A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Village Backdrop: Trickletrek

Village Backdrop: Trickletrek by Alexander Augunas 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 content is considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

This is a ten page bookmarked PDF which is available from RPGNow at the regular price of $2.45 but was purchased at the greatly reduced price of $0.11 as part of a special bundle. The village is also included in the compilation supplement GM’s Miscellany: Village Backdrops II. The supplement comes in two formats, one optimised for print and high end devices and the other for screen and mobile devices.

Two pages are Raging Swan’s standard plain front and rear covers and there is a third, similar page, one page is the front matter, Contents and Stat Blocks by CR and one page is the Open Game License.

Trickletrek At a Glance is two pages and gives an overview of the village. This gives a brief history of the settlement, its demographics, marketplace, notable NPCs and locations, village lore and a d6 table of whispers & rumours, some true and some false, along with a labelled map of the village. This section can be found for free in GM’s Monthly Miscellany: April 2014. Trickletrek is a predominately gnome village beside a river, although there are some halflings and humans who run the place, as the gnomes consider that to be too boring. The village is currently suffering from the effects of a mysterious asteroid that crashed into a cove nearby.

Notable Locations is another two pages and covers the ten locations from the previous section in more detail.

Finally, there is a single page on Life in Trickletrek. This gives a brief overview of trade & industry and law & order and a d6 table of random events. Also on this page are two stat blocks, one for a colour-blighted villager and the other a specific colour-blighted NPC, the local druid.

Village Backdrop: Trickletrek in Review

The PDF is very well bookmarked with all the major and minor sections linked. The Contents, although it only covers the major sections, is also hyperlinked. Navigation is therefore well above average. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noted. The only illustration is the map of the village.

It is only mentioned once in the text (and no stats are given) but it’s plain from the description of the village anyway, to those familiar with the short story, that the village is being affected by a Colour Out of Space. This once pleasant gnome village is now suffering from the ill effects of this creature – and it’s not the only Lovecraftian horror lurking in the vicinity. Adventurers may well end up dealing with this monster before it destroys the entire village. As such, this is not merely a location but a potential adventure site as well, allowing a GM to run a classic Lovecraftian encounter – with added gnomes. Which may well give it a different spin.

Enough details are provided on the village that it could be used simply as a place to pass through but surely any adventurer worth the name will want to find out what is wrong with the place. Village Backdrop: Trickletrek is a decent, and different, settlement that is worth getting and it can be found by clicking here.