Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: GM’s Monthly Miscellany: January 2017

GM’s Monthly Miscellany: January 2017 is a free role playing game supplement from Raging Swan Press intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The supplement is covered by the Open Game License and therefore some of it is considered to be Open Game Content. This is one in a regular monthly series from the publisher, of which eleven are free each year and the twelfth is a pay what you want compendium that is also available as a print on demand softcover book.

This is a thirteen page bookmarked PDF. Two pages are the standard plain front and rear covers that the publisher uses, two pages have large stock illustrations, one essentially promoting the publisher’s Patreon campaign, the other their website, one page is the front matter and the contents and one page is the Open Game License. There is also a one page Foreword giving an overview of the contents and promoting Raging Swan’s Patreon campaign. The PDF also comes in two formats, one optimised for screen use and the other for printing.

The Gloamhold Look is an article on Raging Swan’s upcoming megadungeon, Gloamhold. The Look itself is a curse that affects those who enter the dungeon, and there are details on how it changes affected peoples’ appearance and how it can be gained, with a designer’s note on inflicting a curse like this in a system neutral setting.

Black Wyvern At a Glance is an extract from Village Backdrop: Black Wyvern, giving an overview of the village, a map of it, some NPCs, locations, rumours and other details.

Dragonmarch Keep At a Glance is an extract from Places of Power: Dragonmarch Keep and gives an overview of a fortress, with locations, lore, NPCs and other details, including a map.

What Are Wandering Monsters Actually Doing gives several brief tables on what different types of wandering monsters might actually be doing when they are stumbled across in a dungeon, rather than just having them be wandering aimlessly around.

For a PDF of this length to have bookmarks is unusual; unfortunately, many of them point to the wrong page, decreasing their utility. The text is in a two column format and one minor error was noticed. Bar the maps and the full page illustrations, there are a couple of minor pieces of stock art as well.

Monthly supplements of this type are typically newsletters intended to promote upcoming products from the publisher. This series is slightly different; although they do tend to promote upcoming and prior supplements, the content does tend to have some utility in itself. Despite simply being extracts from longer, more detailed supplements, there are enough details on Black Wyvern and Dragonmarch Keep to actually use them as-is. The brief article on wandering monsters is also useful for making dungeons more flavoursome. GM’s Monthly Miscellany: January 2017 is a decent collection of content, and it’s free, so click here to get it.