We've kicked around the idea of reviving the old "Borderlands Outpost" free-form story for a bit now. The response has seemed pretty positive, so I thought I might as well get things started off.

Basically, I'll provide a few characters and the first part of the storyline, and then leave the tale at a "cliffhanger" for someone else to pick up. Develop your own characters, use mine in supporting roles, take the story in a different direction, focus on an entirely different segment of the action...do whatever you want! Pretty much anything goes, although there are a few simple rules, taken from an earlier post I sent to the list.

I'll put up a copy of those rules after the first segment of the story.

If you don't like the direction the story is taking -- change it! Make a logical transition to the story YOU want to tell. That's the beauty of something like this: everyone has something different to offer. It may turn out that with so many shifts in perspective and plot direction the story will turn into a chaotic mess -- but that's half the fun.

I've set the story in the Seven Kingdoms outpost of Akmir, located in the Borderlands region of the Wilderlands of Zaran. Akmir is home to the Legion of the Borderlands, a collection of desperate outcasts, criminals, and mercenaries from every region of Talislanta. The setting can be changed, if the story participants so desire.

One last thing...I ain't the world's greatest writer. I'm just trying to set the stage here, so bear with me.

Without further ado, the first chapter in the story of the Borderlands Outpost.

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Dismal's Story: The Luck of a Hanged Man

By, Dennis Bumb


"...needless to say, things didn't look so great for us at that point. There were a whole bunch of us, mind you -- it wasn't just me and Chapel and Malachai. But whether they're hanging three of you by the neck or thirty of you, you'll still end up dead. Malachai was stone-faced, of course, and Chapel kept looking grimmer by the minute. And me? I was actually COLD, even with that hot Wilderlands sun beating down. We were all standing there on that platform, waiting for the big Thrall to finish up his inspirational speech to the troops so he could hang us by the neck, and the walls of the outpost just collected that heat and turned the whole courtyard into a potter's kiln. All that heat and I was still cold from watching the nooses sway in what tiny breeze there was.

"Hey, don't look at me like that -- I didn't do anything wrong! Sure, I've played fast and loose with what laws I've come across that are stupid and oppressive and otherwise ignorant, but I'm as good a guy as you'll find. We'd all been soldiering at that outpost in the Borderlands for who knows how long; and they cut our pay, and they cut us to half rations on account of those supply shipments were few and far between. What were we supposed to do? ANYONE would have called it quits! Mutiny? Deserting your post? I call it survival.

"Okay, so maybe me and Chapel and Malachai were just merchants. Maybe we had only just arrived at the place. And maybe we did get caught smuggling kesh into the outpost on that last supply run before the mutiny. But we're soldiers at heart! Why do you think we smuggled the stuff, anyway? Those boys needed their entertainment! We were looking out for the best interests of the troops. Keep the morale up, you know?

"So when the higher ups back in the Seven Kingdoms cut the pay and cut the rations, we could feel the pain of those brave soldiers. And when those boys mutinied, and valiantly tried to liberate supplies and loot from the storehouse, we looked out our cell window and we were with them in spirit. And once they let us out to join their uprising, didn't we throw down with the best of them?

"Well, okay, so maybe someone found me underneath some sacks in the back of the supply wagon. I needed a quiet place to think up some strategy! Once I had my plan I would have tore into them like you wouldn't believe!

"...anyway, Truth and Justice didn't prevail this time out. The good guys lost, and the bad guys won. And so there were me and Chapel and Malachai, standing on that great hangman's platform with about thirty other freedom fighters. And then that big Thrall, I think his name was Thrakash, finished up his speech. He'd been going on and on about honor and duty and staying at your post despite personal hardship and a whole bunch of other crap that's strictly for suckers -- and then he finished and he turned to us. He looked for the first three guys to put in the nooses.

"He looked at Chapel, a grim rogue from Gao-Din with a pure white brush cut and greyhound's build. He looked at Malachai, who claims to be a knife-fighter but who I swear is a Revenant the way he stalks and kills. And he looked at me: a sweating, shaking Maruk talismancer whose luck had turned foul one more time...and his lip curled. He looked into my eyes and then shook his head in disgust. He moved on, and I knew we'd be killed last, as an afterthought. Just a bunch of kesh smugglers. Hardly worth the rope.

"He picked three others. They brought up a blue Ardua birdman, and a shame-faced Thrall, and a Zandir, and they put their heads in the nooses. Thrakash nodded and lifted his hand, and his man tensed on the lever that would drop the trap-doors from underneath the feet of those condemned men.

"And then a Jhangaran up on the wall screamed, 'Za!'

"We all turned, even Thrakash, even the man on the lever. The Jhangaran screamed again, and pointed out over the wall. 'Za!'

"And then an arrow sunk into his back and he pitched off the wall into the courtyard. It was so quiet we could hear the thump his body made when it hit the ground.

"Then the main gates to the outpost of Akmir exploded in blue flame. Splinters showered the courtyard, and the platform, and me. The Za charged in through a wall of smoke and fire.

"I guess that was when thing's really got ugly."

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So there you go. At least four groups to play with: traitorous mercenaries, loyal Legionaires, fiercesome Za bandits, and a trio of morally bankrupt drug runners. Hopefully, by the time this is finished, we'll have at least twenty different competing factions, some as large as a tribe of Za, some as small as one man. Who knows? It's up to you from here.

I'll put the rules up in another post, but in a rules-related matter, the PCs in this story are:

Feel free to use these guys in your stories if you want, but please don't kill them without a thumbs up from me.

Thrakash, although named, is NOT a PC. You can do whatever you want with him and it's cool with me.

DRB

Well, that was what was .... here is what it became


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