Yes, absolutely. In fact, B2: The Keep on the Borderlands aligns surprisingly well with the mechanics of the Wretched system. Because the Wretched system (including Wretched Époque) is built on an OSR (Old School Renaissance) d20 foundation heavily inspired by classic B/X D&D, the core math, monster stats, and dungeon-crawling loops require almost zero heavy mechanical conversion. This blog post picks right up from Adapting Two Githyanki-like races for the Troll Lord Games Victorious & Red Room Bella Apoque rpg- The Aether-Born & The Khaos-Bane
However, Wretched Époque isn't high fantasy—it’s a game of gritty, morally bankrupt, fin-de-siècle (turn-of-the-century) urban horror, secret societies, and anti-heroes. To make the jump from 1980s high fantasy to 1890s "Nouveaupunk," you have to shift the window from Tolkiendesque exploration to Late-Victorian gothic intrigue.
A complete blueprint to reskin the classic module for Wretched Époque is detailed below.
1. The Narrative Reskin
To fit the Belle Époque era, the geography of the wild "Borderlands" must be reimagined into something more fitting for 1890s grit.
The Keep - The Outpost / Sanatorium: Instead of a fantasy fortress, the "Keep" is an isolated military outpost, a luxury sanatorium in the French Alps/Transylvania, or a colonial extraction camp deep in a contested territory (like the Congo or the Ottoman frontier). The "Castellan" becomes a bitter, high-ranking military commander, an eccentric medical director, or a corrupt corporate bureaucrat.
The Caves of Chaos - The Labyrinth of the Cults: The caves are an ancient, subterranean network beneath the region—perhaps a forgotten Roman catacomb, an abandoned mining complex, or a series of glacial fissures. Instead of disparate humanoid tribes (Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds), the different caves house competing factions of a sprawling, multi-layered occult conspiracy or rival criminal gangs.
2. Faction & Monster Conversions
The Wretched system focuses heavily on cosmic horror, occultism, and the criminal underworld. The distinct monster tribes in the Caves can be translated seamlessly into historical/horror equivalents:
| Original B2 Monster | Wretched Époque Equivalent | Concept / Narrative Motivation |
| Kobolds | The Sub-Human Dregs / "Apaches" | Desperate, violent street criminals, mutineers, or locals afflicted by a degenerative physical rot. |
| Goblins & Hobgoblins | Anarchist Cell / Radical Cell | Militant bomb-makers and anti-state radicals who are unknowingly using occult materials provided by deeper cults. |
| Orcs & Gnolls | The Corrupt Mercenaries | A rogue faction of foreign Legionnaires or ruthless cutthroats hired by a corporate syndicate to secure the caves. |
| Zombies & Skeletons | Galvanized Corpses / Reanimated | Victims of a mad scientist residing in the caves, reanimated via crude electrical galvanism and clockwork mechanisms. |
| The Evil Priest (Medusa/Acolytes) | The Esoteric Order / Cult of the Beyond | The core antagonist group. A secret society of elite Occultists or "Animal Magnetists" using Mesmerism to control the other factions. |
3. Adapting the Gameplay Mechanics
The Wretched Commandments (XP Progression)
In classic B2, characters earn XP by killing monsters and bringing treasure back to civilization. In Wretched, characters are fundamentally anti-heroes driven by vices, sins, and survival.
The Wretched Commandments change the entire vibe of the module:
Instead of "clearing the caves for the good of the realm," the PCs are likely there because they want to steal the cult's legendary wealth ("Thou Shalt Steal"), assassinate a rival mastermind ("Thou Shalt Kill"), or gather blackmail material on high-society figures visiting the Sanatorium.
The proximity of the "Keep" lets players return to engage in debauchery or manipulate NPCs, earning XP via "Thou Shalt Love Thyself" or "Thou Shalt Taint Thy Neighbours".
Sanity & Mesmerism
The Wretched Époque rules for Sanity and Mesmerism fit perfectly into the deeper sections of the Caves of Chaos (the Shrine of Evil Chaos).
Replace standard fantasy fear or charm spells with Mesmerism checks.
Discovering the bizarre, fleshy, or cosmic horrors in the lower levels requires Sanity checks, simulating the slow descent into madness that a gritty fin-de-siècle character would experience when confronted by the unnatural.
