There is something both melancholic and deeply personal about the Through the Borderlands that strikes at the heart of grim and dark settings. Filled to the brim with wonderfully evocative characters and places,  from the baked-clay shingles of houses in sunflower fields to the monstrous sin lawyer Pryhaus Gaoler, the setting oozes with beautiful, miserable magnificence. Important to mention these are not just world-building tools for the referee, but story elements firmly woven into the motives and backstory of the players' characters.

The characters created from such a setting are tarnished, to be sure, but at the same time burdened with a very real, very human pain. What separates the characters from the other misbegotten sorts who find themselves in the Rift is an ability to heal from their pain, but only if they choose to...

Rather than dwell and relish the horror and depravity of a broken miserable world, TtB gives cause and humanity to the misbegotten few who find themselves exiled or lost in the Borderlands and elevates the genre of "grimdark" into something fueled by humanity and emotional intelligence.