Get the two remastered books, 20 Small Villages and 12 Mid-Sized Towns, in PDF only.
Just Passing Through Remastered Hardcovers - $90
Get the two remastered books, 20 Small Villages and 12 Mid-Sized Towns, in hardcover. These come with the PDF copies of the books for free.
Just Passing Through Collection PDFs - $90
Get the two remastered books, 20 Small Villages and 12 Mid-Sized Towns, and the other three books in the series, 20 Inns and Taverns, 20 Temples and Religious Sites, and 1,000 Forest Encounters, in PDF format.
Just Passing Through Collection Physical Books - $135
Get the two remastered books, 20 Small Villages and 12 Mid-Sized Towns, in hardcover, and get the other three books in the series, 20 Inns and Taverns, 20 Temples and Religious Sites, and 1,000 Forest Encounters, in softcover format. These come with free PDF copies of the books.
Want only one book?
If you don't want both Just Passing Through hardcover books or just one of the older softcover books, use the "Create Your Own Tier $1" link and select any of the books you want as an add-on.
This book is about to make being a gamemaster way easier than it's ever been...
So, your players want to know what's in that village up ahead...
1️⃣ Choose or roll a d20 for one of the villages on the village table.
From the original Just Passing Through 1: 20 Small Villages for Any TTRPG
2️⃣ Turn to the correct page and check out the entry.
Content placement is slightly different in the final version, but I wanted to show off the pretty map!
3️⃣Review the basic information. If it works, read the read-aloud text (gray box).
A little hack for you: often, I write the read-aloud text to help you learn about the village, too. This makes running your game on the fly a whole lot easier.
4️⃣Review the Basic Information for the village to get an even better sense of the area.
It includes the population, demographics, government, defense, commerce, and religion of the village. ⬇️
5️⃣ As the characters explore the village, pick or roll for some random encounters to get a better sense of the village.
6️⃣ Use the NPCs and Location section to find people to talk to and places to visit.
These are the most important NPCs and locations in the village. Of course, there's always a few more to be made—the index can help you do that!
7️⃣ Check out the village's "big adventure", the biggest crisis that the village is currently facing.
The adventure is rules-agnostic, so you can use any game system you prefer to run it.
Behold: The Dryad-Driven Drought of the Dread Druid Drek!
8️⃣ Need more adventures? Use one of the extra adventures from the Additional Adventures list.
Keep the story going with additional adventure hooks. PLUS, there's even more in the appendix.
Like the maps you see here? Us, too! That's why we're more than happy to share Oleg Dolya's awesome generative map software (aka Watabou). It's 100% free, and it has a free commercial license!
"You can use images created by the generator as you like: copy, modify, include in your commercial rpg adventures etc. Attribution is appreciated, but not required. Please consider supporting this project on Patreon☕!
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.
Just Passing Through 1 and 2 were released in 2022. Those original books are available below for you to download for FREE. That way, you can understand what these books provide before backing the campaign. Additionally, you can see what the new versions of the entries will look like in the remastered/extended books. This is also FREE
We tested the content with softcover books printed on demand, allowing us to keep costs low. At the time, there were few hardcover options for print-on-demand. However, we've decided that these books would look better standing up on your shelf next to books of similar size. Plus, a hardcover allows you to keep the book open while it's on the table, something a softcover has trouble doing as it tends to shut itself.
Additionally, we wanted to build on the parts that really helped sell the books, particularly the adventures. In the original version of the books, the adventure prompts were no more than a single paragraph. Each settlement has a 3+ adventure with hooks, escalation, confrontation, and plenty of mystery.
We Doubled the Length and Increased the Page Size
The original books were only 96 pages long and printed on 7.44" x 9.69" (Osprey-size) pages. We've added another 96 pages to each book, bringing the total page count up to 192 pages. Plus, we increased the page size to 8.25" x 11", offering up 20% more content per page.
More Information, More Tables, More Quality
Since it's our bestselling line of books, we have plenty of feedback from our fans. We took all that feedback and applied it to the books. Now the books offer more information on medieval European villages and how to play your villages "historically accurate" (with magic and monsters, of course). There's also more art, random tables, and other goodies to enhance your gamemastering experience.
