Raging Swan Press
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As we speak, Raging Swan Press is getting ready to release Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands, our second year anniversary module next month. I've had a number of requests for some insights into the design process behind the Shadowed Keep's design and so I've started a short series of blog posts on the subjects.
The first two instalments are up:
Part 1: Why I Love the Moathouse So Much
So if you are interested in the adventure, head over and take a read!
Looking forward to it!
I really enjoyed Retribution, so I'll be eagerly awaiting this! Thanks also for the design journal.
Question: Why not just "The Shadowed Keep?"
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I really enjoyed Retribution, so I'll be eagerly awaiting this! Thanks also for the design journal.
Question: Why not just "The Shadowed Keep?"
I'm pretty sure the "... on the Borderlands" part is a direct homage to the classic AD&D module Keep on the Borderlands. I'd say just about every one of us that started gaming back in those early glory days of AD&D played (and loved) Keep on the Borderlands :)
Oh, and I got to peek at an early draft of this adventure a few months ago ... it is REALLY cool!!!
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Raging Swan Press
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I really enjoyed Retribution, so I'll be eagerly awaiting this! Thanks also for the design journal.
Question: Why not just "The Shadowed Keep?"
There's a couple of reasons I added in "on the Borderlands."
1. Marc's right it's a slight nod to the title of Keep on the Borderlands, another of my all-time favourite modules.
2. The backstory of the module firmly sets the keep in a borderland area infested with orcs, goblins and kobolds. The set-up for the place wouldn't really work if it was in a civilised area.
3. It just sounds cool and evokes (in me) the old school style of adventure.
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This looks like another solid piece of work from Raging Swan and I will be picking this up for sure.
In some respects this could be more than an homage to B2, it actually could be more of a "what if"? As in, "what if the original Keep on the borderlands fell instead of prospered"?
Marc, your depiction of the Keep goes very well with the continuing RS feel of early edition AD&D (1st era/part 2). Excellent work!
It's nice to also see some of William McAusland (Outland Arts/Mutant Epoch) fantasy work - more used to his great PA art laid out in Mutant Epoch.
Mr. Broadhurst - I think you have the skill and style to easily put out a whole campaign world that is more in the vein of Greyhawk (vs. say Golarion). Actually something probably much better than Greyhawk - your environs are very well done (content, feel, layout), and I cannot stress their value enough to other DMs out there. Putting out a product with larger areas with seed ideas, tied-in module locations, towns, encounter tables, etc would be a phenomenal product.
I am currently incorporating much of your material for a planned out Kingmaker AP - it's just too good to pass up to not use it with the AP. Now my poor players are going to be stuck on the slow xp track just so I can hit them with more content...ah well, sucks to be an adventurer.
This looks like another solid piece of work from Raging Swan and I will be picking this up for sure.
In some respects this could be more than an homage to B2, it actually could be more of a "what if"? As in, "what if the original Keep on the borderlands fell instead of prospered"?
Marc, your depiction of the Keep goes very well with the continuing RS feel of early edition AD&D (1st era/part 2). Excellent work!
It's nice to also see some of William McAusland (Outland Arts/Mutant Epoch) fantasy work - more used to his great PA art laid out in Mutant Epoch.
Mr. Broadhurst - I think you have the skill and style to easily put out a whole campaign world that is more in the vein of Greyhawk (vs. say Golarion). Actually something probably much better than Greyhawk - your environs are very well done (content, feel, layout), and I cannot stress their value enough to other DMs out there. Putting out a product with larger areas with seed ideas, tied-in module locations, towns, encounter tables, etc would be a phenomenal product.
I am currently incorporating much of your material for a planned out Kingmaker AP - it's just too good to pass up to not use it with the AP. Now my poor players are going to be stuck on the slow xp track just so I can hit them with more content...ah well, sucks to be an adventurer.
Raging Swan has the Lonely Coast which is a free mini-setting. But a full setting would be definitely awesome.
The RS stuff works great for Kingmaker. I've been incorporating it as well. RS module "Road of the Dead" makes for a neat dungeon crawl that can be placed virtually anywhere in the AP. I ran it between the first two books. My PCs also just encountered a patrol of the Hobgoblins of the Mailed Fist out on training and actually managed to make peaceful contact (and business cards where exchanged). They may play a bigger role if/when the PCs get to mass combat.
I'm pretty sure the "... on the Borderlands" part is a direct homage to the classic AD&D module Keep on the Borderlands.
