Halloween on the Borderlands

Since my favorite holiday is fast approaching, I thought I'd share an idea I had a few months back.  It's partially inspired by Mike Mearls's infamous B2 review.  Let's take the idea of the Caves of Chaos as a monster apartment building and screw with it.  How about this: once a year, on [the campaign equivalent of Halloween], the orcs and goblins take their little orc and goblin kids out trick-or-treating.  

Now imagine what their costumes look like.  I'm a bit sick in the head, so I think they'd have masks made out of tanned human faces and carry emptied out skulls to put their treats in.  They go from cave to cave collecting eyeballs and grubworms to take home and devour.  If you want to get silly, make them carry around fake versions of the trappings associated with the different classes in your version of D&D.

"What are you supposed to be, little maggot?" a bloated goblin crone might screech at the orc toddler before he proudly holds up his mace and belches "I'm a cleric!"

Now imagine this is the state the caves are in when the PCs next arrive.  Who says you can't do anything fun with all of those monster babies?

Making the Borderlands Part I

Today I decided not to use the Welsh Piper's excellent map stocking system.  Instead, I'll be using the system for "Designing the Setting" from the Rules Cyclopedia*.  Since I plan to use BECMI for the Borderlands campaign this seemed appropriate.

I'm going to detail the process in a series of posts, starting with this one.

1. Decide on the Terrain

This one I had done before I created the previous Borderlands map.  However, I don't really like the environment that map conveys.  In my mind the Borderlands is an almost new world style frontier.  I'm drawing inspiration for its flora and fauna from North America much more so than Europe.  It's rugged, mountainous, and untamed.  Despite the fact that he's unpopular in OSR circles, I've always found this piece by Keith Parkinson to be evocative:

click to embiggen

Now that I have a general understanding of what the Borderlands looks like, let's move on to the second step.

2. Draw Map(s) of the Area

One of my maps comes from B2 of course, but the Borderlands is a much larger area.  after switching some of the tilesets on my map to give it a slightly different flavor I get this:

click to embiggen

The design is loosely based off of Il Male's North Marches.

As regular readers can probably guess, I used the Welsh Piper system to determine the terrain itself.  It has a nice mixture of forests and mountains, as well as having the obligatory swamps that I will shove undead and frogs into.  I like it.  

3. Place the Home Town and Local Dungeons.

This wasn't too difficult.  I already knew what kind of terrain B2 needs -- it's very hilly -- so I just needed to pick a spot on the map that had a river running through some hills.  I also needed it to be on the western edge so that most of the exploration takes the party into the eastern wilderness.

click to embiggen

The town that appears is there so that the party can acquire things not normally available in the Keep itself.  I made sure it was about a day away, each small hex is 10 miles, in order to keep the party from visiting too regularly.  Even though it's very close, the journey from one to the other must still be dangerous since it's implied that traders travel along the roads in caravans to protect themselves.

4.  Locate Areas Under Human Control

This was easy.  The entire point of the Borderlands is that almost none of it is under human control.  I decided that the town needed some farmland around it and got this:

click to embiggen

That's the other reason the town needs to be there.  There isn't any farmland around the Keep itself, and the soldiers have to be fed.  For right now that's the only human settlements in the Borderlands that I'm aware of. If others show up they're "squatters" who do not pledge loyalty to the King of the Realm.

5. Locate Areas Under Nonhuman Control

This was a tad harder.  I needed it to be primarily lawless, but I also knew I wanted a declining Dwarfish kingdom and some Elves running around.  I determined much of what follows by looking at the humanoid entries for the random encounter tables in the RC.

click to embiggen

That's about as detailed as I'm getting for right now.  Eventually I'll put down some Dwarfish holds and Goblin villages, but that can wait.  The party hasn't even set foot into the caves of chaos yet.

Final notes

I'm a bit worried that the preponderance of goblinoids will be a bit boring, but it might work out.  I'm also not sure if I should leave the town there, or assume that it's a much longer journey off the map to the west.  Also: why the hell is there a road leading out into the Borderlands in B2? 

