GM’s Miscellany: Village Backdrops details twelve small settlements that are part of Raging Swan Press’ Lonely Coast mini campaign setting (which is free to download and well worth a read), though they are intended to be easily divorced from that setting and dropped into any campaign with a minimum of fuss. Each village write up consists of a chapter heading page and five to six pages of description which includes a ½ to ¾ page hand drawn map.

The book starts with a page of author bios, which is something I’d like to see in more RPG books. This is followed by the table of contents, a list of stat blocks by CR, a section on how to read the stat blocks, and three pages on using this book with Ultimate Campaign.

Designing Villages is the first proper chapter of the book, and really it could be called Village Dressing. It starts with some useful tips on village design and then moves straight into tables detailing everything from government to industry to external conflicts to internal secrets to a 100 item table of sample village names. Using this chapter and a little imagination, a GM can make up a flavourful village in remarkably little time.

From here we move into the villages proper. Each village opens with a few paragraphs describing the village followed by a settlement stat block, a short list of notable residents, a short list of notable places, village lore which includes Knowledge check CRs, and a brief description of the average villager. The notable locations in the village then get expanded upon with a few paragraphs each. Each village closes with a table of possible events and a selection of whispers and rumours.
I want to commend the various authors of this book for making each and every village unique and interesting despite the relatively scant page count. While some of them tickle my fancy more than others (Apia, Bossin, Denton’s End, Oakhurst, and White Moon Cove are particular favourites), there isn’t a dud among them. Each village has enough unique flavour, interesting locations and plot hooks that a GM could keep his players busy for ages. While I was reading through the villages, I found myself constantly pausing to write down notes and ideas for adventures; this isn’t something that I find myself doing while reading most setting supplements.

The book itself is a nice solid black and white softcover with appealing black and white illustrations and simply beautiful cartography; I really like the hand drawn style of the maps in this book .

If I had to complain about anything, I’d say that the lack of a map of the Lonely Coast noting all the village locations in relation to one another was a missed opportunity, but otherwise this book is excellent. Once again, Raging Swan Press ably succeeds at their goal of supplying time strapped GMs with flavoursome, easily digested material that is dead simple to drop into a campaign; this book is worth an easy five stars. I can’t wait to delve into GM’s Miscellany: Village Backdrops 2!