Over my break, I read many adventures created for the old-school Renaissance and a few republished classic adventures from TSR. Among the things I looked at is the all-time classic TSR Module, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. 

This is the first part of my attempt to create a module in the style of old-school TSR modules, my own Keep on the Borderlands if you would, that will serve as the initial module for the Wyrdback campaign frame I am working on (I will write more on the ideas I am borrowing from Daggerheart in a future post). First, we must establish our “Keep on the Edgelands,” the purpose built starter town and homebase for the players, Wyrdguard. Keep tuned for follow-up posts detailing the Wyrdback and the first adventure set in the Wyrdback.

Wyrdguard.

In the far northwest of New Mountainheart, at the headwaters of the left branch of the Silver Flow river, is the small, fortified town of Wyrdguard. Wyrdguard gets its name from its purpose; it sits close to the Valley of New Mountainheart’s edge, where it opens into the Wyrdback. Wyrdguard is heavily fortified for a town of its size, with a 20-foot-tall stone wall and a large garrison of soldiers to protect it and the surrounding countryside from the theoretical terrors coming out of the Wyrdback. 

However, Wyrdguard’s true claim to fame is as the primary staging point for anyone heading out into the Wyrdback.  From its founding 400 years ago, it has been known as an adventurers’ town. On any given day, dozens of adventurers are traveling in and out of the town, either seeking out new sites on the Wyrdback or returning to lick their wounds and spend their loot.

Wyrdguard at a Glance

Population: 2200 (mix of fey and humanoids) with an additional 300 transients

Government: Lord Mayor Dederic Stonewell and half a dozen officials and advisors

Defense: Stone wall, 400 warrior infantry, approximately 550 militiamen and women, and many adventurers or ex-adventurers.

Commerce: Farming, fishing, light manufacturing, and adventure outfitting

Organizations: Iron Oak Adventurers Guild, the Ivory Ravens

Religion: Chapel of St. Benedict, Old Fey Pagan Hedge

Locations in Wyrdguard

The chapel of St. Benedict

A small stone Catholic Church on the town market square is dedicated to the Catholic saint of community and reconciliation. At given time the pastor, Father Franz, and 1d20 parishioners can be found in the chapel.

Father Franz is a 74-year-old man with a thin body and sagging, wrinkled skin, as though he were a beach ball that had deflated and a balding head. He is known for his feud with Druidess Caitlín of the Old Fey Pagan Hedge in town. His sermons are often fiery, railing against the alleged excesses and sins of the Fey pagans at the town hedge. Older town residents say that Father Franz’s fire and brimstone act is just an act. Father Franz and Caitlín were engaged 50 years ago, and he caught her trying to bed another man.

Father Franz also seems to have suddenly set his sights on Áirdin O’Brien, convinced he is up to something and is willing to pay for any information dug up on the goblin shopkeeper.

Docks

The riverfront is one long set of docks for barges and keelboats heading up and down the river. There is a 1 in 6 chance that such a boat is docked at the pier at any given time. Passage to Sliberdorf is 50sp, while passage to Sliberberg is 2gp.

The docks are also the favorite haunt of Georgy, a retired adventurer and the town’s resident crazy person. Rumor is that Georgy barely survived being swept up in a whirlwind (true), but the experience left him mentally broken (partially true). He spends his days catching fish from a spot on the docks with a fishing rod that lacks a line, getting drunk from a bottle of rum that has no bottom, and occasionally ranting at people about the coming of he who paints the universe with screams.

Garrison

A medium-sized but very sturdy stone building by the eastern wall, it contains the office of the captain of the guard, the guard’s armory, barracks, and the town jail. The captain of the guard is Thosaek Hammerfinger, a 100-something dwarves guard captain and brother of the town blacksmith Kirgrik. Thosaek is a notorious insomniac and worrywart. He often spends his days standing on the Garrison’s parapet staring to the north, dreading the possibility of something coming from the Wyrdback. He frequently hires adventurers to go out and scout for potential, but usually imagines threats in the Wyrdback

Granny Gnash’s “evil” shop and Bed and Breakfast

Granny Gnash is a hag who was kicked out of her coven for the sort sheer incompetence that can only be explained as a joke by some deity. She’s so bad at being evil that she unwittingly does good. She is the stereotypical green hag, green skin, pointy nose, white hair that’s thinning out, a back so hunched that she needs to use her staff as a walking stick, and black tattered clothing.