Why In Black and White Hardcover?
The original books were full-color softcovers measuring 7.44" x 6.96". The newest versions of Just Passing Through are in black-and-white hardcover. We are printing the books in the US to avoid any sort of hiccups with trade disputes. While we'll have the books faster with more predictable costs, it does mean that the price per copy to us goes up. We've balanced this out by switching from color to black-and-white. The only thing this affects from the original books is the maps. However, we're offering the maps in full color in the digital map pack.
This also makes printing the PDFs easier since it won't use colored ink.
Finally, we decided to switch to hardcovers in the A4 size (same size as most TTRPG hardcovers) to allow for shelf-uniformity and to give it an increased lifespan.
As a gamemaster, you probably have a lot of books that have a lot of cool art, mechanics, and other details. But let's be honest: how often do you purchase those books, steal one or two simple things from the content, and then shelf it?
With Just Passing Through, you'll be using these books all the time.
Need a quick village? Boom. We've got you.
Don't know a good name for a European settler in the 1200s? Boom. We've got you.
Need some adventure ideas to flesh out? Boom. We've got you.
Just Passing Through we end up being more useful than your GM screen!
Shortly after the campaign ends, the Pledge Manager opens.
After you've submitted your information to the Pledge Manager, we'll lock and charge your orders.
We immediately send the "first pass" PDFs, letting you put your eyes on the near-final content. While we proof it a few times ourselves, it's inevitable that we miss something (heck, ask me to show you all the typos in official D&D books sometime!). With your help, we'll make final corrections.
After final corrections are made, we send the book to the printer and test physical proofs. This is usually pretty quick since we use Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon's Print-on-Demand Book Service).
So long as the physical proofs look good, we begin printing the orders.
Books being shipped to the US and outside of KDP's area of influence (see below) are printed in the US and shipped to our main facility from which we ship those to those backers.
Books in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Germany, and Spain are printed at their respective KDP Printers and shipped directly, helping us save shipping costs to those locations.
These books are written and ready to go. Barring any sort of disaster, you should have them by the end of the year—possibly even before the Christmas holiday!
If you only want to purchase for one book, you can easily do so by adding on either book or PDF as an add-on. Simply back at the $1 Create Your Own Tier pledge and add all the items you want as add-ons.
DMDave's Gold and Platinum Patrons get these books as part of their patron benefits, potentially getting their entire order FREE.
If you are a DMDave Patron, use the Patron Tier link on DMDave's Patreon. If you're having trouble finding it, reach out to [email protected] and we'll send it to you.
When the campaign ends, contact us at [email protected] to find out how many Patron credits you have to spend on rewards.
When the Pledge Manager opens, determine your shipping costs and tack on any additional items you want us to send you.
After you've added your items, contact us at [email protected] and let us know. As long as you have available credits, we will manually reduce the price of your add-ons and shipping.
For the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France, we ship directly from Amazon's printing services. Please note that if you get anything other than books, we may have to ship it from our warehouse in the US, which could significantly increase the shipping cost.
For domestic shipments and for those that aren't in Amazon's network, we ship the printed books from our warehouse in Norman, Oklahoma.
After the campaign ends, we will open up the Pledge Manager. There you will be able to add your shipping information, purchase additional add-ons, and pay for shipping.
Below are estimates for shipping and handling. These are subject to change and may not include taxes and fees.
United States. $10 for all orders.
United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France. $15 for all orders (books only)
Everywhere else: $35-$50 depending on where you are located
Having done this enough times, I know that it's impossible to predict exactly when everything will come together. Fortunately, this campaign features items that are already made or will be printed once it ends. Regardless, things can (and often do) change.
Here is the projected timeline:
October 7, 2025. Campaign Starts
October 21, 2025. Campaign Ends.
November 4, 2025. Backerkit Sends Funds to Us
November 11, 2025. Pledge Manager Opens.
November 25, 2025. Pledge Manager Locks. PDFs are Sent.
Late November/Early December. Items are shipped.
If things change, we will communicate with you via updates here. If you need additionaly help, you can reach us at [email protected].
