Keep on the Badlands — Character Creation

I asked my Monday night players how they felt about switching to a different rules system for the new campaign. I explained that I really wanted to run Basic/1e D&D using one of the retro-clones, but my suggestion was met with a resounding, "No, thanks." The guys know 5e and are confident playing it, so they have zero interest in learning a new game (even if it's sort-of the one we used to play 40 years ago).

I like core 5e well enough so I'm not terribly disappointed, but I was jazzed about trying something different (especially for this campaign, my adaptation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands). I haven't played/run AD&D since the late 80s—going back to that system or even Basic sounds like great fun to me, but it's not the hill I felt like dying upon.

Fifth Edition it is, then. To capture the feel of Basic/1e under the 5e framework, however, I established the following character creation guidelines. Because the Caves of Chaos are filled with lots of enemies, I also boosted some of the class abilities to give the party a little more endurance and enable them to press on longer without stopping to rest every other combat (which might be difficult or even impossible during an attack on one of the humanoid lairs).

The Badlands

The Badlands are a desolate range of broken hills located along the southeastern border of the kingdom of Remedios, across the Plains of Yorum. The region is harsh and unforgiving, a labyrinth of boulder-filled canyons that wind through high, craggy ridgelines.

The air here is hot and dry, and vegetation is sparse—mostly dry grass and low, thorny scrub. An occasional stream trickles through the deeper canyons, where thickets of pine trees and brambles grow. In some low-lying canyons, the streams get trapped and form weed-choked marshes that teem with mites and biting flies.

The craggy hills are rich in mineral wealth, however, and mining camps have popped up all over as prospectors, assayers, and merchants flock to the region seeking their fortunes. Caves abound and shelter can be found among the terraced ridgelines (though such caves are often the lairs of dangerous creatures). The ridges are also said to hide mysterious ruins that hold all manner of ancient secrets, treasures, and terrors alike.

The locals consider the entire land cursed. Some say an ancient evil once held dominion over the area—and that shadowy remnants of it linger still. Prospectors tell tales of ill-seeming creatures slinking through the hills... and of an evil cult stirring them up.

To the west sprawl the arid grasslands of the nomadic horse-clans, who compete for territory with herds of aggressive centaurs as well as bugbear tribes who dwell in the fringes of the Badlands. The territory to the east is the stomping grounds of a trio of hill giants—brutish brothers who war constantly with each other. The eastern hills are crawling with their evil minions—goblins, orcs, and much worse. Nobody goes into the east, not even the brave soldiers of Irongate Keep. Beyond the Badlands to the south lies the inhospitable Red Desert, home to the savage red orcs.

Keep on the Badlands

I took a brief hiatus from the blog due to real-life work projects. In the meantime, Jeff decided to end his campaign and asked me to resume DM duties for our regular weekly Roll20 campaign. The only thing I had ready to go was a set-up I created during the 5e playtest (D&D Next). The playtest packet included a conversion of the Caves of Chaos (sans keep or surroundings) from the Basic D&D module: B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

Erol Otus captures it all so perfectly.

B2 was the first module I adventured in when I started playing D&D, and the caves hold a special place in my heart as my first foray into a "dungeon" setting. I still vividly remember flipping through the module for the first time and seeing all those illustrations that cemented what D&D was in my young brain.

My plan during the playtest was to run B2 as a mini-campaign to introduce my players to the new ruleset. I re-imagined the keep as an outpost on the edge of a desert wilderness called "The Badlands," and created a new regional map for the players to explore (much of it cribbed from the original module). I never ended up using any of the materials when we started playing the published 5e rules, even though I'd done a lot of work on it. This seemed like a great opportunity then to dust off the setting and start a new campaign: Keep on the Badlands.

The setting is a sandbox with several active plot-lines occurring in the area (one of which is the restoration project underway at the Caves of Chaos—the existence of which is NOT currently known to the residents of the keep). Part of the early campaign will involve uncovering the knowledge of the caves and the evil cult behind it.

Irongate Keep — the last bastion of civilization on a desolate frontier.