Jay Africa’s The River Lord is a short adventure for level 3 characters. The adventurers are hired by a noblewoman who wants to ransom her wayward son from some pirates, but things are unlikely to go so smoothly.

The adventure mainly consists of the one confrontation with the pirates. The players have a lot of agency in how things unfold, whether through role-playing, infiltration or straight-up combat, although it’s more than likely things will devolve into combat at some point.

I found the adventure surprisingly simple and elegant. There’s a couple of surprises for the players, and, despite the numerous characters present, I don’t foresee any difficulties in running this. I would estimate a running time between two and four hours, tending towards the lower of those ranges.

The adventure also offers several suggestions for expansion, providing additional encounter ideas before the main action and ways the plot could develop afterwards.

Overall, I found The River Lord to be a good adventure, which implements a simple idea very well. Recommended.