Wayfarers of the Farwood - Review

The world of Lor’zun is a wilderness consumed by the Farwood. The gods roam the land, and each day is a fight for survival. Lor’zun is in constant flux, and cataclysmic events can occur where civilizations are obliterated in a heartbeat.

Wayfarers of the Farwood, the map of Lor’zun, and character sheets.

What drew me to Wayfarers of the Farwood was the primal background. Lor’zun is a world where metal is rare; those who wield weapons made of metal are known as Ironwielders, and are often well known, for a city state will contain a few dozen Ironwielders amongst ten thousand. Instead, stone-chanters and wood-chanters exist, people who craft and mould the stone and wood to create weapons, armour, and other day to day items. The primal gods stride across the world, and encounters with the bestial lesser gods are not unheard of. To survive, hunting and foraging is a necessity, for constant changes in the world mean farming, even with the skill of crop-chanters, is no guarantee of survival.

As soon as I heard about this project on Kickstarter, by Farwood Publishing, I had to back it. It creates a brand-new world whilst maintaining the core of D&D, adding thematic subclasses to the game that you could easily use in most campaign settings. With additional rules for foraging and hunting, Wayfarers of the Farwood is perfect for those who enjoy focusing on the journeying aspect of D&D. It also contains an additional mechanic for capturing and using the spirits of the bed, introducing four new cantrips, called the Godsongs, known to all spellcasters. In this review I’ll be covering a few different topics, breaking down my thoughts and then giving my overall opinion of the book, with three things I love, three things I hate, and my favourite three subclasses.

Lor’seck’s Grasp, one of the Godsongs, from Wayfarers of the Farwood.

Three things I love:

There were a lot of things I loved in this book, only picking three was quite the challenge! The theme, player options, the extra mechanics, there was a lot to choose from.

The subclasses:

I love the theme of the subclasses, the wildness of each and the optional rules for playing in the Farwood, so your character is viable for any setting, not just a campaign set in Lor’zun. The subclasses are also distinct from those we’ve seen before. As an add on this, I need to mention the Spiritmancer. The Spiritchanter class adds extra flavour to your party, fitting the primal background. In my opinion, it feels a role somewhere between a barbarian and paladin. The Spiritmancer has three subclasses of its own: the spirit hunter, the spirit keeper, and the spiritmancer. The spirit hunter specialises in dealing damage, the spirit keeper focuses on protection and has access to some spells, whilst the Spiritmancer augments your use of Spirit Points, a unique mechanic to Spiritchanters and those with access to the Godsongs. I’ll be briefly covering my favourite three subclasses later in this post.

The Spirit Chanter, from Wayfarers of the Farwood.

Depth and variety of encounters:

This book contains a lot of encounters, around 200 of them in fact. What’s great about them is they aren’t all just combat based either, some are tasks or puzzles, encounters with the primal gods. The combat encounters vary in difficult and include a wide range of monsters, including more common foes such as goblins and giant animals, but also dragons, elementals and giants.

The lore:

As I’ve already talked about, the primordial feel to the book is what drew me to buying Wayfarers of the Farwood, and is one of the things I loved throughout. The primal gods are a brilliant development of the gods from what we’d usually see, and the constantly changing world, with terralanches and Great Shifts, allows for a lot of world development. The most significant change is definitely the lack of metal in the world, something that is very unfamiliar, and is explored within the Iron Thieves campaign and some of the new mechanics. There’s so much to talk about regarding the lore, I feel I could write an entire post just about it.

Omn, God of Survival, from Wayfarers of the Farwood.

Three things I hate:

Hate is definitely a strong word here. I found it challenging to find things I don’t like about this book. For me, and this is something I sometimes have an issue with the when it comes to the main rulebooks.

Referencing:

There’s some referencing back and forward in the book, and I feel like this can detract from a session if you’re having to look at various pages in different sections of the book. There’s also a fair number of tables, so running a session may not be as quick and straightforward as it appears. It could also be very daunting to new players, with various effects such as terrain and danger rating coming into play with encounters.

Complexity of woe encounters:

This follows on from my previous point regarding referencing. Woe are a foe unique to the Farwood, and come in a variety of guises, each one having a chart so it can be scaled to suit the level of the encounter. Don’t get me wrong, I love the aspect of scalable monsters, so you can have different levels of creatures for the players, adapting them to suit the level of the party, but this follows through with my previous point of referencing as you must look at several pages throughout the book. This is especially true if you have multiple woe to fight, as the different kinds of woe are on different pages. For me, this doesn’t really suit my style as a DM, as I like to look at one page or sheet of paper when running a session because it helps keep the flow going, so it may not be a problem for everyone. I feel like the best way to learn how to use these encounters is to run through the Iron Thieves Campaign present in the book.

The Woe Encounter Generator, from Wayfarers of the Farwood.

Lack of monsters:

This may seem like a strange topic after speaking of the Woe, but there are very few monsters and NPCs within the Farwood setting. Whilst not essential, it would have been a pleasant addition to see a few more monsters suitable for Lor’zun, maybe some kind of beast-people or even a template for the lesser gods. As mentioned, we see the Woe, and monks of the Sun Order, but that’s it.

Three favourite subclasses:

These aren’t necessarily the strongest of the subclasses within the book, or even strong compared to those within the main rules, they’re just a few of my favourites based on the flavour of the design or the rules.

The Void Dancer, from Wayfarers of the Farwood.

Fighter – Void Dancer:

I love this. The void dancer is probably my favourite subclass in the book, designed around being an anti-magic fighter. I feel like the social interaction of this subclass is great, especially if found in a party of magic users. In combat, their Attenuating Strike ability functions similarly to a battle master, and could make for interesting tactical decisions. I’d personally like to run a void dance who hates magic users, and really focus on that aspect of them within a party.

Sorcerer – Stream Weaver:

For me, the Stream Weaver is everything a sorcerer should be. They have the potential to cast a plethora of spells in a single turn, but at the risk of doing nothing or taking damage. I feel like this would play in a similar way to the Wild Magic sorcerer, but with more potential from the subclass.

Warlock – Warlock of the Lesser Gods:

I don’t think I could go through this review without mentioning this subclass. Throughout Wayfarers the primal gods make a big impact on the world, and the characters can meet the lesser gods. The warlock of the lesser gods can gain abilities from these encounters, in the form of eldritch invocations, and their presence can even impact how the lesser gods react to them. They also have some interesting interactions with spirits and the Godsongs,

Phesor, God of Decay, from Wayfarers of the Farwood.

Final thoughts:

Overall, I love this book! The artwork is stunning, the background is fantastic, the book itself is beautiful. It’s difficult to find a fault this book, maybe not my first pick for new players but as I mentioned in my ‘Things I Hate’ section. Although it may not seem like it, I found it a challenge to find things I didn’t like. From reading this book, I’ve already had several ideas for characters, a human Void Dancer and dragonborn Streamweaver, and plan on integrating some of the background and aspects of the world into my own campaigns.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this review helpful and engaging. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below, and you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay up to date with more content from me!

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In the meantime, happy gaming!

Chris