Howl of the Wild is the most challenging review I think I’ve had to approach to date. It makes the previous times I’ve said that pale in comparison. This book as so much happening, and so much care and attention poured into it that I’m not even sure that a book like this has been released for Pathfinder before; or D&D, or any other game. So let’s dive into Howl of the Wild!

NOTICE: Paizo provided an electronic copy of this book to me for review purposes.

Background

When this book was announced, there was some buzz about it being a David Attenborough-esque nature trip. That it was a non-standard adventure travelling the Pathfinder setting of Golarion. And it’s all kind of true. But this book is so much more. Howl of the Wild is a player manual, bestiary, and adventure all rolled into a single smooth presentation. In fact, the nature of the book and its design makes it so I can’t use my usual “Good, Bad, and Ugly” review system.

To get what’s up in this review, you may want to check out my reviews of the Player Core, GM Core, and Monster Core books.

The Contents

The book chronicles the adventures of the Zoetrope, a flying ship crewed by non-Player Core ancestries as they explore the world of Golarion and take notes of its flora and fauna. On the surface, that seems like a big “why are we making a documentary, we came here for adventure” issue, but it’s not. It’s an expert development and execution of shifting a game from relying heavily on the combat pillar of play to the exploration one. There’s still action, there’s still danger, there’s still a potential for battle. But the reasoning behind it all is completely shifted from the traditional “kill monsters, get loot” to a more peaceful and non-antagonistic vibe. A massive and bold step for a D&D descended game to make, and one that can be supported beautifully by the mechanics in the new Core books.

The new ancestries are EXACTLY what Pathfinder needed and serve to set it further apart from its origins. The Athamaru are a tropical fishfolk reminiscent of lionfish. Awakened Animals kick open the doors for all those bear (and owlbear?) characters that people have been dreaming up. Centaurs, Merfolk, and Minotaurs are all self explanatory and were things I hoped would be ancestries as I went through the Monster Core book. The Surki are a new insectoid people, relatively freshly arrived on Golarion; and to the Mwangi Expanse as the NPC in the book had their home hive near Senghor. In short, the book opens a lot of options for player character and NPC creation.

Druid, Barbarian, and Ranger players unite and celebrate! This book is a goldmine of archetypes for those classes. I mean sure, there’s some other classes covered too, like Witches and Bards, but this book goes hard for the primal classes. There’s a whole series of articles by mechanics experts begging to be written about the player options in here, but I’ll say that whether you want your character to have a symbiote, to be a were creature, mimic monster powers, or become a magical bio-borg, this book has you covered.

GEAR! I’ve been banging on for ages that books need to include an equipment section to help capture the vibe f the book. To show how the region is different, amazing, and interesting. To add flavour to a otherwise predictable plate of fantasy kit. This book does that. And it does it well. I’ve not seen such a great equipment section in ages and looking at it all was like pouring fuel on the fire in my imagination.

Golarion’s Menagerie is the name for the bestiary section and, umm, wow. WOW. There are 72 new monsters, ranked level 0 to 18 in this book. That’s a huge jump. And then there’s the Wardens of the Wild, level 22 monsters with lore impacting and expanding roles. On top of the Monster Core book, this is a hugely needed expansion to make wilderness adventures more interesting and challenging.

The Buried Lede

The Droon Empire. It’s easy to miss in the details that follow, but this book offers the first real glimpses into the southern half of Garund. The Droon Empire is ancient, predating the Azlant, uncharted, and only vaguely described in most appearances it has. It’s the centre of Iruxi (Lizardfolk) culture on Garund. They trade dinosaur leather and ride dinosaurs. Grandmother Spider. And that’s about it. UNTIL NOW!

Although brief, we know there’s more happening than meets the eye. There’s a connection to Almas University in Andoran in Avistan that’s sufficient enough that an Iruxi scholar from Droon could attend and would be approached to publish their works by. Minotaurs from the Isle of Kortos can travel there (and apparently have their own small civilization tucked away in the volcanoes away from Absolom), and there are Athamaru in the waters around it. And in a single image, we see an example of multiple Iruxi from Droon along with samples of their fashion and construction aesthetics. Droon is also identified as a city, so we now know that Droon is the capital of the empire.

This is huge stuff because the southern half of Garund is woefully under supported and under-described. So getting this much information presented as a current state? AMAZING.

Using Howl of the Wild

This book is remarkably friendly to use and pairs perfectly with the GM Core book. To get the most out of it, use the following sections from the GM to help plan your adventures and the things happening in them:

• Running Exploration
• Running Downtime
• Encounter Design
• Environment
• Hazards
• Building Hazards
• Victory Points
• Chases
• Infiltration
• Hexploration
• Vehicles

As you can see, the GM Core has the tools ready to go to support the kind of adventure that Howl of the Wild is. None of this reduces its value as a pure supplemental book in terms of feats, archetypes, items, and so on, but it does shine a light on the versatility of the revised second edition of Pathfinder.

Final Thoughts

This is the closest thing to a perfect combination of an adventure and supplement book that I’ve ever seen. And it’s because it’s unconventional. It presents an amazing narrative arc that the GM could add the players to but doesn’t try to be a conventional adventure. It’s a gateway to a sandbox, so it doesn’t need to present as a regular adventure. And by doing that, it avoided the pitfall that Tomb of Annihilation fell into, where it was an adventure with supplemental details tagged on. This book offers a smooth blend of GM and player facing material wrapped in a writing style and narrative that makes you want to read more. And at 223 pages, that’s no joke. This book is exactly what I’m looking for in terms of supplements, and Paizo has set a new standard moving forwards. Rank S, no hesitation. Howl of the Wild is available here.