An OSR Compatible GM’s Resource by Creighton Broadhurst, Jeff Gomez, Richard Green, Marc Radle and Mike Welham

Village Backdrops are short, richly detailed supplements that each present a single village ready to insert into almost any home campaign. Perfect for use as a waystop on the road to adventure, as an adventure site themselves or as a PC’s home, Village Backdrop present the details so the busy GM can focus on crafting exciting, compelling adventures.

GM’s Miscellany: Village Backdrops II comprises the following villages:

Ashford

Once a prosperous village, Ashford now stands as a decayed shadow of its former self. A year ago, it was a busy place; its streets and gardens echoing with the sounds of life, love and commerce. Then the stranger came and death followed upon his heels. Plague had come to Ashford. In his wake, he left the hacking coughs and pain-filled moans of the dying and the wails of the survivors mourning their dead. Over half the population died, and many of the survivors packed and fled.

A few folk yet dwell in Ashford among the abandoned, deserted homes of their friends and neighbours, but it is now a quiet, mournful place. Weeds choke its abandoned gardens and untilled fields. Wolves, foxes and other less natural predators gnaw at the weathered bones filling the village’s open plague pit. The surviving villagers are distrustful of strangers, shunning them whenever possible, and few find welcome, cheer or solace in Ashford.

Black Wyvern

The village of Black Wyvern has prospered from the surrounding woodland, producing high quality lumber for shipbuilding and the finest sea chests for a hundred miles. Founded by a retired pirate captain and his crew, who drove the Bone Snapper orcs from the site, the new villagers soon found something much worse lurking among the trees. Now, nearly 20 years later, the captain and most of his crew are long dead and the surviving inhabitants must pay a dark price for their wealth, forced into a twisted pact that allows them to harvest the forest’s bounty.

Bleakflat

Lost to the north of nowhere, far beyond the reach of trade routes and prying eyes, a rocky bluff rises from barren soil. Here, deep amidst the frozen tundra, a ruined castle has been refitted into a tiny village. Ten hovels, whose rural architecture suggests structures five centuries old, surround a refurbished tower, and in this tower lives the mayor of Bleakflat. Wise and capable, he tends to his villagers as a shepherd to his sheep.

The very presence of such a remote village is enough to arouse suspicion. There are no ore mines here, no nearby dungeons, no ley lines or trade routes. The people seem simple enough, but they are somehow able to fend off the wolf packs roaming the land, and are unperturbed by the massive bats which attack the rare unannounced visitor. How? The people of Bleakflat are under the protection of a vampire, the mayor of the village and the only citizen with rosy cheeks and warm smile. The villagers trade their blood for his protection and care, and in turn he tends his flock well. 

Coldwater

Widely thought of as a haven for smugglers and other miscreants, rumours swirl as thickly about Coldwater as the persistent sea fogs that sometimes blanket the place for days at a time. Set at the head of a muddy cliff top path, Coldwater is an isolated, dismal place. Its folk are sullen, ugly people and even the village’s ruler hates the place. For all that, Coldwater can be a place of opportunity and adventure. Sometimes, pirates drop anchor off the coast to deal with the local smugglers while rumours of a sunken stair and a nearby cove of ill aspect bring a steady stream of adventurers to the village.

Kingsfell

Standing hard against the River Ost, Kingsfell is seemingly a tranquil and prosperous village on a well-travelled trade route. However, the village stands on the site of a long-forgotten battlefield and not all the dead rest easily in their graves. Strangely, while the paladin—and lady of the village—Mira Lankinen, the scion of an ancient line, keeps watch over her lands, a subtle unease shrouds the village. Strangers sometimes arrive in Kingsfell armed with spades and picks intending to dig beneath the Kingstones, for rumours and old stories vaguely place buried treasures beneath their feet. Local laws and traditions prohibit such treasure hunting, however, and few dare to face down Mira Lankinen and her skilled, vigilant men-at-arms. Thus, so far the stones and whatever lies beneath remains undisturbed.

