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Marvels & Malisons $4.90
Average Rating:4.9 / 5
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Marvels & Malisons
Publisher: Lost Pages
by Ziga [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/29/2023 10:02:40

Excellent alternative spells that don't rely on dealing damage but affect the fictional situation instead.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Marvels & Malisons
Publisher: Lost Pages
by Bebop D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/02/2023 07:12:03

A fun, colorful, and clever expansion to Wonder and Wickedness. It has a sense of humor about itself without being over-the-top goofy. I will definitely be using it in my next OSE or Knave game.

The reason I'm not rating it any higher is the erratic punctuation and profusion of typos. It looks like it wasn't proofread at all. I'm glad to have the PDF, but I would have been very, very disappointed if I'd bought the dead-tree version.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Hi! Thank you for the feedback, and sorry if the books is not up to the standards of quality you expected. I'll send the book to our new editor. If you have any specific feedback please email us at feedback at lostpages dot co dot uk When we are done with the new editing round and the new update will be uploaded you'll receive a notification for the new version. And for the bother be in touch if you want a discount voucher for the print version!
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Marvels & Malisons
Publisher: Lost Pages
by Edward R. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/06/2020 18:03:12

Along with "Wonder and Wickedness" these two titles have replaced the magic system for my low-magic campaign. I just really dig the weird nature of magic as presented here. Simple and elegant.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Marvels & Malisons
Publisher: Lost Pages
by Thilo G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 02/27/2020 04:07:40

An Endzeitgeist.com review of the revised edition

Huh, that went fast! Turns out that the publisher had an updated and improved version, and that this version hadn’t been uploaded properly to OBS! So yeah, this is the review of the revised edition, which clocks in at 56 pages, 1 page foreword/ToC, 1 page introduction, 1 page colophon, leaving us with 53 pages of content, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5); the front cover is included as a jpg, in case you were wondering.

That’s a lot of additional pages, for the booklet now comes with a LOT of original b/w-artwork

In this review, I assume familiarity with Wonder & Wickedness, and will not explain the whole system once more. I strongly suggest reading my review of Wonder & Wickedness before continuing. Why? Well, while I criticize sub-systems on their own merits and in a global context of their systems, it makes less sense to criticize an expansion for a sub-system for duplicating flaws of the base system. I rate expansions within the frame of the system in which they operate.

For Wonder & Wickedness-derived books like this, that means that will not complain about ranges and areas of effect being opaque and not clearly defined.

Okay, that out of the way, let us take a look at the new proposed variant rules/modifications for Wonder & Wickedness. The first being spontaneous sorcery, which posits that a sorcerer has 1 mana per level, optionally with Wisdom or Charisma modifier added to that pool. Mana recovers every day – which could be a bit clearer: At one time during the day, or after a rest? This may sound like nitpicking, but the results are very different in implications. This opacity has not been cleared up in the revised edition. Mana-based spellcasting lets the sorcerer cast a spell by using one mana and one round of casting. Yes, that’s full round here. Personally, I’m somewhat partial to increment-casting, so an alternate rule in that regard would have been cool. Spells requiring a sigil still take a turn. Sigils are still considered to be permanent, but each sorcerer may only have one sigil per spell.

Which brings me to sigils and magic item creation, for the book posits formulae for costs by day, or depending on the enchanter’s stats, as well as ingredients. These suggestions are per se pretty sound, and fit with the general tone Wonder & Wickedness goes for.

The book also presents rules for empowering items, which require the expenditure of a mana point or memorized spell to power. The book also posits the optional rule to allow non-sorcerers to choose one specialty and learn a single spell from it, but casting the spell for them requires an Intelligence roll – obviously, a roll-under is intended here, but spelling that out or getting some alternatives would have been nice.