Gold - The Acquisition Roll
You don't need to count every gold piece in the hoards. When players find "treasure" (art, illegal chemicals, occult texts, bonds), assign it a material value. Back at the Keep, players use these scores to modify their Acquisition Rolls to secure better equipment, modern firearms, or opium reserves.
4. The Campaign Hook
Because Wretched characters need a personal motivation rooted in moral ambiguity, traditional altruistic hooks won't work. One of these options can be used instead:
The Investigation Hook: A prominent Paris politician's daughter has vanished, traced to a remote mountain retreat (The Keep). The characters are hired by a shadowy fixer to extract her—or silence her if she knows too much.
The Criminal Syndicate Hook: The characters are part of a criminal syndicate sent to the borderlands to eliminate the local "Apache" gangs and corner the market on an exotic, supernatural drug being harvested from the cave network's glowing fungi.
Adapting B2 this way preserves the iconic, dangerous exploration of the original module while infusing it with the grim, paranoiac, atmosphere that defines the Wretched universe.
Blending B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, Wretched Époque, and Victorious creates a distinct style of campaign: Gaslight "SuperMankind" Horror.
By layer-cakeing these systems, you are dropping street-level, Victorian-era superheroes, masked vigilantes, and supernatural investigators (Victorious) into a gritty, morally bankrupt, cosmic-horror conspiracy (Wretched Époque), using a classic, sandbox dungeon crawl layout (B2).
Because both Victorious (built on Troll Lord Games' SIEGE Engine/OSR framework) and Wretched Époque (built on d20 OSR) share a mechanical lineage with classic D&D, they mash together beautifully. The blueprint below outlines how to combine all three.
1. The Core Mechanical Integration
The challenge here is balancing the pulp heroism of Victorious with the lethal, sanity-draining grit of Wretched Époque.
The Character Engine (Victorious): Players build characters using the classes and superpower templates from Victorious (e.g., Vigilante, Contraptionist, Mesmerist, Strongman). They have the powers and the exceptional hit points required to survive an active warzone like the Caves of Chaos.
The Corruption & Sin Engine (Wretched): Overlay the Wretched Commandments and Sanity/Neurosis mechanics onto the characters. Sure, you are a "Paragon" with superhuman strength, but Thou Shalt Steal, Thou Shalt Kill, and Thou Shalt Give In To Vice. The PCs aren't boy scouts; they are flawed vigilantes whose powers might even stem from the very cosmic corruption they are investigating.
Resolution: Use the Victorious SIEGE Engine (Attribute checks against a Challenge Class) for physical feats, gadgets, and superhero combat, but use Wretched’s Sanity system whenever characters dive into the deeper occult horrors of the caves.
2. The Campaign World: "The Gilded & Grim Borderlands"
In Victorious, the GM selects an alignment for the setting. For this mashup, choose Grim (where the supernatural is terrifying and society is corrupt) and Gilded (where industrialization hides a rotting core).
The Keep adapted into The Outpost: Set this on a fog-choked, contested frontier—such as an isolated British military fortification in the Khyber Pass, a bleak penal colony on a desolate island, or a remote industrial mining settlement in the Carpathian Mountains. The "Castellan" is a brutal colonial governor or a cold military official who turns a blind eye to the town's vices to maintain control.
The Caves The Industrial Catacombs / The Fissures of the Unfleshed: A vast labyrinth of steam-pipe tunnels, ancient subterranean ruins, and mining veins that branch out beneath the wilderness.
3. Reskinning B2 Factions for Steampunk-Horror
With superheroes on the board, the standard goblins and orcs need a massive upgrade to remain dangerous. They become rogue scientific experiments, anarchists with weird-science weaponry, and occult shock troops.
The Kobolds $\rightarrow$ The Scrap-Dregs: Misformed, desperate underground dwellers armed with crude, leaking steam-tech, chemical-dipped daggers, and scrap-metal traps. They fight dirty to compensate for the heroes' superpowers.
The Goblins & Hobgoblins $\rightarrow$ The Dynamiters & Radicals: A heavily militarized cell of nihilistic anarchists. They are armed with prototype Victorian firearms, Maxim guns, and unstable nitro-glycerine bombs. They view the "Keep" as a symbol of oppressive empire that must be leveled.
