The Keep on the Borderlands

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The Keep on the Borderlands was an introductory module for the Red Box (Basic) version of the non-Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. As the module packaged in with the majority of the Red Box sets, it became one of the most run-through modules in D&D and one of the most popular.

Set in the Known World of Mystara with the majority of the other BECMI rulebooks and adventures, the Keep was intended to provide a "home base" for beginning adventurers and provide them with numerous adventure hooks to take. The majority of the hooks involve the Caves of Chaos located not far from the Keep.

Keep has been critically acclaimed in its time, named by players as one of their favorite modules and awarded by Dungeon (magazine) as the 7th best D&D adventure of all time in a 2004 issue.

A novel was released in 1999 along with other classic adventures. A sequel Return to the Keep on the Borderlands was released 20 years later for 2nd Edition D&D and controversially relocated the Keep to Greyhawk. Return took place two decades after the original. A version for Hackmaster, entitled Little Keep on the Borderlands was released in 2005, and served as a "parody" of the original.

The name was reused in 2010 as part of the D&D Encounters program, this time giving the Keep the proper name of Restwell Keep and locating it in the Nentir Vale.

Tropes used in The Keep on the Borderlands include:
  • Alliteration: The Caves of Chaos where the majority of the adventuring takes place in.
  • Enemy Civil War: In the region of the Caves of Chaos, an alliance of Goblins & Hobgoblins fight against the orcs of the region and their gnoll allies (occasionally). The kobolds in the region are a third party that hopes that the previous four forget about them completely in their warfare. The Bugbears in the region are completely neutral: they attack anyone they see.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" : none of the important figures of the eponymous keep were given a name (thus enabling the DM to name them according to his campaign mood). They were just names by their function: the Castellan, the Vicar, the Priest, etc.
  • The Hermit: The Mad Hermit that lives in an area of the forest around the Keep. He attacks the party not only by himself, but with his "pet" mountain lion.
  • Invited as Dinner: The entrance to the Hobgoblins' lair.
  • It Was His Sled: Bree-yark does not mean "I surrender".
  • The Mole.
  • Sequel Displacement: While not specifically a sequel, Keep on the Borderlands is the second module released for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. The first, In Search Of The Unknown is far less know, but still popular in its own right.
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