Lanthorn

High up in the mountains, and often besieged by packs of murderous trolls, the village of Lanthorn stands as civilisation’s last glimmering light in an otherwise bleak and barren mountain range. A strange alliance of wizards—the Grand Conclave of Sublime Artificers—and a gaggle of (almost) civilised goblins—the Flaming Skull tribe—dwells in a bizarre atmosphere that is both scholarly and anarchic. Protected by high walls and gigantic magical lanterns imbued with portent fire magic, the wizards craft the mundane and wondrous items for which they are famed. Without the walls brave—or foolhardy—goblin “miners” search the nearby troll-haunted mines for lead and silver—some of which is reputed to have magical properties.

Longbridge

A hotbed of intrigue and deception, Longbridge is claimed by not one but two noble lords. Sprawled across both banks of a wide, swiftly flowing river forming the boundary between the rivals’ lands, the village grew up at either end of a fortified stone bridge of ancient dwarven artifice. A no man’s land of sorts, the bridge itself is huge; scores of travellers cross it every day and several businesses have established themselves upon its span to service their needs. Informally led by Einhard Kochel these free traders do not pay tax or offer fealty to either lord and fiercely resist both nobles’ overtures.

Longbridge is in turmoil. Rumourmongers whisper bloody war will soon swirl across the span as one noble or the other seeks to settle the matter of its ownership once and for all. Others whisper of hidden stairs in the bridge’s pilings plunging deep below the riverbed to secret, noisome catacombs of great antiquity and of the foul, ageless creatures lurking within.

Shroudhaven

Nestled in a deep valley, Shroudhaven has never seen sunlight in the centuries since its founding. A long-forgotten war drove refugees to the valley where a persistent thick fog had permanently settled, a side-effect of magical might employed during the war. The fog shields its residents both from the elements and from those who might seek to destroy them merely for who they are. For most of those dwelling in Shroudhaven are undead. A dark reputation—like the pervasive fog—hangs over the village, but those spending time with the villagers tell a different story, one in which the battle against the base urges.

Suurin

Suurin was supposed to be a halfling utopia, a return to the times before strife and prejudice; halfling burrows furnished in rich mahogany, cool streams and cobblestone bridges, green fields alive with laughing children. Unfortunately, these same green fields grow prodigious quantities of blue daffodil, a flower easily synthesized into the mind-numbing drug skez. Now, Suurin languishes under the control of drug racketeers who have transformed this haven into the skez capital of the realm. The roads are kept safe, not by city guards or peaceful inclinations, but by the iron first of a crime lord who knows chaos is bad for business.

Thornhill

Standing on the fringes of a vast and noisome swamp, Thornhill is a miserable, hard place of cloying mud, grasping thorns and insular, superstitious folk. There is a little cheer to be had in Thornhill; the few visitors describing it as dull and dreary as the surrounding swamps. For all that, though, a steady trickle of adventurers visit Thornhill for the half-buried and drowned ruins of several tombs said to lie forgotten in the surrounding marshland and the villagers have friends among the nearby degenerate lizardfolk who make excellent guides in the trackless, far reaches of the swamp.

Wellswood

A busy, prosperous village, Wellswood is justly famed for the warm welcome travellers find in the village’s taverns and inns and for its most striking feature: Lake Thraren—a subterranean lake lying deep below the village’s foundations. The villagers catch the exotic fish swarming in its deep, cold waters and on its shore stand the fortress home of the dwarf clan of Erdikr. Here long before humans colonised the land above, these secretive dwarves serve Lord Issakainen, maintaining the village’s many wells, but let none enter their lightless home.

All is not peaceful in Wellswood, however. Merchants and villagers alike grumble at the slowly increasing burden of taxes levied by the greedy Lord Issakainen while others have begun to wonder exactly what clan Erdikr are up to deep below the earth.

White Moon Cove

White Moon Cove is a respectable fishing village set in a sheltered cove which acts as an excellent, natural harbour. The inhabitants of this tightly-knit community are sober, hardworking and amiable fishermen, traders and other sturdy folk making their living from the sea. Despite being a fairly peaceful and law-abiding place, White Moon Cove still hold many opportunities for adventure, from rumours of secret smuggler activity to an ancient and possibly haunted lighthouse. Yet, perhaps the most famous reason for White Moon Cove's notoriety is the mysterious underwater edifice known as the Sunken Pyramid which lies hidden far beneath the waves a few miles out to sea.