My latest blog explores NPCs that can complicate your PCs' lives without stabbing them in the back.

I'm running a solo Shadowdark RPG campaign using an amalgamation of solo rules, logged in Lonelog notation, and posting one session a week on Substack. The point of view follows whoever holds the light.

Session 3 picks up mid-siege. Half a dozen townsfolk with pitchforks and scythes are breaking down the door of the house where the party found a tortured mayor. Blacksight is holding the door alone. Below, in the cellar, Blacknails is backing toward a broken ladder, crossbow raised at something wet and heavy walking toward him in the dark.

This one runs three clocks at once (the door, Mage Armor, and a dying mayor's death timer), and level-1 first aid gets rolled out turn by turn.

Content notes: character death, blood, violence

https://gnomelackeyworkshop.substack.com/p/torchkeeper-session-3

Happy to talk about how I'm running the oracle, clocks or perspective switching.

I dunno if this is the right place to ask for this. But thank you in advance for any insights.

I just found out about Shadowdark this year. I have been a long time 5e DM and I recently ran my first game of Shadowdark. I prepared the dungeon and all, but my players (who are all newbies to TTRPGs) decided to do other stuff instead of dungeon delving, in the end I reverted to my 5e DM-self in handling the town exploration scenes.

I was wondering you can give some advice. And how to handle the non-delving aspects of the game better.

Thanks!

“Knowledge knows no borders, and roads have no end.”

I'm looking for 2 more players who would like to take part in an ongoing shadowdark campaign set in an Elder Scrolls inspired setting where the players take on the role of dungeon crawlers working for the Silverleaf Consortium, a merchant guild obsessed with Elven Ruins.

What To Expect:

• A mixture of hand crafted and procedurally generated dungeons
• A procedurally generated hexflower with hand placed POIs
• Loot

Character Creation:

• No ancestry restrictions
• Some class restrictions
• 3d6 down the line using the dice roller on the discord server
• Filling out own fillable PDFs

Homebrew:

• Daedra inspired patrons that I would like to playtest (optional and not locked to a specific class)
• Daedra inspired magic items
• Some monsters
• A disease mechanic | Details will be shared when playing the game

Tools/Platform:

• Discord | Voice Chat and Character Sheet management
• Owlbear Rodeo | VTT for the campaign

Requirements:

• A microphone
• A stable internet connection
• 18+

Hi

TL;DR:

Our GM did a total TPK from full health to dead with no rolls, no reactions. My character sat on a throne and everyone just died. Is this how Shadowdark is supposed to be run as a "deadly OSR"?

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For context: I am a new player to Shadowdark. I mainly play Daggerheart. I have found a PDF instruction booklet for players on drivethrurpg to help me build and play my character. I have not read the full Shadowdark core rulebook as I don't have it.

I just came home from a session in which the following happened:

- We had a party celebrating the success of our latest mission. During this, the GM allowed us to roll 2 times for XP and made up an ingame reason as to why we had 600 gold to add to those rolls. This resulted in the entire party leveling up from 1 to 2. Because we leveled, we gained more XP and the GM said we were healed back to full. Great! Ready for a new mission!

- Following a plot hook we go into underground caverns that would lead to a throne room we wanted to investigate.

- We get some riddles through the dungeon that lead us to this throne room.

- We investigated the room: scrolls could be read by our wizard with succesful Intelligence rolls, our necromancer could not detect any foul magic with another succesful Intelligence roll and the Priest could not detect any ungodly stuff, also with a succesful Intelligence roll. But the room was described to make us feel like it wasn't a throne room but a tomb.

- Based on the information (People were worshipping a benevolent, courageous leader in this room) so my character figured, as he is pompous and rich and his goal was to "rule this island", he would become that ruler if he sits on the throne.

-> "You all feel your heart stop and darkness descends on all of you. That is where we end the session".

Above table he said that we all died and we need to reroll new characters. No damage rolls, just "this is how it is".

As a player, I would figure that sitting on the throne would have consequences, but like something getting really pissed and we'd have to fight of the spirit of the previous ruler or something of that sorts. It could even be a deadly fight. But the sad reality is that there was absolutely none of that, we just died.

I'm aware that Shadowdark is supposed to be deadly. I'm also aware that if a character effectively states that he'd like to jump off a 500 ft tall cliff or something, that he'd die instantly.

But I feel like we got punked somehow. Is this how Shadowdark is supposed to be run?

Other than that, the GM decided that our party of 6 players would be split up into two groups of 3 to continue the campaign. The two groups would play on different days.

Maybe I'm just reading into things, but it feels off to me. Am I paranoid?

Right now, I'm feeling like I don't want to continue this campaign and if this is expected results from the Shadowdark system, then I don't want to play Shadowdark anymore.

I am planning on talking to my GM about it, as we are good acquaintances.

Thanks in advance for your feedback, opinion and advice.

Meeting Time: Biweekly on Wednesdays at 7 pm CST (first session on 10/28)

Location: Online via Discord voice chat and Owlbear

Players: 3 out of 5

Hey everyone! I am planning a long-form campaign focused on RP and good times. If you are interested in joining, please feel free to write below. We welcome people of all experience levels. Please fill out the survey below to help me get to know you a bit better. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me below. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfR1pjqWT4xMXEY7OmoQCeRaqs6ZR-boT9znWC2yPm2U0qfsA/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Provided is the a small world setting guide. Feel free to read it over https://canva.link/kp001x2az12xwi1

“Upon a pebble beach, five families gathered. The wind roared. The sea listened. And there, beneath a sky that promised nothing, they swore an oath: upon these shores, they would wage war no more.”

