I really enjoyed reading "The Lonely Coast" by Raging Swan Games this morning. I say this with all sincerity too. It was both pleasurable and entertaining, which cannot always be said in an RPG landscape over-wrought with rules heavy supplements and overtly verbose campaign settings. I enjoy the uncluttered minimalist format inherent in RSG products too: comfortable, clear text, simple mono line art and the absence of flashy gimmicks or hyperactive cover art, yet it's still loaded with fine imaginative content and, for my money (and this one's free anyway), content is king. "The Lonely Coast" delivers quality content in spades, easily worthy of a 5 star rating. It's not error free but the tiny errors I noticed just don't detract enough to worry over.
While I've read and reviewed one other product, this one actually makes me a fan. I'm curious to read the adventures set here, such as "Retribution." However, the area also stands up alone as a great micro setting, added with ease to any world or as the starting area in a world you've not built yet. The "coast" is filled to the brim with flavor too: interesting, colorful people, mysterious places, multitudes of trouble to get into and even minor, simple political intrigue. There's easily enough here upon which to base a starting game setup in a wild and woolly frontier region, rich with ancient tribal history, pirates, thieves, monsters and more--and all elegantly done.
The product range is for levels 1-5 but several sites, a mysteriously glowing conjurer's tower, an abandoned hill fort and the ruin of a sinister abbey all have enough background for expansion to higher levels. As if that's not enough, there's a new minor monster (shadow wolves), a new minor race (half-goblins), some minor deities and plenty of solid encounters and encounter ideas. If you enjoy detailed, low-pressure, minimal prep sandbox-style games you are sure to enjoy this. One could easy sit down and just play. I highly recommend "The Lonely Coast" and I look forward to reviewing other titles in the Raging Swan library.
P.S. Even were I to use not a single word of the "The Lonely Coast" this supplement does something else highly useful: it provides a great format for designing your own campaign regions.
