Barkeep on the Borderlands is Funded (And Then Some!)
This post was originally sent as un update to backers of the Barkeep on the Borderlands kickstarter campaign.
Thanks to our backers, Barkeep on the Borderlands is funded and well on its way to reaching all of our current stretch goals. I just wanted to check-in quickly to let you know about our progress so far.
Stretch Goals
We have now added seven of the most talented RPG writers to our team! Because each will now be writing a bar of their own to be included in the zine, I asked them all for some preliminary thoughts on the subject (e.g., how they run taverns in their games, their experience (or inexperience) with barcrawls, or what they plan on writing for the zine). I thought I would present some of their remarks. It's all rather informal, so some quotes are short and sweet, and others are long, but still sweet.
Chris McDowall (GUEST WRITING) - Designer of Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland. Always aiming for minimalist rules with maximum flavour.
"The best pubs feel like a random encounter table poured out into real life, so I've always enjoyed indulging in them at the RPG table. My own games are rife with stinking dens, and I'm excited to see how many hooks and flavourful nuggets I can cram into my contribution to this book."
Marcia B. (GUEST WRITING) - Author of the chiquitafajita blog and the forthcoming 0e retroclone, Fantastic Medieval Campaigns. She likes to play goofy and off-the-cuff games with her friends.
"I'm a lightweight so all it takes for me to feel wasted is a bottle of hard cider or a glass of white wine. One time, while drinking with my cousins, I had to pretend I was just casually sipping on wine and not totally drunk because my teetotaler dad was in the same room as us and I can't hold my liquor to save my life. My favorite drinks are sangria and a hot chocolate with Irish cream because they're drinks I love cozying up with, but they're also surefire ways to get me wasted. This is probably all because I'm a goodie-two shoes who turned twenty-one in the middle of the pandemic. At least my drinking habits are inexpensive! Barkeep on the Borderlands is the sort of fun, goofy premise that my friends and I love to happen upon by chance of ad libbery while playing dungeon games. W.F. Smith is really clever for taking the institution of the barcrawl to new depths, and fleshing out what could be just a one-off joke into a creative adventure module with strong legs and an even stronger liver. I'm excited to contribute to Barkeep with a host club to accommodate adventurers with lonely hearts and deep pockets."
Gus L. (INTERIOR ART, GUEST WRITING) - Longtime RPG flaneur and dungeon crawl enthusiast, writer and illustrator of Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier, Beneath the Moss Courts, and Prison of the Hated Pretender.
"My first game of D&D, far before my first pubcrawl, was a near catastrophic attack on the Kobold Caves in B2. The pit trap and giant rat swarm almost did us in, but the kobolds throwing stuff and angrily shouting about how we'd killed their 'cows' (the rats) as we were forced to retreat sealed my love of the game. We returned the next session and raided the kobold caves, finding huge wheels of stinking rat milk cheese and very little of value. The bar I have in mind will combine this experience with one of my favorite lost dive bars, which had a secret casino den in it's backroom, hidden by a very obvious secret door."
mv (GUEST WRITING) - Film student, graphic designer and fantasy writer. Spending their time in rainy Brussels, they are all about sci-fi, queerness and everything in between.
"I don't run taverns in my games because (so far there have been none in space). For my bar, I was thinking a bar on an airship floating above the Keep and full of gay air-pirates, of course. The lore is that the pirates were another adventuring party that killed an evil wizard and took off with their tower and now they offer cocktails made from the leftover potions."
Ava Islam (EDITING, GUEST WRITING) - Ava Islam is a fool, a wretch, a rogue, and a rapscallion. You can read the ravings of her brain worms on her blog or check out her game, Errant.
"As a virtuous Catholic lady, I have never stepped foot in a den of iniquity nor indulged in the devil's water. However, I have worshiped at the altar of America's most hallowed and family-friendly artistic medium, the multi-camera sitcom, many of which take place in such disreputable saloons; I guess my bar will be based on that."
Nick LS Whelan (EDITING, GUEST WRITING) - Author of the blog Papers & Pencils. A word criminal, who insists his word crimes are art.
"The truth is that I don't use taverns in my games, and I could count the number of times I've been in a bar on one hand, so this is a more purely creative exercise for me. I plan to draw on my experience as a former teetotaler to construct a bar that wants to be boring, but is legally obligated to be fun if it wants to get that pubcrawl lucre. I'm thinking they have a very elaborate menu of water and tea and such, but the guild has bullied them into tacking on a sheet of paper with an extended menu with booze. And maybe, by purchasing the cheapest booze they could, they wound up getting niche drinks that no other bar was willing to experiment with."
Anne Hunter (GUEST WRITING) - Author of the DIY & Dragons blog and contributor to several Dungeon Crawl Classics projects. Her favorite drink is the Boulevardier.
"I think my favorite nights of bar crawling all happened when I lived in [redacted]. One night I was lucky enough to visit The Cave, a basement level bar with a low ceiling and fake stone texturing on the walls. Anyway, I visited The Cave the same night that an all-girl Icelandic punk band was there. They were called 'Brudarbandid,' or Band of Brides, and they all wore wedding dresses to perform. For a while after that, every time I went thrifting I looked for vintage wedding dresses. I was much too skinny then, but still tall, so it was hard to find any kind of vintage wear that fit. But I finally got one and wore it out dancing a few times. It wasn't unusual back then for people to think that I was a guy wearing a dress. Whenever I wore the wedding dress out dancing, I got hit on by so many gay guys. It was flattering, but I never understood what it was about that outfit specifically that made me so attractive to them."
There are still two guest writers remaining: Ben Laurence and Zedeck Siew, some big names you are probably familiar with. Hopefully, next time I write you, I will have more to say about them both!
Interviews
Your boy (me) has done his fair share of media appearances in an effort to spread the good word.
What About the Zine?
It may not come as a surprise that I have blocked off February as a month to focus on this campaign, so the writing is in process (though the skeleton, central nervous system and several other vital organs of the project are already in place). In the next couple weeks, I will write an update/blog post about the procedure I've designed to run the pubcrawl and why it is important to have a procedure at all. I have also written a post about one of the major factions in the adventure, and how they relate to the original Keep on the Borderlands Module. I'm commissioning some fresh art for the zine that should debut in that post. The success of this project has allowed me to begin commissioning a bit more art, but the better we do, the more art will be in the zine! Our team of artists are standing by and ready to dig in.
A New Challenger Approaching
There is some additional, incredibly exciting news about our team that I can only gesture toward at this juncture. However, please stay tuned for future updates because I know that a lot of people are going to be excited to hear about this top secret project update. When I, myself, learned about it, my jaw nearly dropped to the floor, which would have been exceedingly unfortunate, given that it is attached to my face.
Raise a glass!
W.F. Smith of the Prismatic Wasteland