I haven’t done too many heist style adventures in Dungeons & Dragons and I’ve done even fewer arcanepunk ones. Does Eberron count? The Wizard’s Egg by Shadows of Pindus is an adventure that fits both attributes. Pindus is in a world where magic and technology coexist.
The Wizard’s Egg
Writer: Shadows of Pindus
Publisher: DriveThruRPG
Cost: $4.83
Product Length: 34 pages
The players won’t have to look for something to do in this adventure. A job comes knocking, literally, on their door while they’re sitting in their office minding their business. A fast-talking fixer shows up and offers to pay the adventurers to sabotage some E-Drives. E-Drives are cylindrical artifacts 6 to 10 feet in length and supposedly are used to attract fish. Useful tools for someone who manages fishing boats, I suppose. The caller, a man named Hope, says the mission is to remain clandestine and no one should learn of who hired them under any circumstance. All the players have to do is infiltrate a place known as The Wizard’s Egg, locate the artifacts, and destroy them with the provided sabotage pucks (three of them).
Hope has a reputation as a reliable payer; therefore the players should trust him. Once they’re off on their way it’s up to the players to find their way into the Egg (which is 76 stories above ground level and has only one MAIN entrance). Then they’ll fight their way through riddles and traps and even such opponents as lizardfolk, bandits, and steam mephits. Good luck to these first level players!
The adventure is mostly well-written but it should have been proofread one more time before publication. There are a few grammatical errors or cases of duplicated words. Not enough to cause confusion though. Any confusion you will find in the writing is from its verbosity. For a one-shot adventure, there is quite a bit of background on this unique setting. It may actually be more than a DM cares to prepare for. If you happen to already have an arcanepunk setting, or arcanepunk-adjacent such as Eberron, then you may be better off adapting this adventure to it instead. Otherwise, it has a wonderful noir vibe going for it!
The layout is great. My only suggestion for improvement on that is to stay consistent with the background. The document is mostly a standard parchment background. However, pages 9 and 15, for some reason, have completely different colors. I happen to love the isometric map of the Egg because I find it befits the three-dimensional nature of the structure wonderfully. If you hope to use it for a virtual tabletop you should reconsider. It simply won’t work well there.
Pros
- fun heist style adventure with a sabotage mission and isometric map
- one main, guarded, entrance forces the players to consider other methods of entry
Cons
- too much information to read for a quick one-shot; after all, noir thrives on a less-is-more approach
- needs another round of proofreading
