While the movie Borderlands might have been a blight on the concept of civilization, the games are awesome. I’ve already kind of created my version of a Borderlands adventure, but what about something closer to the actual game and its actual plot? It’s relic-hunting in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. In this case, it’s getting a key and a map, setting you up for the further adventure
Story
What brought the team together. Who cares? The team is together and they are looking to get rich. On this POS planet, that means finding The Bunker—a warehouse of riches and armoury of the highest of tech weapons. This planet was the sight of a war, the scars of it are everywhere. It’s just that it happened before people came here, and the civilizations that were part of the conflict were also consumed by it. Is the legend real? Let’s hope, because that’s your chance to make it out of indentured servitude to BAC Corporation.
Places
Chancel: This is a BAC corporation company city on the periphery, one that has only the barest forms of law enforcement—provided by ACAB private constabulary. This had been intended to be a transport hub for mining interests, only nothing of value was ever found and no mining ever happened. This is the frontier town of Westerns transposed to sci-fi.
The Wildlands: These are territories beyond the periphery controlled only by gangs and monsters. These are mostly unexplored and universally dangerous.
The Cave: This was actually an emplacement during the war, and as such has relics from the lost civilizations. One of those relics is The Key, a kind of portable communicator that not only directs the user to The Bunker, but can also remotely unlock and open it. The Key is the prize—the MacGuffin that is intended to motivate the PCs. Its full of traps and maybe monsters, depending on the players’ interests.
People
Inemendabilis: Leader of the Blood Portents, a major gang that controls part of the Wildlands. They are hunting the PCs to both revenge their sibling and retrieve The Map.
Monsters!: The Wildlands have all sorts of crazy mutated monsters. Depending on the group and their interests, these are either narrative devices to illustrate the threat of the Wildlands or actual opponents the PCs can encounter.
Events
What’s This?: In Chancel, the PCs end up being the target of Victos, a Blood Portent lieutenant and way better at threatening then delivering on the threats. Victos was on the way to deliver The Map to their sibling, Inemendabilis. The Map is an alien device from the war which Inemendabilis had deciphered and decrypted, so there are notes talking about The Key, The Cave, and The Bunker, cluing the PCs in to the treasure that awaits.
The Hunt: As they travel to The Cave, the PCs will encounter Blood Portent groups hunting them down. From them, the PCs can learn that the leader—Inemendabilis—is after them.
The Siege: Inemendabilis finally tracks down the PCs after they have found The Key but before they leave The Cave. They tell the PCs that if the PCs hand over The Key, Inemendabilis will let them go and leave them alone. They are lying.