D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

One day I'm going to pick your brain for all the weird RPG products that you seem to know about that I've never seen...

Pretty sure that one won Ennies!

 

[Scribe]

Pretty sure that one won Ennies!

My focus is not broad. I'm not sure how I even first heard of Shadowdark, but the cover jumped out at me and that was that.

 

[JDR]

October of 2025 is a crazy release date, though.

Indeed. A timely release to introduce new players to the "new" D&D...

 

[Greg Benage]

Weren't the goblins etc there first? It's a Keep on the Borderlands. It's their land. Justified to take out the Keep.

People always say this, but I don't recall it in the module. In the very brief "Background" section, we get this:

The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populace, rape its riches, and steal its treasures. If it were not for a stout few, many in the Realm would indeed fall prey to the evil which surrounds them.

What little setting context there is makes it seem like the humanoids are the settler-colonists and the Keep guards the Realm from them. This would fit with their respective Alignments, which did actually mean something in B/X even if the concept has since fallen into disfavor. Maybe the forces of Chaos use the caves as an outpost from which to launch raids into the Realm (they certainly are full of civilian prisoners, hostages and slaves). Maybe it's the vanguard of a larger imperial project to enslave the Realm. Maybe the forces of Chaos were drawn there by the Shrine of Evil Chaos--I've seen many people suggest this over the years, but I don't recall anything about it in the text itself. It seems to me as though the desire to subvert tropes explains the later tendency to treat the Realm as imperialist and the "forces of Chaos" as simple tribal folk just chilling in their ancestral caves (warring, torturing and enslaving each other).

Of course, even if the Realm is the indigenous resistance and the forces of Chaos are the imperial aggressor, that doesn't necessarily justify murdering or taking noncombatant civilians as hostages in the course of that resistance...

 

[Greg K]

If they are going with a classic adventure, I wish it had been Village of Hommlet or a reorganized Secret of Bone Hill (yeah, the latter was for levels 2-5, but Merric pointed on his site that there spots a party of first level characters could handle).

 

[Tonguez]

People always say this, but I don't recall it in the module. In the very brief "Background" section, we get this:



What little setting context there is makes it seem like the humanoids are the settler-colonists and the Keep guards the Realm from them. This would fit with their respective Alignments, which did actually mean something in B/X even if the concept has since fallen into disfavor. Maybe the forces of Chaos use the caves as an outpost from which to launch raids into the Realm (they certainly are full of civilian prisoners, hostages and slaves). Maybe it's the vanguard of a larger imperial project to enslave the Realm. Maybe the forces of Chaos were drawn there by the Shrine of Evil Chaos--I've seen many people suggest this over the years, but I don't recall anything about it in the text itself. It seems to me as though the desire to subvert tropes explains the later tendency to treat the Realm as imperialist and the "forces of Chaos" as simple tribal folk just chilling in their ancestral caves (warring, torturing and enslaving each other).

Of course, even if the Realm is the indigenous resistance and the forces of Chaos are the imperial aggressor, that doesn't necessarily justify murdering or taking noncombatant civilians as hostages in the course of that resistance...

I think the module works best when treated as a 'border war' where neither side is indigenous. The keep is a military outpost protecting the marches, the Cult has moved in to the caves due to a preexisting altar and are recruiting monsters for an invasion army.

So noone is indigenous both PCs and Monsters are mercenary groups newly arrived in the contested area jockeying for status - thus there are no children, and all loyalties are volatile with everyone ready to turn them against each other. Sure the PCs are likely to join the Keep, but not neccessarily.
The Minotaur might be the only remnant of the natives left - a new mystery for further investigation...

 

[Zarithar]

Keep on the Borderlands. Sold. I wonder how it will differ from the original?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Keep on the Borderlands. Sold. I wonder how it will differ from the original?

This time, it's set on the border of Canada.

 

[MerricB]

Keep on the Borderlands. Sold. I wonder how it will differ from the original?

Most of the changes will be positive ones, I'd wager.

I love Keep on the Borderlands, but it was decidedly NOT a scenario for beginning DMs. With the exception of the Caves themselves. Both the Keep and the Wilderness were underdeveloped.

If I were designing this product...

* The overall story is that the Priests of Chaos have invited warrior bands of humanoids into the Caves, and they're raiding merchants and causing trouble for the people of the civilized lands. So, the Keep need heroes to deal with the humanoids... and eventually the Priests.

* The Keep provides a number of plot hooks for the adventure as a whole, plus interesting (and not always trustworthy) NPCs for the players to interact with that allow some interesting urban adventures or scenarios that cross from the Keep to the Wilderness and Caves.

* The Wilderness provides treasure locations (target of selected quests) plus also the basics of wilderness hexcrawling - that is, the search for the Caves, but in a form that has interesting things to find apart from the cave. (The original adventure is very bare of interest in the Wilderness).

* The Caves provide quest locations, plus the majority of the fun dungeon crawling action.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the module works best when treated as a 'border war' where neither side is indigenous. The keep is a military outpost protecting the marches, the Cult has moved in to the caves due to a preexisting altar and are recruiting monsters for an invasion army.

So noone is indigenous both PCs and Monsters are mercenary groups newly arrived in the contested area jockeying for status - thus there are no children, and all loyalties are volatile with everyone ready to turn them against each other. Sure the PCs are likely to join the Keep, but not neccessarily.
The Minotaur might be the only remnant of the natives left - a new mystery for further investigation...

Indeed. "Only the PCs can save the poor benighted natives for the evil colonisers" is also not a healthy trope.

It's an opportunity to introduce faction based gameplay, which is pretty important to modern sandboxes, but was absent from the original.

I disagree that they players are "more likely" to side with the keep. Remember a 2024 adventuring party is as likely to include orcs as it is humans.

The adventure has always been a Western, the way forwards is to make it A Fistful of Dollars.