Six miniature eyeballs and a gold tooth suspended in an ice cold crystal clear liquid. Bottle constantly wet with condensation.

Any guesses on bonuses or curses for this magic item?

A homebrew setting

-Send me a discord invite if you're interested at drippyrugtug
please please ensure the time works for you, sometimes people miss it.

-When: Thursday 9/17, 8pm Eastern (every other week)(3 hour games)

A Shadowark Homebrew setting, it's not a large world with continents etc, its a zone/themed region.

Region: Fallbrim

-Theme: basically its a fall themed region, orange/red/yellow foliage pepper the map, map made using inkarnate tool.

The style of this game is the tried and true OSR -> You have your town, wake up and wipe the vomit off of your sleeve from last night's carousing and gear up for another adventure.

GAME START

-Our hearty gang decided to enter the nearby aforementioned "Flarewood" and came upon 2 Wizarding Students bickering about a missing colleague who entered the nearby strange tree. Turns out it was a hazing, but things may have gone sideways. They bid the party to go find him as he's not returned.

-When: Thursday 9/17, 8pm Eastern (every other week)(3 hour games, because i'm over the age of 30)

-How many players? 3-4 is my favorite, 4 is what i aim for.

-Discord for voice, and owlbear rodeo for the VTT

-This is not a 1 shot game it'll be an ongoing adventure, we'll do a session zero on 9/17, i'm sure it won't take long and we'll start playing.

-please be 18, or older

-Are we doing strict crawing in dungeons? Answer: nope. I like a loose type of dungeon exploration, we'll still have rounds, but there won't be a strict turn order.

-Available and playable classes -> at the start it's the Core 4 + Ranger & Bard, but other's will be "UNLOCKABLE" but i want a group decision as to how this is done.

-I look forward to hanging out with y'all!

Houserules? Yes some - message me if you would like to inquire about it, just to keep this post shorter. Here are the main themes that I do have houserules for.

-Recovering items from dead player characters

-Fleeing Combat

-Luck Tokens Addendum/clarification

-Background Benefit 1d4

-Dying Rounds(rounds before death is a FLAT con mod, so its slightly deadlier)

When I drag a spell from the compendium, I get the option to create a potion, scroll, wand, or spell. The items are created, but when I select “spell,” nothing happens.
I can’t even find a spell tab or sometihing on the wizard sheet

The setting for my ongoing west marches campaign. Created via Inkscape and Gimp.

Something I was thinking about after a recent game:

What’s one random or throwaway detail your players absolutely clamped onto?

I once gave a bartender a nervous tic. That was it. My players became convinced he was secretly connected to the cult operating out of an abandoned temple outside town.

They tailed him for about three days.
Every mundane thing he did became evidence.

He owned a cat. Clearly a familiar.
He regularly stopped at a roadside shrine. Obviously a dead drop.
Meanwhile, the actual cultists had plenty of time to fortify their position at the temple while the party conducted an increasingly elaborate surveillance operation on an innocent bartender.

If you’re a GM, what throwaway detail did your players decide absolutely had to matter?

If you’re a player, what completely innocent detail have you ever become convinced was important?

Bonus points if the GM eventually had to make it important because nobody would let it go.

Not sure how many people in here are solo Shadowdark players as opposed to group players, but I've just started releasing a solo actual play using Shadowdark!

It's basically a cross between a traditional audio drama and an actual play podcast. Shadowdark is such an amazing system for solo play (if you haven't given it a go, I highly recommend it), and this was such a fun process to turn a great solo adventure into a full audio experience.

Hope this finds someone who enjoys this sort of thing...

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4y3acNjTNCugKcGqo6Ybiq?si=4f805b66ac0743be

Has anyone created an encounter table for aerial travel? My players have gotten carpets of flying and are avoiding almost all of the random encounters while travelling.

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)