When the storm shatters your ship and the sea turns against you, the only refuge left is an island that should not exist. Isle of the Sunken Mage is a 5E-compatible dark fantasy module by Yoav Niv and NiStar Entertainment, serving as Book I of the Lichseed Trilogy—a grim opening to a world of mutation, magic, and madness.
Written for 3–5 player characters of level 3, this module invites adventurers to explore a rotting island born of failed immortality and cosmic error. It’s a self-contained story that also launches a larger saga across the planes. With original hand-drawn artwork and classic Gygaxian design, Isle of the Sunken Mage evokes the danger, discovery, and consequence that defined old-school play.
A Shipwreck on the Living Sea
The adventure begins aboard The Red Wake, a merchant vessel caught in a storm that seems alive. Aboard are hired guards—your player characters—who must fend off mutated undead sailors before their ship is smashed upon an uncharted reef. When the survivors crawl ashore, they find that the “island” ahead of them is not land at all, but the shell of an aspidochelone—a gargantuan sea-turtle adrift on an endless ocean.
At its heart lies the ruined abode of Zorak the Endless, a wizard who sought lichdom by binding an entity from beyond the stars. His ritual failed catastrophically. The creature he summoned—a pearl-scaled aberration wrapped in storms—escaped its prison, leaving Zorak’s experiments festering in the demi-plane beneath the turtle’s shell.
Your task is simple to state but nearly impossible to achieve: survive and escape.
The Wizard’s Lair
The island is both a dungeon and a living organism. Marble stairs spiral through a blood-slick jungle where sahuagin tribes worship the shell as a god. Each step leads closer to Zorak’s lair—a series of seven interconnected chambers existing halfway between the Material Plane and something far worse.
Each location offers its own flavor of peril:
- The Entrance Slab – A gemstone puzzle marks the portal to Zorak’s inner halls. Impatience triggers elemental traps of flame, acid, and necrosis.
- The Underwater Library – A cube-shaped chamber submerged in dark water, haunted by a tentacled spawn that drowns and crushes intruders.
- The Laboratory – Once a workshop of vivisection, now a shrine of blood fog and restless corpses.
- The Binding Sanctum – A circle of runes capable of summoning horrors with a single misplaced step.
- The Dining Room – A phantom feast conceals deadly poison and a ciphered clue.
- The Treasure Room – A false trove guarded by a mimic and paintings that double as planar gates.
- The Garden of the Lichseed – The heart of the curse. Here grows the black lotus born from Zorak’s failed transformation—a living phylactery that dreams in his voice and hungers for new souls.
Each chamber is meticulously keyed, balanced between puzzle, horror, and survival challenge. The design rewards teamwork and careful thinking more than brute force.
Tone and Playstyle
Isle of the Sunken Mage is a dark-fantasy funnel—a hybrid of survival horror and old-school dungeon crawl. Death is frequent, rest is rare, and the environment itself is hostile. Every hazard has a logic rooted in the world’s lore: vines that bleed, seawater that whispers, corpses that rise when forgotten.
For Dungeon Masters, the module offers detailed stat blocks, boxed text for each encounter, and clear DCs for every action, making it easy to run while maintaining atmosphere. Combat is deadly but fair; observation and planning are often more effective than fighting.
The writing style evokes early TSR modules—direct, functional, and uncompromising—while the lore connects to modern 5E sensibilities. Zorak’s experiments, his imp familiar Zim, and the demonic bargains beneath the island tie directly into the continuing storyline of the trilogy.
The Lichseed Awakens
The story culminates in the island’s collapse. As the aspidochelone begins to submerge, the players race to escape while sirens, spores, and collapsing tunnels conspire against them.
Those who make it back to the Red Wake are not safe for long. From the ocean’s heart, a new terror rises—a colossal aberration of wings and light, heralding the events of Book II: Corpse in the Void.
The final pages close not with triumph but with dread. The sea boils, the stars twist out of alignment, and the surviving adventurers glimpse the scale of the disaster they’ve unleashed.
Craft, Not Code
Every map and illustration in Isle of the Sunken Mage was created by skilled artists working by hand—Carlos Castillo, Yuri Perkowski Domingos, Jeff Koch, and Quico Vicens-Picatto—with layout and cartography by Glynn Seal. No generative or AI art was used; all imagery was drawn, inked, or painted through traditional methods.
The result is a consistent visual language that feels tactile and timeless—lush jungles, dripping caverns, and demiplanar halls rendered with care. The art matches the tone of the text: grim, meticulous, and real.
A Tribute to Classic Design
The module’s dedication reads like a rallying cry to veteran Dungeon Masters:
“To the grognards and game masters of old—merciless, imaginative, and unrelenting. You built death traps with no exits and taught us that actions have consequences.”
That spirit runs through every encounter. There are no safety nets, no destined heroes, and no guaranteed endings. Every decision matters. Every mistake leaves scars.
The adventure also functions as an homage to Gary Gygax and the early era of role-playing, where curiosity and caution defined survival. Yet its layout and structure remain fully compatible with both the 2014 and 2024 editions of Dungeons & Dragons, making it easy to integrate into any modern campaign.
For Those Who Dare
Isle of the Sunken Mage is not just an adventure—it’s an invitation to rediscover danger. It challenges players to treat every torch, every corridor, and every heartbeat as precious.
Dungeon Masters will find it flexible enough to drop into any campaign world, while storytellers can use its lore—the failed lich, the living island, the pearl dragon, and the abyssal storms—as a foundation for broader planar arcs.
The adventure can be completed in one long session or extended into a full campaign depending on how deeply you explore the lair’s mysteries.
What Comes Next
This book is only the first step in The Lichseed Trilogy. Future volumes—Corpse in the Void and The Breath of Ashes—will expand the story into the planes and beyond, connecting the fallout of Zorak’s failure to a universe in decay.
Each book stands alone yet interlocks narratively, allowing groups to continue their characters’ journey—or roll new ones doomed to follow in their wake.
Where to Find It
Isle of the Sunken Mage is available now on DriveThruRPG, published by NiStar Entertainment.
Visit nistarentertainment.ca or email yoav@nistarentertainment.ca for updates, convention appearances, and upcoming releases.
