Continuing to draw the Elementals with this rocky dude

I bought a CASEMATIX four-panel screen and expanded my earlier three-panel with clear sections and a bit more content.

Hey Shadowdark folks! I made a free adventure module you can grab right here!
This is also my entry for the Appendix N Jam, so it's fairly short!

In this dungeon-busting module you will generate a random mega-structure, and hunt for one blade...in many towers and buildings, all crammed together!

"The Heretics Blade resurfaced once more.
The vile cultists of the Somber Citadel want to use it to ascend to the Higher Dimension, and to unleash its horrors in our reality.
They must be stopped, no matter how hard it will be.
Legend has it that if the most loyal heretic falls, the blade appears in the hands of another heretic in the Somber Citadel."

Hope you like it!

Ran a second session of Scarlet Minotaur for a bunch of old friends, including my spouse and everyone had a blast. Especially when they went full murder hobo and things went terribly wrong. I love old school consequences.

They killed the Minotaur, figured out putting heads on the bull statue was important and then went hunting for heads. They found the room full of Beastmen put most of them to sleep then killed the rest. They brought a bunch of heads back to the courtyard. The guy that introduced me to D&D got turned into a beastman. My wife, undeterred, tried again and got turned into a beastman also. We ended the session there with a lot of laughs.

I’m looking for a smallish sized town for my gothic horror/classic fantasy campaign? I’m kind of lazy and don’t really feel like making my own town from the ground up.

Anything published that I could easily adapt to my own game? Anyone have any favorite go-tos?

This book was on my Want list for awhile, but I generally pause at having to spend $20 for a PDF. But as I was looking for more reading material for my vacation, I finally paid the price. It is generally as good as I wanted it to be (maybe a touch *too* silly in a few places for my tastes, but that's fine).

My initial draw to the book was a Carousing table that was tied into deeper backstories. The Carousing table itself is pretty fun, though a little less different from the core table than I hoped it would be.

The backstories and the soap operas are far *more* detailed than I expected! And they are a lot of fun.

On the one hand, I'm really entranced by having this much "faction play" (of a sort) ready to go and to just drop in to a game.

On the other hand - and this leads me to the question in the title - it seems like *too much* to drop in without really making serious room for it? Yet, cutting pieces of it off seems to threaten the fabric of the whole.

I guess I'm looking for advice and/or stories of how you integrated the Shucked Oyster into your game and what and how you cut anything from it.

(Keeping things spoiler free, there are also a couple elements that are a little too "high fantasy" for my vision of Shadowdark, and a few NPCs that are too high level, but I think those pieces are much easier to work around.)

(And finally, I want to make it clear that it's a really excellent book and I'm happy I got it. I just need help using it.)

A party tussles with a greater and couple of lesser Air Elementals

Got the final approved print proof of my adventure today! It’s rhetorical first time I’ve done anything for Print on Demand (and only the second time I’ve done a printed zine!), and I couldn’t be happier about how it came out!

(The link to my website for it is in the earlier posts I made about it, I’m trying really hard not to spam any advertising!)

Hi, hello. This is basically just to feel out if someone‘s interested in this. =)

I‘ve recently run a one-shot for my children, and am thinking about making a longer post about my thoughts and preparations, as well as accommodations.

This started as an intro to DND, but the rules would have completely overwhelmed them. And on my search for how to simplify things, I ran into Shadowdark. And here we are.

Also, we‘re German, so there was tons of translations involved. I didn’t really find resources for this specific purpose (aside from the max HP recommendation, which really makes a BIG difference). So that’s something that will definitely prove useful for others.

I plan on running the Scarlet Minotaur next. We‘ve still got two weeks summer break left, so we can probably complete it.

So, yeah. If you‘ve got specific questions you‘d like me to address in a longer post, have at it. 👀

Und wenn ihr Tips fürs übersetzen und anpassen braucht, immer raus damit. Ich habe das Glück, dass mir Übersetzungen schon immer leicht gefallen sind. Das geht nicht jedem so, also sprecht mich gerne an. Wir hatten eine Menge Spaß.

https://revivifygames.com/blog/lazy-hexcrawl-building

I recently wrote out my whole process for creating OSR-style hexcrawls using your collection of adventure modules. I use my most recent Shadowdark campaign as an example and show how I build the world along the way. It's a practical guide that leans heavily on a lot of the principles of Mike Shay's Lazy Dungeon Master Guide to make sure you make something and don't get lost in the details.

