Publisher: Wizards of the CoastGreatwall is in peril - not from military forces of Iuz, but from lack of goods and supplies. Caravans from Willip have ceased thanks to increased dangers on the Willip Critwall Grabford Trail. As the key fort positioned to contain the Iuzian flood, Greatwall is a strategic necessity. Its failure would mean a major incursion along the border.
Your characters are hired to escort a caravan from Greatwall to Willip; if its merchants are afraid to come to the fort, the fort will go to them. This should be simple, cut and dried guard job. Right? Of course not. There are many surprises in store for your little caravan, and your characters will need to keep their wits about them day and night in order to make it to the other end. Secret plans are afoot, conspiracies are brewing, and nothing is as it seems while on the Border Watch.
This module uses information presented in the From the Ashes boxed set and the Iuz the Evil accessories. However, ownership of these two products is not necessary to play this module.
Product History
WGM1: "Border Watch" (1993), by Paul T. Riegel, is the first (and only) World of Greyhawk Mission. It was published in August 1993.
Origins: Back to the Ashes. In Greyhawk Wars (1991) and From the Ashes (1992), TSR detailed a new era for the World of Greyhawk. The updated setting's richest period of creativity came in 1993 when Carl Sargent wrote a trio of supplements that extensively detailed a contiguous area of the Flanaess: WGR4: "The Marklands" (1993), WGR5: "Iuz the Evil" (1993), and WGR6: "The City of Skulls" (1993).
Set on the border between Furyondy and Iuz, "Border Watch" was the first adventure to really take advantage of Sargent's creation. Unfortunately, it was also the final publication in the From the Ashes revival and the final Greyhawk book produced by TSR. One more book by Sargent, "Ivid the Undying" (1995) would only be released in electronic form.
Adventure Tropes: An Introduction. As was the case with so many of the Greyhawk adventures of the early AD&D 2e era (1989+), "Border Watch" was an introductory adventure meant to bring new players to the setting. It suggested that characters could come from the adventure's initial locale: Greatwall in Furyondy.
Introductions are often very railroaded, to push players along the path to D&D adventuring, and that's the case here. Using a trope that was very popular with the Dark Sun line (1991-1996), the adventurers are asked to guard a caravan. This allows the GM move the players through an episodic adventure, going from place to place and dealing with problems at each. The scripting of the adventure is so tight that there's an even a specified death that occurs at one point, no matter what.
Exploring Greyhawk. Furyondy was already extensively detailed in WGR4: "The Marklands". However, "Border Watch" builds on that, providing adventure-level details on Greatwall, Mursten, Fort Disaster, Barduk, and some places in between.
Whoops. Page 25 is missing a rather extensive section on "Attack and Assassination!", which details an attack on Barduk and links it to the Cragson Mines. Errata containing the missing section was long available on the Wizards of the Coast web site, until its recent cleansing. It can still be found online at the Acaeum.
About the Creators. "Border Watch" was the only D&D supplement authored by Paul T. Riegel though he also contributed to Gamma World's GWQ3: "Home Before the Sky Falls" (1993). He wrote a little more extensively for Challenge magazine and contributed to West End's d6 system during a brief period of professional RPG activity in the late '80s and early '90s.
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.
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