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

GM’s Monthly Miscellany: November 2015 is a free role playing game supplement published by Raging Swan Press. It is primarily intended for use with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game and, as a result, it is covered by the Open Game License and some of it is considered to be Open Game Content. This is the eleventh and final regular issue for the year in this supplement series, with the twelfth being a compilation issue that is also available as a print on demand softcover.

This is a fourteen page bookmarked PDF. Two pages are Raging Swan’s standard plain front and rear covers, one page is an advert for their Patreon campaign, one page is the Contents and front matter, one page the Open Game License and one page the Foreword.

20 Magic Effects Affecting an Evil Altar is a dungeon dressing table from the publisher’s site and has a number of effects from purely cosmetic to more functional ones.

Tigley At a Glance is taken from Village Backdrop: Tigley. This village is one which was originally devastated by an earthquake, and much of it is therefore built on a spire. An overview of the village’s history is given, as well as demographics and marketplace, notable NPCs and locations, lore, villagers and whispers & rumours, as well as a map of the village.

Urban Riot: Minor Events is from Campaign Events: Urban Riot. This is a d100 table of various minor events that could be seen during a riot.

Valley of the Rocks: Notable Inhabitants is an extract from Places of Power: Valley of the Rocks and details four NPCs from the location.

20 Minor Effects of Drinking from a Magic Pool is another article from the publisher’s site, this one having 20 minor effects, some beneficial, some not, resulting from drinking from a magical pool.

The PDF is well bookmarked for its length, but unfortunately some of these point to the wrong locations. The Contents is at the same level of detail as the bookmarks. Navigation is okay as a result, but marred. The text maintains a two column format with a few errors noticed, most notable in the locations list for Tigley, as all of the numbers would appear to be 20 higher than they should be. Apart from the village map, the only illustration is a piece of stock art.

This supplement is primarily intended to promote others from the publisher but it does have use in itself. The urban riot table can be dropped into most fantasy settings without too much difficulty, and there are enough details on Tigley to use the village as-is, at least as a waypoint. The NPCs from Valley of the Rocks are less useful by themselves; all they are is four elven ghost druids; without some more details, using all of them together would be a stretch. Perhaps one could be dropped into a campaign. Otherwise, GM’s Monthly Miscellany: November 2015 is another decent collection of articles, and it can be got for free by clicking here.