Barkeep On The Borderlands by WF Smith

The Keep once marked the lonely frontier 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 caverns of vile monsters. Their sacrifice cleared the way for the Keep to expand to its current size and scale.

Today marks the beginning of this year’s week of festivities. But today, the celebration gives no comfort. A Monarch lies dying of a deadly but slow-acting poison baked into their morning cake. (It was still, by all reports, a scrumptious cake.)

The Monarch drained the royal coffers to pay for a powerful antidote, but it never arrived. More accurately, it never arrived at its intended destination. 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 Bailiff and their goons blanketed the Keep with reward posters, and word of the bounty has traveled beyond the borderlands. Whosoever finds the antidote and returns it to the Monarch will earn their weight in gold, as well as a barony on the new borderlands. And whoever was behind the treachery will earn their own just reward: the guillotine.

Barkeep on the Borderlands is a 52-page zine with full-color illustrations on every page and handcrafted by L.F. OSR, the master of deluxe zines. It will include:

• 20 bars with random tables for patrons, encounters, events, drink specials and everything else you need to bring each bar to life
• A map of the Keep’s entertainment district, lovingly illustrated by Jim Hall of Brooklet Games
• Simple but effective procedures for running a pubcrawl as a pointcrawl adventure
•  Rules for drinking and inebriation that are compatible with nearly any TTRPG derived from the 1974 progenitor roleplaying game
• A timeline to keep the adventure dynamic as the player characters celebrate the Raves of Chaos
• 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