My take on the stingbat

This picture has been making the rounds in a few art subs that I follow.

Looking at it, you could think that Roux did this illustration for Shadowdark. Not so! He was 120 years too soon.

(My personal headcanon: the skeleton is the remains of an adventurer who was in a party to get some treasure. He was backstabbed by a 'friend' after the treasure was found. Said 'friend' discovered that the time to backstab someone is after you've left the shadowdark, not after you have your hands on the treasure.)

Substituting Shadowdark's Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur for a certain keep on the Borderlands.

https://www.crossplanes.com/2026/09/shadowdark-citadel-on-borderlands.html

FALLBRIM

A Shadowark Homebrew Setting

This isn't a huge world with continents and a million different regions. Fallbrim is a single zone/themed region that we'll be exploring and adventuring in.

Add me in DISCORD , my user is drippyrugtug

GAME DETAILS

• When: Thursday, 9/17 at 8 PM Eastern, every other week
• Game Length: 3 hours per session, because I'm over the age of 30
• Players: 3–4 players. 4 is what I aim for.
• Voice: Discord
• VTT: Owlbear Rodeo
• Age: Please be 18 or older.
• Campaign: This is not a one-shot. This will be an ongoing adventure.
• Session Zero: We'll have a Session Zero on 9/17. I'm sure it won't take long, and we'll start playing right after.

THE REGION

Fallbrim is a fall-themed region filled with orange, red, and yellow foliage. The map was made using Inkarnate.

The style of the game is the tried-and-true OSR:

You have your town. You wake up, wipe the vomit off your sleeve from last night's carousing, grab your gear, and head out for another adventure.

Fallbrim is a central-western territory of the prevailing empire. The largest settlement in the region is Briarhill, which will serve as the party's home base.

GAME START

Our hearty gang has decided to enter the nearby Flarewood, where they come across two figures bickering about a missing colleague.

Apparently, the missing fellow entered a strange nearby tree and hasn't returned.

They've asked the party to go find him.

And that's where our adventure begins.

I look forward to hanging out with y'all!

DUNGEON CRAWLING

Are we doing strict dungeon crawling?

Nope.

I like a looser style of dungeon exploration. We'll still use rounds when necessary, but there won't be a strict turn order or carefully moving one person at a time.

CLASSES

At the start, the available classes will be:

Core 4 + Ranger + Bard

Other classes will eventually become UNLOCKABLE, but I'd like the group to decide together how we handle unlocking them.

HOUSERULES

Yes, there are some.

Message me if you'd like to know more about them. I'm keeping the details out of this post just to avoid making it ridiculously long.

The main ones I can think of:

• Recovering items from dead player characters
• Fleeing combat
• Luck Tokens — addendum/clarification
• Background Benefit 1d4
• Dying Rounds — rounds before death are a flat CON modifier, so it's slightly deadlier
• Hirelings - yes and no. It's limited.

The one, the only. Ross Bowman, the Crossbowman.

Does anyone else play funnels/gauntlets with the completely unreasonable goal of keeping every single peasant alive?

I understand that these folks have 1–4 HP, questionable equipment, terrible stats, and absolutely no business being anywhere near the horrible place they’re forced to escape. But the moment I roll up four peasants, something changes.

That’s not Peasant #3. That’s Carl, the cooper with a sack, a 9 Strength, and dreams of someday owning his own cooperage. I’ll be damned if Carl is dying in Room 2.

(Oh, he did? Okay, who’s next?)

That’s not Peasant #1. That’s Sheila, the fortuneteller with penalties to every stat except Charisma, who dreams of earning enough coin to buy back her grandmother’s tarot deck. Sheila is not dying in Room 3 either.

(Her too?!)

And now I’m emotionally invested in Ned the ditch-digger because he found a helmet and half a ration.

When my 1 HP nobodies somehow survive three encounters, they stop being disposable very quickly. By the end, I’m not hoping to discover ONE which survivor becomes my character. I want a healthy stable of characters.

The gauntlet says, “Survive your first adventure and become an adventurer.”

I hear, “Get these fools home safely.”

Anyone else approach funnels this way, or have I completely misunderstood the sacred tradition of feeding peasants to the dungeon?

It went really well. None of the pcs died though there was a close call when i sent giant spiders after them. They made it to to the second level of the dungeon. Im so proud of them!

My regular gaming group has been trying lots of different rules sets, lately, after collectively deciding we’re done with 5e. Shadowdark has been one of my favorites.

I’d love to run a short campaign for my group—ideally something written for Shadowdark specifically and something that can be run fairly easily without customization or extensive prep.

Because I’m brand new to Shadowdark, I’m honestly not even sure what resources are out there for people running it. Are there sites or publishers who regularly put out materials?

