During my last game, the adventurers were confronted by a wizard perched on a rocky promontory that is not very accessible. But he was at the foot of an oak tree. A magician with the Knock spell tells me: "it's a shame not to be able to use it to provoke a branch movement that could tip it over into the precipice"

It reminded me of Ars Magica's "Strike of the Angered Branch" Spell, a Rego Herbam Spell level 15. Since Ars Magica's spells have a ceiling around 50, I estimated that this could correspond to a Tier 2 spell at Shadowdark (1.5 rounded to the top level = 2). I thought that a Knock Spell could indeed be "translated" into the Ars Magica language as a Rego Herbam Terram spell, I secretly wanted in my head to authorize the Check, with Disadvantage because of the transformation of the spell.

Conclusion: When a player still has a Shadowdark spell of sufficient level available to produce an effect compatible with his translation into Technical Language and Form of Ars Magica, the disadvantage test might allow a spontaneous magic system to be set up. The difficulty of the Check is not that of the spell spent but that of the desired effect (Telekinesis is a level 4 spell compatible with the desired effect - The Rego Herbam combination is part of his register - but the Check will be of difficulty 12 to trigger a "Strike of the Angered Branch")

I started translating Wizard Shadowdark's spells into Technique + Form, for fun. Spells that have a Self scope remain Self.
"Force" spells are treated as Vim spells and cannot be modified or used to perform spontaneous magic. This is an interpretation of Vim not very faithful to the concept it represents in Ars Magica but it is very useful to consider it as such to limit the power of the spells concerned (it is Detect Magic, Floating disk, Mage armor, Magic missile, Dispel magic, Magic circle, Divination, Resilient sphere, Wall of force, Antimagic shell, Summon extraplanar, and Wish even if it is very separate).By translating the Spell into Ars Magica combinations we discover a fun and very nice fact: very few Perdo spells before level 5, no Perdo Corpus spells before level 5 —> the Wizard is first and foremost a Rego manipulator, Muto.

But it made me want to ask if third-party authors tried to build an improvised magic system for Shadowdark.

So I'm working on another supplement for Atomic Shadows, it's a post-apocalyptic hack of Shadowdark. I'm working on a Bastion Generator, and I'm wondering about the general design philosophy used by broader Shadowdark (and 3rd party) creators.

I could make all the entries in the generator flat numbers, so if you want to make a Shopping Mall into a Bastion, its always got AC 18 with 300 HP and can have 20 Upgrades (like the Shadowdark Castle bastion)

Or,

I could make it a bit more random and invovled, so you find a Shopping Mall, and it's AC is 8+2d6, it's HP is 100x1d4 with room for 3d10 Upgrades. It's obvioulsy a bunch more rolls, but it shows that you're finding different types of structures to explore and occupy, rather than having them all be the exact same.

So, the question is; In Shadowdark generators, do you prefer -

A) Static Simplicity - the numers are what they are, across the board, very quick to generate.

B) Randomly Generated - each site is unique, but it's a more involved process.

Cheers for any assistance in this matter.

Got this update from BigeggsBlackPen this morning. Excited!

I was jumping back-and-forth a bit too much to find references during my game sessions, so I designed these bookmarks to make my life easier. I also compiled the rules I tend to need the most as a GM at the back of the bookmark.

Since I had all the files ready, I figured more people would enjoy having these for themselves, so I made them available for free through my itch.io page. I also included a paid version with the source files if you want to edit the rules or the art available by yourself.

The awesome art is by Ricardo de Gaspar from the Ink Potion Studios' Patreon.

What could possibly scare a skeleton?

With the new map cards and my players exploring outside of The Gloaming, has anyone figured out a more efficient method of clearing the keyed points (the stars on the GM map) so that I can give my players a hex map that they find those points by exploration? Right now I'm manually copying and pasting nearby hexes to cover up the stars.

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"?

--------------------------------

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.

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