The Orcs & Gnolls $\rightarrow$ The Galvanized Thugs / Bio-Constructs: The muscle. These are massive, suture-scarred brutes created by a rogue Contraptionist or Mad Scientist hidden deeper in the complex. They have been augmented with clockwork pistons and chemical injectors, giving them the physical stats to go toe-to-toe with a Victorious Strongman.
The Cult of Evil Chaos $\rightarrow$ The Esoteric Order of the Iron Dawn: Located in the deepest caves. This is a high-society cabal of wealthy aristocrats from back home who have traveled to the frontier to worship an ancient, cosmic machine-god or eldritch entity.
4. Rewriting Iconic B2 Encounters
The Mad Scientist (Replacing the Evil Priest): The cult leader is a corrupted, high-level Magician or Contraptionist who has discovered an eldritch text. He is using Wretched-style Mesmerism to coordinate the Anarchists, the Scrap-Dregs, and the Galvanized Thugs into an army to seize the Fort.
The Minotaur $\rightarrow$ The Steam-Golem / The Boiler-Beast: Instead of a fantasy monster in a maze, the central brute of the upper caves is a rogue, steam-powered mining automaton lined with razor-sharp gears and overheating boilers, driven mad by an occult artifact welded to its chassis.
The Medusa $\rightarrow$ The Hypnotic Siren: An elite occult assassin utilizing advanced Wretched Mesmerism. Instead of turning heroes to stone physically, her hypnotic gaze instantly inflicts a severe Neurosis or catatonic paralysis on a failed Sanity check.
5. The Campaign Loop: Pulp vs. Grim Reality
The gameplay mirrors the classic B2 structure but shifts the tone dramatically:
Investigation at Fort Malakoff: The heroes use Inquiry Agent or Vigilante skills to navigate the dark alleys, opium dens, and corrupt high-society salons of the Outpost, hunting down clues about cult infiltration.
The Raid on the Catacombs: The heroes suit up in their capes, trench coats, or clockwork armor to assault the Caves. Combat is fast, cinematic, and explosive as superpowers clash with dynamite and bio-monstrosities.
The Mental Toll: When the heroes return to the Outpost to recover, they aren't just resting—they are dealing with the psychological scars of the cosmic horrors they witnessed. They spend their wealth indulging in Wretched vices (absinthe, gambling, secret societies) to stave off madness, which triggers the Wretched Commandments to earn their Advancement/XP.
This creates a brilliant juxtaposition: the characters are larger-than-life pulp heroes in combat, but fragile, morally compromised, and desperate human beings once the gaslight fades.
Blending B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, Wretched Époque, and Victorious creates a distinct style of campaign: Gaslight "SuperMankind" Horror.
By layer-cakeing these systems, you are dropping street-level, Victorian-era superheroes, masked vigilantes, and supernatural investigators (Victorious) into a gritty, morally bankrupt, cosmic-horror conspiracy (Wretched Époque), using a classic, sandbox dungeon crawl layout (B2).
Because both Victorious (built on Troll Lord Games' SIEGE Engine/OSR framework) and Wretched Époque (built on d20 OSR) share a mechanical lineage with classic D&D, they mash together beautifully. The blueprint below outlines how to combine all three.
1. The Core Mechanical Integration
The challenge here is balancing the pulp heroism of Victorious with the lethal, sanity-draining grit of Wretched Époque.
The Character Engine (Victorious): Players build characters using the classes and superpower templates from Victorious (e.g., Vigilante, Contraptionist, Mesmerist, Strongman). They have the powers and the exceptional hit points required to survive an active warzone like the Caves of Chaos.
The Corruption & Sin Engine (Wretched): Overlay the Wretched Commandments and Sanity/Neurosis mechanics onto the characters. Sure, you are a "Paragon" with superhuman strength, but Thou Shalt Steal, Thou Shalt Kill, and Thou Shalt Give In To Vice. The PCs aren't boy scouts; they are flawed vigilantes whose powers might even stem from the very cosmic corruption they are investigating.
Resolution: Use the Victorious SIEGE Engine (Attribute checks against a Challenge Class) for physical feats, gadgets, and superhero combat, but use Wretched’s Sanity system whenever characters dive into the deeper occult horrors of the caves.
