I reviewed Andrew Kolb’s previous book, Neverland, a few months ago.  I really enjoyed that, in spite of not being a particular fan of any incarnation of the Peter Pan story that I can remember.  Oz, is a different story, literally and figuratively.  I’ve enjoyed several films set in Oz, including, of course, the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, but also the creepy 1980s film Return to Oz, and a couple of the silent films from the early 20th Century.  I’d also read and enjoyed a couple of the books many, many years ago.  While not something I was deeply invested in, it was a setting I had more interest in and more fondness for, so it was one I had more expectations for as well.  Thankfully, Kolb was successful again.  More successful, even.

I’ll get this out of the way right at the beginning.  The Oz that Kolb has created is daunting.  I could imagine years of real time spent exploring this world.  Whole campaigns could be run within the territory surrounding the Emerald City.  Not only that, but your Oz could be vastly different each time you might run it, because some choices you make in who is where, what they want, and what they possess at the beginning of play could completely change the character of your game.  It’s a lot to take in.  Almost too much.  The book is a bit over 200 hapes and yet I felt overwhelmed on several occasions.

Of course, like many overwhelming things, dipping into the world of Oz is easier if you break it down into smaller parts and focus on those, as opposed to trying to take in the whole thing all at once.  Oz here is divided into several major sections, and then subdivided into neighborhoods and territories.  It would not be at all out of the question to run a complete, multi-session campaign where your characters never leave the Gillikin zone to the north of the Emerald City.  There is plenty to do within the winding streets and strange locations.  The same could be said for any of the various areas.  There are also factions a’plenty, strange non-player characters to interact with, and unusual critters.

The land of Oz, as presented in the book, has a very unusual vibe.  The art is a mix of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, which reflects a sort of early 20th Century, fading Gilded Age, transitional atmosphere.  It’s full of whimsy, but a whimsy tinged with societal decay, budding class warfare, and some fairy tale grimness.  All that is to say, it captures L. Frank Baum’s writing pretty well.  I should note that there isn’t really much in the way of adult content, it also isn’t really written for kids.  I know someone who ran Neverland for a group of kids at their local library.  That book actually had some very dark stuff which they glossed over or ignored.  This book has less “adult” content, yet I think its overall vibe might be more appealing for adults.  What it kept reminding me of was the version of Lovecraft’s Dreamlands presented in Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, or perhaps a less disturbing version of Chambers’s Carcosa.

Oz is written with D&D 5e in mind, yet it is mostly system neutral.  It would not take much to convert it to whatever game you typically run.  Thinking about how much it reminded me of the Dreamlands and Carcosa, my first thought would be to use the Call of Cthulhu rules.  They work so well for that era already, so it wouldn’t be a stretch.  Like Neverland before it, Oz has a lot of tool kits for adventure design, and ways to adapt and modify your game.  Many of these could be handy for other games as well, making this book a helpful tool for GMs generally.  

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