The third season of Encounters was hosted at my local game store, the Basement Games, in Zona Rosa KC Northland. This adventure coincided and focused on the new look of the game: Essentials. This 9-10 set of ‘ever-green’ soft cover books, gave a slightly different playstyle than the full 4th edition. Just as the name suggests, it has a tighter focus on character designs. One might say the game is re-inspired by its old-school roots, like in the way characters gain class features and special abilities at various levels, rather than a diet of powers: dailies, encounters, at-wills, and utilities. The adventure too had its roots in the glrious days of Old school, with the title taken from a module of yore, the Keep on the Borderlands, written by the father of our game, E.Gary Gygax (1938-2008). A friendly friar Benwick enlists the aid of a fresh new band of heroes who find a lot more than they are looking for. A season of serpents indeed.
Season 3 Essentials: Keep on the Borderlands
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Weeks 10 and 11
Week 12
Week 13 – Bill dm’ed
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17
Week 18 – snowed out
Week 19
Week 20 – The Grand Finale
This was an excellent adventure, one I would recommend to anyone. Not strictly railroaded, even though each encounter is preordained, the party fights no less than three (!) dragons, at least one dinosaur, and countless lizard folk, in dungeons, swamps, even on the castle walls, and become heroes of the Borderlands by adventures end.
Sunset over the Keep on the Boderlands
