One-Hour RPG: The Wizards of the White Tower

The Wizards of the White Tower is a collection of scenarios each playable within an hour, written for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. It was successfully funded on Kickstarter in February 2023.

The purpose of this page is to provide DMs with information about the adventures, as well as to provide updates, handouts, artwork, FAQs and pre-generated characters. It is for Dungeon Masters only, as it contains details which would spoil the enjoyment for players.

Game Notes

The Wizards of the White Tower is published using The Open Gaming License. This means that I am legally allowed to use almost all the rules from 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, though I am not allowed to say or imply that it is an official D&D product, or even use the phrases Dungeons & Dragons, or Dungeon Master, anywhere in the publication. Also, there are some D&D monsters, races and locations that are not covered by The Open Gaming License, so I am not allowed to use them. Below are some notes about each of the adventures. Some of them include clarifications or possible adaptations, but sometimes it’s just me talking about them for fun.

1. The idea for Showtime came to me about a year ago while reading the novel The Night Circus. What if real wizards put on a magic show? It’s not your typical D&D adventure for sure, and I can imagine a lot of groups might not like the magic show, or perhaps the song at the end. I wanted to do something a little different though, and I think some groups will really enjoy it. And yes, I know that the growth spell that Cyril casts does not work quite the way that it does in The Players’ Handbook, but what can I say, Cyril is a maverick!
2. Epic was inspired by a gamebook I first read in the 1980s called Casket of Souls by Ian Livingstone, which is one of my favourite books of all time. I wanted my players to experience what it is like to be involved in a big high-stakes battle against powerful foe, but I did not want them to have to wait until they had battled their way to level ten to do it. Epic went down a storm with my playtest group – they dealt with most puzzles and obstacles very well. If only they hadn’t tried to charm the Sphinx…
3. Lots of puzzles in here. Just to reiterate, the DM needs to make sure all the important spells are available to the players. If you use at least the first three of the pre-generated characters (see below) I think you should be okay.
4. The idea for the story in The Web of the Spider Shepherd came right out of The Monster Manual. I wanted to base an adventure around an Ettercap and when I looked it up, the story was right there (page 131 – “Otherwise timid fey will sometimes approach outsiders for help in dealing with an Ettercap infestation”).
5. The Bird Folk are, of course, Aarakocra, but that is one of the copywrite-protected words I am not allowed to use in the zine. Also, I wasn’t allowed to use the name of the floating city, which is Aaqa.
6. Seasoned DMs might recognize the décor in the temple. Gary Gygax’s The Keep on the Borderlands was the first D&D adventure I ever played, back in the 1980s. In that adventure the party have to deal with a cult, and have some dangerous encounters in The Temple of Evil Chaos. That sinister temple made a big impression on me back then, and so I wanted to share it with new players today. The motives of the cult were never described in The Keep on the Borderlands, so I have imagined that the cult of Axorath is in fact that same cult from The Temple of Evil Chaos, and they have been working all this time to reinstate their master.
7. I had had what I thought was a brilliant original idea for the design of Axorath, which that it was going to be a fungus demon. I had been reading an old sci-fi novel called Hothouse which featured a fungus that could control people’s minds, and I thought it would make a great D&D villain. After the playtest though, I discovered Out of the Abyss which features the Demon Queen of Fungi, Zuggtmoy, and I realized I had to change it. I think the way I chose works better to be honest, because I doubt a cleric could turn a fungus zombie (I don’t know why I am telling you this).

I’ve deliberately made the descriptions of the locations of the adventure quite vague so that DMs can fit the city into their own campaign. However, I do hope to write more zines in the next few years which will be set in the same world as The City Watch and The Wizards of the White Tower. I am currently working on The One-Hour RPG : Thieves’ Guild (or something like that) which focuses on the guild first introduced in Session Six of The Wizards of the White Tower . After that I do have some other ideas, possibly featuring higher level characters for a change.

Handouts

Firstly, here are the characters that were used in the playtest. Of course, you don’t have to use these – you and/or your players might prefer to create your own characters from scratch. However, because these characters were designed with The Wizards of the White Tower adventure in mind, they do fit it well. They all have prior relationships with some of the NPCs in the adventures, so it would be helpful if the DM could make themselves aware of the backstories before starting. Some relationships might prove to be very significant; for example, Bronwyn the Bard has a traumatic backstory involving hobgoblins – how will that affect her relationship with Wenlock, and what was Wenlock’s personal involvement? Well, it’s up to the the player and the DM.

There are also a couple maps you might want to use too. These are included below.

Also, here is the fantastic artwork by Carlos Castilho that you might want to download and share with the players to help bring the game to life.

Pictures of the standard D&D monsters can, of course, be found in the Monster Manual, or online.

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you enjoy The Wizards of the White Tower as much as my players did.

Here’s a contact form so that you can let me have your feedback and/or suggestions. Also, I would be interested to hear what you would like from this series in the future. Should I stay with this setting, move onto higher level characters, convert to OSR, or switch to Traveler…Call of Cthulhu…? Let me know your thoughts.

Cheers
Steve.