Got the Dark Forest campaign setting last week and from looking through it I’m so impressed. It’s only like 30 pages less than the SD core rule book and offers so much info/lore for the world. Definitely excited to start doing some crawls in this new world. Also I backed it on kickstarter but it should be available in retail before the end of the year.

One arrow is enough.

I still practice character drawing, testing a different perspective. What do you think?

Is this even I thing? I understand its somewhat a necessity to pressure to players regarding torch timers, but I also feel like kind of immersion breaking. What if I designed a dungeon and a monster that doesnt fit into the plot shows up, or what if the players explored the entire dungeon and their last torch run out. Suddenly a group of zombies spawn in out of nowhere in the next room over?

What could I replace this with, but still keep the pressure up? Maybe the Shadowdark is sentient. If the torch goes out the shadows themselves start dealing damage or something instead.

Looking to hear from experienced Shadowdark GMs and players: do you run reactions and morale as written in the Shadowdark core book, or do you use an adjusted version?

I’ve been on an OSR/Old School kick of late, buying everything from OSE and Swords & Wizardry to Knave and Mork Borg. Something that struck me is Shadowdark’s reactions table trends far more hostile than most 2d6 reaction tables (including for other games that also add CHA mod), and the DC 15 WIS check for morale makes creatures very cowardly compared to classic 2d6-roll-over-morale monsters, but also other alternatives like Dungeon Crawl Classic’s WIL save morale checks.

I had been inclined to change the morale check DC to 12, with ADV or DISADV rolls for especially brave and cowardly creatures, respectively, and a modified reactions table where only a 2 was immediately hostile (attack on sight), trying to more closely emulate that games, but maybe that’s a mistaken instinct.

How do reactions and morale play in your experience? Do you run RAW with good results, or do you tweak the default procedures?

After making a bunch of generators & name tools based on my lists last week, I thought it might be useful if some of the tools helped the players too. Now, there's a monster folkname generator that they can use to name a monster they come across in the wild. A name they discover and assign.

It's for the GM too, because villagers don't say "owlbear." They name the thing that ate their goats.

Hit the button and you get five names. Some words fit any creature. Tags match the creature type. No beakless beasts called Blisterbeak. Every tag is on by default. Click one to switch it off.

> Monster Folkname Generator

I also overhauled the Kumonosu tools for my drow setting. The dictionary now has 569 words (slowly it's becoming a proper language you can actually speak), and the name, settlement, inn, shrine and house crest generators all draw from it. There's a script tool too, if you want your handouts in drow lettering.

> Kumonosu Tools

Every tool is free. If you want to hear when new ones go up, I send out a newsletter every other Thursday called Idle Thoughts. New subscribers get Vigil, a level 4 crawl to free a king's soul and slay vampires, for free: sign up here. Okay, I feel like a disgusting shill now. I need to bathe in lye.

I'm thinking about tackling jungle (CS 4 adjacent) generators next, but also maybe establishing some character ones. Let me know if there are any in particular you are interested in. Okay, that's not entirely true. I'm working on Nang's Noodle Shop at the moment, but I'm letting the others simmer.

How do you run a warband that has spell casting?

Like a cultist warband would have

Hp:32 Lvl:4 Longsword +1 (3d8) .

But does the Deathtouch spell become (6d4) or does it stay the same and can only be used on unique beings. I didnt see anywhere thatd clarify spells for warbands.

Hey everyone! We just launched Rock & Roar! Once Bitten, Twice Shy on Kickstarter!

If you like classic rock and tabletop RPGs, we’ve mashed the two together into another collection of music-inspired monsters. The creatures make plenty of nods to song lyrics and the songbooks of the bands that inspired them.

A few details:

• 54 new monsters inspired by songs and musical artists
• Separate editions for Shadowdark and Old-School Essentials
• At least 16 magic items, plus mini-quests
• Stretch goals to unlock even more content!

The original Rock & Roar! was successfully Kickstarted and fulfilled earlier this year, and we had copies available at the Arcane Library booth at Gen Con. Now we're back for another round of musical mayhem!

If you'd like some classic rock in your next RPG session, come check it out!

A buried castle is revealed once more as something ancient and terrible awakens beneath. At the bottom of the sea, a palace standing outside time is the site of an audacious heist. Above a desolate peak, an invisible stairway ascends to the stars.

NinjaDark: Five Strange Adventures gives you five ready-to-play mini-adventures, each one a complete story on a double-sided A5 card. Run them standalone or combine into a journey through Meido, Land of the Dead.

Inspired by Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings and creepy traditional Japanese folk tales, each adventure explores both a different elemental force and a totally different style of play.

We made this because we just wanted to explore adventures that felt different from the usual. And we thought the mini-adventure format would be easier to write (spoiler: it's much much harder). So we've got imprisoned kaiju; a reverse heist where you have to escape with the treasure (and where time is stopped); climbing a 1000 year-old bonsai, and so on. If you're looking for something different, check it out.

I find the Cleric class a bit awkward and I recently stumbled on a system (Crytps & Things) that does not have Clerics. Instead there is white, grey and black magic. White magic contains cleric-like spells, while grey and black magic is closer to spell list of the Magic-user class. Grey magic causes damage to the caster, while black magic's toll is graver and corrupts the caster. (see this review for a better explanation).

I really think this is flavorful. Is there something similar for Shadowdark?

My kickstarter, Distant Worlds, is in its final 24 hours. You can watch some video previes of it on Runeforged's or Foxxof's youtube channels.

The three-zine collection includes:

- The Astral Spires: Two adventures in a world that exists in narrow spires, supported by the will of powerful (and often evil) magical beings.

- The Fated Land: Two desert adventures in world where prophecy reigns supreme, with rules for working prophecy into adventures.

- Shipwrecks: Eight shipwreck encounter, ranging from run-ins with castaways to a dungeon where wild aether is reanimating the wreck around the crawlers, as well as tables to generate wrecked ships in the astral sea between worlds.

Check out the kickstarter page for previews of everything look.

Hey all,

I was looking at buying the Shadowdark Material, all I can find is the main rule book and Cursed Scrolls 1-3.

I thought there was 2 additional cursed scrolls, and a new duke book recently released...

Is Arcane Library not the official place to buy material?

Instead of keeping track of which round I need to roll encounters for, I roll every round using different dice: D6 for Deadly, D12 for Risky, and D20 for Unsafe. The encounter occurs on a roll of 1, regardless of which die is used.

The difference in probability is minimal, and the reduced mental load is well worth it.

I released The Beast Within: Rules for Lycanthropy for Shadowdark today, just in time for the full moon tonight.

The idea was to make lycanthropy something you could actually build play around: an iconic curse with power, consequences, and choices, rather than just something to cure at the first opportunity.

It includes rules for transformation, losing control, Beast Instincts, full-moon preparations, new were-creatures, magic items, and more.

The core question is pretty simple:

The beast gives you power. How much of yourself are you willing to give it?

Available now from Joker & Thief Publishing on Itch and DrivethruRPG.

https://joker-thief-publishing.itch.io/the-beast-within-rules-for-lycanthropy

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/577980/the-beast-within-rules-for-lycanthropy

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 Check with Disadvantage 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… Controller (Rego, Muto)

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

Got this update from BigeggsBlackPen this morning. Excited!

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.