 She is a longtime town resident, having moved into the haunted house at the edge of town a decade ago and has been hawking her wares ever since. She supposedly sells her “foul” magic to those wishing evil ends; however, the people of Wyrdguard have long known about her “problem”. Granny Gnash is stunningly easy to gaslight for a hag, so long as you couch your request in a malicious purpose, Granny Gnash can provide you with whatever common or uncommon potion or spell scroll you need for a 2% markup over list price; if not, you simply ask for one that does the opposite of what you need. She will also identify any magic item for a fee, provided the patron intends to use the object to do evil.

Her house also serves as a bed and breakfast. On the second floor, she has six rooms for rent for 1sp a night, provided you do not mind the ghosts or her terrible cooking.

The Iron Oak Inn and Adventures Guild

The Iron Oak is the sister location to the similarly named inn in Sliberberg. It is a large three-story stone building by the north gate at the end of the town’s main street. The first story of the inn is taken up by a large pub, with the upper floors a combination of common and private rooms. Like its sister location in Sliberberg, it is also a guildhall of the Iron Oak Adventurers guild.

The inn and guild is run by Tiarnan MacThomais, sister of Morag MacThomais of Sliberberg’s Iron Oak Inn, and her four daughters. This 50-something hobgoblin woman has a cobra-like body, long hair in dreads, and eyes that seem to turn black when her smooth and seductive voice becomes flirty or otherwise suggestive. Tiarnan is an ex-adventuring rogue who quit after the accident that took her brother’s hand (incidentally, she got pregnant with her eldest daughter Brídín at just about the same time. Probably no connection). 

Despite being “retired,” she is still adept at sneaking around her establishment and makes a game of sneaking up on the so-called young bloods, as she calls the guild’s membership, and if rumors are to be believed, usually leads the guild’s rescue missions when a guild member gets in over their head.

Lately, Tiarnan has been worried about her eldest daughter, Brídín. She is 19, pretty, and very bored with her life at the inn. She is an inspiring bard with a supernaturally good singing voice. Tiarnan is worried Brídín might sneak away with a band of adventurers, a path that will eventually run straight to her father, the one that Tiarnan dare not speak of.

Of the regulars at the Iron Oak, only one stays consistent: a lanky 20-something human tough with an eye patch named Thuzaktar. She is a member of the Ivory Ravens, and it is her job to stake out the adventurers in the pub for those who have something worth stealing, and weak enough for the Ivory Ravens to take it.

Iron Oak Adventures guild

Tiarnan insists that every adventure operating out of Wyrdguard be a guild member, and aggressively recruits new adventures in town. 

For a 3GP per month and an agreement to behave in town and take on the occasional priority request, members of the guild get the following benefits.

• Free healing provided by Uvolin Broadbrewer, a former party member of Tiarnan’s former adventuring party.
• Room and board at the Inn,one of three guild bunkhouses in town or Camp Relief.
• A vetted selection of quests, missions, and Wyrdback site intelligence tailored for the members’ abilities.
  • When Tiarnan is at the pub, she will make the rounds of her young bloods, inquiring if they are looking for work. If they answer yes, she slips into the backroom and returns with 1d6 job postings that she thinks fit the group well. 
  • Otherwise, guild members inquire at the bar if Tiarnan left them any job suggestions. 
• Legal council
• If the unthinkable happens, Tiarnan may be rescued by the guild elite recovery team. She has a few favors she can call on to raise the dead if the absolute worst happens. 

The Longing Bee Pub 

A small bar located by the bridge over the Silverflow, the Longing Bee pub, is the preferred watering hole of the laborers and keelboat crews that work the docks. It’s a rough and rowdy joint where the ale and mead are cheap and the fights frequent. 

