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After accounting for the cover page, table of contents, thanks and recognition page and legal stuff, this supplement comes in at a whopping 99 pages of actual material. Within is a highly detailed panorama of mid-adventure options full of creative NPCs and sights to see. Rafael says in the blurb “The Village of Haven Cross is a great set-up to start a new campaign or to introduce Dungeons and Dragons to new players. It provides a fun environment both to players and DMs offering great flexibility and freedom, with the possibility of an immersive experience in between quests” and he’s not wrong. The pdf is fully bookmarked (which all my followers know is a big deal for me) and the writing is well done. The village and guild description and background is neutral enough to add Haven Cross to any campaign and most of the NPCs have some story to them. It is easy to breathe life into the Haven Cross location thanks to the prolific notes and recommendations that Rafael added. The maps are adequate to even visually stunning, depending on if you use the high res versions or not. There’s stat blocks on the same page as the entries instead of using an appendix like some writers, which is both good and bad for the DM using this supplement. Good because the relevant information is right there as you need it but bad if you have to refer back to it later, causing the occasional page flipping frenzy (of course, the bookmarks ease this problem greatly…)
My only real criticism is that the layout is somewhat plain regarding fonts and style. All the stat blocks, headers, footers and highlights use the same colors and block format. Changing it up would enhance the visual appeal. There is art but unless it’s a map most of the pictures are small and tucked along a side or in a corner, drawing the eyes away from the text instead of towards. Speaking of text, with 103 pages of seeing the same vanilla font it does get a little bit “wall of white.” Given some polish and better visual appeal, this could easily be seen as a professionally done supplement and would be hard to differentiate from an “official product.”
Unbelievably, Haven Cross is a Pay What You Want feature. It’s worth giving the author a little money for the massive amount of content. Even with the layout blahs, Haven Cross is a solid five star rating.
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