[FREE] Just Passing Through Extended Edition - Fernwood (and The Ghost Tower)

Where axes bite deep, but the forest bites back.

The sound of axes and saws greets you as the forest parts to reveal a rough-hewn village rising from the Dreary Wood. Timber walls and cabins of fresh-cut pine crowd the riverbanks, smoke curling from chimneys where sweat-stained workers pause only briefly from their endless toil. The Beaver River churns nearby, carrying rafts piled high with logs toward distant markets. Everything here smells of sap, smoke, and hard labor. Despite its remote setting, the village bustles with life—men and women caked in dirt and sawdust moving with the steady rhythm of survival in a place carved from the wild.

Fernwood stands as one of the largest inland settlements of Aurenvale, its 1,000 people pushing it close to being considered a true town rather than a village. Built along the Beaver River, Fernwood thrives on the labor of its loggers, sending great rafts of timber downstream to feed the markets of Dornwych and beyond. Sawdust clings to the air, and the constant ring of axes and saws has become the heartbeat of the community. Life here is tough but steady, with the wealth of the forest giving Fernwood both prosperity and purpose. Yet beneath the rhythm of work lies a deep and growing unease.

The Dreary Wood was once home to elven clans who lived in balance with the land. Their descendants remain in the forest as druids, and they watch Fernwood’s expansion with anger. To them, every felled tree is an affront to ancient pacts, every log raft a wound carried away on the current. Their resentment has turned into action: sabotage of tools and rafts, whispered threats carried on the wind, even attacks blamed on “nature’s wrath.” While the loggers view the druids as dangerous agitators, others whisper that Fernwood’s industry may indeed have gone too far.

At the center of this conflict stands Mayor Oliver Thornwood. Young, earnest, and untested, he genuinely cares for his people but lacks the experience to manage this crisis. Pulled between the demands of his loggers and the threats of the druids, he has become indecisive. If the tension continues unchecked, Fernwood risks not only violence from without, but collapse from within.

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Lacking time to create content for your Tabletop RPG game?

Players love going "off mission", exploring side paths, or wandering around your sandbox. Creating everything you need for a village without making it feel too vague or undercooked is impossible. Those detours require detail. 

Even if you have useful tables, you don't want to bog down your sessions by rolling on random tables and taking notes just to answer simple questions like "where can we sleep?" or "where is the blacksmith?'

Just Passing Through is the perfect toolbox for the Gamemaster who lacks adequate time to prepare. 

32 Detailed Settlements

These two books offer a total of 32 settlements, complete with:

• Read-aloud descriptions of each location

• Fully detailed maps

• A handful of interesting NPCs to serve as helpers, quest-givers, and even enemies

• Important locations in each settlement offering places to stay and purchase things, as well as mysterious locations to explore, which may lead to quests

• A rules-agnostic adventure that you can easily insert into your campaign

• Random encounter lists for day and night

• Additional adventure hooks

Sign up now for the Backerkit campaign and get TWO FREE Just Passing Through Digital Books (192 pages of content).

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/dmdave-publishing/just-passing-through-remastered