Quest for the Unknown: Journey To the Forbidden Plateau

The mystery of the abandoned Caves of Anamosa continues: in Book One the adventurers explored a keep and underground complex built by two renowned heroes, who two generations ago beat back an invasion from a fierce horde of northern barbarians. These heroes have vanished, apparently after recently leading a small army north to confront the remnants of that invading army.

The adventurers now must travel north to the Forbidden Plateau to investigate what happened to the lost heroes and if indeed, as clues found in the keep suggest, the barbarians are once again amassing an army!

This adventure is written for Old School Essentials, Shadowdark, and Bree-YARC, and is designed to take characters from level 3 to 6. On the way the party will face a bandit gang in the pay of the barbarian spymasters, a small trading outpost where all is not what it seems, and the choice of two routes to the Plateau: one long and arduous through an underground network of caves, but with the benefit of surprise, and one along the only pass leading up to the Plateau; safer and faster, but one the enemy may be expecting.

Just as a campaign transitions from dungeon crawling to overland exploration, so does this adventure do the same, introducing hexcrawling and exploration elements, as well as guidelines for running the adventure as part of a larger campaign and incorporating retainers into game play.

The first book ended up being a whopping 70 pages, and this should be roughly the same length.

What is Available

There are six pledge levels available for this campaign.

• Book Two in pdf, print on demand, and offset versions.
• Books One and Two in pdf, print on demand, and offset versions.

All pledges come with the pdf as part of the pledge. PDFs and print-on-demand copies are fulfilled via Drivethrurpg. With the print-on-demand books, backers will be paying printing and shipping costs directly through Drivethru. As of the time of this writing the POD softcover costs approximately 6.75 to print. The offset version is staplebound and ships from the US. Both print versions are letter-sized.

Stretch Goals

If we hit 5,000.00 I'll be printing and adding a 17 x 22 poster map of the region to the offset copy, that will come folded up inside each book. The poster map is spoiler-free, meaning it can be used to aid the players during the hexcrawl phase of the campaign.

The Timeline

I've already commissioned the maps needed for the adventure, which will take the longest to produce. My goal is to have everything written, edited, and laid out, with the exception of art, by the end of December. Commissioning art and final layout should be complete by the end of January, with pdfs being released at the end of that month and print versions going out towards the end of February. 

For backers who back both books, I'll be releasing pdfs and print on demand codes as soon as funds clear, in case folks want to start running the adventure with Book One to be ready to go for when the second book comes out.