I'll complete steps 6-8 at some later point and post the results here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* I'm not sure if these steps appeared in earlier products because I don't own them.  Also, if you think I should be using Moldvay/Cook instead of BECMI keep it to yourself.  I don't own Moldvay/Cook but I do own Mentzer Basic and the RC.

Borderlands Map

click to embiggen

This is my first try at the "Borderlands" which lie East of the Realm of Man.  The keep should be easy to pick out.  The town is to the West and the ruins to the East are an old human encampment or fort that was destroyed by various nasties.

I haven't noted wooded hills or mountains because they make no difference on BECMI's encounter tables.

I'm not very happy with the roads, and obviously it needs some stocking and general sprucing up.  Still, it'll do for now.

New Campaign Idea: The Borderlands

EDIT:  If you're one of my players please do not click the links to the free megadungeon or Yaqqothl Grimoire.  They contain spoilers.

I've been thinking about it a bit more, and I've come up with this model for the next campaign.

• The rules set for the beginning is Mentzer Basic and only Mentzer Basic.  Once the characters get to level 4 I'll bring in bits from the RC.
• I'll start with B2: Keep on the Borderlands because it appears that none of my players are familiar with it, and though I have some problems with it it's kind of a rite of passage.
• I'm going to fill in the Cave of the Unknown with the free megadungeon from the Yaqqothl Grimoire.  I'm still working on the second level -- I spilled coffee all over my map.  You should see it on the blog once I get a cleaned up version.
• The keep itself is fed by a town that's fairly nearby.  I'll develop it as necessary for the campaign.
• The land beyond the keep, i.e. the Borderlands, is a wild and untamed region.  It terminates in the realms of Chaos which are just as off the map as the Realm of Man.
• The goal of the campaign is to explore the Borderlands and eventually set up your own baronies in it.  This will not be easy.
• The "Evil Chaos" mentioned in B2 will get a more suitable name and have an active cult among the savages in the Borderlands.
• Everything else will be developed on an as needed basis.

I might work up a rough map of the rest of the borderlands and post it here in a bit.  I'm not 100% sure this is what I'm going with, but it looks fun to me.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Anyone else ever thought about combining the Keep from Keep on the Borderlands with Stonehell?  All you'd have to do is switch out the box canyons.  Just sayin'.

Keep on the Borderlands Session 2

Friday's session began with two of the players rolling up new characters.  One had lost his thief in the last outing and the other didn't wish to play his now irreligious Paladin.  The replacement characters were a Lawful Fighter and a Neutral Dwarf.  I decided to ditch the LL experience progression system and instead go with the RC in this capacity.  I forgot to mention that I gave XP for roleplaying in the last session as per the RC.

This time they decided to climb up to one of the higher caves rather than deal with the Goblins or Kobolds.  The ended up in one of the Orc caves, as they soon discovered.  They managed to clear out the guard room, but not before one had alerted the other Orcs to their presence.  The fighting afterwards was fierce, and the characters were forced to withdraw.  They were, however, able to inflict serious casualties upon the orcs.

They resupplied in town and then attempted to assault the same cave again.  This time they met minimal resistance.  This was because the leader of this Orc tribe had fled with his stoutest warriors and their captives to the other Orc caves.  Still a few had remained behind, but they were easily slain.  The party discovered a large chamber that contained empty cages and a large pool.  This pool was made of an oily black substance that didn't burn as the party expected.  It smelled "like pigs" and was quite deep.  Unnerved, they decided to see what else they could discover in the cave.

Further exploration revealed the Orcs' storage room, which was filled with captured equipment.  They used the large number of spears to arm themselves and their hirelings and then continued exploring the seemingly empty cave.  They found an opulently decorated (by Orc standards) chamber.  Some searching revealed a large amount of treasure, much to the joy of the party.

