Keep On The Marne - An Alternative Timeline Campaign Set Up for B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax Using The Siege Engine System

German soldiers (wearing distinctive pickelhaube helmets with cloth covers) on the front at the First Battle of the Marne during World War I, taken in September 1914. Possibly staged for the camera due to the wearing of medals, which according to the source was not common practice in battle.

The year is 1918 &  'The First Battle of the Marne' rages as the German forces try to take a small insignificant set of ruins along the ancient French border. The Martian invasion of 1897 marked official end of super human kind among most normal human society. Things in Europe have been heating up with the world slowly but surely forgetting about the Martians. But among fringe elements of society there are dark & disturbing rumors.
Rumors of the Martians working hand in hand with the Germans & even far more  other worldly sinister forces. The rumors among the French resistance are that they are after so called 'Les grottes du chaos'. The grottoes are a source of dark & malevolent legends among the French locals. People disappearing, strange sightings of pig like horrors straight from nightmare, & rumors of sorcerers who cavort with the Devil himself.

Among the small towns & villages that surround the front a party of entertainers & circus like showmen to entertain the battle weary. They pass right in front of Colonial von Schoenvorts (another member of the von Schoenvorts family) the head of the Germany's Spezial Projekte  for the Kaiser. Little does Colonial von Schoenvorts suspect that among these entertainers are a guise for travelers & resistance fighters who are the descendants of those who in the last Ice Age put down the events in Gary Gygax's B2 Keep on the Borderlands.


As you can see I'm thinking of doing a joint game set in an alternative Earth prime material time line during WW1 .If only there was a supplement book that had guidelines for combining & straddling the lines of these books?! Well there is! The Castle Keepers Guide (CKG) by Davis Chenault, &  Stephen Chenault does an excellent job of clarifying the C&C system while giving enough room for the dungeon master to customize their own campaigns. My inspiration here was using some of the newer source book from Castles & Crusades that have recently come into my possession. 

 Gary Gygax's B2 Keep on the Borderlands is perfect for modification long after the dungeons have supposedly been cleaned out ( he,he,) but what is it that the German forces are after?! Part of the inspiration was also going over my copy of  C&C's Monsters & Treasure book & finding some of the notes I made from the older incarnations of my own games. 

So now I've got to see when & where I'm gonna do this game with Connecticut cautiously opening back up this might get very interesting especially with my players getting very beyond frustrated with the quarantine.