Not to nitpick (okay, yes, I am actually) but Keep on the Borderlands was never an AD&D module. It shipped with both of the first two versions of the Basic set. (The *hideous* Return to the Keep on the Borderlands was for AD&D 2e however.)
Okay, pedantry done.
Are you sure you won't get sued?
Are you sure you won't get sued?IANAL,but I wonder the same thing
That was kind of what I was getting at. I get and respect the homage (It was my first intro to the game back at the tender age of 9). I just thought it was mabye a little too blatent.
Anyway, still sounds like a great product!
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Raging Swan Press
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Mr. Broadhurst - I think you have the skill and style to easily put out a whole campaign world that is more in the vein of Greyhawk (vs. say Golarion). Actually something probably much better than Greyhawk - your environs are very well done (content, feel, layout), and I cannot stress their value enough to other DMs out there. Putting out a product with larger areas with seed ideas, tied-in module locations, towns, encounter tables, etc would be a phenomenal product.
Wow! Thanks very much for those very kind words. I have been thinking about starting to write a campaign world - I'm cursed with many ideas and recently I've been thinking about tackling something a little larger. not sure about being better than Greyhawk, though. It's possible that might be blasphemy.
;-)
I am currently incorporating much of your material for a planned out Kingmaker AP - it's just too good to pass up to not use it with the AP. Now my poor players are going to be stuck on the slow xp track just so I can hit them with more content...ah well, sucks to be an adventurer.
Funniy enough, a lot of the stuff Raging Swan recently released was written with Kingmaker in mind. At the time I was running the AP and I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. In particular, Henchfolk & Hirelings, Dark Oak and the idea for the Random Encounters line all came from my play of the AP.
I'm also using the slow advancement track now and I think it makes the game better. We are having fewer deaths and I think this is because the players are getting to know their characters better and are more aware of their limitations. In my current game, we are coming up to one year of game time after 17 sessions which seems a more reasonable rate of advancement than loads of levels in a few short months.
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Raging Swan Press
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I've just released another installment in my series of posts behind the design philosophy that drove my design of the Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands. You can read about it here. I hope you find it interesting!
And this is a print product! I'm definitely there, particularly if Amazon UK are going to be stocking it. Could I get away with running this for a 2nd level party?
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Raging Swan Press
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And this is a print product! I'm definitely there, particularly if Amazon UK are going to be stocking it. Could I get away with running this for a 2nd level party?
Yes, absolutely. Although it is designed for 1st-level characters, PCs that complete the module should reach 3rd-level. Every encounter has notes on how to quickly and easily scale up or down the EL by 1 using nothing more than what's already on the page. So, increasing the EL of some of the earlier encounters is really easy.
To see an example of the kind of thing I mean, check out some of the example random encounter I have on my site. You can see one example here and another one here. Obviously these aren't from Shadowed Keep, but the way they handle EL scaling is identical.
Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands is indeed a print product and it will be available at Amazon late March/early April.
I hope that helps!
Your web page says the Release Date is March 12, 2012, for the Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands. Since that is today and I don't see a way to buy it, what is the revised release date?
Will there be a print/pdf combo available?
Would this Keep make a good base of operations for an adventuring party once they clear it out?
And will there be some Shadowed Caves of Chaos nearby, say as a future project?
From your Design Blog entries, this looks to be exactly what I would like for an adventure.
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Raging Swan Press
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Your web page says the Release Date is March 12, 2012, for the Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands. Since that is today and I don't see a way to buy it, what is the revised release date?
Will there be a print/pdf combo available?
Would this Keep make a good base of operations for an adventuring party once they clear it out?
And will there be some Shadowed Caves of Chaos nearby, say as a future project?
From your Design Blog entries, this looks to be exactly what I would like for an adventure.
That's my typo - inexplicably I got the date wrong! Shadowed Keep is releasing next week - it will probably be available at Paizo on Wednesday.
I will have print copies available, but not immediately as they take longer to emerge from the supply chain. Shadowed Keep, though, is included in Raging Swan's free PDF promotion so even if you pick up the PDF and the print versions seperately you don't lose out.
I'm glad you found my blogs interesting - one of the premises of the keep is that it is small enough to serve as a home for the adventurers either now or later on in their career. I hadn't thought of doing a Shadowed Caves of Chaos, mainly because I didn't have the idea until now!
I hope you enjoy the module, Thanks for the support!