Since they had spent few resources, they decided to crawl across the ledge to the next cave.  Once inside one of the hirelings tripped a net and soon the Orcs were upon them.  The Orcs seemed to be of two types: pigs and goats.  They correctly deduced that the pigs were from the previous cave.  Once they were captured the leader from the previous cave appeared.  He directed his minions to take them "to the pool."  However, now they party had managed to cut themselves free and were able to fight their way out.

They wound up in a similar chamber with a pool.  This one contained a number of women kept in cages.  Upon finding that there were no signs of rape, one of the players checked the dead Orcs for genitals.  Finding none, they quickly realized the purpose of the pools.  Since they had lost all but one of their hirelings in the previous battle, they decided to flee back to the Keep.

Upon arriving, I rolled morale for the last hireling to decide whether or not he wanted to retire from the adventurer's life.  He did, and so the party was without hired help.  While looking for some extra hands, they met an easy going Priest named Adolphus.  Adolphus offered to aid them in their raids against the Caves of Chaos.  The party was a bit worried about his sapping their experience, but ultimately they decided that a 3rd level NPC would be of great use to them.

Once in the ravine, a number of Orc snipers attacked with their crossbows.  Adolphus decided this was the time to lay his trap and attacked one of the two PC fighters with his Inflict Wounds spell.  His acolyte pupils jumped out from the woods at the base of the ravine, and battle was joined.  They quickly killed the priest and his acolytes.  They managed to kill some of the Orcs before withdrawing.  Due to the late hour we called it a night here, thus ending our tenure in the Borderlands.

Overall the players and I liked it, though they didn't particularly like the women and children aspect of the module.  One of my players commented that he would have had more fun in one of my homebrew dungeons, but liked it all the same.  I rather liked the open nature of the module, and I definitely think more modules need to have titles rather than names for their NPCs.

Keep on the Borderlands Session 1

I'm sorry I didn't post this sooner.  This session actually occurred on Monday but due to several distractions I forgot to post a session recap.  Sadly, we didn't play on Wednesday as originally planned, but we should have more fun in the keep this evening.

For this session I stole two rules from the Rules Cyclopedia.  One was the alternate death mechanics presented in the back, and the other was the way that neutral Clerics can eventually become Druids.  Obviously the second change wouldn't affect any party going to the Caves of Chaos much, but my wife decided to play a neutral Cleric anyway.  The PC Paladin that had delved into Nightwick Abbey returned and was grandfathered in.  Future Paladin's will have to be Lawful Fighters of name level and above.

The party arrived at the famous Keep and exchanged information (read: rumor table results).  However, two members were rather tight lipped about what they knew.  They had both been told that they should be wary of betrayal, and were not quite comfortable with their compatriots yet.  The Keep was largely welcoming, despite the fact that the party was overwhelmingly Neutral.  The Magic-User assured the guards that they were there to kill "icky monsters" within the caves.  This seemed satisfactory to all who heard it.

After getting a few supplies, and suffering through the constant repetition of the only British accent I was able to conjure up that night, the party set off to the Caves.  One of their hirelings had just returned from a failed foray that had been repelled by an Ogre working with a tribe of Goblins.  Still, he was willing to lead the party there and join them in their endeavors if they payed him enough.  I wanted to get them to whatever location they wished to explore fairly quickly and this NPC seemed to do the trick.

Once there, they entered the Kobold cave.  Before they had entered a full 10', they already heard footsteps heading down the corridor to their right.  Shortly after, the front rank of the party fell into a large pit.  A large number of Kobolds soon appeared in what could best be described as a phalanx formation.  The party engaged in some heavy fighting, losing their Magic-User in the process.  One of there number was captured, but they were able to ransom him back before returning to the keep with their tails between their legs.

