Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: GM’s Monthly Miscellany: April 2015

GM’s Monthly Miscellany: April 2015 is a free role playing game supplement published by Raging Swan Press. This is one in a monthly series that consists of eleven regular supplements and a twelfth compilation issue that is also available as a print on demand softcover. The supplement is primarily intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and as such is covered by the Open Game License, making some of it Open Game Content.

This is a fifteen page bookmarked PDF. Two pages are Raging Swan’s standard plain front and rear covers, one page is a full page illustration promoting the publisher’s Patreon campaign, one page is the front matter and Contents, one page is the Open Game License and one page is the Foreword. The supplement comes in two formats, one optimised for print and one for screen.

GM Advice: Why (And How) You Should Design Unique Magic Items is an article from the publisher’s blog on making magic items unique. This article has already been used in the April 2014 edition.

Dilath’s Hold At a Glance is taken from Subterranean Enclave: Dilath’s Hold. Dilath’s Hold is a an underearth settlement populated by drow and duergar. Tensions are high because of the population split, even though this is long-standing. Covered is a brief history of the settlement, its demographics, marketplace, notable NPCs and locations, lore, whispers and rumours and a map of the village.

Elven Town: Sights & Sounds is from Urban Dressing: Elven Town and is a d100 table, with 100 results, of various things that can be seen and heard in an elven settlement.

Red Talon At a Glance is an extract from Village Backdrop: Red Talon is an overview of a settlement founded by a pirate which now functions as the centre of a cult feeding people to the now-undead pirate and his equally undead crew. Once again, this gives the history, demographics, marketplace, notable locations and NPCs, marketplace, lore, whispers and rumours and a map of the village. There is a brief reference to the also pirate-founded settlement of Deksport (whose overview can be found in the November 2014 issue).

GM Advice: Putting the Wonder Back into Wondrous Items considers a change that started in D&D 3rd Edition and which therefore continued into Pathfinder; magic items became very commonplace, as they could easily be bought, and therefore just a commodity item. This is solved by making rare materials actually rare, getting rid of magic shops, making dangerous alchemical items suitably hard to find and making items unique.

The supplement is well bookmarked for one of its length, although the really extensive bookmarking seen in the 2014 issues has now fallen by the wayside. There were again a couple of errors in the bookmarks, but the supplement is short enough that this really isn’t a problem. The text maintains a two column format, and some errors were noticed. The most notable of these was in the article on Red Talon; the location numbers in the list of locations are completely different to those on the map. There are a number of black and white illustrations, most presumably stock.

This may be a supplement whose primary purpose is to showcase other products from the publisher, but the supplement does still have use in itself. Both Dilath’s Hold and Red Talon are described in enough detail that they can be used, even with the errors in Red Talon. The elven town dressing can be used for any suitable elven town, as long as it uses the fantasy sylvan standard for elves. GM’s Monthly Miscellany: April 2015 is another useful collection of articles, and it’s free, so click here to get it.