GM’s Miscellany: Village Backdrops IV

The fourth installment of the amazing Village Backdrop-series clocks in at 92 pages, 1 page front cover, 3 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC (including statblocks by CR), 2 pages of author bios (wish all books included that – author name recognition is important!), 1 page advice on reading statblocks for novice GMs, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with a total of 81 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This book contains the villages of Cahill Abbey, Feigrvidr, Feyhall, Greystone, Macrimei, Ossoka Draconsha, Revenge, Shroudhaven, Silver Bluff, Tigley, Umelas, Vaagwol and Y’taris. These villages all have in common that I have actually reviewed the respective Village Backdrops for them, so if you require in-depth guidance pertaining them, please take a look at my respective reviews. (On my site, just click on the village backdrop-tag at the bottom of the review for a handy list, if you don’t want to search them by hand.)

Now, the respective entries here range from pretty good to phenomenal, with several entries compiled herein ranking as definite highlights even within the high-quality series. Unfortunately, the respective entries don’t seem to have received an additional editing pass, with some obvious minor glitches that have haunted the original files having found their way into this compilation as well. The weaker installments like Y’taris have similarly not received an overhaul, which is all that keeps me from not erupting into lavish praises.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, but not perfect – the book takes the base files and compiles them. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ two-column b/w-standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. The pdf comes in two iterations, one of which is optimized for screen-use, one intended to be printed out. The cartography for the villages is phenomenal and amazing – Raging Swan Press’ patreon has, unlike I am sorely mistaken, the option to get separate versions of the glorious maps.

John Bennett, Creighton Broadhurst, Jeff Gomez, Richard Green, Steve Hood, Greg Marks, Jacob W. Michaels, Stephen Radney-MacFarland and Mike Welham have crafted a glorious compilation that contains some of my favorites in the whole product lines, some villages that shine like stars even in this series. At the same time, there are also a couple of slightly weaker installments included herein, which does help to even the gems out a bit. As a whole, this is a great compilation if you want the respective villages in print and if you don’t have them already. If you do already own them, then this provides nothing new apart from a few really nice b/w-pieces of art I can’t recall having seen in the respective installments. If you want all (or most) included villages, get this. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars.

You can get this cool compilation here on OBS!

You can directly support Raging Swan Press here on patreon!

Endzeitgeist out.

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