There is one rule I absolutely adore herein, where the utility is obviously grand for pretty much any implementation of Wodner & Wickedness: Instead of getting directly a spell catastrophe upon overcastting, the book suggests two saving throws: The first lest you cast the spell, with you otherwise suffering your maleficence, the second to avoid a spell catastrophe, or, if playing sans them, to avoid collapsing senseless for 1d6 turns. I LOVE this rule. It’s elegant, keeps magic volatile, but decreases the frequency of the powerful catastrophes without rendering them obsolete. Huge kudos for this one! The book then proceeds to present comprehensive spell-lists, including the specialties from Wonder & Wickedness, and then presents 6 different starting packages per specialty.

What can I say, you can see some of the finest minds of the OSR-scene at work here. As a diabolist, you can start with a disguise-as-acceptable-cleric-type kit, or you could have a black goat that whispers during new moon. Or you could have a plague doctor mask vs. miasma. If you’re an elementalist, you could start off with a functional dowsing rod – or you could have 3 puppies “perfect to please curmudgeon chthonic spirits or at least placate their crotchetiness.” Here, we can see the editing by Fiona Maeve Geist at work – the book has been significantly improved in that department. Psychomancy specialists could start off with Dreamy Blue, a vision-granting cheese (probably from Stilton), or what about spiritualists with a bottle of spirits. You know, spirits. XD What’s in the bottle? Spirits.opens it Ahhhh!!! The spirits are btw. drunken. Obviously. 6 such starter packages are provided for each specialty, including the 5 new ones. A nice touch here: Each of these lists is accompanied by a nice b/w-artwork on one page, and occupies a whole page – 6 starter packages are provided per specialty, and 6 slots are left empty for the GM to fill in. This is a decision I very much welcome in the revised edition, for one must be truly creatively drained if these entries don’t spark some sort of writing impulse. Kudos!

The first of these new specialties would be Apotropaism, which is the grand defensive option: Amulet of the Open Hand lets you give an amulet to a target, who then gets a retroactive bonus to the first failed save vs. magic made. Deliver from Malison lets you break curses via questing/story-means; Heka-Mirror lets you revert maleficences and spells upon the caster, though two facing each other can have catastrophic consequences. With two seal spells allowing for the creation of barriers or entrapment of targets – and there is a Scapegoat spell that does exactly what you’d think it does. That’s not all, but it should be enough to give you an idea of why I consider this specialty to be a resounding success.

The second specialty is more conventional: Arachnomorphism is, unsurprisingly, about spider-themed tricks, which include charming spiders, assuming an Arachnid Aspect, summoning swarms and webs, or getting Venomous Fangs. This specialty is a bit boring, with two winners elevating it: Silky Spinnerets net you essentially Spiderman’s web-flinging/swinging, and Tarantella is the most pun-tastic spell I’ve seen in a why. “The caster dances frantically as though affected by the venom of the Tarantella spider.” XD As noted before, the improved editing of the revised edition really helps make the supplement more captivating.

Physiurgy is the healing specialty, and it’s interesting in several ways: In a level-less spellcasting system, differentiating between spells is hard, and many of the spells of this specialty provide different amounts of healing. Cure, for example, nets you 1d6 + 1 hits per level. Okay, level of caster, or of recipient? I assume the former, but I’m not sure. Cure also cures a diseases, provided the caster succeeds a Save or Healing check. Salvific Apport nets you balsamic, white goo that heals 3d6 hits if spread on wounds, or that can be swallowed to cure a poison. Last Oath provides AoE-healing in a short radius, but makes the caster take temporary damage for each ally affected. There even is a “return the dead to life”-spell with Death Unto Life, which is balanced by requiring two saves: Failing the first nets you 1d6 days of coma; failing the second makes you unable to cast spells for a week. Failing both kills you. Those returned are also bedridden at first, so no in-combat spamming. I like this specialty from a design-perspective – it manages to attain a surprising diversity of options with its simple chassis; differentiating meaningfully a whole slew of healing spells that have the same hierarchical place is not as easy as it sounds!