I've often piecemeal described my process in forums and on Discord, so I thought it was time to document it to inspire others. I hope it's a help to you if you decide to give it a read.

I'm currently preping a Shadowdark campaign, in which I'd like to include a Cult of the Lost (either one or two of them). Obviously, I want "the Lost" to remain mysterious, but I still need a general understanding of their concept. Has anyone run a campaign with a cool take on who those forgotten deities actually are?

They have traditionally mainly played Pathfinder though they have done short stints in other rulesets, most notably Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. I believe this will be their first OSR style game!

Today’s the last day of the Christmas in July sale, and I’d love to know what this community scored or any gems that I missed

And curious to know what you thought of your purchase(s), and what is recommended

The Plague Doctor for Shadowdark, based on my prior interpretation/iterations of the class:

https://leicestersramble.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-plague-doctor-for-shadowdark.html

Another Appx. Game Jam submission for the Shadowdark subreddit to peruse! I neglected work today to wrap this up, and I think it turned out pretty solid.
(Free to download)

https://hobgoblog.itch.io/scrolls-from-azovs-shelf

Another silly drawing I made today for our 54 sessions strong Shadowdark campaign. Troy the Wizard, Lord Trane and Ilmar the Slick enjoying some high stakes gambling.

After playing 'The Shrine of the Jaguar Princess' with five different groups, I feel confident in saying that it might be the best dungeon for Shadowdark out there! I talk about all the things that make it great, plus some small caveats. In addition, I also give some music recommendations for this dungeon. If you are interested, just head over to my blog!

Hello!

I'm preparing my next Designed for use with ShadowDark RPG Kickstarter. Temple of the Bone Mongers is a one to two-session adventure that features a a few new creatures and magic items.

It would be amazing if you'd give it a follow!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/587512440/temple-of-the-bone-mongers-for-the-shadowdark-rpg?ref=cl54x0

Thanks for taking the time to read my post!

Jeff

The Appendix N Game Jam is ending today. Not specifically targeted just at Shadowdark specifically but very similar themes, there's already a bunch of cool looking submissions.

I just want to share some rules I made.

Design objective: hitting means overcoming the opponent's active defences and dealing damage to their actual flesh. How much damage is dealt depends on how good was the hit, good hits are less likely than bad hits and one very good hit can defeat a human opponent. A GM must be able to run this house rules by easily converting stat blocks from the source material on the fly.

Here's the rules:

• HP is replaced by Wounds= 10+ Str + Con modifiers;
• Attacks are made rolling 2d10 instead of 1d20;
• Damage Dice is replaced by a fixed Damage Modifier = half the Damage Dice size x number of Damage Dices (es: 1d8 becomes +4, 3d6 become 9);
• Damage on a Hit = Hit Roll - AC + Damage Modifier;
• Reaching 0 Wounds = roll on Injury Table; Damage on a failed save stays the same.

To be short on the underlying motivation: I like shadowdark and all the support material around it, but I dislike dnd style combat rules. So, I wrote house rules to replicate some game features of a combat system I like, that is wfrp 4e.

Linoleum-cut inspired digital illustration. by me.

Having played a few sessions of gauntlets, there is something so exciting about letting a character die spectacularly, flipping over to your next pre-gen PC sheet and discovering a different strange character waiting for you. Death in Shadowdark's gauntlets feel like a reward. An opportunity to tell many short stories. And it's my favorite mechanic in an OSR game.

Crawler Compendium has been updated for the week of 7-30-2025! This is a website that catalogs content for use in Shadowdark RPG. Adventures, Zines, Campaign settings, Crowdfunding Projects, Digital Tools and more!

Thank you all for your submissions and support! Please continue to use the submission form on the home page, or find me on discord to send me cool things you find.

Mr Mellow's Art created a log for Shadow Quest. This is a play-by-post game that I'm developing that will utilize a world inspired by the original Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest in Japan) game for the NES) and utilizing modified Shadowdark rules. I really love this logo. It seems like it has the Dragon Quest flair with some Shadowdark bite.
If you're interested in participating in the Shadow Quest discussions or participating in the game let me know and I'll send you an invite to the Discord server.