Wolf Lord Of Yol is a sandbox adventure, which is a style I'm personally a big fan of and provides a surprisingly large and fully realised sandbox for an adventure that is a mere 44 pages in length. Normally I wouldn't consider 44 pages 'short' but when you read through this book you'll be surprised that the amount of content you're getting was realised in only 44 pages.
Wolf Lord Of Yol really makes the most of its sandbox format by having an underlying story running throughout the entire adventure while letting the players discover what's going on through a number of avenues. One of the things I enjoyed the most about how uncovering information is handled is that there is a TON of background information available but what the PCs find out will depend heavily on which skills they use to uncover information not just whether or not they are making successful checks. The adventure proper takes the PCs through villages, woods, ruins and catacombs and provides a great mix of both combat and social encounters. I don't want to spoil any details for potential players but I will also say that this adventure starts off and moves through most of the plot in a very grounded way for a D&D adventure before substantially moving upward into 'epic' adventuring territory. I really see the big picture as being really rewarding for player's and making their actions feel important and substantive.
From a design point of view Wolf Lord Of Yol could easily be used as an example of how adventures should be written. The cover advertises the adventure as "Part 1 of the Yol Valley Saga" which is the kind of thing we've all seen in the past from authors planning to write a linked series of modules but The Yol Valley Saga starts servicing that intention in this, it's first adventure. The adventure highlights and breaks out notes on which encounters and outcomes will be follow-up or touched-on in future adventures in the series. For me that really conveys a sense that there is a larger plan in place that the authors are working towards, rather than just linking some separate writings. I also found the adventure visually very appealing with a lot of terrific cartography and some great artwork.
When I'm looking for adventures on DMsGuild to run for my group I usually base my choices on theme and current group level but I have to say even if my group wasn't level appropriate for this adventure I could easily see myself using the Yol Valley as flushed out in this adventure as a backdrop or locale for other adventures while teasing the story of Wolf Lord Of Yol to run down the road.
Wolf Lord Of Yol is currently available from DMsGuild at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/283965/Wolf-Lord-of-Yol?term=wolf+lord I highly recommend the adventure and at the time of this writing I have to say my only real criticism of the product is that I'm now left waiting for the next chapter in the Yol Valley Saga.
-Jay
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