Homebrew Keep on the North West Borderlands

[DrunkonDuty]

A silly campaign setting based on @Whizbang Dustyboots' suggestion over in the 5 Words or less thread. I'm just playing with ideas and welcome contributions of the quirky variety.

There is a Keep. It is on the Borderlands. Borderlands that look suspiciously like the North American Northwest. Think forests, mountains, lots of rain, freezing winters, deep placid lakes. Real picture post card stuff.

The town nearest the Keep is called Twin Peaks. It's an odd place filled with odd characters. But there is a dark malignancy at it's heart.

On the outskirts of Twin Peaks, in a convenient location with lots of parking for your wagons, is The Store. It's a huge barn of a building. It stocks everything. From hard to find adventuring gear to oral hygiene products for dealing with plaque and tatar. You might even call it a super store.

Further off is the small town of Cicely. Where Twin Peaks is off beat and off putting, Cicely is cozy and friendly and welcomes without judgement. But beware, they are not above indentured servitude for debts owing.

Far off on the eastern side of the region map, across the mountains and in the heart of the prairie, stand a stable and tavern. The stable is Corner Grass, "All the Hay Your Hoss Can Eat." Next to it stands The Ruby Tavern, "All the Grub You Can Eat." The folks are friendly enough but are unreceptive to jokes about being in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Moose! Orca! The Cult of Chaos!

 

[Brendan Byrd]

< Pure Silliness Alert >
Between the Borderlands and Corner Grass hides the unapproachable valley of 'Lost'; a strange place with a crashed aircraft, a strange facility, a cursed number, stolen diamonds, and the occasional polar bear. Sightings of jackal headed humanoids are unconfirmed. A human population may be present. Information on the location of this evasive valley might be found in a place known as the 'Lighthouse' which may or may not be located in the Hollow World.

All of the above is a PRODUCT OF MY INSOMNIA^(TM)

 

[Tonguez]

Twin Peaks is easy to enter, but difficult to leave.
The roads out of Twin Peaks are well maintained. Signposts are freshly painted. Distances are reassuringly short.
Travelers who follow them notice small repetitions first. The same split log by the roadside. The same crow hopping once, twice, then flying off. The same dog asleep in the shade, older each time. Those who keep walking arrive back at the town limits. The gate looks the same. The guard looks familiar. The calendar does not.

A year has passed. Sometimes more. No one is surprised except the traveller.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thinking about this more, Twin Peaks should be the further away "adventure site" from the Keep in the North Woods. One of the aspects of the setting on the show is that, although Dale Cooper arrives there by car in the first scene of the first episode, it's clear that this is a remote location and that if the innocent people of the town want to get away, it's a trek and that they may well not make it to safety. So it shouldn't be near the keep.

Cicely is probably a good halfway point between the keep and Twin Peaks, or should be the community inside the keep itself. Picture Maurice Minnifield as the castellan, full of bluster justified by the heroism in his youth and initially unwilling to listen to anyone contradicting him or introducing new ideas.

And Northern Exposure gives us a lot of interesting characters living in the woods around Cicely, which could form the wilderness area around the keep. And given the gentility of most of Northern Exposure (along with the occasional surreal moment where New York doctors are literally able to walk back to the Big Apple through the wilderness), these would be lower level challenges, or not be combat challenges at all.

Back in Twin Peaks, the show gives us a more interesting face and aesthetic for the Cult of Chaos (although we get some decent stuff for them at the end of Heroes of the Borderlands, which is nice). The Red Room as a demiplane and straight Lynchian entities, rather than the classic robes and sacrificial knives we normally see.

I would also consider moving the Caves of Chaos to the coast and make them sea caves, which is a dramatic setting with crashing waves (all the better to keep the residents of Cave B from hearing combat happening in Cave A), along with players needing to worry about the dangers of the waves, rocks, tides and hypothermia when they inevitably get wet.

More broadly, given that it's the Pacific Northwest, do we need Bigfoot? If so, is he a furlbolg? A reskinned yeti? Are there more than one or two of them? Do we go with the Northern Exposure take, which is a fake Bigfoot?

And most controversially, do we need sparkly vampires?

 

[overgeeked]

There are a few of us on here who actually live in the PNW. I love the idea but don't want to be too involved for fear of overwhelming the neat fantasy with the real world.

I seemingly always add a layer of horror and gothic, so it's no surprise that when using the PNW I do a darker, more gothic version of the area. There's a corner of the internet that serves that interest nicely. Look for "Pacific Northwest Gothic" and you'll find some neat stuff. Of special note for the vibe is this Tumblr account.

Pacific Northwestern Gothic

Pacific Northwest - Wikipedia

Cascadia (bioregion) - Wikipedia

An historical example of a trade language, or how Common would develop.

Chinook Jargon - Wikipedia

A Polygon video about creepy video games set in the PNW. Especially fun is the bingo card she made for the video.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Another PNW here. I think a lot of people typecast the PNW as wet and dreary forests. That's actually only a minority of the landscape. Most is dry badland, if you can believe it. The Painted Hills near John Day really remind me of the cover of KotBL:

The lava caves could also work

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another PNW here. I think a lot of people typecast the PNW as wet and dreary forests. That's actually only a minority of the landscape. Most is dry badland, if you can believe it. The Painted Hills near John Day really remind me of the cover of KotBL:

The original idea was about Twin Peaks + Northern Exposure + Keep on the Borderlands, not an accurate depiction of the PNW which, as you say, would be a lot more complex.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I love Maurice Minnifield as the Castellan! His big dreams of taming the wilderness mesh perfectly with the Castellan.

So we have Cicely just near the Keep. Twin Peaks is further off in the wilds. I like the sea caves idea; it's a nice change up from their original inland setting.

 

[overgeeked]

Some potentially inspirational locations...

Seattle Underground - Wikipedia

Shanghai tunnels - Wikipedia

People often forget about the surrounding area, sticking with the Keep and the Caves. There's also the lizardmen, the spider, the raiders, and the mad hermit. There's a lot of local folklore, cryptids, etc you can swap in to make the place feel more like the PNW. Getting a feel for the forests, especially the Douglas fir, would go a long way to immerse the players.