Back at the keep the party met two thieves (one was a replacement for the Magic-User, and the other player had arrived late).  After a bit of negotiating in the tavern they set out once again.  This time they were considerably luckier.  They attempted to enter the Ogre cave, which only woke up the rather ornery beast.  They were greeted by something that more or less looked like this:

They attempted to negotiate with the lummox, but eventually talks broke down.  The party won initiative and killed the creature before it had time to swat at any body.  They search the lair and found a considerable amount of treasure within.  Bolstered by their success, they decided to take on another rank smelling cave a bit further west down the ravine.  This was the Shunned Cavern, and the Fighter was absolutely delighted by the sheer number of bones within.  He went about cracking them open to find treasure, as is his custom.  He did in fact find a few electrum pieces.  He also attracted an Owlbear.  Though the beast managed to get a few good shots in on the Paladin, it too was slain before being able to inflict any real damage on the party.

Crushing even more bones attracted an army of rats which quickly swarmed over party and ended one of the thieves.  Now significantly lower on supplies, the party beat feet back towards the keep.  The thief was quickly replaced by a Frogling who was apparently a traveling gourmand.  The Paladin was a bit irritated to find that the local Curate was quite uninterested in lending him any aid but was able to secure a bed for himself within the church.

Their final foray took them to the Goblin caves.  They were attacked by two organized forces of Goblins, but somehow managed to repel both with some effort.  The Paladin took to killing his surrendering opponents.  Since Goblins are born and bred for devil worship, I'm not sure whether or not this count's as an alignment infraction.  If he were Lawful Good I would say it does but since I only use the Lawful v. Chaotic scale I wasn't sure about what I should do.  Next they found a large chamber with a bottle necked entrance that they were certain contained Goblins.  Some negotiation took place, and the Paladin made a lone suicidal rush for the creatures, but was quite unwilling to engage once he discovered most were females and children.

This, combined with the perceived slight by the Curate, led the Paladin to renounce his ways and become a fighter.  Normally I probably would have handled this differently, but since i was eager to switch as much as possible over to the RC I let it go.

The last leg of this foray took them to the Hobgoblin's common room.  Tough fighting here led to the third character death of the Night (the other thief) and the party's general unwillingness to deal with non-combatants has soured them a bit.  The players themselves had quite a bit of fun, it is their characters who are a bit worried about returning for future forays.

All in all a good session.  I am a bit disappointed with the Caves of Chaos, but I do like the keep itself and the accompanying map.  The expeditions to the Caves did wind up being guerrilla attacks on humanoid encampments, but they were at least entertaining.  I would have liked to have a bit more exploration.  The "women and children" issue continues to bother me and my players, but hopefully we shall come up with some way to mitigate it before tonight's session.

I'm beginning to think that I've made the Church a bit draconian.  I'm perfectly fine with Neutral characters (and usually play one myself) but out of the three parties that have been created for the Dark Country only a handful of characters have been of Lawful Alignment.  I'm not sure if this is merely player preference or if I have unwittingly made the Church a bit too dickish.  I don't want them to be the "right answer," but they aren't supposed to be the bad guys of the setting either.

Keep on the Borderlands

I have received Keep on the Borderlands as an early Christmas present.  I was quite surprised how just flipping through a few pages and scanning a few maps fired my imagination.  This is partly because my copy is in pristine condition and largely because of the quality of the product.

I'm currently in my home town, and next week I'm supposed to run three sessions of D&D for my old gaming/high school buddies.  Originally I was going to run a homebrew adventure, but now I'm dead set on running them through the Caves of Chaos and the surrounding wilderness.  I've never run this module, which as I understand it means that I haven't completed one of my OSD&D rites of passage.  I aim to rectify this.

The module itself is, from my skimming, broadly compatible with the World of Nightwick.  So far I've just had to change the word "Elf" to "Changeling" in a few places.  The biggest change I will be making to the module is designed to accommodate my take on Orcs.  Since they don't breed normally, I have removed non-combatants from those caves and replaced them with a rather nasty surprise for potential delvers.  Otherwise the caves will go untouched since the other humanoids of the World (at least the ones in this module) do mate in the usual fashion.  I may replace the Kobolds with Mites, but I may not.

I'll post play reports and development updates here.  Hopefully I'll be able to give you a good dose of behind the screen information in both.  This will be my first time running a TSR D&D module.  I'm very interested to see how it goes.

Wish me luck.