However, the best, or at least some of the best, come last here: The penultimate specialty would be Cunning Craft, which is inspired by Scottish/Celtic folklore, with Blackstaff weapons, shelters hidden in Bramble Burrows, the Seven Steeped Stones as a means to heal, make magic sling stones, or an extra save versus curses or diseases. I love the latter, but it’s a ritual that takes time, and the healing function, for example, it much worse than the tricks Physiurgy has; this could sue a power-upgrade. Since the author commented on this spell in particular: Yes, I do see the extended flexibility this one offers, and that it is sigil-based; that being said, one of its flexible uses requires a whole day of cooking, and the regular one also requires cooking in abundant milk, something that can be pretty hard to come by. I do still maintain that a slight increase in healing power here would have been salient.

I really liked the idea of the Tune of Yondkind, which detects presences and their origins, but not necessarily positions. Using a severed head of a slain target as a kind of alarm/sentry is nice, and with classics like Geas, Witchmarks securing thresholds and the like, the specialty oozes a cool, folksy old-world magic vibe.

Finally, there would be… Rope Tricks! These allow you to create a Tangle that hampers spellcasting, makes charging impossible, etc., or use Shuffle the Mortal Coil to make ropes behave as constricting serpents. If you’re lucky (5% chance), you may even get a deadly rope that requires a save or die! The spell can also be used to turn serpents into ropes, which can result in permanently-spliced-together abominations. Using a rope as a hand via Rope is Always Handy s also neat, but particularly cool would be the Cat’s Cradle tricks: These require complicated figure work from the caster and thus take time. However, once you have created the Opening form (of which there are 4), you can use the spell to change into various effects, which include opening nearby doors, setting nearby things on fire, causing low-level foes to flee, or making rope animals to ride. I love this.

With baited breath I saw the length of the revised edition, and I hoped fervently– but alas, much to my chagrin, the revised edition unfortunately also does not offer spell catastrophe write-ups for the new specialties. So yeah, if you’re like me and loved Wonder & Wickedness’ volatile shenanigans-inducing spell catastrophes, particularly in conjunction with the variant rule herein, then you’ll have to make those yourself. Which isn’t as simple as it seems at first. SO yeah, that’s the one big strike that remains in the revised edition.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting of the revised edition have improved vastly – on a formal level, this is much more refined. Layout adheres to the same no-frills, but elegant one-column b/w-standard used for Wonder & Wickedness, and the improvements made for e.g. the starter kits help render this a table-useful booklet. If you’re into unique artwork, then there’s great news – none other than Evelyn M. lent her talents to the revised edition, and it is positively decadent regarding the amount of new artworks with their neat, dream-like style. Furthermore, much to my joy, the revised edition actually has bookmarks, making navigation much smoother!

Paolo Greco has a tendency to make unique books that feel special in some way, and the additional content by Lloyd Neill, Luka Rejec and Eric Nieudan fits pretty seamlessly into the book. The revised edition gets rid of all the big formal hiccups – with bookmarks, better editing, etc., it genuinely becomes a supplement I’ll gladly recommend. I genuinely love a LOT about this book, and its rules-lite design is NOT simple.

I consider most specialties herein to be more inspiring than many from Wonder & Wickedness, and I adore their unique takes on magic. While I would have appreciated at least some fuzzy range and Area of Effect guidelines, Wonder & Wickedness lacked those, so not complaining about them here. Beyond a few instances where the rules-language could be a bit clearer, there is but a single complaint I have left as a reviewer against the revised edition: Where are the spell catastrophes? I know, I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but I genuinely liked them…

Anyhow, that absence notwithstanding, Marvels & Malisons, to me personally, is actually superior to its predecessor, at least in this revised edition. As such, my final verdict for the revised edition will increase to 4.5 stars, rounded up. It should be noted that the new specialties, except one, are all seal of approval material and as a whole more novel than Wonder & Wickedness’ options, but that the spell catastrophe-lack cancelled the seal of approval this would have otherwise received.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Marvels & Malisons
Publisher: Lost Pages
by Tore N. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/22/2017 08:11:58

A collection of fun and creative magic, using the brilliant level-less magic rules in Wonder & Wickedness. Some of the magic schools are idiosyncratic, but is never silly.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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