Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Wind Wraith is an 179 page setting toolbox by Lazy Litch, for Old School Essentials. In it, you travel around a post-apocalyptic ocean-covered land, filled with mysterious islands and powerful creatures. I picked this one up myself, although I missed the crowdfunding campaign.

Wind Wraith is a monster of a book, and it cleverly recognises that fact, opening with a starter island, setting a deadly survival tone to the world. I really like the 6 locations on the island, and the authors writing really shines here. It follows this up with a character creation section — 2 unique classes, a bunch of backgrounds, boons and curses to add some flavour to your characters, and an allusion to the fact that the crew of the ship as a unit are likely to go on even in the event of character death. My main issue with this opening is that the goal of the starter island is to build a raft to escape the island, but the items needed aren’t clear to the players — I’d like to see the players realise they’re looking to hunt snow bees and raid the vampire’s lair for furniture, but I’m not sure it’ll be as intuitive as it’s assumed, and the island is explicitly stated as having no other resources, which goes against basic principles of OSR challenges having multiple potential answers. If I were to run this island, I’d throw in some other ways to access them, using my simple approach to OSR challenges.

The next 60 or so pages are spent on world generation, covering the broader principles of the world, seas and islands, the factions that occupy them, and NPCs the players may meet. Now, this is all really, really juicy stuff — the author shows some exceptional writing here, and if you’re looking for a generator for a world drowned in a cataclysm, you’re in for a treat. But I can’t help but notice the best parts: The details of the Wind Wraith and the 3 other tyrants where the author gets to be very specific about what’s going on. The writing shines the more specific they get, but most of the writing in Wind Wraith lies in the more generic tables. I’m doing this an injustice by calling them generic though, particularly in areas like Sea Archetypes and in the NPC descriptions. There is no imagination lacking at any point in these descriptions. You’ll be generating with a grin on your face at the horrors your players are going to be meeting.

We get into more concrete stuff from that point on. Crew and ship rules are solid and weird (clamshell ship rigged on spiderwebs? I’m in). The rules and lore around the arcane contracts are weird and benefit from Lazy Litch’s art significantly (unique sigils? that the players need to decipher? lovely!). The random monster generator comes up with some weird results in terms of stats, but a plasma-breathing oarfish seeking love and collecting niche items is a pretty great monster prompt, and the seaweed dragons and parasites are really fun flavourful encounters. The book ends in a bunch of tools, treasure, potions, spells, and a set of quick reference rules, and sheets for printing. This all really works for at the table, or for the kind of lonely fun you’ll spend generating and fleshing out the world.

Lazy Litch is an absolutely stellar artist, and brings the thunder here, with the entire book being illustrated aside from the full-page tables. The illustrations are super evocative, and used in creative ways, and the character sheets, crew sheets and other play aids are all fully illustrated too. The layout, while bold and well suited to the art style and content, sometimes loses its way, though — there are no section headers, and in a book I’m flicking around in a lot, this makes it tricky to identify what you’re looking for at times. The pdf does have links, though, which adds a lot of access which is otherwise lacking.

Overall, this is a setting generator and set of sailing rules that feel on par to Seas of Sand, although very different and far less gamified. I like the different types of sand in Seas of Sand, I think it adds a lot — the sea depths here just aren’t quite as flavourful to me. But, this is an excellent setting toolkit, and the art is spectacular. I can’t help but wish, though, that I could see the actual setting that the author played in, rather than this tool kit: The specifics here are just so much cooler than the randomness, and, unlike the weirdness that is Seas of Sands setting, an ocean setting has been done before — my generated setting is likely to end up generic here, but I bet the authors, cherry-picked from the best of this book, would not be. The main negative here compared to Seas of Sands setting toolbox, is that there’s nothing built in to drive the players onto the next island. Seas of Sand added a deep trade layer to incentivise exploration and faction interaction. It feels like a post-apocalyptic scenario — and the starter island supports this — wants a survival layer rather than a trade layer — but as is, this is simply a setting you can play in if you choose. Social contract or no, I think this would benefit from a core hook like trade or survival so I have a clearer sense of what we’re doing here.

That said though: You want seafaring? You want a crew to serve as a source for your player characters? You enjoy a dark, dangerous, post-apocalyptic world filled with abyssal beasts you’ve never seen before? If you’re willing or enjoy spending time building a world, these guidelines are tables are absolutely flavour-filled and will get you what you need. As a seafaring, dark fantasy setting toolbox, Wind Wraith succeeds on all counts.

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