Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.
Price: $9.95
Pages: 48
Price per page: About 20 cents per page
Designed for characters of level: 1-12
Format: Softcover
External Artwork: The style is a mix of cartoon and expressionism. Unusual but not something I liked. It seems to depict a character casting a fireball at two oncoming golems.
Additional Page Use: The back page gives an introduction and overview of the module (a series of vignettes (short essays) regarding remnants and ruins of the ancient Merithian empire). Both inside covers are blank. The first page is credits and contents, the last three pages are adverts and the OGL.
Internal Artwork: The internal artwork consists of black and white sketches relevant to the text by Kieran Yanner. I like his style, and all his work is high-quality stuff.
Maps: The computer-generated maps are clear and practical.
Text Density: The density is fairly good, well laid out, with only occasional amounts of white space (particularly in the new items section at the end). The margins are average size.
Text style: The style is intelligent and concise. There are only occasional typos and the content remains relevant to the theme.
Whats Inside: Wonders Out Of Time is essentially a background to, and series of ruins and remnants from, the ancient Merithian Empire, which fell 1000 years in the past. The module itself states: "The Merithian Empire is loosely based upon the Roman culture". Some of the six locations detailed can be visited more than once to reveal further secrets, and are in fact designed to be run this way. The focus tends to be exploration and investigation into the secrets revealed about the lost empire, but there are plenty of opportunities for combat and skill use, as well as traps and puzzles.
After a brief introduction and summary (1 page), the module discusses The Merithian Empire and its possible use in your campaign (3 pages). The advice is to use it for more investigative or puzzle-orientated side events to your main plotline, as there is an archaeology twist to each of the vignettes. It can also be used to tie in with your campaign history to give a more believable sense of antiquity. The main part of the section is dedicated to topics related to the Merithians - Merithian History, Culture and Art, Heroes, Religion, Ruins and Artifacts, and Magic. Each subsection includes an interesting snippet of information with an accompanying DC for a Knowledge (History) skill check. The GM is encouraged to develop his own aspects of what is known about the Merithians and adjust the DCs to reflect how much information is widely known of their culture. The section finishes with some suggestions for other Merithian-linked encounters.
Perinocles' Manor is detailed in the next section (7 pages). The manor is the ruined home of a notable Merithian wizard who became insane during the time of the fall of the Merithian Empire, killing all his students in a fit of paranoia. The wizard locked his greatest secrets in an extra-dimensional deathtrap. The PCs may explore the manor itself (as 1st-3rd level characters). The manor is protected by a preservation spell, and as such any non-living object shows no signs of aging. The manor is guarded by spider-like bone constructs (new monster: bone guardian). The manor is detailed on a room-by-room basis and PCs can discover the grisly murders of the students, trigger the harmless ink-spraying traps that detected if the wizards' students were stealing from each other, and may discover a range of treasure including a cursed ring of arachnophobia, which could provide lots of fun. However, thats not the whole story. There is also a 'Shade Manor' (designed for characters of levels 9-12) that the PCs can only access using a ritual that can be discovered in one of the later vignettes. The shade manor protects Perinocles' secret library and is protected by a blast trap, an air elemental, and a large marble golem (new monster: royal golem). In the library, the characters can find a magical gladius, a ring of 3 wishes with one wish left, and a set of scrolls describibg the process for constructing bloodscrolls, scrolls that require blood to activate. Bloodscrolls only hold Merithian Red Magic spells, a new type of magic that infuses spells into recipients, allowing anybody with at least a +1 Int bonus (even fighters) to cast a spell as if it was an innate ability. However, the spells can only be a maximum of 3rd level, and the recipients hit points are reduced by 2 per level of the spell permanently (by 1 if an arcane caster). Non-arcane casters are also limited to casting at 1/2 their level (full level for arcane casters) and are limited to a maximum number of spells equal to their Int bonus (twice Int bonus for arcane casters).
The Merithian Farm is the title of the next section (4 pages). This location is a ruined Merithian farmstead taken over by a group of goblins and two ogre leaders who worship the goddess Akrasia (see Eden Odyssey's Akrasia, Thief Of Time module). As in all the vignettes, an introduction and some possible character hooks are given, and some advice on using the vignette. The PCs (levels 2-4) are up against it if they go in with swords raised - this is a scenario better dealt with by stealth and intelligence. If they can rid the farm of the humanoids, they may discover a braingem (new item: make a Will save or the gem causes the PC to stick it into their forehead where it sinks in and begins to force them to attack all around them) and some Merithian high-yield grain (ideas for future use of this unusual 'treasure' are explored).
