Saturday, June 4, 2016

Rabbits & Rangers: Sheep on the Borderland

My Monday group finished the first playtest adventure for Rabbits & Rangers, a Labyrinth Lord based guide to running cartoon animal campaigns. I cobbled the adventure together without writing much down. I decided to riff on B2: Keep on the Borderlands and I called it “Sheep on the Borderland” (naturally).

The gist was this. A band of adventurers called the Sheeple (all Sheep) went missing after making a journey to an ancient ruined keep northwest of the great city of Zyn Dweomer. The sister of the Sheeple’s leader enlisted the PCs to help her find her lost brother. Her name was Bree Arkus.

I took the map of the Keep and drew a ruined sketch of it. I put a huge rift in the earth next to the Keep, related to the dark magics that were at work in the area.



The PCs explored the surface of the ruin, where nearly all the walls and buildings were reduced to rubble. They fought hammerhands, who were responsible for most of the smashing of walls. It’s kinda like cats clawing… they gotta smash stuff.



Anyway, the culmination of the adventure was an encounter in the only remaining intact structure… the Chapel. So here’s a sketch of the Chapel layout.



There were stinky diseased goblins, Sheep, Monkeys, giant spiders, giant snakes, slithering snake people, and a half bull half sheep demon. It was fun. I learned a great deal about the tension between cartoon style mechanics and straight Labyrinth Lord play.

Next playtest begins Monday… In the Castle of Count Drake-Yulla! I hope to write this one up as a module to supplement the book.

The text for Rabbits & Rangers is finished. Right now I’m focused on playtesting and doing art for the book. I do not have a release date yet. It will depend on when I get the drawings done.

2 comments:

  1. So atmosphere-wise were you trying to keep the same tone of the older D&D adventures, or was it a bit lighter because of all the animal people?

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    1. Um... in the playtest I was just focused on running the adventure. I was in full blown D&D exploration mode. The second playtest is going on now... Castle of Count Drake-Yulla. It's going really well. And yeah, talking animals lends itself nicely to comical play. We're having a blast. In the last session the PC snake slithered inside the ribcage of an undead duck. It was fun.

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