Today we are looking at Things Possessed of Power, a Shadowdark adventure written by Nick Campbell for levels 3-5. It is the fourth in a series of drow/underdark themed adventures that takes place in the author’s Kumonosu setting, his own spin on the deep world that lives in the night below the surface.

The previous adventures provide a lot of context but it’s not necessary to have played them. The author does a commendable job of distilling all the necessary information into a few paragraphs and provides hooks that allow this to be dropped into just about any campaign, especially if it takes place underground. In Shadowdark, “We found this place accidentally, so we’re going to get the treasure and get out” is a perfectly cromulent reason to go on an adventure.

The setup is that a renegade drow named Xia has uncovered some latent magic in an old mine and is using it to revive and create an army of mutants to exact her revenge on the noble houses of the dark elves. She also discovered a dragon corpse and is trying to resurrect it using the power she found flowing through the veins of the earth. There’s an interesting mechanic where the party’s decisions and actions throughout the adventure will impact her chances of success or failure. Although it won’t be explicitly apparent to the players, most of the things that will hinder Xia amount to helping the good guys and moving quickly, so it should be somewhat intuitive. Still, I think the ties between some of these events and Xia’s resurrection ritual could be more obvious, so that the players understand the risks and rewards of their choices.

After the background, hooks, and rumors, we get a very helpful side elevation map and a summary of each level. Then it’s on to the factions. On the one hand, each is described vividly yet succinctly with a clear goal. On the other hand the method for explaining the factions’ relationships to one another is a little obscure:

This requires you to remember what all the symbols mean. And the color coding is a little strange because it just duplicates the function of the line plot and also means that the symbols change color depending on which faction we’re looking at. Which is all to say I think the information would have been better presented as some kind of matrix.

There is also some nice art depicting each faction. And I should point out that the author is one  of those insufferable jerks that can both write and draw. Both skills seem to improve with each adventure he publishes. Overall the layout and design are a welcome departure from Shadowdark tradition, with a restrained but effective use of color and more visual flair than you would find in the standard templates. And it achieves this while avoiding the pitfalls of Mörk Borgian artpunk that often places aesthetics over usability. 

In fact, besides my gripe about factions, the balance between aesthetics and information presentation is exemplary. Things Possessed follows the typical format of having a room description with bolded words that are followed up and explained below it. It also makes sure that no room key bleeds into the next page, all of the information including monster stats and magic items are right where you need them, things like DC checks and treasure values are clear and consistent. These seem like simple things but they are so often overlooked. And to do all that while making something that’s also very nice to look at is something few in the Shadowdark publishing community have attempted and fewer have achieved. 

The dungeon begins in an aqueduct occupied by deep ones that worship an inscrutable god called The Hand That Feeds. They are in conflict with some frogfolk called croakers and dealing with (or avoiding) these factions makes up a significant part of the first two levels. The deep ones, although obviously evil, are definitely the more dangerous of the two factions. And since progression depends on finding their way past a goodly number of them, there’s decent enough motivation for the PCs to at least pretend to ally with them. Likewise, the stench of offerings for The Hand That Feeds will automatically put them at odds with the croakers, setting up some nice intrigue and faction play.

There’s a nice mix of interactivity that manages to be both thematic and diverse. Strange shrines, radioactive ores and illusionist mimics will keep the players busy. In one room, the PCs will find a headless corpse as well as two magic, still-living heads stitched together at the neck. And I just want to point out that there is a 110% chance that any group I have ever played with will try to stitch one of those heads to that corpse and probably go hunting for another corpse to stitch the other head to, and those kinds of hijinks are exactly what makes TTRPGs so much better than any other game.

The second level continues the conflict of the first level and throws wandering souls threatening to possess the PCs into the mix. They are given flavorful descriptions that hint at the terrible things they might do given the chance. Stuff like, “I brought them into the faith. Submerged them in the holy waters until their lungs filled so they could be forgiven.” The adventure wisely finds more opportunities to introduce them than the 1:6 chance afforded by the random encounter table.