In The Lost Merithian Fortress (5 pages), bandits have taken over and built up defences around a ruined Merithian fort. They use the base to raid from, demand tribute from local villages and kill the local spiders for their venom. All these aspects can serve as adventure hooks. The PCs must again use stealth to defeat the bandits, and may gain a map showing the location of the Merithian temple (deailed in the following vignette). This vignette is suitable for characters of levels 3-6.
The Merithian Temple (5 pages) in the next section details a ruined temple dedicated to physical training which now serves as the lair of a dire bear and houses the unquiet spirits of the Merithian priests who died in the temple aeons ago (new monster: shackled spirit, carries a burden - if that burden is taken from the whining spirit, the recipient in turn becomes a shackled spirit). Here, the PCs may discover a scroll describing a ritual that allows them to enter the shade manor in the Perinocles' Manor section, but requires a final piece of the informational jigsaw that can be discovered only in the City of Derimos (see below). This vignette is suitable for characters of levels 5-8.
The Great Library (3 pages) is a Merithian library buried in a mudslide centuries ago, and recently discovered by accident. The PCs are employed to enter the library where they must face a Royal Golem before gaining access to a wealth of knowledge regarding the Merithians, including a clue to the location of the lost capital of the Merithians, Derimos (detailed in the next section). The section includes brief excerpts from books in the library to give PCs an understanding of the Merithian culture, including Red Magic. This vignette is suitable for characters of levels 6-9.
The City Of Derimos (5 pages) details the Merithian's lost city and is designed for characters of levels 9-12. Th city has in fact already been discovered, by an evil cult leader who is attracting followers and plans to launch an assault on the local cities in the near future. The PCs must convince the undead Merithian Centurion Knights that still haunt the city to attack the cultists. They can only manage this with their specialised knowledge of Merithian culture. They may gain a final clue to the means to access the Shade Manor from a letter to the Merithian Emperor from Perinocles himself.
The Appendix details five new monsters (3 constructs and two undead), NPC statistics, Merithian Red Magic, eleven new magical items, and a new Prestige Class: Centurion Knight, the features of which can be discovered by the PCs during their adventurous research, and revivified if a PC has the desire to follow this path.
The High Points: Though not specifically designed to do this, Wonders Out Of Time gives a great template for designing your own ancient/lost culture and linking its rediscovery into your adventures and campaign. The clever way of linking each of the vignettes (highlighted in sidebars entitled 'Plot Intersections') is helpful in organising the disparate sections into a meaningful whole. The treasure reflected the theme of the module very well, as did the new monsters. The art and maps managed to fill any gaps in my imagination. There was useful advice in each section for both hooking the PCs into the vignette and actually running it. Scattered throughout the text were hints for further adventure ideas.
The Low Points: I was a bit concerned about the power of Merithian Red Magic, and would be wary of introducing it into my campaign. There were balances introduced to its power, but I would question the efficacy of these. I can't fully comment on this since I haven't actually tried the magic out in an adventure/campaign though. The very nature of the module (short scenarios designed for different character levels) means that the DM must fill in the gaps between, but given the nature of the discoveries, this is not necessarily a bad thing.
Conclusion: A well-written and useful module - if used as a guideline to introducing discoveries about an ancient culture in your campaign world, it is extremely flexible and easily integrated. The specifics of the culture may not be attractive to everybody but the details can be developed yourself from the example given here. The interlocking clues between sections was innovative and refreshing, and allowed the GM to build the sections into a thematic whole if required.
Edit: I have now run Perinocles' Manor (the lower level part only) and discovered some issues that may also affect other areas of the module. Firstly, there are a lot of rules errors that need amending before running Perinocles' Manor (incorrect hit points, hit dice, etc.) and secondly, the adventure is quite repetitive - though the background is interesting, the players got sick of fighting the irritating bone spider-hands, which have very few hit points and a low attack bonus, and are difficult to hit for low-level characters - this led to protracted combats with neither side hitting each other. When faced with 20 or more of these creatures (and no other creature in the adventure), it just got plain boring. Based on this limited playtest, which raises possible issues with the other parts of the module, I have decreased the score from 5 to 4, and will further amend the score if necessary after playtesting of the other vignettes.
