Village Backdrop: Apia by Ben Kent is a role playing game supplement published by Raging Swan Press for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 14 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.45 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the front and back covers, one page is an ad for other supplements, two pages are the front matter, one page is the Contents and Foreword, one page is a standard one on Reading Stat Blocks and one page is the Open Game License and an ad. The PDF comes in two versions, one optimised for print and high end devices, the other for screen and mobile.
Apia At a Glance is two pages and gives an overview of the village. It starts with the village’s history as a former town on a major trade route with a protective castle. The castle was eventually overrun, the bridge broken and the trade route shifted, but people still moved back into the town. An encounter with an ettercap resulted in the village becoming devoted to the production of honey and being renamed. This section also has the demographics, notable NPCs and locations, marketplace, lore and villager description, together with a labelled map.
Notable Locations is another two pages and covers various locations, including the castle, beehives, tavern and store. There are sidebars on alchemical honey, which has augmented healing properties, and a mellified man, which is a process of becoming a honey-based corpse, ingestion of whose parts can cure disease and poison.
Life in Apia is a single page and gives an overview of the place, with d6 tables of events and whispers & rumours, together with stats for a honeybee swarm.
Finally, M’yxtix is a single page and gives stats on the ettercap who the villagers have become friendly with, and vice versa.
Village Backdrop: Apia in Review
The PDF is extensively bookmarked with everything but the sidebars linked. The Contents is not as thorough, but is hyperlinked. Navigation is very good. The text maintains a two column black and white format and appeared to be free of errors. Apart from the village map, there is a single piece of black and white stock art. Presentation is okay.
Apia isn’t an exciting place to visit and is quite peaceful. This should make it a fairly pleasant stop off for characters, and a place to pick up some alchemical honey. Of course, the village is so pleasant it might make any players suspicious – and perhaps needlessly so. There isn’t anything dangerous in the village, but turning corpses into consumables is a fairly odd notion that could be used to make the village a lot more creepy. Characters might also instinctively attack the ettercap and end up with the entire village against them. Village Backdrop: Apia is a useful village supplement that can be dropped into a campaign and it can be found by clicking here.
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