refugees by the thousands pour into the Borderlands territory to make new homes, only to fall to ravenous monsters. Who will protect them from the Weird Wizard’s freed creations? To rebuild the world, your heroes strive against despair, battle corruption, and ultimately resolve the Wizard’s mystifying legacy.
Funded in a huge August 2023 Kickstarter campaign, Shadow of the Weird Wizard swaps out Demon Lord‘s grimdark bleakness in favor of strange landscapes, bizarre monstrosities, and high adventure. (Okay, “bizarre monstrosities” is no stretch from Demon Lord.) Like its predecessor, Weird Wizard offers exciting adventures, tight campaigns, streamlined rules, and deep customization that reveals itself as you play. Fans of Shadow of the Demon Lord and other d20-based RPGs will enjoy Weird Wizard‘s wealth of tactical options. Choose from dozens of ancestries, 33 magical traditions, 80+ professions, and 162 Expert and Master Paths to build the exact player character you see emerging through the story.
More than many other games, Weird Wizard offers a huge number of branching paths for characters on their ten-level journey from Novice to Expert to Master. Each of the 80+ professions – Bandit, Gravedigger, Squire, Evangelist, etc. – delivers a simple benefit and a colorful past. The choice of Novice Path (Fighter, Mage, Priest, Rogue) provides basic features, starting talents, and a roadmap for advancement. At 3rd level, characters move onto an Expert Path that may build from Novice or take a new direction. So a Fighter might become a Knight Errant, or could equally take up Artificer or Warlock. At level 7 the character chooses one of 120 Master Paths, opening the way to greater powers.
To tell those stories Shadow of the Weird Wizard uses a simple d20- and d6-based system similar to 13th Age, Pathfinder, and D&D. The essential rules for resolution and combat take up about a dozen pages of this 290-page book. That leaves room for useful chase rules, distinct condition types, a lot of equipment, and, of course, magic. Weird Wizard organizes magic in 33 traditions, each with new talent picks as well as spell sets for Novice, Expert, and Master characters.
With twists on old classics and completely new wonders, this all-new Shadow of the Weird Wizard Bundle lets you conjure uncanny adventure in the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance, and China Miéville. Pay just US$9.95 to get both titles in our Weird Player Collection (retail value $43) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Shadow of the Weird Wizard player’s guide and hundreds of print-and-cut reference cards in the Wizard Spell Cards Bundle.
And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $24.95 to start, you’ll level up and also get our entire Weird Sage Collection with nine more titles worth an additional $62, including the Secrets of the Weird Wizard gamemastering guide (plus the Sage Screen); three Weird Wizard sourceboks – Glory to the High One, Weird Ancestries, and With a Faerie, Hand in Hand – and four adventures that really deliver the “Weird” part of the title: An Ambulatory Head Striding Across the Lands, Drink Deep From the River of My Hate, Not Today Death, and With Gnashed Teeth and Howling. (It may surprise you that this is the first time the Bundle of Holding has ever presented any product titled An Ambulatory Head.)
Get this Weird Wizard offer before the wizard returns and seizes what is rightfully his Monday, October 13.