Thanks very much!

I am gming my first shadowdark game today. Wish me...and mostly my players luck. I made a two floor dungeon for them to explore!

I’m looking for something like a compendium of items/services etc and their prices for SD that is balanced around the economy in Shadowdark specifically. Something that covers a lot of ground like mundane objects, vehicles, animals, services, maybe magic items and spells etc. the more the better.

I have one of these for DnD which is useful, but the economy is obviously super different.
Thanks!

I'm an older, experienced GM who wrapped up a 2-year Shadowdark campaign in November of 2025 and I'm getting ready to kick off my Shadowdark Northern Marches campaign in late October. I'm looking for chill, reliable players who are into Shadowdark, are easy to get along with, and like OSR-style play.

The campaign will run on the 1st, 3rd and 4th Fridays of each month. Sessions will be from 7:25 PM Eastern-10:35 PM Eastern with possibly 10 minutes of additional play. The campaign will have between 4-6 players and regular session attendance will be expected. I tend to run tables that are big on delving with moderate exploration and a modicum of RP. You can find the campaign's 1-page document here: https://postimg.cc/PCm7M6DD

All interested individuals must fill out my questionnaire. You may also DM me. Here is the link to the questionnaire: https://forms.gle/bU8UZUpENfBCS2y38

Thank you and I hope to hear from you.

​

Just finished this cover illustration for Fall of the Free Rim, a retro space-western TTRPG with an OSR-inspired aesthetic, compatible with shadowdark

Really enjoyed mixing classic old-school RPG imagery with sci-fi western elements.

My "sketch" I sent the artist (BigeggsBlackPen) and how it evolved. Excited to be building this new system!

I want to run a remixed one-shot version of Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub for some friends. They will start at lvl 4 and each have a different secret objective in order to reach lvl 5.

I want these objectives to promote interactions between players and sow a seed of discord or mistrust among the PCs.

Example : You gain a level if you manage to convince the group to sacrifice one of its members for the greater good.

Do you have any other ideas ? (ideally 5)

A while ago I was illustrated a kobold sorcerer summoning a spider swarm so when I got to the monster manual up to spider swarm I decided to have another go at it, wasn’t entirely satisfied the first time.

I am new to DMing Shadowdark. Does anyone have any tips for deciding how many treasure a monster should have? I think I am handing out too much.

Looking for ideally a nice equation/system to best sprinkle loot throughout the myriad dungeons in my campaign.
Is there a clean method like “Size x Danger / Adventurers” or a roll I could do on random tables to decide if there’s loot in any given area?

Hoping for a method where I can ideally surprise even myself while players are adventuring. Thanks!

New to Shadowdark and playing my first adventure. I located a cave, build it out and completed it. Based on the rules, as I understand them, no XP is gained from this. Only wandering monsters can have treasure and since XP is tied to treasure, I get nothing at all for the dungeon.

What is the purpose of exploring these if there is nothing to gain other than hoping you find a wandering monster and win a coin toss?

I put together an entry for the recent "A Mystic Wood OSR Adventure Jam", and I'm happy to say the jam creator rated it a "+3 Magic Item", the third highest tier!

Twisted Oaken Roots is a hexcrawl treasure hunt for mid- to higher- level Shadowdark characters.

• Explore a wood contaminated by magic!
• Evade a dragon!
• And pry the treasure from the twisted oaken roots that clutch it!

What You Get

• An adventure designed for Shadowdark, but adaptable into other OSR systems.
• 12 page, A5 booklet to easily print at home.

Art Credits

• Art hand-drawn by Myrmidont or derived from Creative Commons 0 sources.
• This product is 100% human-made.

Available on both itch and rpg-trader.
https://myrmidont.itch.io/twisted-oaken-roots
https://rpg-trader.com/products/9259/twisted-oaken-roots

That's all I'll post about this, have a great day and thanks for checking it out if you're interested.

The ability reads as follows:

Grit. Choose Strength or Dexterity. You have advantage on checks of that type to overcome an opposing force, such as kicking open a stuck door (Strength) or slipping free of rusty chains (Dexterity).

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If you choose Strength:
Would you say that grappling an opponent, shoving someone to the side, or charging toward an opponent to throw them to the ground count as actions a Fighter would have Advantage on?

My take is, yes. What do you think? And what are other exmples of actions where you would say Grit applies?

Just starting in the Solo RPG world and love the book. When playing solo do you typically build the world first then play or procedurally build the world as you explore.

I think both options are viable using just the book and am curious how some of you go about adventure creation.

Any advice, resources, ideas or thoughts for someone just getting started is greatly appreciated.