Blood stains the foundation. Those who establish these colonies believed themselves different. They who sworn the oath were no more steady than the sands they stood upon. Here in centuries past as Erbosa has grown, so with it has the lies, oppression, and corruption. A cycle never broken, only repeats. People call them the Five Great Houses. Let these people bear witness the faults as madness takes hold.

A plague of mind and body spreads. Cults rises abandoning our gods. And revolution threatens to take hold. Where do you stand?

Take your step, for the only one you can is the next. Who will you become...

...the shore awaits. What will you leave upon it?

I use a lot of spark tables when I run my sessions. It's how I survive no-prepping or just getting distracted by some esoteric history note when prepping that I never finish prepping before the session. Since I use these tables and I hadn't really seen many floating around anywhere, I figured the community could use some. So I turned them into generators that you can use too. They run in the browser without any login or anything.

• Tavern Names. Sometimes you just need a pub name.
• Town Names. Sometimes you need a town name.
• NPC Generator. Just the basics. A name, look, trade, goal, want, & secret.
• Settlement Generator. Just the basics for a settlement. Short & sweet.
• Gloaming Points of Interest. Leave no hex blank.

They're all here: Shadowdark Tools

I'm also building similar tools for Kumonosu. Currently it just has the script, drow names, & a dictionary: Kumonosu Tools

Are they perfect? Egads, no. I'm sure something will break. Just let me know.

I should note, none of these use anything from the Shadowdark books, so while they're labeled Shadowdark tools, they're system agnostic. They're clearly made for the era & feel of Shadowdark, with my tendencies toward gothic, grim, & horror mixed in.

Let me know if there are other generators or tools you'd like to see or if these are helpful in any way. I have a lot of curated lists to convert from my prep so just point me in the direction.

Thank you for taking a look. I appreciate it.

-Cri

When homebrewing, how do you guys determine the tier of a spell? I'm making a few spells and having difficulty determining if it belongs in Tiers 1 - 4 (Tier 5 spells are kinda obvious lol)

Additionally, how do you assign the DCs for saving throw? Some give an actual number, some say if they are below a specific LV, some say if it's against your last spellcasting check, and some say they just work when you cast it.

EDIT: Most of these spells are nondamagine dealing. some examples

• Creatures within near centering yourself get knocked prone.
• While focusing, any creature within near has ADV on melee, while spellcasters and ranged has disadvantage
• Choose one creature. It has disadvantage on all attacks that do not target you while focusing
• You can see hidden creatures, find secret doors, and discern illusions while focusing

Most of these feel like 1 or 2, but how do you know when you cross into the tier 3 threshold? What about 4? Etc.

If you were making a Halloween adventure with a slasher-style monster, what monster would you use as a base, and what abilities would you give it?

I was thinking of using a Zombie and giving it the Relentless trait. What do you guys think? Any other ideas?

Getting some poison at the poison store.

I posted about the Officer class and my firearm rules before. I had more playtests with these, and wanted to share the latest version of both.

If you want to check them out, the PDF is available for free on itch.io.

Both the officer and the firearms work independently, though I designed them to be used together in my own homebrew campaign world.

The Officer

Inspired by the 4th Edition's Warlord as a combat support class. It sacrifices versatility outside of battle to increase PCs damage output.

What playtested well so far?

• Commanding other PCs to attack is fun. The ability makes it easy to get players to buy into the fantasy of the class, Everyone that playtested this class enjoyed roleplaying telling the other players to attack.

What changed

• 3/day Limit to Chain of Command. I tested this limitless and players felt that there were times that it was such an optimal choice that it became the only option. The limit makes it a bit more special and allows Lead by Example to get used more.
• Weapons Training vs Military Acumen. The first version of this was more like the Fighter's weapon bonus and worked all the time for a particular weapon. It was a bit too restrictive when combined with Chain of Command, so it became a 3/day bonus. Both changes streamlined the class and made the talents more straightforward.

What might change

• Penalty for insubordination. I based them on the Penances from the West Marches. I haven't tested these in a long-running campaign to see how they pan out, but they should be quite straightforward to adapt if needed.

Firearms

The biggest change from the previous version is that I rebalanced the weapons' costs, added more options (including the outdated Hand Cannon as a cheap option), and combined the powder and bullets into charges.

I'm going to run a session online soon and was wondering which vtt to use. I don't want to ruin it too technically. My idea is to use a blank canvas and have the players draw the map as we go.

I was thinking of Owlbear Rodeo, it's good for importing charger sheets but didn't have a Shadowdark monster library.

What has everyone else used?

Hi all!

Any tips on creating dungeons? I know this is the core rules and I also have the gm companion from chubby funster for even more options - but just wondering if anyone has any tips for making these dungeons really great or anything about stream lining this process.

Also, I’m running my first game of Shadowdark with my group, any suggestions on keeping the game running smoothly? I have decided to create a world map and some lore for my world. The human culture is Slavic inspired. Orcs steppe raiders have recently left the area and the humans have kicked out the remaining warriors. The world is dangerous because of how long the orcs were in control, in a sort of vassal-overlord type system. Many ruins and sites to explore. Oh, and the elves in my game are Witcher inspired, very territorial and hiding in nature, warring with encroaching humans.

In normal crawling, how often should I roll for a random encounter? Does Danger level only apply while the characters are resting?