Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: October 30, 2000

“Dedicated to those for whom one lifetime is not enough.”
– Manual, Wizards & Warriors

For those of us blessed enough by fate to be given the gift of translating feelings into words, there are often stories given to us in moments of inspiration that we wish beyond all desires to share with individuals we hold dear, or even society in general. Authors such as Tolkien were adept beyond words at taking the lines of a page and translating them into feelings; or pictures that break through the twilight of imagination, instilling the reader with a profound sense of awe and yearning to walk amidst the ruins of collective unconscious, exploring castles and mountains untouched since the dawn of time. Perhaps it is this yearning which drives us in our need for fantasy and tales of great renown. Heuristic Park — a company that is anything but new to the RPG vanguard — has released Wizards & Warriors, which attempts to capture this feeling of wonder and transport players into an epic world fraught with danger, rich with the promise of eternal fame.

One of the things the designers of Wizards & Warriors have been most pleased with is the detailed history they created in which players can immerse themselves. Your tale begins in the land known to the most daring of adventurers as Gael Serran and the quest you will undertake is of epic proportions. Many eons ago there was a great battle between Anephas the Priest of Light and Cet Ude D’ua Khan, the Lord of Death. Since neither good nor evil could exist with the total absence of the other, the battle seemed to rage on without end until Anephas cast a spell that placed himself and the evil Lord Cet into a deep sleep, to be unhindered by the likes of mortals for all of eternity. Evil, however, has never been a power content with lying dormant and the darkness would again begin to take shape when an undead lich, determined to wreak his revenge upon Lord Cet, began meddling with unknown magicks. The result of this interference was the accidental destruction of Anephas’ body and the awakening of Lord Cet, who was understandably quite angry at his extended incarceration.

As Lord Cet plots his revenge against the inhabitants of Gael Serran, the light of hope begins to shine across the land in the form of an ancient weapon known as the Mavin Sword. Little is known about the history and forging of this blade, save that it was imbued with the powers of both the divine and the cursed. This differs from many fantasy plots in that usually an item of absolute purity is needed to vanquish the current incarnation of evil that threatens mankind, whereas the Mavin Sword is far from pure, having been instilled with fifty percent evil. The power contained within this legendary armament is — as one would expect — the only artifact capable of destroying Lord Cet, making an end to his evil scheming once and for all. Unfortunately, no one knows where the sword lies and the last person to wield it was a knight named D’Soto during the Elven wars; he disappeared shortly after the end of the great conflict. After this the blade of twin forces was all but lost to history, until one fateful night when you are proclaimed the chosen one, and the village elder Garreth has a dream hinting at the resting place of the sword. You are sent out into this harsh world, charged with the task of retrieving this most sacred object and placing it (hopefully) somewhere in Lord Cet’s body. Though the plot sounds like something you might read in a ‘Forgotten Realms’ novel, it has enough originality to retain the appeal of most staunch RPG veterans.