The pub is run by Mathew, Prowling Mather, an unsavory-looking, muscular man with a peg leg. He was a former smuggler whose barge sank in the river about 7 years back for unspecified reasons. He has spent the rest of his life on dry land and will not go near any body of water, not even to cross the bridge to the other side of town.

It is also the preferred watering hole of the Ivory Ravens, a local gang of ne’er-do-wells and bandits. Most nights, 1d6 bandits associated with the group can be found drinking at the bar.

Market Square

A large dirt square in the middle of town, on any given day, 1d6 individuals peddle their wares (foodstuffs, handcrafts) in the square, and 1d20 children play. Every 2 weeks, there is a market day. During the market, 1d20 stalls sell every form of nonmagical good in the Player’s Handbook, along with freshly picked fey fruit from the forests, magical herbs, and the occasional stranger thing.

O’Brien’s outfitters.

A large stone building abutting the town docks, O’Brien’s Outfitters is an importer/exporter specializing in adventurers’ needs. The proprietor, Áirdin O’Brien, is a sleazy goblin who wears dirty pinstriped trousers, shirt, and vest, slicks back his short black hair with a homemade green concoction, and smells like dead rats. When dealing with customers, he oozes sleaze like sweat in summer, constantly grinning as he works the unsuspecting rube.

He imports “gently used” rope, pitons, backpacks, weapons, and other gear up the river via the riverboats that come and go from Wyrdguard a few times a week and sells them at or just below the cost listed in the Player’s Handbook. While dinged and worn, the gear is usually serviceable, as Áirdin loathes losing repeat customers.

He is also the only legal fence in town and buys magic items, art items, and gemstones at a 30% markdown. As such, he generally has a few common and uncommon potions, common magic items, and a spell scroll or two lying about which he generally sells at cost. However, he is very wary about items with questionable origins and will turn over those who sell him stolen goods in a heartbeat.

He also stocks various types of explosives, alchemist’s fire, and fireworks he gets for cheap from his cousin in Sliberberg, and prides himself on being the only merchant in town who sells them. However, he does not store them in the shop due to safety concerns. He has a powder house in an undisclosed location outside of town. Adventures needing additional firepower must request pickup a day ahead of the actual need.

Silver Moon Schoolhouse

Like most communities in TIr Na Calite, the town has a small schoolhouse run by the Silver Moon Coven. It is a classic affair, single story, single room made of wood and painted red, located next door to the resident coven sister’s cottage, where said witch teaches reading, writing, and basic arithmetic for free to the local children.

The town’s resident sister of the silver moon is a 30-year-old otter-bodied pucca named Hermine Baum. Like most sisters of the silver moon, Hermine serves as a teacher, apothecary, healer, and midwife, although how she alone can serve all four roles for a town this size, even with a few other healers and midwives, is a mystery. Hermine idolizes her teacher, Tansy (there is rumors that she was the teacher’s pet back during her school days), and tries her best to emulate her famously abrasive personality in the classroom and elsewhere. She is not generally successful; she is too much of a cinnamon roll to get the act right. She is also notoriously nosy, although the same can be said of most coven members, constantly poking her nose into others’ business.

She tutors a small handful of unpromising apprentices in the magic arts, unpromising in the sense that most of them are more interested in learning how to cast fireballs than healing word and druidcraft. She does have one apprentice, a human girl named Margret, whom she is considering sending down the river to Sliberberg for proper instruction by in the art of witchcraft.

Town Hall

A large half-timbered building in the town center with an ornate clock in the facade that never tells the right time (supposedly even legendary clockmaker Master Thistledown gave up on it after a day of working on it). The hall contains the offices of the 79-year-old human lord mayor, Dederic Stonewell.  Dederic is good-natured but has very poor eyesight, requiring thick glasses that barely help his eyesight, and his hearing is going, so he is constantly misjudging situations. It’s gotten so bad recently that his wife has presented him with a hearing aid parrot named Ginger who rides around his shoulder and shouts her interpretation of what people are saying into his ear. The hall also contains the assembly hall and the offices of various secretaries and officials. The hall also features a job board with a 1 in 4 chance of having notices seeking adventures.

