Adventures in the Shadowdark: The Keep on the Borderlands

 For the last several months, I've had the pleasure of leading a group of players through Adventure Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, using Shadowdark RPG, and with some grimdark editing ala Professor Dungeon Master.

I haven't been writing up campaign diaries for it, because I am lazy.  But I SHOULD do writeups for it, because my group is awesome and they're really getting into it now.  So here's a quick rundown of where we've come from so far:

After having one of their companions accused of Witchcraft and Heresy (and burned at the stake for her trouble) in their introductory adventure, the party was charged by the Witch Hunter Sergeant Viktor Hess with transporting a sealed crate bearing the seal of the Emperor Himself to a location known as Winterhaven Keep, a small but critical component of the borderlands defense situated on the edge of the Chaos Wastes to the Northeast of the Barony of Backmarsh.  Along the way, they met up with some new companions (to replace the characters that died or fled the law as a result of the previous adventure!).  The party now consists of:

Campbell, the Half Orc Fighter
Twyla, the Halfling Dreamwalker
Sister Sofia Rosin, the Human Priestess (and protegee to the Witch Hunter, sent to keep an eye on the party)
Clifton Garrick, the Middle Aged Human Priest and aspiring Paladin
Sarl, the Human Witch masquerading as a Wizard to avoid the attention of the Inquisition

En route to Winterhaven, the party encountered an overturned carraige, belonging to the wealthy merchant Gaufrid Berger, who begged the party to help him recover his daughter, Anya, who was kidnapped by bandits from the notorious Black Arrow Gang.  The party headed into the nearby woods, tracking down the Bandit's camp and slaying the leader of the Gang, the sinister Black Bartholf.

Continuing on their journey, accompanied by the Bergers, the party arrived at the Keep, and were welcomed with reasonably open arms.  The Seneschal of Winterhaven, Rufus Olbrich, received the crate the party was escorting, but let them know that the crate wasn't from Viktor, per se, but rather he had been part of the chain of custody for it arriving in Winterhaven.  Berger offered to pay for the party's lodgings for a week out of gratitude for saving his daughter.

While staying at the local inn and it's associated tavern, the Faded Bear, the party found themselves in a fistfight with another adventuring crew.  Sarl, the party's mage, cast a Fog spell to provide cover to his comrades during the fight, but the other party, the Iron Drakes lead by Max Manheim, used the fog to brake the Keep's laws against using weapons within the Keep's walls, nearly killing several of the party members before the Keep's Guard broke the fight up.  Unfortunately, during the battle, Sarl had attempted to cast a spell and failed quite miserably, converting the air around him to Sulfuric Acid.  This had the unintended side-effect of killing the owner of the tavern and his staff, but in the confusion and the Fog, no one was able to concretely place the blame at Sarl's feet, and the party got off with spending a night in the Keep's dungeons as punishment for starting the fight in the first place.

The next day, the party set out for the nearby Caves of Chaos, tracking down rumors that a caravan of travelers had been waylaid and taken captive by the cannibals that lived within.

>> Side Note: I offered the party 1 Bonus Experience Point per rescued traveler.  They believe that 20 total have gone missing.  I also informed them that 1 would be eaten PER DAY, and that the caves are close enough to the Keep that they can conceivably head back to rest after clearing out a cave.

Exploring the first cave they came across the party IMMEDIATELY fell victim to a pit trapped filled with mud, throwing them into total darkness as they were ambushed by the chaos mutants that lived in the cave.  Traveling further in (much more carefully, I might add!) they came across a large gathering room full of Chaos Mutants of a variety of ages, including children.  Garrick, the budding paladin, responded in a reasonable fashion by throwing a torch into the room (having established that the mutants were afraid of fire), where it caught some greasy rags aflame and the cave began to fill with a thick, acrid smoke.  The party beat a hasty retreat (pausing only to prevent any of the mutants from escaping!), and waited out the smoke before heading back in to find the cave devoid of life -- the remaining mutants, and four of the missing travelers, having asphyxiated in the smoke.  Calling it a day, the party returned to the keep for rest (and to pretend that they hadn't just committed a war crime).

Returning to the Keep, they found that the now ownerless Faded Bear had been purchased by a young woman named Tess, who offered the party a considerable reward if they found something interesting to mount on the wall and rename the tavern for.

The next day, the party set off back to the Caves, this time entering a loop of caves near the ground.  Inside, they found the remains of several adventurers, as well as a considerable amount of treasure.  However, they ALSO found a ferocious owlbear guarding a nest of eggs.  After a fierce (and very touch and go) battle, the party just barely managed to defeat the creature, and returned to the Keep with its head to lick their wounds and collect their rewards.  Tess renamed the Tavern the Owl and Bear, and hung the creature's head from the mantle.

The party's Nun, Sister Sofia, then went to the local temple to converse with the elderly Father Vigilus, priest of Winterhaven.  In discussing some of the finer points of church dogma, father Vigilus drew Sofia's attention to something that she had discovered earlier -- in the back of the church is hole, into which convicted heretics are thrown as a punishment.  Campbell and Garrick, joining Sofia, overheard the cries of a farmer from the hole, protesting his innocence, despite Vigilus's assurances that the man was preaching in the market about the finer points of Khorne.  Campbell and Garrick threw a rope down to help the man up while Sofia distracted the old priest, but after a sharp tug originating from below, the two were pulled down into the hole, separating them from the rest of their companions.

Back at the tavern, members of the party were introduced to Major Arnold Braumschwieger (an NPC shamelessly stolen from Professor Dungeon Master.  Seriously, you should be subscribed to his Patreon, it's great stuff), a representative of the Imperial Military who had arrived two weeks early for the upcoming celebration of the coronation of the new Castellan, as well as his marriage to Anya Berger.

And that's as far as we've gotten so far.  We're due to play in a couple of days, so expect another update soon!