Free League Expands Forbidden Lands With Epic New Alderland Campaign
Shaun M Jooste 
The world of Forbidden Lands is about to become considerably larger. Free League Publishing has announced Alderland, a major new campaign expansion for its award-winning retro-fantasy survival tabletop roleplaying game, taking adventurers beyond Ravenland and into a kingdom scarred by conflict, competing powers, and ancient tensions.
As part of our ongoing coverage of news from our publishing and entertainment partners, Celenic Earth Publications is excited to share the latest development from Free League Publishing. Alderland promises another substantial addition to a tabletop universe built around exploration, danger, discovery, and giving players the freedom to forge their own stories.
The expansion is currently available for pre-order, with the physical release planned for Q1. Players who pre-order through the Free League online store will also receive early access to the Beta PDF, which will subsequently be updated to the final version once development is complete.
Journey South of Ravenland
Forbidden Lands offers a different approach to traditional fantasy roleplaying. Instead of placing adventurers on a predetermined heroic path, the game casts players as raiders and rogues attempting to survive and establish themselves in a dangerous, cursed world.
Exploration plays a major role. Players travel across a vast map, discover forgotten tombs and settlements, encounter terrifying creatures, uncover secrets, and gradually create their own place within the world. Those who survive long enough can even establish strongholds and defend what they have claimed.
Alderland extends that philosophy into an entirely new region.
The expansion takes players south of Ravenland to the war-torn kingdom of Alderland, where numerous peoples, religions, territories, and political interests compete for influence.
One of the striking scenes revealed alongside the announcement depicts the Silent Knights watching from above a gorge as an unprecedented gathering develops below. Elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, and other kin are assembling in numbers never before witnessed along Alderland’s borders.
The Silent Knights, however, remain exactly that: silent.
Sworn to eternal silence, they can only watch as the forces below continue to grow.
The Eye of Heaven Campaign
At the centre of Alderland is a new campaign called Eye of Heaven.
The campaign introduces ten key players, each seeking to influence or dominate the kingdom. Their competing ambitions provide the foundation for a larger struggle in which adventurers may find themselves caught between powerful factions and conflicting interests.
Rather than limiting players to a single predetermined sequence of adventures, Alderland continues the open-ended philosophy associated with Forbidden Lands. The expansion includes eight complete and fully illustrated adventure sites that can be played in any order, allowing groups to determine their own path through the kingdom.
The setting itself has also received considerable attention. Players and Game Masters will be able to explore Alderland through detailed information covering its inhabitants, beliefs, political landscape, and geography.
Key features announced for Forbidden Lands: Alderland include:
- The complete Eye of Heaven campaign featuring ten major players competing for control of the kingdom.
- Detailed information about Alderland’s kin, religions, and 20 provinces.
- Eight fully illustrated adventure sites designed to be explored in any order.
- A separate full-colour 52 × 72 cm map of Alderland for exploring the new region.
Together, these elements turn Alderland into much more than a collection of additional encounters. It represents another substantial region for players to inhabit, explore, and influence through their decisions.
Expanding the Forbidden Lands
One of the strengths of tabletop roleplaying is its ability to transform fictional worlds into places audiences actively participate in.
A novel may take readers through a carefully constructed narrative, while a tabletop RPG provides the setting, characters, conflicts, and rules necessary for players to create narratives of their own. Expansions such as Alderland allow those worlds to continue growing while introducing new cultures, territories, conflicts, and mysteries.
That makes the scale of the new expansion particularly interesting from a publishing perspective.
Twenty provinces, multiple religions and peoples, ten major campaign figures, eight adventure locations, and an entirely new regional map represent a significant expansion of the established Forbidden Lands setting. Players who have already spent considerable time exploring Ravenland will now have another substantial territory waiting beyond its borders.
Alderland Pre-Orders Now Available
Forbidden Lands: Alderland is planned for release in Q1, but players don’t necessarily have to wait for the finished physical edition before beginning their journey south.
Free League Publishing has confirmed that customers who pre-order the expansion through its online store will receive access to the Beta PDF soon after purchase. The digital edition will then be updated to the completed version once Alderland is finalised.
For existing Forbidden Lands groups, that means preparations for the journey into Alderland can begin considerably sooner.
And judging by the forces already gathering beneath the watchful eyes of the Silent Knights, adventurers entering this war-torn kingdom may want to prepare carefully.
Something is clearly stirring in Alderland.
