[All Patrons] Just Passing Through Extended Edition - Blackthorn (and the Silver Mummy)

A village of silence and strain, overshadowed by the brooding manor that watches from the hill.

The village sits in uneasy silence, sturdy timber buildings leaning under years of neglect. Roofs sag, walls bear fresh patchwork, and yet there is no market, no forge, no workers calling out offers to trade—only a few haggard figures laboring with grim focus, their determination etched as deeply as the lines on their faces. Dense forests and steep hills rise on all sides, hemming the village in, but it is the manor atop the hill that draws the eye: a stark structure of stone, surrounded by high walls, looming over the modest homes below like an intruder in their midst. Its presence feels at once commanding and out of place, a silent weight pressing down on all who look its way.

Blackthorn is a village in quiet decline, its people weary and fearful under the shadow of Deveraux Manor. Once, hope flourished when a dwarven silver mine was discovered in the hills. Promises of wealth and stability brought families together in shared labor, with most of the village working for Lady Caroline Deveraux, the mine’s overseer. Though stern, she was regarded as fair, and the people believed her ambition would raise Blackthorn from obscurity. But that hope collapsed with the mine. The veins of silver dried up, and with them the village’s commerce. What little farmland Blackthorn has cannot support its numbers, and with nothing left to trade, hunger and despair stalk the streets.

Lady Deveraux has grown erratic and unstable, retreating deeper into her decrepit manor. Rumors swirl that she spends long nights pacing its halls, railing against imagined conspiracies. Her paranoia worsens as the kingdom debates removing her from authority, a prospect that makes her grip on both her household and the village more dangerous.

Her two youngest sons, Bastien and Renault, act as the manor’s fists. Spoiled, violent, and emboldened by their mother’s unraveling, they patrol Blackthorn as self-appointed enforcers. At first it was threats and petty cruelty, but their brutality escalated. Most recently, they murdered a farmer and his family under the guise of punishing “disloyalty,” an act that shocked the village into fearful silence. Resentment festers, whispers grow sharper, and unrest bubbles beneath the surface. All it would take is one spark—whether from the people or the Deverauxs themselves—for Blackthorn to be engulfed in conflict.

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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?'

Published Adventures feel too restrictive or not useful?

Published adventures offer interesting locations but sometimes feel restrictive or too closely tied to a campaign. Perhaps they're written just to serve as a catalyst for the main adventure, making it feel less like a breathing, living village and more like a video game prompt.

Does homebrew take too long?

Homebrewing villages takes hours for what often amounts to only a few minutes of gametime interaction. Even if you use AI (yuck), you have to spend time generating those questions. Plus, you have to know what questions to ask the generator. 

And even then, those answers are probably relatively weak, lacking proper continuity!

The Solution: Drop-in Villages and Towns

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

Lots of Bonus Content

The books will also contain:

• Historical information on Euro-medieval villages and towns if you want to strive for historical accuracy

• Lots and lots of random tables

• Information on how to easily adjust the settlements to better suit your campaign world

• Notes on rules system adaptation (5e, OSR, and so forth)

100% Rules Agnostic

These books are 100% rules agnostic. That means you can use any tabletop role-playing game ruleset you prefer—Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons (2014 or 2024), Old School Essentials, Mork Borg, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and so forth.

The content is drop-in, flexible, and endlessly reusable.

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