Today we talk about Battle for the Borderlands by Jarvis (or Jay?) Blueter. This is a… well… it’s weird. You actually get two versions of the pdf, one of which is 105 pages, the other is 90 pages, and the only difference seems to be that one has a single column and the other has two columns. Why both? No idea. The interior has color art, which is AI generated, but the pdf has no bookmarks. You also get 7 maps/battle mats, and six audio files that seem to be narrations of introductory material for different parts of the module. It’s a great idea, and probably the best part of the adventure.
It bills itself as a prequel to B1 In Search of the Unknown, even though the title might easily lead one to assume it was associated with B2 Keep on the Borderlands / Return to the Keep on the Borderlands. Zelligar and Roghan are explicitly mentioned, as well as Quasqueton. The adventure begins in the Duchy of Tenh, but for some reason the Greyhawk deities are replaced by Tyr, the Norse god of law and war. The PCs are all soldiers in Zelligar and Roghan’s army, and must therefore begin with the Soldier background (which will doubtless annoy some players), and can expect to gain one level per game day, which seems absurd to me as an OSR gamer, and even feels fast for 5E. There are two parts to the adventure, each of which can also be purchased separately (here and here); Molly’s Gulch is a battle against goblins, while Nieverston is a necropolis filled with undead creatures.
On the whole, this seems rather chaotically assembled, and lacks any real connection to Greyhawk other than a couple of names and a map at the beginning that doesn’t seem to be referenced ever in the actual module. But for $4.99 you get a lot of material, and doubtless some of it can be cannibalized for a 5E game.
You can buy the book here. There is also a Bard class board and a Barbarian class board, which are essentially cheat sheets for the classes, and are both PWYW. They don’t seem particularly specific to the adventure, but they’re advertised as such. They do look pretty handy, though!
