The Broken Expanse
Faith still walks through these lands, yet fewer return from them.
Release #4: The Jagged Spine
The Jagged Spine cuts through the center of the Broken Expanse as one of the few routes still usable by those desperate enough to cross it. Jagged stone, pale glare, narrow paths, and elevated ledges turn every stretch of ground into a place where movement can be seen, followed, and exploited. Travelers pass through because they must, not because the route offers any safety.
Across the Spine, the path forks into harsher territories. Tangled Stones choke with blight forced deep into fractures in the rock. Razor Pass offers faster passage at the cost of a single mistake. Last Watch still overlooks the crossing from above, and Bonepick Village survives at the edge of it all through control, violence, and knowledge of the routes no one else can hold.
The region’s featured battlemap focuses on one of these narrow stone passes, where blight growth, exposed movement, feeding flocks, and Bonepick ambushes can turn a crossing into a kill site within moments.
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The Jagged Spine is the fourth release in The Broken Expanse, a location-focused mini-setting built around confined movement, exposed routes, and layered threat. This release explores one of the central crossings of the region, where the land itself forces travel into narrow corridors watched from above and claimed by those strong enough to survive there.
Rather than presenting a fixed adventure path, this release provides a fully developed region centered on dangerous passage, route control, aerial predation, and blight growth embedded deep within fractured stone. The featured battlemap focuses on a tight pass where ambush, vertical pressure, and shifting terrain can escalate quickly once movement stalls.
This material supports open exploration, repeat visits, and player-driven outcomes. The Jagged Spine is a crossing people keep using because other options are worse, and every group moving through it changes how the region responds.
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The Broken Expanse is a collaborative content line created by Kelfecil’s Tales, D&Demetrius, and Heroic Maps, developed through coordinated writing, regional cartography, and battlemap design. Each release expands a shared region one location at a time, keeping the setting modular and table-ready.
The content is system-agnostic at its core, with optional guidance written for use with 5E. Skill checks, encounter structures, and original blight creatures are provided as tools rather than requirements, allowing Game Masters to adapt freely.
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Included in this release:
A zoomed-in regional map of the Jagged Spine
x8 detailed points of interest with lore, usage guidance, and situation tables
A featured battlemap set within a narrow stone pass
Three original threats: Blightbeak (CR 1/2), Bonepick Hunter (CR 2), and Spinetalon (CR 8)
GM-facing environmental pressure, blight behavior, and reactive tables
Recommended Use: Chokepoint encounters, vertical threat zones, hostile crossings, and layered ambush play
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Lore, writing, PDF and cover design: Kelfecil’s Tales
https://www.kelfecilstales.com/
Regional Map Artwork: D&Demetrius
https://www.patreon.com/c/dndemetrius/home
Battlemap Artwork: Heroic Maps