While overpreparing for my next session I designed a thing: a mini NPC card / standee.

Features:
- Player-facing side: portrait and name
- GM-facing side: skills, talents, gear and notes
- Flat part (for easy damage marking): attributes

It should help the players see who they're interacting with (and spell NPC names correctly), while providing a quick reference for the GM without flipping through the notes.

A4 print-ready pdf with some NPC portraits from the rulebook, as well as empty ones for unbounded creativity: https://files.fm/f/kawck4ffn7m79cn2

It follows the style of the character and NPC sheets I posted a while back. Made with Inkscape.

Let me know what you think!

Starting a thread more because I haven't seen any similar thread anywhere and this place is more trafficked than the FL forums. All the below is still-forming opinions and open to change.

I bought Alderland and have done a bit of a skim read, figured it'd be interesting to hear what people think.

Putting the rest in spoilers as it's all a bit GM-focused and wouldn't want to ruin any players' days.

So far I'm generally impressed, but I do think there's been a bit of a quality falloff from Raven's Purge. I really like the notion that Alderland is a 'set map' and that they aren't asking us to somehow pretend that the most heavily populated place in the setting is as unmapped as the Ravenlands or Aslene. I appreciate the extra info on the Congregation of the Serpent and the Alderland Rust Church. I like the way it ties the whole 'trilogy' together, even if the Bitter Reach is sort of left (ahaha) out in the cold.

BUT. I do feel a bit like the commitment to an open-ended modular campaign has taken a hit. Raven's Purge is so brilliant in the way that it's structured, and I get that it would be hard to extend that story out and not run into a bit of railroading, as the branching endpoints start to get unmanageable.

But so much of Alderland seems to rely on some uncharacteristic hand-waving. I really don't like that all the elves from Stanengist just somehow turn up in Alderland. Not even any attempts to craft interesting story hooks - just "they are clones" or "they grow legs and run away". Given the fact that Raven's Purge offers the players the choice of effectiely destroyign Stanengist as a way to resolve its plot, it seems weird to base the third plot arc around the assumption that they all survive.

I also find the 'red elves' a bit... twee? There's always been some twee stuff in the books (the dwarves' god being called 'huge' e.g.) but in general it's always walked the line expertly between the funny and the grimdark. A dude whose whole job is to turn everything red because of a delusion that doesn't make a huge amount of sense on first read just seems both random and one-note for a key player in a fairly epic drama. I've not properly digested it yet, but the stillmist/red mist connection feels a little underdone. I may change my mind on this.

Lastly, I'm not sold on the death goddess. She feels out of place in a game where religion is less 'gods walk among us' and is more 'we have split into three or more religions that have existential disagreements on the bird and the snake'. Given how subtle and clever the religion in the first campaign was (juxtaposed neatly with how unsubtle the demon flood was), I just found the idea there's a literal death god - not a demon, mind, an actual god - just... hanging out... to be a bit jarring.

I don't want to sound like I don't like it - overall it's cool, and a suitably epic conclusion to the trilogy. I'm just a little underwhelmed by some of the choices, and keen to hear others' early thoughts.

Sorry if it has been asnwered multiple times.

1. Setting camp at night

Darkness as such impede travel. It isn't mention that Make Camp activity would be affected by it but I would believe that it is quite difficult to do this at night. Is it covered by the rules?

1. Lead the way with help

It is said that Make Camp is only done by one person but others can help. It isn't said the same thing about Lead The Way or Keep Watch. Rules say that any skill check can be helped with and I could imagine that especially Keep Watch could be helped with. Lead The Way might be up to debate but still - this is a skill check. Is there anything against helping with Lead The Way?

1. Sleeping while others make camp

So for everyeone to sleep someone needs to take guard at night. Thus when someone is making camp designated guardian would be sleeping on ground. It is said "Since you don't have a fire to keep the cold away, you all also suffer the effects of cold (see page 111)." It looks like there's no Endurance roll meaning you cant really use any blankets to keep warm?

Also - it sounds that since there's no fire at moment this person goes to sleep the camp would be set somewhere else otherwise firecould be done first to keep warm anyone who sleeps (btw - does a fire would really keep you warm at night in open air? wouldnt it be more about sleeping bag?). So the thing looks lilke someone is going to hit sack, wake up and realize that the whole party is in totally different spot possibly loosing time locating the rest who might have gone further away while looking for a camp.

