Marvels & Malisons (2018) is an expansion of Wonder & Wickedness, by Paolo Greco. While W&W works fine on its own, it might feel a bit too minimal or nebulous to some players. M&M adds a good amount of optional clarification and mechanical scaffolding. The most important thing, rules wise, is the added flexibility given to sigils. In W&W, sigils essentially serve to make spells permanent or create magic items, but at the cost of being unable to cast the sigiled spell again without nullifying the sigil. M&M introduces a brief system that supports multiple sigils in a way that mirrors a simplified magic item creation process that mirrors those in vanilla D&D rule sets (with ingredients and time expenditure)

M&M also introduces five more schools – Apotropaism, Arachnomophosis, Physiurgy, Cunning Craft and Rope Tricks. While all great and interesting on their own (I love Rope Tricks, which includes Rope is Always Handy, which essentially gives the caster a third arm), perhaps the most important thing they illustrate is how you can make your own schools of magic and accompanying spells. With W&W’s schools bound, however weirdly, to the original D&D spells, it is a little hard to free your thinking. M&M unlocks that box.

Instead of new magic items, M&M includes random charts for starting equipment for each school. Much of this is color, but I love it (Diabolists have a good chance of starting a campaign with a black goat and how can you not love that?).

Art wise, Russ Nicholson is a tough act to follow, but Evlyn M does a great job. Their art is emphatically not Nicholson in the best possible way, while still capturing the vibe of strangeness and danger that was apparent in W&W. I should also mention that I love how small these books are – they remind me of some similarly tiny occult books I have in my collection, which adds to that forbidden vibe.