The Thaumaturge is an ambitious, compelling RPG that’s a diamond in the rough

polygon.com:

The Thaumaturge exists in an alternate 1905 Warsaw, where I can’t go anywhere without a couple of soldiers trying to mug me for my nice warm boots, and making matters worse, I’m playing an exhausted-looking guy who keeps talking to himself. This RPG world doesn’t have the same immediate appeal as a fantasy realm like Baldur’s Gate 3’s Faerun, but once I start digging, I find a treasure trove of great writing and compelling choices.

The game starts with a short tutorial that introduces us to Wiktor Szulski, our prideful protagonist. Wiktor is a Thaumaturge, a mage who invokes ancient rites to bind spectral entities and cryptids known as salutors to his will. He’s also kind of an asshole; the only people he’s even close to are his beloved sister and his new pal Rasputin. (Yes, that Rasputin.) While the tutorial takes place in a small village, allowing the player to figure out Wiktor’s skills in a low-pressure environment, before long I’m headed to Warsaw to investigate a mystery with much bigger stakes.

Whenever a game throws a bunch of proper nouns and mechanics at me, there’s always the risk that I miss something. Thankfully, Fool’s Theory, the developer of The Thaumaturge, does a good job of introducing concepts naturally. This is the kind of game I was able to blitz through in a few long sessions because I was always eager to talk to one more person, find one more conclusion, solve one more quest.

Using Wiktor’s Thaumaturge powers makes up a big part of the game. Certain items leave a Trace, a marker of its owner and a big way to find evidence throughout the story. For instance, during the tutorial, I found a year-old bloodstain smeared on a scorched floor. Simply taking a gander at it is enough to tell me how the person died, the murder weapon, and their emotional state at the time. It’s important that I track these mysteries, too, because in this universe, bad vibes are more than simply an unpleasant experience — they’re downright deadly. Major moral flaws draw