That party will also meet an NPC that wants them to destroy the shrines to The Hand That Feeds. I think it’s a bit strange that there is no guidance on what is required to do that. It’s one of those things that would be easy enough to improvise, but I’d rather hear what the designer thinks about it, especially in context of the rest of the adventure. For example, one of the shrines is in a room where each round the PCs have a 1:4 chance of a spirit trying to possess them. So the amount of time it takes to destroy the shrine becomes pretty important. There are a few other places where minor bits of info are missing. The random encounter table tells us “Fleshers hang from the ceiling” but not how many. There is a glowing moss the PCs can use for light, but it doesn’t say how long it lasts. Valuable eggs lie in a pile but no number is given. Minor omissions, but noticeable.

I’m also going to pick nits about the monster stats – they are included both next to the room key where the monster appears and in an appendix at the back. But the abbreviated stats next to the keys omit the attributes (STR, DEX, etc) in order to save a single line of text. I would rather have the complete stat block handy to minimize page flips. 

Back to the dungeon. Things start to heat up as we get to level three, where the factions are engaged in mortal combat and where the PCs will meet Xia’s mutated minions for the first time. On level four, the clock for Xia’s dragon resurrection is in overdrive. At this point the party will at least be rushing to escape the mines if not to stop Xia and/or defeat the dragon before they wreak havoc on the nearby populace. There are some powerful consumable weapons they can grab on their way to the finish, if they have the time. It’s kinda like in a video game where you find a rocket launcher right before the boss fight. You have equal chances of nuking the boss and of blowing yourself up. 

It all leads to the final confrontation with Xia. Depending on how things have gone up to this point, she might be accompanied by a dragon, a dracolich or nothing at all. However it lands, it’s set up to be an interesting encounter with a magic pool that empowers spells, a giant crystal that shocks people, and minions with interesting special attacks. So it shouldn’t end up being a pitched battle in a big open room and, with just a modicum of GM finesse, should feel like a proper climax. 

The dungeon leans on the hazards and obstacles side of HOTT – a false step here has dire consequences. But besides that there are a million strange things for the PCs to poke and prod here, not to mention the various factions and NPCs they will encounter. One of my favorite examples: “Repairing the shrine will take an hour of time. If repaired, a spirit that resembles an eyeless mole with a dwarven face will arise out of the ground & make a nest in the shrine. He will push an eyeball out of the nest for a player to consume. Consumption leads to learning a random spell.” It all strikes a very nice balance between requiring caution and rewarding curiosity. It’s not punishing, and there are many hidden treasures and boons to be found. But neither will careless PCs last very long.

The details of each area combine to give not only a rich sense of the environment and its history. Haunted caves where the newly dead mingle with ancient spirits, surrounded by glowing crystals, monstrous insects and lovecraftian fishman cults. The abandoned corpses and artifacts from recent battles tell their story. It’s proper mythic underworld, weird underdark stuff that follows the tropes while offering its own, novel take. And the book is a great example of how writing, art, and layout can work together to communicate a setting and vibe in a way that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

OH YEAH AND there are also five one-page dungeons included that can be appended to the main dungeon or used at your leisure. Each one has 10ish rooms and, although the room keys are abbreviated for space, they are still pretty dense. Great stuff to drop into your own Morzomotha/Cursed Scroll 5 campaign if you don’t use it here.

A couple of years ago I was reading through the creator threads on the Arcane Library discord and ran across a draft of one of the author’s earlier adventures, Abandon Hope (which has since been revised and improved.). It was beautiful and ambitious, with some rough edges and a lot of great ideas that were not always communicated clearly. But I appreciated that the author was taking some big swings. Since then, Mr. Campbell has clearly been putting in the reps, practicing and improving his craft. With Things Possessed his skill is equal to his ambition, and the result is a complex yet usable adventure with a depth and design that goes further than almost everything else I’ve seen published for Shadowdark. The bar has been raised. 

On a scale of 2-12, Things Possessed of Power gets 11 stingbats.

More from Nick Campbell:

Review: The Breeding Pools

Review: The Lost People