BARKEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS
What if carousing in fantasy taverns were its own adventure?
Barkeep on the Borderlands is a barhopping, fantasy adventure amidst Mardi Gras-like festivities, including 20 detailed pubs and dynamic drinking rules.
Barkeep on the Borderlands flips the script on the tired trope of starting in a tavern. In this adventure, players explore the many taverns of the Keep in search of a missing antidote, getting into shenanigans along the way. The pubcrawl is like a dungeoncrawl but with bars and streets instead of rooms and corridors.
The Keep once loomed on the margins of civilization. It is now the center of culture and commerce.
Each year, the Keep celebrates the Raves of Chaos to commemorate the brave heroes who gave their lives to rid the nearby caves of vile monsters. Their sacrifice cleared the way for the Keep to expand to its current size and scale, the envy of all humankind.
The Monarch drained the royal coffers to pay for a powerful antidote, but it never reached their lips. The caravaners say it must have gotten mixed up in the deliveries to the Keep’s many pubs. Despite their illness, the Monarch was able to muster the energy to order the execution of every caravaner, ale draper, ale tunner and ale taster in the Keep.
The adventure includes:
- 20 detailed taverns, with unique premises like a speakeasy run by cultists, an undead dance club, a gambling den for kobold gangsters or a cozy bar in a witch’s cottage
- 36 character backgrounds for potential pubcrawlers
- 5 intertwined factions vying for control of the Keep for the player characters to interact with, including a wizard academy, a cult of chaos and an NGO run by goblins
- A timeline detailing a precarious political situation that the players can interact with and disrupt
- Over 100 full-color illustrations, with some on every page
- Grand total of 100 random tables with 745 total results to facilitate endless sessions of adventures in a fantasy city
As a Complete Adventure: The pubcrawl is a site-based adventure, just like a classic dungeoncrawl. But instead of rooms and hallways, characters traverse bars and city streets using a new pubcrawl procedure. This pubcrawl is set in a specific time and place but can be easily adapted to any setting with a vaguely fantasy milieu.
Stealings Bits and Pieces: Each pub is modular and can be used separately and dropped into any existing campaign. When you need a tavern, bar or speakeasy, simply pick the bar most appropriate to your need (or roll a d20).
System Neutral: This adventure is designed to be system neutral and can be easily adapted to fit most systems, including Old-School Essentials, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Knave, Into the Odd, Black Hack, White Hack, Worlds Without Number, Pathfinder, 5e, etc.
Writers and artists on this project include a who's who of the OSR ("old-school renaissance") and Post-OSR:
- Zedeck Siew of A Thousand Thousand Islands (writer)
- W.F. Smith of Prismatic Wasteland (lead writer)
- Ty Pitre of Mindstorm (writer, editor)
- TorTheVic of Riverbend (artist)
- Sam Miller of Save vs. Worm (artist)
- Sam Mameli of Better Legends (artist)
- Norn Noszka (artist)
- Nick LS Whelan of Papers Pencils (writer, editor)
- Marcia B. of Fantastic Medieval Campaigns (writer)
- Luka Rejec of Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City (writer, artist)
- Keny Widjaja (artist)
- Jim Hall of Brooklet Games (artist)
- Hodag RPG! Sheboygan's Favorite Son! (artist)
- Guy Pradel (artist)
- Gus L. of Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier (writer, artist)
- Emmy Verte of Flee (writer)
- Emiel Boven of The Electrum Archive (artist)
- Demidevilqueen (artist)
- Connor Ricks (artist)
- Chris McDowall of Electric Bastionland (writer)
- Caleb Nelson (artist)
- Bertdrawsstuff (artist)
- Ben Laurence of Through Ultan's Door (writer)
- Ava Islam of Errant (writer, editor)
- Artie Esquire (artist)
- Anne Hunter of DIY & Dragons (writer)
- Amanda Ho (artist)
- Acid Lich (artist)
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