Introduction

The Palladium Fantasy World has been through a number of ups and downs in recent years.  The Western Empire and Eastern Territories were great-to-solid efforts, while the Land of The Damned Vol’s I and II represent the worst Palladium can offer.  The Wolfen Empire Adventure Sourcebook (WEAS) falls somewhere in-between.  There is certainly good material within the covers, but there is also large swaths of text that make me wonder if Kevin Siembieda even cares anymore about what Palladium publishes.

The Wolfen Empire

The setting should have been the crux and the most exciting part of this supplement, given it is titled The Wolfen Empire which is a major nation-state in the setting.  One that many fans of Palladium Fantasy have been waiting for.  The Wolfen Empire is analogous to the Roman empire of earth.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, there are very few original concepts in gaming or fantasy.  There are plenty of re-treads in game settings, the problem with WEAS is that it is so poorly done.  Much of the text for the Wolfen Empire has a feel that it is a high school history book with serious use of cut on Roman and pasting for Wolfen. 

The Wolfen Empire is divided up into twelve tribes, each of who controls a state.  In addition to the wolfen there are various subject races.  Some of these subjects are integrated into the wolfen states, others have their own states and others are semi-autonomous.  Much of the Wolfen Empire has a Roman fee;, which strikes me as odd given that the far north of the Palladium world and the Wolfen have little in common with Italy or Romans.

TheWolfen Empire has been flouted as one of the keystones of the Palladium Fantasy setting, it is disappointing that it was given such a small page count (37 pages).  Perhaps Kevin did not have time to create a full book in 2003, or just not enough impetus to care.  What is presented is disappointing based on length and content, doubly so given the important part the Wolfen Empire plays in the Palladium Fantasy setting.

Creatures of the Far North

This portion of the WEAS, is simply a waste of dead trees and makes me wonder if the Palladium people do not care or are simply incompetent.  To sum up, most of the creatures presented are simply larger versions of mundane animals or artic variants of mundane animals.  Luckily this awful section is also the shortest section of the WEAS.

Adventures

Normally I do not like Palladiums endless tables of adventures and encounters.  WEAS does a surprisingly good job of presenting a variety of adventures in scale and challenge.  Specifically the adventure 101, where there are literally a 101 adventures given.  Some are simple encounters that are covered in the page, others could be used as hooks to give some adventures quite a lot to do (along with the GM).

Later on in this section of WEAS are eight larger adventures penned by a variety of contributors.  I would say most of the adventures are serviceable, a few are very good and a one is not so swell.  Inserted in this section is a good base of operations for adventurers, Badd Land.  This of it as the Mos Eisley of the Wolfen Empire.  It is rough and tumble, but offers plenty of opportunity to take advantage of the adventures presented in this part of WEAS.

Production

As with most Palladium offerings, WEAS is a perfect bound book.  It weighs in at 160 pages.  The layout and design is the Siembieda standard: two columns with mundane art placement.  This is not a bad thing.  While it may be boring and Palladium’s layout and design scheme leads to some occasional presentation goofs, it is easy to read.

The art is generally good.  It was nice to see some of Kevin Long’s work dusted off and slotted into WEAS.  The cover is by Ramon Perez and is hardly worthy of being of being there.  It is basically a colorized pen drawing that would look much better between the covers than on top on them.

In Summation

The Wolfen Empire Adventure Sourcebook to me is a mixed bag of some very solid material with a large influx of very poor material.  WEAS is a good example of Palladium ultimately not giving what the readers might want from their fantasy setting.  This disappointment stems from the brief coverage of the Wolfen Empire combined with a very pedestrian effort to bring it to life.  The Wolfen Empire has been one of the most important areas of interest in the setting and it is given a mere fraction of page count as compared to its arch-rival:  the Eastern Territories.  An adventure book for the Wolfen Empire is fine and the adventures presented in this book are generally good.  Yet, what Palladium needed to publish was a supplement dedicated to the Wolfen Empire and not some half hearted effort to do both.  40 pages is not nearly enough to cover the diverse and large Wolfen Empire.

Overall, The Wolfen Empire Adventure Sourcebook is an uneven and disappointing effort that fails to deliver much of real value.