Found this via the D&D Documentary facebook page. Otus black & white illo depicting the Keep on the Borderlands. It’s very similar in overall layout to the final back cover of B2, but with a village outside and a sea or lake behind the keep. Frank Mentzer pulled this unused art out of a file and used it in RPGA News #1 (soon renamed Polyhedron), summer 1981.
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=59966&sid=62190603d083fb1eafc14dbdc29ee7f3
Dragonsfoot thread the goes into speculation that it could be the precursor to B2 Keep and/or B3 Palace.
http://oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/93311693103/otusshrine-otus-black-white-illo-depicting
In the past I have used B2 as a mini-gazetteer, with a modified keep that was still under construction and featuring a small fortified village mostly populated by construction workers and the castellan's men-at-arms (as the keep accommodations were a long way from being habitable). I like this potential prototype for the B2 keep because it gives it a completely different context.
ReplyDeleteI've done the same.. set it as an outpost of Perrenland holding off the Wolf Nomads, in the Yeomanry holding off giants from Sterich, in post-Wars Medegia garrisoned by evil troops from Rel Astra, and an outpost of the Pale colonial government on the planet of Volturnus among other things. Love the Keep, and this variant's some good stuff..
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