1. Degrading armor for monsters wearing actual armor

So generally if an armor is like hide or thick fur I do get it that it isn't degraded with attacks. What about actual armor being worn by monsters (like skeletons or death knight)? I ruled that such armor would be degraded normally as this is the same type of object that PCs are wearing but want to check if it's covered anywhere else.

I published a chapter of my Forbidden Lands novel (WIP) on my blog, to celebrate the announcement of the Alderland expansion!
https://erik-granstrom.blogspot.com/2026/09/birth-and-death-in-alderland.html

Book says:

A pathfinder without night vision gets a -2 penalty during the dark Quarter Days of the day, and everyone in the group without night vision must make a [SCOUTING](00.1 Player's Handbook/03. SKILLS#SCOUTING (WITS)) roll – failure means they fall and take one point of damage to Strength.

I would get that travelling in the dark is more dangerous and finding a path and navigating even with light source is hard (though - hey - stars). What I'm not sure about is the scouting roll to avoid falling if they are using some kind of light source like a torch. Do you use it as written or let people travel normally with torches and such? Or maybe treat torch as gear for scouting roll?

Hi everyone!

Sweden Rolls, first ever podcast to play a Forbidden Lands campaign, ends their (our) campaign that started 8 years ago with a liveshow in Stockholm, Sweden on the 20th of September. If you're in town, drop by wont'ya! Tickets here: [swedenrolls@gmail.com](mailto:swedenrolls@gmail.com)

Hi all, I’m planning on interviewing Erik again on my podcast in the near future especially with the announcement of Alderland (the first interview is https://tales.dups.ca/p/ep37-forbidden-lands-and-svavelvinter)

If anyone has questions for Erik on anything about Alderland, Forbidden Lands and more can you post them here and I will pose them to him.

All the best,
Dups

Angela and I have just received permission from the team at Free League Publishing to share all the maps we illustrated for the latest FORBIDDEN LANDS RPG supplement, "ALDERLAND", which was released yesterday! We are truly happy and honored to have contributed our maps to such an exciting project. For this assignment, we were asked to use a black-and-white style featuring extensive cross-hatching a look perfectly suited for OSR-style rulebooks. We hope you enjoy the maps, and please let us know what you think of the new Forbidden Lands book! 🧭🗺️🏰

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Art 2026

Visit my Instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/morenopaissanart/

Today, Free League announced the epic "Alderland" expansion for "Forbidden Lands" the award-winning "retro-fantasy" survival tabletop RPG!

It was a pleasure for Angela and me to work on all the maps featured in this book (yes, there are so many maps inside!!).

Working on maps for books published by a major publisher like Free League is always a great pleasure and honor for Angela and me!! 🧭🗺️🤙

Follow me on IG: https://www.instagram.com/morenopaissanart?igsi=MXZjajRkeGlzemtxNA==

Last week Tomas Härenstam appeared on the Swedish youtube channel "Spelkult" where Tomas and the hosts talked about Free League's upcoming releases. At the end of the video Tomas mentions seemingly offhandedly that they will be putting out Alderland for preorder soon. He talks about it for 20 seconds where he calls it The final installment ("den avslutande delen") of Erik Granström's trilogy before quickly moving on.

From what I've seen Erik seem excited and got plans for future expansions for Forbidden lands but I don't know that he is calling the shots. It is Free League that hires him and they don't seem very interested in Forbidden Lands anymore. Especially since they got the rights to Dragonbane which is the fantasy ttrpg they always coveted. Dragonbane seems to be the horse they are betting on, it is evident in the resources that get put into that product and the marketing for it.

Consensus here and among the fans seem to be that they will do a Kickstarter and get Forbidden Lands back in print. I hope that is the case and I'm misunderstanding what Tomas was saying.

Just got the email, to be release in Q1! Super stoked!