Wyrdguard General Store

A small store located on the market square is packed from floor to ceiling with assorted tools and supplies. The pudgy halfling shopkeeper Humbert Roper is seemingly the only one able to navigate this maze of shelves and racks. He always insists on making the customer wait while he fetches the requested items, and somehow, he manages to carry them out to the counter regardless of how big, heavy, or unwieldy they are.

The store sells tools, rations, and other basic farming supplies. The players can acquire any form of adventuring equipment in the Player’s Handbook that costs less than 10gp at a 3% markup, and the goods will be of superior quality compared to O’Brien’s Outfitters.

The Wyrdguard Hedge

A Fey Pagan stone circle is located on the western side of town. The druids at the circle do regular rituals at dawn, midday, and dusk. They also offer free healing services (via cure wounds and lesser restoration).

Caitlín Mhic Gairbhshíth, an elven druidess, leads the druids. She was undoubtedly the fairest woman in town with long braided blond hair, slim body, and fair face. She has also remained famously untouched since her broken engagement, a fact that town gossip refuses to let her forget.

About 50 years ago, she tried to have an affair with the miller since her fiancé, Franz, would not sleep with her due to his Catholic upbringing. He discovered her before she did the deed. She has been a pariah ever since, with no man in the town willing to sleep with her. To add insult to injury, a young unicorn named Shanna follows her and practically forces her to ride her, as if to accentuate her unwanted maidenhood.

Players can often find Caitlín at the hedge. When not leading rites, she is either ham-fistedly flirting with whatever man she sees or bemoaning her maiden status.

Outside Wyrdguard

The Mount Veyrun Wyrdback Observatory

Located near the peak of Mount Veyrun, about 3 miles east-north-east of Wyrdguard, the Mount Veyrun Wyrdback observatory is a semi-government-funded outpost that studies the Wyrdback. The primary facility is a four-story stone tower with a massive, strangely designed two-story-tall mechanical telescope at the top, which is used to observe the Wyrdback and the various islands of stability that float on the currents in the near Wyrd in relative safety. The Observatory regularly reports its discoveries, including the arrival of new oddities and islands, to the public via a broadsheet printed in Wyrdguard. 

The Observatory has a rotating staff of gnomish experts from the FeyGlimmer Coast. However, the one constant is Welkass. Welkass is something between the head researcher and the caretaker of the Observatory, maintaining and building new pieces of equipment. He has mad scientist hair, is easily excitable, and given half the chance will blather on about his research. He is obsessed with documenting, via an imagegrabber, the arrival of new sites in the Wyrdback from the event’s start to its end. His pride and joy is the massive, two-story tall, vertically oriented, pedal-powered, periscope-like observatory main telescope, and he spends most days glued to it scanning the Wyrdback for island emergence events.

Camp Relief

Camp Relief is a small, lightly fortified camping ground 5 miles north of Wyrdguard that serves as a staging area for expeditions into the Wyrdback and the first respite for those returning from the Wyrdback. The camp is built on the very last bit of normal ground before the edgelands of the Wyrdback

The camp consists of a palisade wall and a small handful of cabins, sheds, and lean-tos, and is manned by a rotating cast of mercenaries and hired hands. It is a relatively safe place to stay, cooperated by the Iron Oak Adventuring guild, and several merchants who operate caravans out to the isolated communities in the Wyrdback.

Castle Gloamhollow

Located almost 5 miles due south of the town on a very defensible rise, Castle Gloamhollow serves as the home of the mouse pucca Marquis Dorian von Sablemere and his family, the rulers of Gloamhollow County and the local authority. The Sablemeres have long been tasked with protecting the right Branch of the Valley of New Mountainheart from the things in the Wyrdback, hence the title marquis rather than count. Castle Gloamhollow is massive compared to the castles of other counts, with three consecutive rings of walls and massive towers in which large ballistas and catapults are mounted.

The Sablemeres, despite their holdings being miles from the duchy of Sliberberg, are considered the direct vassals of King Fredrick. In practice, the Von Sablemeres are more or less independent, and with Fredrick about as interested in politics as a rock, they openly flaunt it. Every member of the Von Sablemere family is insufferable, none more than Marquis Dorian himself.