From his lair beneath the earth, the evil wizard, Maudilus, is plotting his revenge against the Kingdom. Many have tried to stop him, all have died. Now the Kingdom looks to you, Toby, to fight through the Temple of Morrigan, a hell on earth containing traps, monsters and puzzles...

The Renegade Wizard is an adventure book written by Ashley P Martin, who is better known as an author of books on martial arts. Both the format and the language, which is kept simple, of the book indicate that this is aimed at a young teen audience.

So, you play Toby, a young man with possibly a big destiny. Starting from section 2 your first task is to win a training bout organised by Sir William against Travis, a boy a year older than yourself. This match introduces you to the game mechanics of the book.

You will need a pencil and a couple of dice. As you reach the end of a body of writing, usually a paragraph, occasionally as much as a full page, you get to either role your dice to determine the outcome of combat or chose from a number of options to continue the story.

You start with a number of combat and vitality points, which can be augmented with shield and armour, lose those and you may find yourself face down in a dungeon, ending the game. The book is written very much like a normal table top role playing game, with the author taking the role of the Dungeon Master, telling the reader where he/she is and what can be seen.

It makes for quite a good game, although older gamers will miss a lack of world building. The descriptions of the locations and the world are minimal, at best.

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Charles Packer