The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=34429.

Nestled in a deep dell behind the cliffs guarding the Lonely Coast, Bossin is a troubled village. The rich bounty of the nearby mines and the excellent farmland should provide the villagers with a comfortable life, even though the lower part of the village periodically floods, but instead the populace now labor under the tyranny of Jacca Lander and his hired thugs. Extortion, disappearances and “accidents” are a daily feature of life in Bossin and the villagers are desperate for salvation, but they dare not speak of their woes for fear of ending up in the Pit.

OVERALL

Bossin is a village that can easily be dropped into any campaign, anywhere, which is something that I love the most about Raging Swan Press Products. Although I still wish this product was in color, this is where sometimes, colored pencils are your friend.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 10 out of 10 The layout is done in the traditional style of Raging Swan Press which is minimalist black and white. While it doesn’t take away from the quality of the publication, I WISHED they would do something in color. Again, they are passing the savings to their customers by not doing color, but it would be nice to see some color! The bookmarks are done in a clean style, and the transfer to mobile devices is made awesome by the company’s policy to give you both the high resolution and low resolution for whatever your needs are.

Mechanics: 10 out of 10 Mechanically it is sound, I don’t find many issues with Raging Swan Press goodies, and this is no exception.

Value Add: 9 out of 10 While this is an amazing supplement, I still hate that it’s not in color! When you do cities, locations, and other things, art becomes incredibly important in making the world that much more realistic. But as is, I am still content. What I wouldn’t give to see some color though.

Overall: 10 out of 10 Overall, this product is a sound product. It’s light, affordable, and quite really nice. Bossin, can fit into any campaign, adventure or small skirmish and it gives the players and the GM, the maneuverability to play with the city as much as they like.

This pdf clocks in at 13 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC/foreword, 1 page advice for novice DMs on how to read statblocks, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 5 pages of content, so let's take a look!

Bossin, unlike the other village backdrops, may ring a bell with some of you: Indeed, the village can be found in the Free Lonely Coast pdf by Raging Swan Press and is the first to detail a village there since the excellent Swallowfeld supplement. If you're familiar with the series, you'll notice that the village's depiction has been streamlined: Going beyond demographics/village statblocks, we get notable folk, locations and items available at the market place all rolled up on one page - all necessary information for the DM, neatly packaged and tied up. Neat!

Following the format of the series, we also get lore-section, an original b/w-map, 6 sample rumors and information on villager dress and nomenclature. Statblock-wise, we get 1 for villagers, one for thugs and one for a half-goblin spy as well as one for the village's corrupt adventurer-turned-reeve, Jacca Lander, who is not only in league with goblinoids, but actually holds the whole village in a kind of extortion ring, terrorizing the poor populace and extorting what meager gains the village has from its lumber and slate resources.

Add to that spurned love and 6 sample events and we have rising tensions in a powder-keg of a village, all waiting to erupt - and adventuring opportunities aplenty.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RSP's crisp, no-frills standard and the cartography for the village is awesome. Speaking of cartography - you can download the map of the village as a high-res jpeg in two versions, one of them sans keys and numbers on the raging swan homepage - great customer service. The pdf comes in two versions, one optimized for screen-use and one to be printed out, both of which come fully bookmarked.

Bossin is a nice, idyllic village under a brutal sway of bullies and will make for a great low-level proving ground for adventurers, with opportunities to shake off the yoke of the oppressors, be heroic etc. - all in all, a nice village for a very affordable price and while in concept not quite as awesome/uncommon as Apia, still a great addition to the line. Lacking any sustainable complaints, I'll happily award this pdf 5 stars, omitting my seal of approval only because Apia has set the bar so high.

Endzeitgeist out.

This is a beautifully-detailed village that fair springs to life off the page. Set in the Lonely Coast campaign world produced by Raging Swan Press, it could equally well be placed in a suitable location in your own campaign world as it is fairly self-contained.

On the face of it, Bossin ought to be a nice place. It has potential for prosperity, with good natural resources both above and below ground, even if some of the lower areas are a bit prone to flooding. However, somewhere that sounds nice to live is probably not suited to adventure... so enter the local bane, a retired adventurer called Jacca Lander who sees easy pickings providing 'protection' for the inhabitants. He ran the previous reeve out of town and imported a few thugs to aid him in oppressing the locals: a situation ripe for the intervention of more right-minded adventurers to rectify.

There is a nice annotated sketch of the village with wide-ranging descriptive accompaniments - everything from the background situation to notes on interesting features, rumours to be picked up and a list of notable individuals to be met in the settlement. The population is predominantly human, with a handful of dwarves and halflings, a few half-elves and a single solitary half-orc - who combines being one of Lander's enforcers with a surprising good singing voice, with which he performs quite often in the village inn. It's these touches that raise the village above the ordinary and makes it come alive as you read,

Whether passing through or arriving on purpose, characters will find a living vibrant village that has a real sense of being there, going about its own business, whether they are there or not; a place that will enhance the alternate reality that you are trying to create... and a place in which there is adventure to be had, whether you want to interact with the locals or merely brawl with Jacca Lander and his thugs.