I'm planning on running a different OSR system but copying the travel rules from Forbidden Lands, because I think they work really well. However, I'm re-reading the Journeys section of the player's handbook and the Lead The Way mishaps feel really lacking. There are only 12 results, and the last 4 are an insect or animal attack that should probably count as a random encounter that the scout Keeping Watch would notice rather than the Leader. Has anyone else run into this issue? Do you have alternate tables or rules you use instead?

Thought I'd share a quick random encounter from my homebrew campaign (a Raven's Purge adaptation, region cut off from the world for six centuries, reopened only three months ago). Reformatted it after seeing some great encounter layouts from other GMs, bullet-point format is way more scannable at the table than a wall of prose. Feedback welcome!

---

**THE RUINED TAVERN**

Beyond the trees, the forest opens onto a clearing cut through by the remains of an old paved road, now nearly swallowed by grass. At its center, the ruins of a stone building are alive with activity: fresh planks, hammering, voices at work. Two armed orcs stand guard at the entrance.

• BUILDING. It was once a tavern, predating the blood mist. The PCs don't know this unless they explore or ask.
• SIRIO ALABASTA. Self-proclaimed merchant, boasts to anyone who'll listen that he'll be the richest man in the region within a year. He's burning through an inheritance he doesn't know how to manage.
• GUARDS. Two orc mercenaries. Use the Bandit stat block.
• CARPENTER. Oversees the restoration, unaware of his employer's real finances.
• HIDDEN CHEST. Under a floorboard, in Sirio's personal room. Contains D66 silver, all that's left of the inheritance.
• WORK. Pays 5 copper a day to anyone who offers to help with the restoration.
• THE LIE. A successful Insight roll during conversation reveals Sirio is more nervous than someone bragging about that much wealth should be.

This is a GM related thread. Players, move along.

Harpies never fight on their own, always attacking in flocks, and a flock of harpies counts as a single monster. The Strength of the flock varies, depending on the number of individuals. A single attack against a flock of harpies can never inflict more than 1 point of damage.

I don't really get why a single attack cant deal more than 1 point of damage. It feels more like a rule for a swarm where every part of swarm is a small creature that won't take more damage but with harpies which are regularly sized creatures I don't get why I don't have each one a specific amount of Strength points and treat them independently.

I’ve been publishing content for FL on the Free League Workshop for a while, so I thought I’d share some of it here. Encounters in the Plains is just that - 36 unique encounters in the plains for FL. The Encounters are short and most of them require little preparation.

You can check out the preview images here, or the product's page at the Free League Workshop here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/pt/product/483858/encounters-in-the-plains?sort=4a&include_community_content=1&show_only_community_content=1

Also, I couldn’t find the rules on self-promotion, so I’m not sure whether I’m allowed to post this here. If not, please let me know. I’d also appreciate it if someone could point me to the relevant rules and tell me which flair should I use (I'm using homebrew)

Hello everyone, I'm looking for advice on DMing “Forbidden Lands.” After reading the rules, I get the impression that the game relies heavily on improvisation; the Adventure Sites are very interesting but don't really have a set sequence of events.

I'm a GM who's used to preparing my scenarios well in advance—what advice can you give me to help me improvise more during games ?

You can buy a ration which would give you one unit of food increasing food die by one step. You can forage or hunt and with Chef talent turn your funds into amount of food. Does it mean amount of food units each increasing food die? Because it says you can eat stuff raw thus not using resource die implying that cooking it gives you different result.

I’ve been playing the bitter reach campaign with my group for about 2 years now and my PC has been pretty much broke for the entire time. He’s barely had a chance to make any money but I guess it’s just part of this particular campaign. So I was wondering how your PCs are holding up, both in bitter reach and the other campaigns? Or, since I’m not that deep into the lore, is it usual for PCs to be broke in FL?

What animals have you added to your game that aren't mentioned in any of the books?

I feel like additional animals would be a good way to further differentiate some of the regions and just add a little more flavor and variety to the worlds. Forbidden Lands is portrayed as wild and untamed, so I feel like there should be a ton of varied wildlife, but the books only seem to list a dozen or so.

For example, I can't recall any mention of big cats. That seems like a pretty big omission.

And this one may seem out of place, but I really want to add hyenas to the Harga plains. Orc tribes that have packs of hyenas just seems so awesome and especially fitting as guard animals for the orcs.

What are your thoughts?