The Village of Cherish aka All About Small Towns by John Josten is a free role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. This is part of the Small Bites series and is the “World Walker” version. The full version is only available to Patreon supporters and is a bit over twice the length.
The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG for free as a 27-page PDF. One page is the front cover.
The Introduction explains that the supplement has Cherish the Crescent Town, a small town suitable for dropping an adventure into, as well as examples to use in other towns.
The Sounding Board duplicates a number of blog posts, starting with That which makes me smarter explains how knowing more can help with worldbuilding.
Sheriffs and Deputies looks at the role of these and what they would get paid.
Watering the People is a section removed from Urban Developments which looks at how settlements get water.
Xenophobia looks at how some places might have something against a group of people, whether because of species, religion or something else.
More Ideas Everywhere looks at how local news stories can provide adventure seeds.
Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane starts by looking at Crescent Towns, towns built near a major trade route but built so that the inhabitants are not at risk of being run over by the traffic, which means the town is built in a rough crescent on one side of the trade route. It looks at Crescent Point, founded by a religion, the base plan for these towns.
The Village of Cherish has a simple map of the town, its history, local customs and using the town as an origin for player characters.
Small Towns and City Neighborhoods has a simple table defining settlement type by number of inhabitants, before covering the various locations of Cherish in detail.
Making it Work in Fletnern explains that Cherish is a generic village and could be dropped into any setting, but has links for using it in Fletnern.
News of Fletnern has some details on the foods of Cherish and the other regions.
The Good Life starts with a general description of the area around Cherish then covers its government and some rural slang.
$ilver Sense explains the logic behind the businesses found in Cherish.
Church Bells looks at the religions found in Cherish.
Pull Back the Curtain looks at the concepts behind Cherish.
Y? Y? Y! looks at how to mix and match different businesses and locations to make different small towns; this only really applies to using the full version of the supplement.
The final pages are What’s Missing, which describes everything in the full version, and In Conclusion wraps things up and gives various links.
The Village of Cherish aka All About Small Towns in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with major sections linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of black and white stock images, as well as the slightly coloured maps. Presentation is okay.
There’s enough in this supplement that Cherish could be used in a setting, though naturally the full version is more useful. As is common, some of the articles go into quite a bit of theoretical depth, even for short articles, on how things will work together in a fantasy world. The Village of Cherish aka All About Small Towns is a useful collection of articles on villages and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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