2. The Campaign World: "The Gilded & Grim Borderlands"
In Victorious, the GM selects an alignment for the setting. For this mashup, choose Grim (where the supernatural is terrifying and society is corrupt) and Gilded (where industrialization hides a rotting core).
The Keep $\rightarrow$ Fort Malakoff / The Outpost: Set this on a fog-choked, contested frontier—such as an isolated British military fortification in the Khyber Pass, a bleak penal colony on a desolate island, or a remote industrial mining settlement in the Carpathian Mountains. The "Castellan" is a brutal colonial governor or a cold military official who turns a blind eye to the town's vices to maintain control.
The Caves $\rightarrow$ The Industrial Catacombs / The Fissures of the Unfleshed: A vast labyrinth of steam-pipe tunnels, ancient subterranean ruins, and mining veins that branch out beneath the wilderness.
3. Reskinning B2 Factions for Steampunk-Horror
With superheroes on the board, the standard goblins and orcs need a massive upgrade to remain dangerous. They become rogue scientific experiments, anarchists with weird-science weaponry, and occult shock troops.
The Kobolds adapted into The Scrap-Dregs: Misformed, desperate underground dwellers armed with crude, leaking steam-tech, chemical-dipped daggers, and scrap-metal traps. They fight dirty to compensate for the heroes' superpowers.
The Goblins & Hobgoblins adapted into The Dynamiters & Radicals: A heavily militarized cell of nihilistic anarchists. They are armed with prototype Victorian firearms, Maxim guns, and unstable nitro-glycerine bombs. They view the "Keep" as a symbol of oppressive empire that must be leveled.
The Orcs & Gnolls adapted into The Galvanized Thugs / Bio-Constructs: The muscle. These are massive, suture-scarred brutes created by a rogue Contraptionist or Mad Scientist hidden deeper in the complex. They have been augmented with clockwork pistons and chemical injectors, giving them the physical stats to go toe-to-toe with a Victorious Strongman.
The Cult of Evil Chaos adapted into The Esoteric Order of the Iron Dawn: Located in the deepest caves. This is a high-society cabal of wealthy aristocrats from back home who have traveled to the frontier to worship an ancient, cosmic machine-god or eldritch entity.
4. Rewriting Iconic B2 Encounters
The Mad Scientist (Replacing the Evil Priest): The cult leader is a corrupted, high-level Magician or Contraptionist who has discovered an eldritch text. He is using Wretched-style Mesmerism to coordinate the Anarchists, the Scrap-Dregs, and the Galvanized Thugs into an army to seize the Fort.
The Minotaur adapted into The Steam-Golem / The Boiler-Beast: Instead of a fantasy monster in a maze, the central brute of the upper caves is a rogue, steam-powered mining automaton lined with razor-sharp gears and overheating boilers, driven mad by an occult artifact welded to its chassis.
The Medusa adapted into The Hypnotic Siren: An elite occult assassin utilizing advanced Wretched Mesmerism. Instead of turning heroes to stone physically, her hypnotic gaze instantly inflicts a severe Neurosis or catatonic paralysis on a failed Sanity check.
5. The Campaign Loop: Pulp vs. Grim Reality
The gameplay mirrors the classic B2 structure but shifts the tone dramatically:
Investigation at Fort Malakoff: The heroes use Inquiry Agent or Vigilante skills to navigate the dark alleys, opium dens, and corrupt high-society salons of the Outpost, hunting down clues about cult infiltration.
The Raid on the Catacombs: The heroes suit up in their capes, trench coats, or clockwork armor to assault the Caves. Combat is fast, cinematic, and explosive as superpowers clash with dynamite and bio-monstrosities.
The Mental Toll: When the heroes return to the Outpost to recover, they aren't just resting—they are dealing with the psychological scars of the cosmic horrors they witnessed. They spend their wealth indulging in Wretched vices (absinthe, gambling, secret societies) to stave off madness, which triggers the Wretched Commandments to earn their Advancement/XP.
This creates a brilliant juxtaposition: the characters are larger-than-life pulp heroes in combat, but fragile, morally compromised, and desperate human beings once the gaslight fades.
